News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Sunday December 21st 2025
“SAMATABAXDAY” (survivor)
Amged (Alpha Kemet) Yusuf, poet, abstract artist, and Coordinator of the Backyard Initiative Project S.E.L.F. CHAT team provided The Alley Newspaper with this information about this piece- “SAMATABAXDAY”(survivor):
“In our native language, “Warda” means flower. She is the symbol of all the women in our Backyard Initiative Citizen Health Action Team (CHAT) and the Somali community at large. And she has a story that”'s often voiceless, unheard in an all-male dominated environment that needs to be told over and over again. The image is an artistic expression of the Warda”'s story illustrated by myself and produced through a process of discovery and deep conversation with members of Project S.E.L.F.
Back home, when the day is over and the sun goes down, we use to gather in a circle around an elder and listen to inspiring tales full of wisdom to sustain us all for generations to come. There is something meaningful and healing in storytelling and we continue to use our ancestors oral traditions to communicate cohesively about the “elephants in the room” including our own “warda”'s” of the world, the true source of a healthy community. I have included some of the words from our own Warda”'s:”
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MAYDAY MAY 5TH 2013: “SEE THE WORLD”
Bread and Puppet Theater”'s Hallelujah Cantastoria [Sung Story] Play and Drawings adapted by In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre for MayDay 2013 Parade and Pageant May 5th ~ Starting 1:00 PM at 26th and Bloomington to 34th Street and into Powderhorn Park. Rain and Snow? Date May 12 Listen to KFAI Radio 90.3 FM or @HOBT on Twitter
The power of the script lies in its simplicity, and its profound call to action.
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Keep citizen journalism alive!
Frank Reflections
By Frank Erickson
It is intriguing how the financial hierarchy unfolds on our planet””there are 7 billion of us, and 6 billion of us live on less than $12,000.00 per year. 5 billion of us get by on less than $4,000 a year, and over 1 billion get by on only $1.25 per day”¦and I saw this investment expert on PBS, she told the all-white audience, “ you each will need at least a million dollars to retire on”, how privileged to say such an insane thing.
So why would it make little sense for this investment expert to go to a desolate Native reservation in South Dakota, and tell them that they each needed a million to retire on, but it makes perfect sense to tell this to as group of white Americans?
It is important for me to remind myself on a regular basis that this continent and all its wealth do not exist solely for whites. Who decided that the wealth of North America was going to be divided up based on the white men”'s capitalist “working” model?
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