issues magazine
Issue number five November 7, 2014 Washington University in St. Louis
letter from
the editors Dear thoughtful readers, When Outkast took the main stage at the LouFest music festival in Forest Park this fall, the entire band — about a dozen people in all — stood facing the crowd silently with their hands up for over five minutes. The crowd roared in response to this act of solidarity. One of the most powerful political gestures many of the attendees had ever witnessed, the striking choreographic act memorialized Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was killed with his hands up in August by a white police officer near Brown’s home in Ferguson. The act reminded us that there is more than one way to make a statement, that political expression can manifest itself in the most unexpected forms. In the Activism Issue, we explore the many incarnations of activism. From videos of ice buckets being dumped on people’s heads, to traditional marches, to strategic arrests, sit-ins, rallies and even urban planning decisions, the St. Louis region has seen a huge increase in collective political action in the last few months. In these acts lie a number of different strategies to address the problems facing the world today. But which types of activism are acceptable and legitimate? Who has the resources to participate in activism? And how do we measure the success of collective action? The questions we pose have no clear answers, and it is likely that the activism strategies which work best will evolve as technology changes, new problems arise, and political will fluctuates. We hope you enjoy exploring this pertinent topic together with us. We’re proud of what we’ve put together. Keaton Wetzel, President Victoria Sgarro, Editor-in-Chief
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president Keaton Wetzel
editor-in-chief Victoria Sgarro
social media Laken Sylvander
senior editors Claire Huttenlocher Carrick Reddin George Zhang
design & visual editor Libby Perold
contents 5. Citizen Journalism in Ferguson and Beyond 7. #ChalkedUnarmed 9. Taking the Plunge: From Tea to Ice Buckets 11. Does Motivation Matter? 15. Voicelessness 17. Homegrown Activism 19. Zoning and the Power of the Activist 21. Design Process as Activism 23. World Community Center
Cover Illustration by VICTORIA SGARRO Photo Collage by LIBBY PEROLD 4
Written by VICTORIA SGARRO
Uniformed soldier joins the protests against militarization on the streets.
Peaceful protestor reveals painful rubber bullet wound.
Infographic by KELLY WISNESKI
Tibetan monks travel to Ferguson to show their support for justice for Michael Brown.
Since Michael Brown’s death, Alderman of the @21stWard in St. Louis, @WUSTL MBA candidate and citizen journalist, @Anto
When an unarmed teenager was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, the incident sparked a series of protests that would heighten racial tensions throughout the country. Yet in a nation that prides itself on its freedom of speech, one of the more surprising consequences of Michael Brown’s death was not necessarily the unrest itself, but rather Ferguson police’s attempt to censor media coverage of it. As professional journalists reporting on the riots faced threats of detainment, tear gas and even arrest, protesters took matters into their own hands. Ordinary citizens with no prior journalism experience pulled out their smart phones to document what was happening around them. The surge in citizen journalism in Ferguson following Michael Brown’s death was not a spontaneous occurrence. Instead it was the product of a growing international trend. People around the world have turned to increasingly accessible technology to broadcast perceived institutional injustices to their social media following. Within the past five years, citizen journalism became widespread during the Arab Uprising, as advances in personal technology allowed people in Iran, Egypt and Syria the agency to report on events which professional journalists were prohibited from. Following suit, U.S. citizens turned to this kind of journalism in 2011 during the Occupy movement. Today, citizen journalism is becoming increasingly commonplace among ordinary Americans and activists alike. Highlighting this form’s influential position in the field of journalism is the fact that media coverage of Michael Brown’s death and the unrest which followed actually began with an act of citizen journalism. Shortly after the 18-year-old was killed by police officer Darren 5
Wilson, Twitter user @ThreePharoah tweeted “I JUST SAW SOMEONE DIE OMFG” and posted pictures of the street where Brown had been shot. His tweets quickly went viral and attracted national media attention. Throughout the two weeks of protests which followed, citizen journalists continued to hold an important position in the media coverage of Ferguson. When professional journalists were unlawfully restricted by authorities, citizens were able to fill the information void with videos and pictures recorded on their phones. Perhaps the most well known citizen-turned-journalist to come out of the unrest in Ferguson is Antonio French (@ AntonioFrench), alderman of the 21st Ward in St. Louis. French has been an active presence in Ferguson since Brown’s death, reporting on the happenings there using breaking-news style Vines and Tweets, which he refers to as “advocacy journalism.” After the Alderman’s arrest on August 13 for unlawful assembly, his follower count doubled to nearly 60,000 according to the St. Louis PostDispatch. He now has over 112,000 followers. As French’s experience might suggest, anyone seen recording the events in Ferguson becomes a target for arrest, despite the First Amendment’s guarantee to the right to document public events, so long as it does not interfere with the police’s ability to carry out their duties. According to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, 21 journalists have been arrested in Ferguson since the unrest broke out. After the arrest of The Washington Post’s Wesley Lowery and The Huffington Post’s Ryan Reilly in the same night, 48 media organizations finally sent a joint letter to St. Louis authorities conveying concern over unlawful harassment of journalists.
Citizen Journalism in Ferguson and Beyond Turning Ordinary Citizens into Activists
onioFrench’s average retweets have peaked, and then significantly declined.
While some traditional journalists still look down on citizen journalism, Ferguson shows that many of today’s professional journalists rely on videos recorded by ordinary people and tweets written by the public to supplement their reporting. Although citizen journalism requires a higher level of scrutiny before it can be considered credible, the practice has led to more wellrounded journalism because it creates more mindful citizens and provides a platform for a diversity of voices. However, this relationship is a double-edged sword: citizen journalism is often only effective so long as it is picked up by these professional journalists and larger media networks.
When professional journalists are unlawfully restricted by authorities, citizens are able to fill the information void with videos and pictures recorded on their phones. On the other side of the world in Syria, where citizen journalism was once prominent due to western reliance on it for information, the effectiveness of this method is dwindling. With the government enforcing a strict media blackout, Syria is the most dangerous country for reporters in the world. There, 80 percent of journalists killed are citizen journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders. Yet, despite these risks, the movement
in Syria is declining not because of a lack of committed citizens or faith in the cause, but because of the dying interest of the international media. “Honestly, the biggest obstacle for journalists in Syria right now is the growing feeling that no one nowadays cares about what is happening here. I want you to know that it won’t be the bullets from rifles that will silence us citizen journalists. But when you no longer care to look at our photos from the war—then we have been defeated,” Malek Blacktoviche, a Syrian citizen journalist, told openDemocracy in a 2014 interview. The declining public interest in the Syrian uprising warned of what is now happening in Ferguson. As the town’s name no longer occupies the front page of The New York Times, St. Louis voices turn back from those of national informants to those of ordinary citizens. Ferguson’s departure from the national media’s radar raises the question: When does a citizen’s duty to record injustices end? Antonio French continues to tweet about Ferguson; but are his followers still listening? Three Pharoah. “I JUST SAW SOMEONE DIE OMFG.” 9 August 2014, 12:03 p.m. Tweet. 2 Hunn, David. “Frontline Activism Boosts Antonio French’s Profile.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 14 August 2014. Web. 3 Sandvik, Runa A. “Documenting the Arrests of Journalists in Ferguson.” The Freedom of the Press Foundation 3 October 2014. Web. 4 Gold, Hadas. “Ferguson police will keep arresting reporters.” Politico 19 August 2014. Web. 5 Klepke, Anton and Kajsa Olsson. “On the frontline: citizen journalism in Syria.” openDemocracy 20 March 2014. Web. 6 Ibid. 1
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#CHALKEDUNARMED On August 24th, 2014, Washington University student activists took to the pavement to raise awareness of police brutality and its fatal effects on young, unarmed black bodies. The next day, the chalk outlines reminded students of who was not among them on their first day of classes.
Written and Photographed by LAKEN SYLVANDER 8
Taking the Plunge: From Tea to Ice Buckets Written by AUDREY COLE
On the fateful evening of December 16, 1773, around 200 colonists, some disguised as Indians, assembled on a hill overlooking the Boston harbor. Yelling war chants, the crowd marched two-by-two to the wharf, descended upon the three ships docked there and dumped their cargos of $1,000,000 worth of tea overboard into the murky depths. Forever after known as the “Boston Tea Party,” this event is one of the earlier and well-known forms of social activism, and was a reaction to the strained relationships between the British government and American colonies and the ultimately failed attempt to tax tea.
Illustration by MARGARET FLATLEY
tea overboard. In comparison to today’s larger scale social activism events, this turnout seems small. Social media has greatly expanded the amount of activist support because the Internet is available to people around the world. Within a fraction of a second, someone in a foreign country can hear about a protest that is about to occur on the other side of the globe. Hence, one can imagine how many people might have participated in the Boston Tea Party if someone made a Facebook event for it. As such, the A.L.S. Ice Bucket Challenge was able to go viral within a month and raise millions of dollars for research because of the number of people that were able to quickly become involved through the use of social media.
Since the Boston Tea Party, social activism has degraded to ‘slacktivism.’
The Boston Tea Party actually overlaps in many ways with the more recent A.L.S. Ice Bucket challenge, which went viral in the past few months. The A.L.S. Ice Bucket Challenge is a well-known challenge that promotes awareness of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and encourages people to donate to the cause. The goals of the Ice Bucket Challenge and the Boston Tea Party were quite different, but in raising awareness of their respective “issues,” the Ice Bucket Challenge was ultimately much more successful due to the prevalence of social media in modern society. While in older times news spread slowly by way of newspapers and pamphlets, today news can travel in seconds to the farthest corners of the world. Hence the biggest difference in the success of social activism of the past and that of the present is its speed and coverage. The colonists were able to gather 200 local people together within a day in order to participate in dumping
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Despite the fact that the Ice Bucket Challenge was more successful in getting people involved, some may argue that social activism has degraded to “slacktivism” since the Boston Tea Party because of the lack of effort necessary to be involved. At present, people can easily “re-tweet,” “like,” or “favorite” a post about social activism from the comfort of their own homes rather than physically participate. The current lack of danger attached to participating is likely why the Boston Tea Party, an event orchestrated by only 200 individuals, is remembered today as a historic and impactful example of social activism. However, without this danger and with easier access, social activism is now accessible to people of all walks of life and in the farthest corners of the world. Ultimately, social media has made spreading messages and taking a stand against injustice available to those of us less bold than our ancestors.
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Does Motivation Matter? Considering the Implications of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Illustration by EDWARD LIM
Written by MIRANDA HINES
By definition, activism is “a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action, especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue.”1 This definition implies that the effort is driven by an intense belief that it is both morally right and socially necessary. With this in mind, consider this hypothetical situation: a student trying to build a résumé or trying to impress friends joins an activist movement, not out of genuine concern for the issue but out of the desire to improve his or her own reputation. Imagine this person is entirely ignorant and uncurious about the cause yet still effectively contributes to it. My question is this: Does motivation matter when considering an individual’s participation in an activist movement?
I am raising, namely what role incentive plays, is my attempt to evaluate the credence of purely narcissistic activism.Because let’s face it: there were a lot of good looking people who undoubtedly knew that they were good looking, who were dumping water on themselves at least in part to reveal to the internet how beautiful their abs were. For the purpose of this argument, let’s assume that there are two ways of understanding activism: purely in terms of its internal values and purely in terms of its external ones. The internal values concern the ideology of the movement, while the external values focus on the movement’s actual measurable results.
Change needs voices and hands as much as it needs hearts.
I started asking myself this question as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge consumed my Facebook newsfeed over the summer. To be clear: this is not a critique of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge specifically; I firmly believe that the cause is an excellent one and the marketing tool used is both effective and clever. I also recognize that the subject carries a substantial gray area: many good causes that are firmly and passionately believed in will also look good on a resume and impress others, and those positives do not necessarily conflict with one another. The question “Activism.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2014. http://www. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/activism 1
When focusing exclusively on the internal, activism is defined by “why”. What matters is what drives people to contribute to the welfare of others, be it out of sympathy or a sense or moral obligation. Considering the question of whether or not motivation matters, in this scenario the answer is fairly obvious: compassion is more a more valuable and more likeable trait than vanity. Activism is understood to not be a selfish act. The importance of an achievement is determined by the quality of the reasons for bringing it about. While the outcome of an activist movement may or may not have a direct positive impact on the participants, the point of activism is that it transcends the ALS Association. 2014. http://alsa.org
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individual an activist is fighting for the community, or a specific community, at large. In this circumstance, philosophy is the crucial aspect of activism; without the drive, the selflessness, and the determination to produce change, one’s actions are not truly activism — instead they are a blank copy of someone else’s genuine desire to make a difference. Behaving in this way essentially echoes another person’s message without believing it oneself. Going through the motions does not negate the fact that the motions are empty. The flip side of this debate, which focuses on the external value of activism, is more utilitarian: what matters is the outcome, not the means used to achieve it or what prompted individuals to bring the outcome to fruition. Contributors may have no articulable reason to engage, yet still successfully bring about change. In this circumstance, however, can a movement be called activism and not merely action if conviction does not drive it? The outcome may be moot to the people involved, however from an externalist outlook the positive impact on the lives of others outweighs the temporary and bland nature of the participants’ interest. Favoring the externalist view, it is possible to unknowingly be
an activist; motivation is of no consequence compared to the observable results of one’s actions. The internal values are what inspire activism in the first place, however it is the external values that determine whether or not the movement is successful. No matter how high-minded the ideals behind the movement, be it Occupy Wall Street or Kony 2012, it is the calculable results that make the difference. This is where the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge re-enters the equation. According to the ALS Association website, the Ice Bucket Challenge has raised $114 million both for research, patient and community services, and public and professional education.2 It had a visible, tangible, and positive impact, regardless of why people chose to donate to the cause (or chose to get cold and wet instead of donating). The more idealistic sliver of my mind is annoyed that in many ways the charity has become a contest: who looks the best either shirtless or in a soaked shirt, who has the most creative means of completing the challenge, etc. Much of the focus has been redirected from the ALS community
2.4 million
ice bucket-Related Videos Have been posted on Facebook. 13
28 million people have uploaded, commented on or liked ice bucketrelated posts.
to the would-be activists themselves—this is precisely why the marketing tool worked. By making the activist movement as much if not more so about personal reputation than bringing about positive change, the nature of the challenge ensured people would actually do it. This is not a particularly flattering depiction of this generation or humanity in general. However, the difficulty I find myself facing is that I am not an idealist; I know that the world cannot be run by ideology alone. However grand my ideals, I cannot argue with results that have a more positive impact on a community than inspiration does when it exists alone. If selfishness is a better motivator than compassion, so be it. Change needs voices and hands as much as it needs hearts, and the Ice Bucket Challenge unarguably raised money and promoted awareness. The crux of the matter is that progress without belief is better than belief without progress. Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is by no means better than acting for the right reasons, but it is unquestionably better than doing nothing at all.
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge HAS raised
$114 million
for ALS research and education.
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Voicelessness Written by EMMA LAPLANTE A little over a year ago, I fell in love with the blog Humans of New York. Humans of New York (or HONY, as it is often referred to) is the brainchild of photographer Brandon Stanton, who founded it in 2010 as a 26-year-old ex-bond trader. HONY is approaching its fourth birthday (this November), and over the past four years, Stanton has dedicated himself to capturing portraits of New Yorkers and beyond. Anyone who follows him knows that he is currently in the middle of a 50-day World Tour in partnership with the United Nations — since August 7th, 2014, he has posted portraits of people in Vietnam, India, Ukraine, South Sudan, Uganda, and other countries around the globe. He has amassed over 6,000 portraits, and his Facebook page has 9.8 million likes. But the most striking part of HONY is not its evocative imagery. It’s the small blocks of text that accompany most of the photos, offering insights into their subjects’ triumphs and tragedies. Stanton’s interview style
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Illustration by JUNYI LU is intensely personal and open-ended, giving his subjects a platform to say whatever they want. Sometimes, they speak with stirring poignancy, as when a wheelchair-bound New Yorker said, “Being disabled in America is like living in a third world country.” Other times, not so much — when an old man in a July 2014 photo was asked what advice he would give to his eighteen-year-old, he answered with, “Have more sex.” This is where HONY, a project designed to photograph a vast number of people, elevates itself above other blogs with similar purposes: it lets its subjects tell their own story. Like a handful of projects before it, HONY realizes the significance of giving ordinary people the chance to speak for themselves. We sometimes call this giving a voice to the voiceless. Brandon Stanton calls it glimpsing into the lives of strangers. Humans of New York is not alone in this endeavor.
On the radio show This American Life, Ira Glass frequently interviews ordinary people about their extraordinary (or simply entertaining) experiences. The show that aired on July 11, 2003 was called “20 Acts in 60 Minutes,” and about halfway through there is a story about teenagers in juvenile detention who were given the opportunity to create their own radio story on whatever subject they chose. The featured story is by a boy named Joey, and it unfolds like a murder mystery. Joey
American Life, much like HONY, is a very public platform that guarantees an audience of thousands for all of its subjects. When an organization like this wields so much power, it has a certain responsibility to use it for good, not evil — namely, to give people the opportunity to empower themselves. If the organization does this properly, it brings people’s unique stories and plights into the public consciousness. It lets individual voices be heard.
sets out to find out if the rumors are true — did someone really relieve himself in the cafeteria’s pudding?
expression has taken on the dynamic new form of the Internet, freedom of expression is a phrase so wholly fixed in our vernacular that we take it entirely for granted. We have a God-given voice; if we use it, we will be heard. Of course, for many people, this is utterly untrue, because freedoms of expression are undermined all the time. Whenever someone is marginalized or made to feel that their voice is worth less than the person next to them, their freedom is violated. These people are not “voiceless,” in the sense that they are not literally mute or sans voice. But they have been silenced all the same, and their stories go untold.
In a time when selfexpression has taken on dynamic new forms, freedom of expression is a phrase so wholly fixed in our vernacular that we take it entirely for granted.
Joey’s story is fresh and compelling. It only lasts for a couple minutes, but in an unassuming way, Joey actually raises some real questions about the conditions of juvenile detention facilities. An interaction between Joey and one of the cafeteria cooks is highly charged with tension and exasperation on the part of the cook, calling to mind images of Judd Nelson as a classic rebel facing off against Paul Gleason as his dictatorial vice principal in The Breakfast Club. This illustratively emphasizes the us-versus-them mentality that exists between adolescents and authority figures in juvenile detention facilities. In other words, Joey’s story has merit, and it deserves to be heard. If he had conducted his investigation on his own, chances are that very few people would have heard about it. But This
In a time when self-
The irony is that these are the stories the world most desperately needs to hear. The writer Don DeLillo wrote in his novel Libra, “This is what history consists of. It is the sum total of things they aren’t telling us.” This idea extends to the authentic human experience. It is the sum total of voices we aren’t hearing.
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Homegrown
Ac tiv is m
Written by JORDAN VICTORIAN Illustration by ALICIA YANG
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Activism is often defined in terms of its more visible forms such as protests, vigorous campaigns, and highly vocal participation in or against political processes. While campaigning and direct action are valuable tools, I believe that creating sustainable change requires a spectrum of individual and collective action. We can and should go to protests, sit-ins, and similar events, but the desire and need to make change does not exist only when one is at a protest, or planning an action, or participating in a dialogue. The issues of the world continue to exist when we pack our bags and go home. So why should our attempts to bring change stop at our doorsteps? I argue that we can broaden the concept of activism by challenging passivism, as in many instances injustice is instigated by action, but perpetuated through passivity and complicity. Using this approach, we may find that there are more spaces to inspire change than we usually imagine.
their schools being classified as “D” and “F” schools; beautiful school buildings in St. Louis and elsewhere, now vacant and crumbling in disrepair due to a lack of students and in turn a lack of funding; disparities between building improvements of a highperforming public magnet school and a non-magnet public school in my hometown; displaced students from a shut-down school forced into overcrowding another “struggling” public school. These schools serve hundreds, even thousands of students, and their success impacts the community as a whole. Which school choice would be better for my child, and which would be better for my community? The two might or might not be mutually exclusive, depending on individual views of family, community, and citizenship. However, this question of values now emerged. What value does my child, my family, and in turn my own life, have when put in the context of a larger society?
Consider a common scenario: you are a parent making a decision on where your child should go to school. The world you live in is not perfect and your options are limited. Your first option is to send your child to an underfunded, failing public high school. However, thanks to a stable and sufficient income, or perhaps dependable financial assistance available from other schools or your government, you also have the option to send your child to a fairly reputable private high school. Maybe you want to support your local school district, but you also want your child to have access to quality education. I have no kids of my own, so this question is less personal, and therefore easier to start to tackle in my head. Still, my thoughts were conflicting. I kept thinking that I should want to do what is best for my kids. Yet, I remembered images from my own experiences: students and teachers upset about
For many, the family is an unquestionable priority in American life. We are born into families that raise us, support us socially and economically, and then continue some level of this support as we move on into the adult world. Potential benefits of families are plentiful: they help pass on our names, accomplishments, money, and property; provide a space to learn to build relationships and deal with interpersonal conflicts; and much more. But like most things in life, families are imperfect. When families fail the individuals, or families are failed by larger systems, it can be hard to find that support elsewhere. Like many forms of grouping, the family creates isolation. It gives us spaces where we can exercise our own lifestyles and values systems. But what happens when we always think family-first? The
“Our families become spaces to promote change when we question the values they actually reflect, not just the values we would like to think they reflect.” private spaces we create with family do not exist in a vacuum, untouched by the public sphere. Our communities are ultimately made up of people. Those people may be organized into families as smaller units, but the individuals that make up these families also make up the larger community. It is easy to think of big change coming only externally. However, the world we live in came about not only because of larger, “external” actions from highly visible individuals and organizations, but also through collective acceptance or complicity with these actions. I believe that critically understanding the impact of one’s own lifestyle and challenging one’s own standard ways of living are powerful and necessary tools for making change. Our families become spaces to promote change when we question the values they actually reflect, not just the values we would like to think they reflect. So then, what happens if I grow older, have a child, and must face tough questions such as school choice: underfunded, low-performing public high school, or reputable private school? For me, the answer lies only partly in my individual choice. I could develop a rationale for either choice, rationales that are dependent on values that I hold. However, my justification of my decisions does not negate the adverse effects of those decisions. Perhaps in the future I will feel differently, but my thought is that ultimately it might be best to put my kid in the public school. It might not be the “best” for my kid, but public schools will not get better if everyone who can afford other schools just pulls out of them. I cannot give a definitive answer for the best approach to such choices going forward. However, I will say that the process will require us to look beyond the people sitting around us in our own living rooms. 18
Zoning and the Power of the Activist “Zoning.” “Ordinances.” “Land Use Regulations.” BORING. Residents rarely consider their city’s zoning code. Zoning is an overlooked municipal apparatus, often seen by those outside of the city planning office as unimportant, irritating and dry. It’s something that most people don’t quite understand, and don’t feel the need to understand. I would be shocked if anyone reading this has taken the time to peruse his or her city’s zoning regulations. But while a city’s zoning code doesn’t exactly make for scintillating reading material, it can have real implications for the organization and growth of the city. A hidden and misunderstood tool, zoning changes our urban environment in interesting ways, and we can have a voice in that change. Based on its past, zoning has a bad reputation. Historically, restrictive zoning is among the most powerful forces behind racial and economic segregation in the country. It has been used as an outright tool to institute redlining, restrictive covenants and racial zoning laws that have systematically excluded African Americans from living in white
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neighborhoods. This is especially relevant here in our city, the birthplace of the Shelley v. Kramer case, which criminalized restrictive covenants in 1947. Beyond explicit exclusion, zoning has been used to maintain socioeconomic divides through the enforcement of minimum lot size requirements in certain neighborhoods. While a more subtle influence, this type of land use regulation prevents lower income families from purchasing homes in wealthier neighborhoods. Moreover, since the 1950’s, zoning has been responsible for facilitating white flight and urban sprawl, the separation of homes from employment, and a decrease in the walkability of cities. Yet despite its negative impacts, we have the power to change zoning from a negative control to a tool for positive change in urban neighborhoods. Zoning, like the urban landscape itself, is not static.
Written by CLAIRE HUTTENLOCHER
Map provided by City of University City
It changes with cycles of beauty and blight, with periods of vibrant growth and heartbreaking decline. With the power of activism, zoning can prevent a vacant lot from turning into a McDonalds. It can be used to promote mixed use, walkable neighborhoods, or to challenge exclusionary policies that have strengthened racial and socioeconomic divisions. Zoning has shaped the urban landscape in the past, perhaps for the worst. But when community members decide to act in the spirit of activism, they can shape the future urban landscape for the better, sharing ideas and challenging zoning decisions and policies. Recent trends of civic participation are pressuring municipalities to take land use processes beyond their traditional reach to challenge a wide range of societal inequities.
University City is hosting an “Envisioning a Better Block� event to encourage the public to visit the lot and take on an activist role. All are welcome to share ideas and work to find the best solution for the future of this lot and this community. The City is also partnering with several Wash. U. art students, who will be there to facilitate this conversation and engage participants. They will be visualizing ideas on large sketchpads and creating human sculptures to interact with the space and reimagine suggestions. This event provides an opportunity for community members to become activists, influence zoning and development, and determine the future of our urban landscape.
Often overlooked by Washington University students, Olive Boulevard sits north of the Delmar Loop within University City limits. It currently serves as a dividing line of socioeconomic status, but has the potential to become a vibrant commercial corridor. At the prominent intersection of Olive and Midland, there is large city government owned vacant lot, across from a Dollar General store and a U-Haul. On November 1,
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Design Process as
ACTIVISM Everyone has a story just as full as your own. Everyone is an expert on that story — their lived experience. Deanna VanBuren translated these ideas into action when she went into a prison to perform a design charrette with inmates. A group of 12 prisoners gathered around a table in San Francisco’s County Jail No. 5, sketching and modeling a new form for incarceration. One of the participants was Anthony Pratt, who drew an airy room with a skylight to cure vitamin D deficiencies and a fountain to represent resilience and adaptability. Using a restorative justice model, the design session allowed them to explore the prison system through a novel lens: design. “I feel an extra sense of purpose today,” Paschall told his fellow classmates. “Hopefully this can become fruitful and turn into something real down the line.”
Architects are the psychiatrists of the system. If architecture and design can be a form of promoting justice, the processes of planning and implementation are forms of activism. This new activist–oriented design process is a growing trend in policy and practice — institutions like the American Institute of Architects have responded to it through the creation of the Academy of Architecture for Justice. 21
Written by CARRICK REDDIN
Illustration by LIBBY PEROLD
“Architects are sort of the psychiatrists of the system,” said Linda Bernauer, chair of the American Institute of Architects’ Academy of Architecture for Justice. “We have to listen to everyone, and victims and perpetrators don’t generally have much of a voice … The intent is to talk about how therapeutic spaces can provide better outcomes and have architects be the leaders as opposed to just being hired to do what we’re told.” The concept of “architect as leader” is an important one to unpack. Being a leader does not mean having all the answers. In architectural education, we teach designers to be the “hero-architect” who knows the solutions to all the world’s problems. We must detach from this paradigm and rethink what it means to be
‘I feel an extra sense of purpose today.’ a leader. In the world of activism, being an effective leader requires empathy and humility. It requires listening and understanding. It requires approaching design in ways that incorporate all members of society. In order to achieve this, we must view people as experts of their lived experience — children are experts of how schools should be designed. The homeless are experts on shelters. Inmates are experts on prisons. When this idea serves as the foundation of the design process, design becomes a form of activism. When designers embrace their identity as activists, our built environment will be formed on foundations of justice and equity.
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World Community Center A Local Hub for Agents of Social Change
Written by KEATON WETZEL Many Washington U students do not realize that a regional center for organizers, radicals, and social change agents has sat steps away from campus for almost 40 years. Take a stroll from the engineering school up Skinker Boulevard towards the Loop, and at the corner Skinker and Kingsbury, in a rehabbed century-old home, you will pass the World Community Center, a home to more than 10 activist organizations working to attack the problems of hunger, war, climate change, racism, sexism facing the globe today.
Illustration provided by the World Community Center Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) is one of these organizations. Their members have been some of the primary organizers in Ferguson and downtown, staging protests and sit-ins the area’s streets and city halls to bring attention to systemic injustices which perpetuate racial inequalities. MORE “seeks to be a powerful organization of lowand moderate-income people building power in our communities. We strive to transcend divisions of class, age and race as we envision and build the more just, sustainable world in which we would like to live.” On campus, MORE members were central to organizing the Peabody protest which took place underneath Brookings Hall during the final weeks of the spring 2014 semester, leading non-violent collective action training sessions and recruiting volunteers on the campus and throughout the St. Louis region.
These groups are central to recent activism in the region, including the protests in Ferguson in response to police violence. Another group which calls
Rising steadfastly out of the front yard of the WCC are two wood cutouts of arms painted black, a haunting memorial to Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was killed with his hands up in August by a white police officer near Brown’s home in Ferguson. The resolute tribute to the young man, which has remained outside of the building since the shooting, lends an idea of the resolve of the organizations which erected it. Who are these organizations, and what roles do they play in organizing local and regional political action? The ISSUES team recently reached out Colleen Kelly, one of the lead activists working out of the building, to learn more about the work taking place at the WCC. The WCC houses the workspaces for 11 groups working “to promote justice and pursue peace” through the organization and mobilization of collective action to address social, environmental, and political problems. Many of these groups are central to the organization of recent activism throughout the region, including the protests in Ferguson in response to police violence and militarization, the effort on campus to expel the CEO of Peabody Energy from Wash. U.’s board of trustees, and the movement to raise the minimum wage in the region’s fast food restaurants. 23
the WCC home is Show Me $15, a coalition of fast food workers representing more than 15 fast food chains in St. Louis. These activists have been part of a national movement of fast food workers staging walkouts and strikes to call for a living wage of $15 per hour from the current state minimum hourly wage of $7.35. Wash. U. students are lucky to have such an active hub for collective action so near to campus. Many alumni have joined forces with the impactful organizations housed in the World Community Center, and Kelly indicated that these organizations are always in need of impassioned volunteers. To learn more about the organizations and how you can become an agent for social change, knock on the door of the WCC; they’re located at 438 N. Skinker Blvd. Or check out their website at www.worldcommunitycenterstl.org.
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our contributors Emma Boczek is a freshman in the
Libby Perold is a junior studying
Audrey Cole is a senior studying
Carrick Reddin is a junior studying
Margaret Flatley is a senior
Victoria Sgarro is a senior studying
College of Arts and Sciences. Contact her at emma.boczek@wustl.edu.
Computer Science. Contact her at audreycole@ wustl.edu.
studying Communication Design with a focus in Illustration. She can be reached at margaretflatley@wustl.edu.
Miranda Hines is a sophomore in the
School of Arts and Sciences studying English Literature and possibly Political Science. Contact her at mirandahines@wustl.edu.
Claire Huttenlocher is a junior
majoring in Urban Studies and minoring in Legal Studies. Contact her at chuttenlocher@wustl.edu
Miranda Kalish is a sophomore
studying Communication Design. Feel free to contact her atmirandakalish@wustl.edu.
Emma LaPlante is a freshman
studying International and Area Studies and English. She loves books, stargazing, and thinking about the future. You can contact her at emmalaplante@wustl.edu.
Edward Lim
is a freshman studying Communication Design at WashU. Contact the creature at edwardlim@wustl.edu
Junyi Lu is studying art at Washington University in St. Louis. Contact Junyi at jy.lu1031@gmail.com.
Eva Nip is a freshman studying in the Sam Fox school. Contact her at eva.nip@wustl.edu​.
Comparative Arts and Design. Contact her at libby.perold@wustl.edu.
Architecture and International Development Studies. Contact him at creddin@wustl.edu.
Comparative Literature, Communication Design and Chinese Language & Culture. She is editorin-chief of ISSUES Magazine. Contact her at vrsgarro@wustl.edu.
Laken Sylvander
is a Sophomore studying Women Gender & Sexuality Studies and French. Contact her at l.sylvander@wustl.edu.
Jordan Victorian is a sophomore
studying American Culture Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Contact Jordan at victorian@wustl.edu.
Keaton Wetzel is the president of
ISSUES. He’s a senior and aspiring city planner studying Urban Studies and Political Science. Contact him at kwetzel@wustl.edu.
Kelly Wisneski is a freshman studying
Architecture. Contact her at k.wisneski@wustl.edu.
Alicia Yang is a freshman studying
Chemistry and possibly English Lit. Contact her at aliciayang@wustl.edu.
Johanna Yee is a freshman studying
Architecture. Contact her at jlyee@wustl.edu.
George Zhang
is a junior studying Architecture. Contact him at george.zhang@ wustl.edu.
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