For my community class, a group of my classmates and I have been working on a puppet show looking at diversity and social justice. We are hoping to have community members and folks from campus interacting in a discussion afterward.
Tales From the Sock Drawer: Multi-colored Complications A screening of puppet vignettes about diversity and social justice with discussion & snacks following.
Last night, American Masters featured Woody Guthrie. I realized that I really didn't know that much about him. I knew he was a folk singer/song writer, who had written some of the most influential songs about the dust bowl, unions, communism, war, anti-war, etc., etc.. I had no idea about the tragedy connected to his life.
"He was born in Okemah, Oklahoma, on July 14, 1912, 12 days after the Democrats nominated his namesake for the presidency of the United States.
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie -- "Woody" almost immediately -- was Charley Guthrie's son and like his father ever the optimist. He was Nora's son too, hers the gift of old songs, and a dreadful fear he would inherit her madness.
Together they raised Woody, his two brothers and two sisters in a middle-class, foredoomed home the neighbors judged one of the finest in that farming community turned oil boom town.
Life in Okemah might have been comfortable, with cotton prices up and beef down, but for the fires.
Fire was to dog Woody, boy and man. A kerosene lamp shattered - the OKEMAH LEDGER reported it as an accident, while folks in town whispered otherwise - and flames consumed his beloved older sister Clara, the one who called him "Woodblock," when the boy was just months shy of his seventh birthday.
Another blaze leveled the family home, sending the Guthries to live in the weathered London house, high on the weedy hillside overlooking the Fort Smith and Western depot at the foot of Columbia Street.
There were other fires, unexplained. Woody was not yet 15 when his mother hurled a kerosene lamp at a dozing Charley, searing his chest from neck to navel. Members of Charley's Masonic Lodge arranged to send Nora to the state asylum in Norman.
Years later, and half a continent distant, a short circuit in a newly repaired radio sent flames racing through the child's bedding, and took the life of Woody's charming daughter Cathy Ann, "Stackabones," the youngster who inspired so many of her father's magical songs for children.
And near the end of his wanderings, Woody splashed gasoline on a Florida campfire; it flared and severely burned his right arm. The puckered scars would leave him unable play guitar. He was left mute, the once restless youth turned rebel now a man resigned to his mother's fate.
Guthrie was just 42 when he entered the hospital for the last time in 1954. His period of true creativity had spanned no more than eight or nine years, though in that time, he had traveled far, seen wonders and known defeats, and written as many as 1,400 songs. He had traveled Route 66, he boasted, enough to run it up to 6,666, back and forth, across the county as whim and winds took him.
All the while, he never seemed to find what he was looking for."
Huntington's Disease is a devastating, hereditary, degenerative brain disorder for which there is, at present, no effective treatment or cure. HD slowly diminishes the affected individual's ability to walk, think, talk and reason. Eventually, the person with HD becomes totally dependent upon others for his or her care. Huntington's Disease profoundly affects the lives of entire families -- emotionally, socially and economically.
The program was a wonderful reminder to be thankful for my life, but not to grow to complacent in comfort.
For the last couple of weeks I have found the song "Officer Krupke" from West Side Story running through my head.
Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke, You gotta understand, It's just our bringin' up-ke That gets us out of hand. Our mothers all are junkies, Our fathers all are drunks. Golly Moses, natcherly we're punks!
Gee, Officer Krupke, we're very upset; We never had the love that ev'ry child oughta get. We ain't no delinquents, We're misunderstood. Deep down inside us there is good!
Throughout the song the youth is passed from one professional to the next and each with a different idea about the youth. It reminds me of one of the youths I am working with. They have so many different diagnosis from varying professionals.
Last weekend, my partner spent the day with me. He volunteered to help cook at the Raven Project . After that we attended the Handmade Holidays craft fair at the Bayside grange. Where he bought me a very cute head band made by a very talented woman. Next we went to the library so I could do research for several project that are due next week and he could read his book. After that we went to the Arcata Theatre Lounge to view a screening of West Side Story.
I love West Side Story and was really looking forward to seeing the film on the big screen. I had forgotten that the film is really about disenfranchised youth fighting, racism, immigration, AND tragic love.
Several pages into chapter eight, "Using Self in Community Practice: Assertiveness" is a section on critical thinking. The book lists the logical fallacies~ 1)Ad hominem 2)Appeal to authority (ad verecundium) 3)Diversion (red herring) 4)Stereotyping 5)Manner or style 6)Group think 7)Bandwagon 8)Either-or(false dilemma) 9)Straw man argument
I had a flashback to my days at College of the Redwoods and my philosophy instructor in his cowboy boots going over the fallacies so in depth.
I have always been a rather quiet person. I usually tend to listen more in class than voice my feelings or thoughts on a subject. However, in the last couple of years I have really tried to push myself to speak up more and voice my opinions. It isn't always easy or comfortable. Sometimes I still observe rather than participate, but I put myself out there a lot more than I had in the past.
In the MSW program, I have realized the great importance of self-advocacy. I not only need to be able to effectively advocate for my clients, but also for myself. Last year definitely pushed my comfort level and my boundaries. I was forced to advocate for the support I needed and to have my academic needs met.
Last year, I was asked to speak as a Native student at American Indian College Motivation Day. I said no. I didn't feel comfortable speaking in front of hundreds of teenagers. This year, I said yes. I felt it was an important thing to do in my last year at HSU. That is also one of the main reasons I decided to be the social work student association president. I wanted to push my comfort level. I may be overextending myself a bit though......
The first weekend of November I attended a two day class on the Prison Industrial Complex. It was a weekend workshop offered by the sociology department. We read "Are Prisons Obsolete?" by Angela Davis as a requirement for the class.
On Saturday after the class, Bar None a prison abolition group was celebrating their 10 year anniversary.
There was an example of what a solitary housing unit feels like.
There was some amazing artwork~
The evening had a variety of speakers and people reading letters that prisoners had written to Bar None to mark their ten year anniversary. Some of them were so moving, but I feel the most intense moving part of the evening was having a gentleman who had just gotten out of prison speak. He spoke so honestly about his crime and incarceration and the time he spent in the shu.
All in all it was an informative and intense weekend.
“Western civilization, unfortunately, does not link knowledge and morality but rather, it connects knowledge and power and makes them equivalent.” ~ Vine Deloria, Jr.
