AMERICA TO ME IS DIVERSITY, TOLERANCE, MUTUAL RESPECT, AND COEXISTENCE

Linda Friedman Schmidt

On the 4th of July weekend I turned on the radio and heard an unfamiliar Frank Sinatra song “The House I Live In (What is America to Me?).”1 Although not a Sinatra fan, the song brought tears to my eyes. Written in 1943 and previously recorded by Paul Robeson, it was featured and sung by Sinatra in the 1945 film of the same name. Both song and movie were created to combat racial prejudice and anti-Semitism at the end of World War II.2 Growing up as an immigrant child of Holocaust survivors, America to me was defined by the faces I saw at school and in the street, people of all races, ethnicities, and religions living and working together free and in harmony. America was a country of diversity and tolerance, mutual respect and coexistence.

The America we live in today is not the same. There is rising anti-immigrant sentiment, bigotry, racism, homophobia, violence, too many guns in the hands of wrong people, mass shootings by deranged fanatics. Fear mongering has too many convinced it is impossible to differentiate between immigrant, refugee, and terrorist. Home should be a place of comfort and peace, not a war zone. We must not remain silent. Inaction can have dire consequences. Artists must add their voices to a call for change.

1. https://youtu.be/3bUT73L0nhM (accessed July 4, 2016)

2. http://www.laborarts.org/exhibits/paulrobeson/thehouseilivein.cfm (accessed July 4, 2016)

Dust And Echoes

Charles Andrew Seaton

You can kill a person but you cannot kill an idea it graces mountains permeates our skin squeezes our guts echoes through walls of days past it is inevitable these ephemeral truths cannot be grasped no tool of man can uncover them yet they shine through the dark in sweeping gazes shaking these facades man has wrought ashes and dust are all that remain life’s music roars through these spaces leaving behind archaic masks that faintly glow of a saints ideals who fell from grace toward the sobering world that lay below it could not run it could not hide nor could it return to its place up above no matter how much it yearned and swore these gates were bound shut nonetheless by his own word consumed with despair it grew weary in its last gasps for only then did it know and so it faded towards the edge leaving behind winds soft touch

WHAT TO SAY ABOUT RACISM?

What to say? What to do? What has changed?

What if nothing has changed? What do we do?

Another place another time, really!

What do we do!

What can we do? What should we do?

Do we do nothing?

Have we done nothing?

What I see is nothing has changed!

What should we do? What can we do?

Just do nothing!

Do not just stand there! Do something!

Do right the wrong!

Do something. Do make people see the wrong!

Do just do! Do create art!

What can I do? Make them see the wrong!

Please just don’t stand man!

Just do! Do what is right!

What if I can’t? Just do man!

Don’t stand and do nothing!

Do what is right. Do what is right.

Will the man listen? Will man do right?

Respect your fellow man!

Don’t do what man has done before!

Celebrate what is right! Let’s just do right!

Respect your fellow man!

Just do right! That is easy!

Yes, just respect your fellow man!

WHAT TO DO?

JUST DO IT!

RESPECT YOUR FELLOWMAN!

Bonnie J. Smith©

Eike Waltz

Alan Ginsberg on my Bagel

So…I took that sharp kitchen knife and schmear Alan Ginsberg* all over my stale toasted bagel:

An incomplete breath of Freedom in no particular order

Freedom to let the National Freedom Day… in silence… slide by… Why?

Freedom of speech equals Freedom to silence speech equals Freedom of complacency.

Freedom for America to kick plenty ass*

Freedom to be macho, to be number one*

Freedom to out-source and shut off the live-line of dreams

Freedom to protect politicians health and retirement needs

Freedom to deny care and entitlements for the everyone else

Freedom to peddle pills for all the illnesses they want us to have

Freedom to buy judges!*

Freedom for war! A fight for what peace

Freedom to turn collateral damage into profit

Freedom for overt…covert…war sleaze*

Freedom to carpet bomb evil empires into the oblivious

Freedom to call the “are you with me or are you against me” bluff

Freedom to whitewash hypocrisy

Freedom to claim that only adversaries are corrupt

Freedom to claim democracy…even we are not

Freedom to education with a price tag to ruin

Freedom for the police and guys with guns* to shoot what is not white the target…always the center of the heart

Freedom to squirt mace in little boy’s face*

Freedom to influence network news

Freedom to revive imperialism…Hail the fascists Camelot

Freedom to abandon Latin Human Rights*

Freedom to break human right agreements

Freedom to create the international court…but not comply

Freedom to burn the Koran by the fanatical Christian right

Freedom to claim that god wrote the constitution

Freedom to commingle church with state

Freedom to demand: “tear down that Berlin Wall”

Freedom to build that Mexican Wall…extra tall

Freedom for big banks not to fail

Freedom to screw…you…and never go to jail

Freedom to dwell in that tax free offshore stash

Freedom to hide inside the Panama Papers wash

Freedom to go to jail…if you…forgot to declare your dime

Freedom to steal your home…from that corrupted government loan

Freedom to commit a little (loophole) perjury*

Freedom to profit from your misery

Freedom to leak to the press what’s good for the 1% America, Freedom not to check what’s not true and who really said it

Freedom to the notion that democracy means: …ignorance is just as good as your knowledge

Freedom to suppress and character assassinate the whistleblower

Freedom to jail without charge in jails without jurisdiction

Freedom to bust you for grass if you please*

Freedom to be the #1 profitable incarcerated nation

Freedom to use a skate board, paddle board, surf board and water board torture

Freedom to buy elections, or by decision of the partisan Supreme Court

Freedom to overturn the peoples vote

Freedom to prevent the people to vote

Freedom to turn an election into a national freak show

Freedom to make state of the union promises…

Freedom to suffocate in political and small print morass

Freedom to put GMO, hormones and antibiotics into our food

Freedom to poison entitlements such as clean air and water

Freedom to take our country back…back to what?…slavery…women can’t vote??

Let me tell you:

Freedom… is you…the precious one…of the few…. Freedom is my poem of deep rooted fears

Freedom to withdraw… in soggy tears

Yes…Only thoughts are free…as nobody can guess what they see Ok: Shut the fuck up…dude…get it…we are the only country on this planet with such an abundance of Freedom ….Get it!....Got it!!!!

You Have The Right To Remain Silent

Aaron Wilder

You have the right to remain silent. Do words such as those always retain their power? I may be white, but I refuse to be blinded by the myth that we live in a post-racial society. Given the countless examples of racial tension in national media, the contemporary moment is clearly not colorblind. Maybe it is an example of what Dr. King referred to as the “tranquilizing drug of gradualism” back in August 1963.

You have the right to remain silent. What authority figure’s face is truly behind the racial turmoil of our present? We have the tendency to be insatiable when it comes to pointing the finger at anyone but ourselves. We must pay attention to see the truth at our national core, to unmask the ugly face beneath the residue of racism, to reveal what is concealed, to continue dramatizing this shameful condition. It is still racism. Many would point to the Confederate Flag as ground zero. There continues to be neither rest nor tranquility in the South or elsewhere as we can see from 2014 and 2015 alone:

STORAY, ARKANSAS MICHAEL LARAY DOZER, CALIFORNIA NATHANIEL PICKETT, CALIFORNIA JASON MOLAND, CALIFORNIA RAYSHAUN COLE, CALIFORNIA ANTOINE

DOMINIQUE HUNTER, CALIFORNIA EZELL FORD, CALIFORNIA ROY NELSON, CALIFORNIA 

TOMMY YANCY, CALIFORNIA PAUL RAY KEMP JR., CALIFORNIA BRANDON GLENN, CALIFORNIA 

CHARLY “AFRICA” LEUNDEU KEUNANG, CALIFORNIA BRIAN PICKETT, CALIFORNIA JACOREY

CALHOUN, CALIFORNIA RICHARD PERKINS, CALIFORNIA LEROY BROWNING, CALIFORNIA 

ALVIN HAYNES, CALIFORNIA ANTHONY ASHFORD, CALIFORNIA LAMONTEZ JONES, CALIFORNIA ANDRE MILTON, CALIFORNIA KRIS JACKSON, CALIFORNIA DANTE PARKER, CALIFORNIANAESCHYLUS VINZANT, COLORADOMICHAEL LEE MARSHALL, COLORADO 

LASHANOGILBERT,CONNECTICUT AMIRBROOKS,DISTRICTOFCOLUMBIA ALONZOSMITH, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA YVENS SEIDE, FLORIDA COREY LEVERT TANNER, FLORIDA 

CALVONREID,FLORIDA ANESSONJOSEPH,FLORIDA MARKUSCLARK,FLORIDA KALDRICK

DONALD, FLORIDA HOWARD WALLACE BOWE JR., FLORIDA TREON JOHNSON, FLORIDA 

VICTO LAROSA III, FLORIDA DAVID ANDRE SCOTT, FLORIDA DE’ANGELO STALLWORTH, FLORIDA BRIAN DEMARCUS WEST, FLORIDA WILLIE SAMS, FLORIDA CEDRIC STANLEY, FLORIDA JUNIOR PROSPER, FLORIDA LATANDRA ELLINGTON, FLORIDA CORNELIUS

BROWN, FLORIDA ALBERT DAVIS, FLORIDA SALVADO ELLSWOOD, FLORIDA MATTHEW

WALKER, FLORIDA JEREMY LETT, FLORIDA JERMAINE BENJAMIN, FLORIDA ANTHONY BARTLEY, FLORIDA JERRY BROWN, FLORIDA BERNARD MOORE, GEORGIA NICHOLAS THOMAS, GEORGIA

QUENTIN BYRD, GEORGIA JUSTIN SULLIVAN, GEORGIA ANTHONY HILL, GEORGIA ZIKARIOUS

FLINT, GEORGIA TROY ROBINSON, GEORGIA GREGORY LEWIS TOWNS JR., GEORGIA VERNICIA

WOODARD, GEORGIA ASKARI ROBERTS, GEORGIA MATTHEW AJIBADE, GEORGIA CHARLES

SMITH, GEORGIA GEORGE MANN, GEORGIA BRYAN OVERSTREET, GEORGIA WALLY FLEX, ILLINOIS DOMINIQUE FRANKLIN JR., ILLINOIS STEVEN ISBY, ILLINOIS BETTIE JONES, ILLINOIS 

TIARA THOMAS, INDIANA WENDELL HALL, KANSASKEVIN BAJOIE, LOUISIANA ROBERT

BALTIMORE, LOUISIANA CAMERON TILLMAN, LOUISIANA VICTOR WHITE III, LOUISIANA ELDRIN

SMART, LOUISIANA JEROME DEXTER CHRISTMAS, LOUISIANA FREDDIE GRAY,MARYLAND 

GEORGE KING, MARYLAND TYREE WOODSON, MARYLAND DARRELL BROWN, MARYLAND 

JAMEEL HARRISON, MARYLAND SPENCER MCCAIN, MARYLAND ARVEL DOUGLAS WILLIAMS, MARYLAND KEITH MCLEOD, MARYLAND DAJUAN GRAHAM, MARYLAND ASSHAMS MANLEY, MARYLAND MARK ANTHONY BLOCKER, MARYLAND MICHAEL RICARDO MINOR, MARYLAND 

SAMUEL SHIELDS, MARYLAND BRIATAY MCDUFFIE, MARYLAND DEONTRE DORSEY, MARYLAND 

BRIANT PAULA, MASSACHUSETTS KEVIN MATTHEWS, MICHIGAN JACQUELINE NICHOLS, MICHIGANDEANGELO WOODS, MICHIGAN WAYNE WHEELER, MICHIGAN JAMAR CLARK, MINNESOTA REGINALD MOORE, MISSISSIPPI JUSTIN GRIFFIN, MISSISSIPPI EMANUEL JEAN-

BAPTISTE, MISSISSIPPI TYRONE DAVIS, MISSISSIPPIJONATHAN SANDERS, MISSISSIPPI 

MICHAEL BROWN JR., MISSOURI CRAIG MCKINNIS, MISSOURI CHANDRA WEAVER, MISSOURI EUGENEWILLIAMS,MISSOURI 

MISSOURI EUGENEWILLIAMS,MISSOURI CHRISTOPHERJONES,MISSOURI THOMASALLEN

JR.,MISSOURI ANDRELARONEMURPHYSR.,NEBRASKACORTEZWASHINGTON,NEBRASKA

D’ANDRE BERGHARDT JR., NEVADAKEITH CHILDRESS, NEVADABRIAN DAY, NEVADAJOHN

WILSON, NEVADAJERAME REID, NEW JERSEY LAVON KING, NEW JERSEY TYREE

CRAWFORD, NEW JERSEY DAVID YEARBY, NEW JERSEY JASON CHAMPION, NEW JERSEY 

NUWNAH LAROCHE, NEW JERSEY PHILLIP WHITE, NEW JERSEY DONALD “DONTAY” IVY, NEWYORK DENZELBROWN,NEWYORK SAMUELHARRELL,NEWYORK DAVIDFELIX,NEW YORK ERIC GARNER, NEW YORK AKAI GURLEY, NEW YORK FELIX KUMI, NEW YORK 

RONALDSINGLETON,NEWYORK JEFFREYRAGLAND,NEWYORK RICHARDGREGORYDAVIS, NEW YORK MIGUEL ESPINAL, NEW YORK CHRISTOPHER MCCRAY, NORTH CAROLINA 

FLORENCEWHITE,NORTHCAROLINA SANDYJAMESMCCALL,NORTHCAROLINA LASHONDA

RUTH BELK, NORTH CAROLINA GREGORY DAQUAN HARRIS, NORTH CAROLINA MONTEZ

DEWAYNE HAMBRIC, NORTH CAROLINA JAMES CARNEY III, OHIO SAMUEL DUBOSE, OHIO 

TANISHA ANDERSON, OHIO BRANDON JONES, OHIO TAMIR RICE, OHIO JOHN CRAWFORD III, OHIO CHRISTOPHER KIMBLE, OHIO TERRANCE MOXLEY, OHIO RONDRE LAMAR HORNBEAK, OKLAHOMA DARRELL GATEWOOD, OKLAHOMA ERIC HARRIS, OKLAHOMA JEREMY LAKE, OKLAHOMA TERRY PRICE, OKLAHOMA DEANDRE LLOYD STARKS, OKLAHOMA KEVIN JUDSON, OREGONLESLIE SAPP, PENNSYLVANIA LEVAR JONES, SOUTH CAROLINA ALAN CRAIG WILLIAMS, SOUTH CAROLINERNEST SATTERWHITE, SOUTH CAROLINA WALTER SCOTT, SOUTH CAROLINA 

BRIAN ACTON, TENNESSEE EDDIERAY EPPERSON, TENNESSEE KEARA CROWDER, TENNESSEE DARRIUS STEWART, TENNESSEE CHRISTIAN TAYLOR, TEXAS YVETTE SMITH, TEXAS OLIVER JARROD GREGOIRE, TEXAS CHARLES GOODRIDGE, TEXAS ROSS ANTHONY, TEXAS JASON HARRISON, TEXAS JUAN MAY, TEXAS JORDAN BAKER, TEXAS TERRY LEE

CHATMAN, TEXAS BILLY RAY DAVIS, TEXAS HALLIS KINSEY, TEXAS KENNETH

CHRISTOPHER LUCAS, TEXAS FRANK SHEPHARD III, TEXAS ERIC RICKS, TEXAS DUSTIN KEITH

GLOVER, TEXAS NORMAN COOPER, TEXAS LEVON LEROY LOVE, TEXAS TIANO METON, TEXAS

DENNIS GRIGSBY, TEXAS MICHAELSABBIE, TEXAS IRETHALILLY, TEXAS SANDRABLAND, TEXAS DARRIEN NATHANIEL HUNT, UTAH DAVID MENDOZA, VIRGINIA DOMINICK WISE, VIRGINIA NATASHA MCKENNA, VIRGINIA WILLIAM CHAPMAN, VIRGINIA PATERSON BROWN, VIRGINIA INDIA KAGER, VIRGINIA LORENZO HAYES, WASHINGTON TONY ROBINSON,WISCONSIN DONTREHAMILTON,WISCONSIN

You have the right to remain silent. If injustice is withering, why do so many continue to sear in its flames? The chains of discrimination and racism in America continue to be perpetuated, fortified, exacerbated by:

 The prison industrial complex and other structural apparatuses continued from the slave plantation;

 Prioritization of militant nationalism over equality and unity among human beings and between humanity and the planet;

 Sexism, homophobia, and transphobia further disempowering any possible unity of the colonized masses;

 An institutionalized concept of Christianity damning that which is contrary to the power majority;

 An education system focusing on tuition and graduation metrics over critical thinking skills;

 Our short-sighted mentality and focus on instant gratification; and

 The economics of insatiable consumption otherwise referred to as the “American Dream”.

You have the right to remain silent. It may seem paradoxical for a white man to remind white America of ever-present racism, but I do not want to continue being an accomplice to complicity. You and I own this reality. We may both appreciate the feeling of safety that comes with the familiarity of our comfort zone, but there is the inevitable enunciation of truth that there is something wrong with our self-delusion of significant progress since 1963. We cannot be satisfied as long as fellow human beings continue to be staggered by the winds of police brutality. There is more to the South than just racism. There is more to racism that just the South.

You have the right to remain silent.

Checkpoint Carlos

Doerte Weber

I have lived in Texas since 1986. My husband is from McAllen in the Rio Grande Valley and through the years I have come to know that area. I enjoy the breezes, palm trees and the flatness of the land. I have also witnessed the change from an agricultural region with citrus orchards and fields of vegetables to an urban complex with vast residential subdivisions and typical chain stores and restaurants. This evolution began when NAFTA was approved 20 years ago.

Then 9/11 happened. And with that, immigrants who lived in the U.S. with a green card or illegally had to be afraid of being scrutinized for illegal activity even possibly terrorism.

I lived in Texas with a green card from 1988 to 2012, at which time I became a U.S. citizen. I grew up in what was then West Germany. Its border with Eastern Germany was highly protected and most obvious when one had to travel through eastern Germany to visit Berlin. The Berlin Wall completely cut off West Berlin from East Berlin and surrounding East Germany. The wall which ran through the city from 1961 - 1989 had graffiti art all over it. “Pieces of the fallen wall became precious mementos as art to buy and possess.

The border wall which divides the U.S. and Mexico varies from a 15-foot-high corrugated steel and concrete fence to a chain-link fence with railroad ties. Presently, it “covers only 700 miles of the proposed 2,000 miles border. When the partial border wall was built, memories of my home country's border division surfaced, a barrier which divided a former united country where people spoke the same language. I had to go down to the Valley to see what was done and how it impacted life on both sides of the border.

We were accustomed to going over to the Mexican town of Reynosa to shop or eat. That is now a security risk and not being done easily anymore. This hurts the economy in those border towns which rely on the heavy traffic by tourists.

Conversely, people from northern Mexico would come across the border into the U.S. to work.

People who have lived for generations in this flow of coming and going are now afraid to do so.

My installation, Checkpoint Carlos consist of 11 panels standing vertically in close proximity to the border wall. They form 10 passageways, 8 feet tall and 4 feet wide. Each panel is made of handwoven material. The warp consist of colorful cotton thread. The weft is made up of densely beaten plastic bags, recycled from the plastic wrappers of various newspapers. These bags come in many colors, from very soft neutral to strong orange and turquoise colors with some writing on them. They will last well through many years outside and can withstand sun, rain and wind without fading or ripping. The pattern woven into the pieces will be old traditional overshot weaving, providing a nice texture to flat surfaces.

Plastic bags from newspapers symbolize what newspapers give us: a connection to global events as much as to local happenings in our community. These bags are given to me by a vast variety of people of whom I know only a few. Even though the people who will see the installation will never meet the people who provided the materials, they are creating a community. One part would not be possible without the other. I am using old traditional overshot patterns which give an assurance of familiarity and a connection to our history. All who will see this installation will respond in their own way

But I hope that people will connect emotionally to the pieces and believe in our continued humanity which shows that we have more in common than what separates us.