Get ready for Critical Social Justice: Home with our “What You Need to Know” series.

Last year’s Critical Social Justice: Baltimore 365 was dedicated to understanding the historic and current day complexities and realities of Baltimore City. In the wake of the Baltimore Uprising, the CSJ planning team felt (and still does feel) deeply committed to creating more opportunities for our campus community to connect with and understand Baltimore. This year’s CSJ theme of Home allows for the conversation and learning about Baltimore to continue.

How does a legacy of residential segregation impact the creation and/or destruction of “home” in Baltimore? 

What does it mean to “be home” for residents of Baltimore City? 

Which Baltimore neighborhoods are perceived as homes? And, which ones are perceived as less than? How does race, gender, and socioeconomic status show up in our responses? 

How does policing in Baltimore and the recent release of the Department of Justice report impact the reality of home? 

This year, all incoming first-year and transfer students were asked to read Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City by Antero Pietila which tells the story of how racial segregation came to be and what its impact is through the story of Baltimore. Mr. Pietila will be visiting campus to explore some of the questions above (and more) at this year’s New Student Book Experience event on Thursday, October 13th. This is a great way to kick-off Critical Social Justice: Home and we hope to see many of you there!

For more details about the New Student Book Experience “Meet the Author” event, visit the event post on myUMBC. 

Friday, September 30, 2016
(Setup on Thursday, September 29)

Baltimore Convention Center
One West Pratt Street – West Wing
Baltimore, MD 21201

Join your friends, coworkers and neighbors to help hundreds of homeless individuals, children and families access the services they need. As a volunteer guide, you’ll be paired with a homeless participant and accompany them throughout the event.

This year’s event will also feature our first Mission of Mercy dental clinic serving an estimated 1,000 patients. Additional volunteers are needed for the dental clinic on Thursday, September 29.

We’re looking forward to having you volunteer again. Thank you!

REGISTER NOW

Questions? Contact us at phc@uwcm.org.

Get ready for Critical Social Justice: Home with our “What You Need to Know” series, starting with this primer on our keynote speaker Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. Her lecture, titled “Body/ Land/ Home: Disability Justice, Healing Justice and Femme of Color Brilliance,” will be held on Tuesday, October 25th at 6PM in the University Center Ballroom (event details here). 

Based out of Toronto and Oakland, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer, disabled femme of color poet, performer, healer, and activist of Burgher/Tamil Sri Lankan and Irish/Roma ascent. Much of Leah’s work focuses on people and conversations that are often underrepresented, including disability justice, queer and trans people of color, and abuse survivors. In addition to her award-winning books of poetry, including Bodymap, Love Cake, and Consensual Genocide, she has alsowritten a memoir titled Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home. 

“Stories create the world. Seeing stories that look like your own, that you’ve never read written down before, or that are stories you’ve never thought of before that change your whole idea of what is possible, are a big revolutionary deal.” †

art by Shira Devorah

Leah is also a co-founder and former director of Mangos With Chili, the longest-running performance art tour featuring queer and trans individuals in North America. She performs pieces with the disability justice collective Sins Invalid and is a co-director of the Toronto disability justice collective Performance/ Disability/Art.

…“[I]t was so inculcated in me that disability is this shameful story. And you know, if there’s not queer people of color space, queer people of color won’t perform. If there’s not disability space that centers queer and trans people of color, sex workers, poor people, all of the above, elders, young people, we won’t know that there’s similar stories.” †

 For more on Leah, check out:

• Her blog, Brownstargirl
• This video of her performance in Sins Invalid
• Her interview with Bitch Magazine on disability, representation, and survivorhood

Critical Social Justice: Home will be held on October 24th through 28th, 2016. Follow the CSJ blog, Facebook, and Twitter for updates on scheduled events and other news. For more information about the Critical Social Justice initiative, or if you’re organizing a related event that week that might be included on the CSJ calendar, please email mosaic@umbc.edu or womens.center@umbc.edu.

Last October for CSJ: Baltimore 365, Women’s Center student staff members created displays for our Vines, Rhymes, and Headlines discussion/exhibit that explored media coverage and social media engagement surrounding the Baltimore Uprising. One year after the uprising, we’re looking back at some of the images and tweets that captured this important moment in our history.

What Happened at Mondawmin? See how events unfolded that afternoon to set the stage for the much-reported “riots.” (credit: Daniel Willey) 

Conversations around the Uprising were grounded in several hashtags, including #BaltimoreRiots, #FreddieGray, and #BaltimoreCurfew. (credit: Julia Gottlieb)

#BaltimoreUprising was used to counter the popular narrative of #BaltimoreRiots.

#FreddieGray and #SayHerName reminded us of the faces, names, and lives impacted by racist police violence.

#BaltimoreLunch addressed food insecurity in the city, while #BaltimoreCurfew illustrated the clear racial divide between how people experience policing.

An overview of anti-Black violence and Black trauma provided additional context and significance. (credit: Kayla Smith) 

And here are just a few of the many great articles we’re reading from around the web:

• Freddie Gray One Year Later
• A Year After the Baltimore Uprising, the Real Work Is Just Beginning
• A Year After Freddie Gray’s Death, A Look at Media’s Coverage of the Baltimore Uprising

    A post by Women’s Center staff member Daniel Willey

Earlier this semester, as I’m sure you all remember, we got hit (bombarded, pelted, buried, whatever) by winter storm Jonas. BWI airport recorded almost 30 inches of snow and the wind blew the icy flakes sideways into drifts best navigated with a harness and rope or a tunneling machine. 

The sea of snow outside my house in Halethorpe on Sunday

Baltimore shut down the Light Rail, MARC, and buses for almost a week — only the fourth MTA shutdown in the last 40 years. My roommates and I braved the grocery store on Thursday night before the storm hit and it was a nightmare. I thought my mom was just being a mom when she texted to warn me that all the bread was gone. Some impatient man in a business suit chased me away from my parking spot at the Giant by honking his horn repeatedly so he could swoop in and take it. People were getting nasty.

Now, I’m used to this kind of snow.

Our dog Raven wondering how she’ll ever get out to pee

Having grown up in the mountains in Western Maryland, I’ve seen my fair share of snow and ice storms. But I’ve never experienced it in an urban setting and I’ve definitely never been old enough to be the responsible snow survivor before. It got me really thinking about what it means to have a snow day and how the local and state government reactions to something like Jonas has a lot more to do with social issues and inequality than you might think.

The MTA shutdown is what got me thinking first. If you’ve ever taken a Baltimore City bus you know our transportation system is flaky at best. But you probably also know how many people rely on the MTA every day for school and work and errands and everything else. When it shut down, all those people suddenly lost that essential piece to their everyday goings-on. And sure, the first day or so when nobody could leave their homes anyway may not have mattered. But the people who do the hourly and low-wage jobs that are essential to the running of any city had to get to work on Sunday. And Monday. And Tuesday. And Wednesday.

The MARC and Light Rail didn’t start back up until Wednesday (on a limited schedule) and even though there were buses on Monday, there weren’t very many and it was a total free-for-all in terms of scheduling for several days. While we UMBC students and many people in office or management or government jobs (positions with salaries and benefits and paid leave) had half a week of snow days, the snow plow and bus drivers, food service workers, maintenance and road workers, hotel staff, emergency responders, retail workers, grocery store clerks, pharmacists, and nurses (and the many many others who rely on pay from every hour they can get their hands on) made the trek to work with basically no transit system.

Well, she got out but she is not happy about it

And then I thought about my horrible grocery store experience. I thought about the brave souls running the checkout aisles and managing the rapidly depleting inventory. I thought about all the families without cars or living in food deserts who would struggle to get provisions for the coming storm. What about disabled people or older adults who couldn’t hustle to the store and back in time? I thought about the low income families who are unable to spend large amounts of money at once to stockpile supplies or those who had run out of food stamps because it was the end of the month. What about the people whose heat was shut off? Or those living in abandoned houses or their cars or in the tents on MLK Blvd?

When I picked my boyfriend up from work early on Friday (because there was no bus– surprise!) he said, “The people who are running around and freaking out right now are going to be fine.” And he was right. We had the money to stock up on food. We could afford to live in quality, well-maintained housing with good heat and a solid roof. They had plowed out our whole neighborhood by Sunday afternoon. A friend of mine who lives on Guilford Ave a few blocks outside of Station North said the road was plowed a few blocks down from where it connected to North Ave, but then it just ended. There was no dead end, no cars blocking the street, nothing to indicate it would make more sense to stop there than to continue down into the poorer or residential areas down the street. The lines of where plowing happened first and last show a very clear indication of what areas of the city are important and why.

Taking a snow day is a luxury. Getting a snow day means that if you don’t have a salaried position with paid leave, you have to lose pay for lost hours. Sometimes it means making a choice between braving a dangerous commute and earning your next meal — or even just keeping your job (and if there’s no public transportation, the low-income portion of the 30% of Baltimore residents without cars can’t get to work). A snow day is made possible by people who can’t take a snow day.

Getting a snow day can be fun for some students, but many low-income students rely on free school meals. For some students, this is their only steady source of nutrition.

On the Tuesday after the storm, only female Senate members and their female staff showed up to work on Capitol Hill. Proceedings had been postponed until Wednesday, but someone had to be there to make an official motion to postpone the Senate in order for that to happen. Those people were women. Sure, some may have been truly snowed in but, like I said, a snow day is made possible by people who didn’t get one.

The way a city handles a snowstorm is a social justice issue because socio-economic status is a major factor in the health, safety, and well-being of low-income and at-risk populations. So, think about it. What (and who) made your snow day possible?

“You don’t have to leave your campus to become an activist.” – Marisela B. Gomez

The Critical Social Justice: Baltimore 365 keynote “Baltimore in Action: Always Rising” featured a panel of social justice activists and leaders discussing a few of the many issues currently impacting Baltimore City.

• Rev. Dr. Heber Brown, III, faith-based activist and community organizer
• Dr. Marisela B. Gomez, public health advocate and author
• Tawanda Jones, activist and sister of Tyrone West
• Jacqueline Robarge, founder of Power Inside
• Kwame Rose, social activist and hip-hop artist
• Moderated by radio host Marc Steiner

For the third year of the Critical Social Justice initiative, we chose the theme Baltimore 365 to learn about how we can cultivate deep and lasting commitments to Baltimore City that are meaningful to us as individuals and as part of the UMBC community. Take a look back at some of highlights from throughout the week and catch up on anything you missed with the linked videos for the events!

Dr. Jodi Kelber-Kaye helped us kick-off CSJ with “Baltimore 101: Why Baltimore Matters,” providing historical answers that explain why things in Baltimore are the way they are.

Later that night, Delegate Mary Washington gave an insightful presentation on LGBTQ Youth Homelessness, and how Baltimore itself is specifically affected.

Before the Keynote event on Tuesday, Dr. Marisela Gomez visited UMBC for a talk-back with the Honors College about approaches in activism.

 One of the issues Dr. Gomez and the Honors College students discussed was the termination of the SUCCESS Program here at UMBC. If you want to learn more about this issue, check out this article recently published by the Retriever and use Dr. Gomez’s words of wisdom to do some activism.

Tuesday night was our keynote event, a teach-in panel called “Baltimore in Action: Always Rising.” It was moderated by Marc Steiner and was broadcast on the Marc Steiner Show on November 2nd. Watch the video!

Thursday, we were joined by Karen Houppert, author and editor-in-chief of Baltimore City Paper, and independent journalist James MacArthur (@BaltoSpectator) who spoke to their experiences of reporting in independent and alternative media outlets in a discussion on Main Street during our Vines, Rhymes, and Headlines exhibit. (Video)

Women’s Center staff members created exhibits centered on the Baltimore Uprising and media portrayal and displayed them on Main Street during the discussion.

Later on that night, The Mosaic Center hosted an Interfaith Dialogue featuring religious and spiritual leaders engaged in social justice activism in Baltimore.

On the last day of #CSJ365, UMBC parents eager to bring a dialogue about social justice home to their kids participated in a roundtable discussion called How To Talk To Kids About -Isms.

 We rounded out the week with Dr. Kate and a very special walking tour of Baltimore City.

CSJ was action-packed and full of important information about Baltimore City and social justice. Check out our Storify, Livestream, and What You Need To Know tag to learn even more. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook too!

The CSJ Team with Keynote Speakers

by Lisa M. Gray, Assistant Director of Student Life, Cultural and Spiritual Diversity

Get ready for Critical Social Justice: Baltimore 365 with our “What You Need to Know” series. 

As we begin Critical Social Justice: Baltimore 365, Pope Francis’ timely recent visit to the U.S. – specifically his remarks to Congress, helps us explore the ways that religion, faith and spirituality can inform what we do in the public sphere, not just in our private lives.  Like so many religious figures and leaders have shown us – Mother Teresa, Saint Francis of Assisi, Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King, Jr., Amma Mata Amritanandamayi, and Rev. Dr. Heber Brown, III to name just a few – religious faith, spirituality, belief systems and social justice activism are often interconnected.  For example, here are some of the social justice topics and calls to action shared by the Pope in his Congressional Address: 

Anti-Violence, Anti-Hatred and Dangers of Polarization

“But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners. The contemporary world, with its open wounds which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it into these two camps…”

“To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place. That is something which you, as a people, reject…Our response must instead be one of hope and healing, of peace and justice.”

Defense of Liberty, Human Rights and Justice

“A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to dream of full rights for all their brothers and sisters as Martin Luther King sought to do, when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton.”

Sustainability and Environmental Activism

“I call for a courageous and responsible effort to ‘redirect our steps’, and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity. I am convinced that we can make a difference…”

See the full transcript of Pope Francis’ remarks to Congress on Sept. 24, 2015 here.

All of this and more will be explored further in our Oct. 22^nd Critical Social Justice event, From Belief to Action: An Interfaith Dialogue.  This moderated roundtable discussion features religious and spiritual leaders engaged in social justice activism in Baltimore followed by a facilitated audience conversation. Read on to learn more about our invited panelists:

Cara Behneman, Director of UMBC Hillel and Chair of the UMBC Religious Council 

Cara Behneman, originally from southern Maryland, has lived in Baltimore for the past 7 years while working with UMBC Hillel.  She is passionate about bringing together different faith communities and has spearheaded interfaith dialogues here on campus.

Rev. Dr. Brad Braxton, Senior Pastor, The Open Church of Baltimore

Dr. Brad Braxton is the Founding Senior Pastor of The Open Church in Baltimore, Maryland.  His publications have explored how religion can sponsor either injustice or positive social transformation.  His lectures and sermons have addressed topics such as racial reconciliation, social justice activism, interfaith dialogue, and collaborative economic partnerships with developing countries.

Ashley Bryner, Senior Druid of CedarLight Grove, ADF and Member of the UMBC Religious Council

Ashley is the current Senior Druid of CedarLight Grove, ADF, and has been heavily involved in community projects there for seven years. She has organized and taken part in projects relating to building tolerance in a spiritual setting, demystifying Paganism/Druidry to the general public, environmental activism, raised funding to support local charities ranging from women’s shelters and homeless vets to homeless animals and wildlife sanctuaries.

Asma Inge-Hanif, Executive Director of Muslimat Al Nisaa, INC

Responding to the stigmas associated with violence and rape within the community, in 2007 Asma Hanif opened her H.O.M.E. to shelter homeless Muslim women and children as well as Muslim women victims of Domestic Violence. She was the 2006 & 2013 recipient of “Community Service Award” for Social Activism and the 2007 recipient of the Freedom Foundation’s Humanitarian Award.

Historic and present day race and class-based inequities plaguing Baltimore show us now more than ever that there is a need for our personal faith and belief systems to uplift where, with whom and how we live publically.  Freddie Gray’s killing and the subsequent Baltimore Uprising didn’t happen in a vacuum as this week’s Baltimore 101: Why Baltimore Matters kickoff session by Dr. Jodi Kelber-Kaye illustrates.  With the help of our panelists, we hope to learn, dialogue and expand our knowledge and skills for engaging in faith and belief system-based activism and social change making in and beyond Baltimore by:

• exploring how we work in and on behalf of our communities across social identities like gender, race, socioeconomic class, national origin, spirituality/religion, and educational status;
• naming and revealing the ways our privileged and marginalized identities show up in how and when we act on our beliefs;
• reflecting on the role of spiritual and religious institutions during the past and current civil rights movements; and
• unpacking the meaning of justice and equality from a diverse range of spiritual and religious perspectives.

This event is free and open to the public.  All are invited to participate in Critical Social Justice: Baltimore 365, Oct. 19-23. For a complete list of the week’s events, visit critsocjustice.wordpress.com.