Author: amara cordero

environmental justice art

for this blogpost i’m going to be discussing my job, which happens to be a junior staff member of the staten island urban center. we’re a non-profit organization, and part of our tasks include participating in and leading environmental justice-based art projects to inform people about the state of our planet. for example, i was to write a song about climate change and how our actions are impacting our planet. the lyrics are as follow (incomplete):

living on a sphere that’s blue and green

so driven by greed

we neglect our planet’s needs

purposefully mistreating earth to benefit the economy

corrupt human machines

fracking leaves nature so bruised

meat production releases fumes

greenhouse gases gonna make us lose

but we still gotta chance to reform and take away mother nature’s blues

to be better i will choose

i will

take shorter showers

turn off unused power

shop local for flour

plant trees fruits and flowers

do all in my power

to take care of our planet, oh

i will do all i must do

because if you’re nice to our mother

she will be kind, too

 in general we have a lot of events where we just talk about the state of our world or we work together and actively do something to help. for example, we’ve created murals and art projects which were displayed to demonstrate what we can and should do in order to help the  environment and heal our surrounding atmosphere as much as we can. i sadly don’t have any pictures, but the most recent example i can think of is our house on governors island, where we set up a lot of environment-based artwork using recycled materials to promote that we are a waterfront and for us to take care of the water quality as well (it’s almost like a walk-in gallery where we’ll hold free events related to positive ways to improve our relationship with nature, or crafts that will bring our community together).

additionally, in general there are many murals around nyc which promote environmental justice by various artists. there’s also a lot of artwork online which is an easier way to reach a larger audience quicker. lastly, lots of museums/ exhibits have been set up as well. here are links to a few that i have found online:

climate museum- https://climatemuseum.org/events

the gray-green divide- https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/mona_chalabi

the seaport museum climate art and climate science- https://southstreetseaportmuseum.org/climate-art-science/

howl

“who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom,
who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg,”
who cooked rotten animals king heart feet tail borscht- this shows how desperate they were and how any and every piece of edible food that they found they ate because they never knew when they would have their chance for another meal. they couldn’t afford to waste anything at all
and tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom- they wished they had access to healthier, fresher foods. nothing fancy at all, just something with nutritional value rather than a tortilla served with rotted meat
who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg- i think plunged themselves shows how quickly and unhesitatingly they were by using the word plunged, and looking for an egg shows how simple their request would have been, or more so how thankful they would have been for something that small and seemingly insignificant that would seem to someone who doesn’t experience food insecurity

no-no boy

John Okada published the book No-No Boy in 1957. The story of Ichiro Okada, a Seattle native of Japanese descent, is told in the film No-No Boy. Okada was imprisoned during World War II for not opposing the emperor of Japan and for refusing to register for duty with the American troops. In this novel Ichiro is torn between being forced to choose between his home country identity and his Americanness. He does not want to go to war against his home country yet America is drafting him to. He refuses to. The closest way I can relate to this is minor colorism experiences, if that’s what you’d call this. I’m Puerto Rican, but I’m white-passing. My grandmother’s ancestors were German and Spanish Jews, so I’m much paler than the rest of my family. I’ve also experienced people trying to discredit my being Puerto Rican because of my skin color. I’d have people try to tell me I’m wrong when I say I’m Puerto Rican. I’ve never needed to choose between any, though, and I could only imagine how heart-wrecking and confusing that could have been for him or for anyone who has experienced what Ichiro has.

Upton Sinclair, an American researcher and muckraker, published The Jungle in 1906. Sinclair aimed to bring attention to the oppressive conditions of life and work that immigrants were forced to endure at the time. He spent many weeks laboring at the Chicago meatpacking facilities that are heavily depicted in The Jungle before he wrote it.

The harrowing working conditions in the meat-packing industry were brought to life in this novel through the depiction of infected, spoiled, and sullied meat, which stunned the general population and prompted new government sanitation regulations.

Before the turn of the twentieth century, a significant development had arisen in the US. The reformers, also known as progressives, were responding to issues brought on by the rapid expansion of both cities and factories. At first, progressives focused on eliminating government corruption and improving the lives of those who lived in slums. They then began to criticize large corporations for their unethical business practices at the turn of the century, including Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, and the Armour meat-packing company. The reformists uncovered how these organizations disposed of contest, set exorbitant costs, and regarded laborers as wages-laves.
However, the progressives disagreed on the best strategy for controlling these large corporations. A few reformists needed to separate the enormous enterprises with hostility to restraining infrastructure regulations. Others believed that regulation by the federal or state governments would be more effective. A developing minority contended for communism. All of these proposals were rejected by the owners of the large industries: They demanded that they be allowed to operate their businesses independently.

When the progressive reformers were gaining strength, Theodore Roosevelt was president. After William McKinley’s assassination in 1901, he took office and served as president until 1909. Roosevelt was in favor of large-scale businesses.

Progressive journalists and other writers who exposed corporate injustices did not always get Roosevelt’s approval. President Roosevelt thought that progressive journalist David Phillips had gone too far when he wrote a series of articles criticizing senators from both parties for serving the interests of big business rather than the people.

defining freedom through descriptive imagery

Du Bois mentions that there is still a query which remains unasked among Black people, which is what we went over in class when we watched the youtube video about the question “How does it feel to be a problem.” Rather than white individuals asking this question or considering how people of color feel in this regard, they’ll speak to him saying things like “I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil?” Du Bois then recalls his first ever time realizing he was different, when a classmate in his elementary class refused to accept a card from him. The image he uses is one of being “shut out from their world by a vast veil.” Firstly, no one should feel as if they aren’t part of the same world as anyone else, let alone a child feeling that way. The vast veil describes the large history of distance between white people and people of color, and how they still keep a fat distance in a large amount of situations, no matter how harmless a situation may be (example: the girl refusing a card from her classmate). He then mentions how afterward he did not have any bit of interest in breaking down or passing through this veil, yet he held everyone on the opposite side of him (white people) in contempt, and “above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows.” The blue sky would represent a form of “freedom” (as free as one can be as a person of color in this time period), freedom in the sense that in that moment he freed himself from thinking he should try and change what he cannot control in the current moment.

working conditions in “the jungle”

These quotes demonstrate examples of relation to the working conditions in “The Jungle.”

“Here was a population, low-class and mostly foreign, hanging always on the verge of starvation, and dependent for its opportunities of life upon the whim of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers; under such circumstances immorality was exactly as inevitable, and as prevalent, as it was under the system of chattel slavery. Things that were quite unspeakable went on there in the packing houses all the time, and were taken for granted by everybody; only they did not show, as in the old slavery times, because there was no difference in color between master and slave.” This is a quote from Chapter 10 in which explains Ona’s working conditions. She is forced to work under a woman named Miss Henderson, who is in charge of a prostitution ring, and a majority of Ona’s coworkers are prostitutes. Sinclair describes these working conditions to be unfitting for those who are modest (like Ona). Prostitution, like every other shortcoming of the working class in the book, is demonstrated not to be an inherent mistake of the women participating but rather to be a result of the oppressive economic practices of the capitalists that they impose on the underprivileged immigrants. This passage also alluded to Ona’s rape at the actions of Phil Connor and hinted at the sexual oppression which young working females are made to experience at the hands of their superiors. The final phrase also makes a Marxist point about how social connections under capitalism appear to be tranquil. The claim is that while capitalism masks the true tumultuous nature of these interactions, connections under capitalism aren’t any less oppressive than those that prevailed during slavery and in feudal cultures.

baldwin’s “letter to my nephew”

1: what is the major motivating source which keeps baldwin and his family surviving?

“Here you were to be loved. To be loved, baby, hard at once and forever to strengthen you against the loveless world. Remember that. I know how black it looks today for you. It looked black that day too. Yes, we were trembling. We have not stopped trembling yet, but if we had not loved each other, none of us would have survived, and now you must survive because we love you and for the sake of your children and your children’s children.”

this implicates the power of love and how sometimes, in a world full of chaos and pain, all you can do is love one another and that, sometimes, it’s the only thing that keeps you alive. baldwin is emphasizing how even though you may feel weak or you may want to give up, that people love you, and you must keep fighting not only for those who are alive, but to honor those who were alive and for those who will one day be alive. additionally, i think it’s quite clever how he says “i know how black it looks today for you. it looked black that day too.” in a piece where he’s discussing race, i think it’s a smart play on words.

2: were black people even given the chance to live a, not even successful, but a humane life?

“This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that for the heart of the matter is here and the crux of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits to your ambition were thus expected to be settled. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity and in as many ways as possible that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence. You were expected to make peace with mediocrity. Wherever you have turned, James, in your short time on this earth, you have been told where you could go and what you could do and how you could do it, where you could live and whom you could marry.”

in this part of the piece, baldwin is pretty much saying that in the world they live in, his nephew was placed in an area of society where he was not meant to succeed, nor did anyone really (anyone being the whites) believe he could or should succeed. this part of the piece emphasizes how his nephew and many other people of color were “destined” (in regard to the people of power in their society) to not succeed or to not do well. they were given circumstances which were very difficult to deal with and ones in which would not help for him to grow or even implicate that it’s possible for him to do well in his life. i could compare this to placing a fish in a tank, a tank that isn’t well filtered, where the water isn’t cleaned out, and where they aren’t fed as often as they should be. how could that fish be expected to survive?

3: why does baldwin believe people are and continue to be racist?

“The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority, but to their inhumanity and fear”

this is the most positive way he could possibly explain this to his nephew. it’s devastating how people of color have been treated and still are treated, and the fact that they constantly put down people because of their race. however, baldwin flips the script and says that the perspective of the whites does not reflect your character, but their lack of humanity and cowardice.

“They are in effect still trapped in a history which they do not understand and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men.”

this part honestly helped me understand why racism is still a thing. not that it should be a thing, because it’s awful, but i’ve always wondered why are people racist. what made the first person say “hey, i’m white and you’re black so i’m better than you.” baldwin doesn’t necessarily go into detail about the roots of racism, but shares how even white people don’t know why they’re being racist. such seems as if they’re just being racist because it’s what they know, what they were taught, and what continues to be taught in their bloodlines.

“Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shivering and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one’s sense of one’s own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man’s world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar, and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations.”

importance of imagery! this also explains how it’s very difficult to stop believing something that’s become a “normal” for many. he uses these images to explain how it’d shake the world of white men to suddenly not be racist, which also goes back to how he mentions that they don’t even know why they’re being racist, they just know it’s what they’re “supposed” to be or do, because of what they were taught. this is a very mature and offers an approach which brings peace to his nephew and himself.

/

“It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy peasant stock, men who picked cotton, dammed rivers, built railroads, and in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity. You come from a long line of great poets, some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said, “The very time I thought I was lost, my dungeon shook and my chains fell off.”

You know and I know that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too early. We cannot be free until they are free.”

great quote to end with 🙂