20 Y ears of S olutions J ournalism
THE MYTH OF BIPARTISANSHIP: TIME TO GET TOUGH WITH THE RIGHT? HOW NOT TO BUY STUFF YOU DON’T REALLY NEED
no . 80 winter
2017
20th Anniversary Special Issue
SOLUTIONS STATE BY STATE A CELEBRATION OF COMMUNITY STRENGTH
MAINE’S CLEAN ELECTIONS
THE SPIRIT OF STANDING ROCK AND THE REVOLUTION WHERE YOU LIVE SARAH VAN GELDER
US $6.50 Canada $6.50
YesMagazine.org
COLORADO’S BACKYARD FARMERS LOUISIANA HELPS WOMEN OUT OF PRISON
+
AND 47 MORE!
THE REVOLUTIO WHERE YO
To reach and support those activists who locked themselves to pipeline equipment, water protectors walk a path carved out by the pipeline on Standing Rock Sioux sacred ancestral grounds.
8
yes ! winter
PHOTO BY ROB WILSON
2017 ::
yesmagazine . org
ON OU LIVE
The forces that would extract the last barrel of oil, frack the last rock formation, or put at risk the water supply of millions are powerful forces. Only together can communities overcome that power and create the conditions for the regeneration of life.
yesmagazine . org
::
yes ! winter
2017
9
Pacific Northwest tribes arrive at Standing Rock by canoe in the Cannonball tributary of the Missouri River.
Sarah van Gelder
T
he cedar canoes started out proudly from Bismarck, North Dakota, under threatening skies. The Northwest tribes had come a long way. Members of the Tlingit Nation had hauled their painted canoe more than 2,000 miles from Juneau, Alaska. Tribes from Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Montana also came, crossing the Rockies, some driving through
the night to answer the call from the Standing Rock Sioux. There were rumors of thunder and lightning storms as the paddlers gathered on the banks of the Missouri River, but these travelers were accustomed to harsh weather—many had paddled in the open Pacific and navigated inland waters with currents strong enough to cause massive standing waves and whirlpools.
10
yes ! winter
2017 ::
yesmagazine . org
Conditions in North Dakota were different, though. No one could remember ever seeing Northwestcarved cedar canoes on the waters of the Missouri River. With prayers and songs, the paddlers poured water collected from home into the river. Then, after some last photographs on the shore, they glanced skeptically at the one tiny aluminum support boat and launched into the current. The canoes and accompanying kayaks were on their way down the Missouri River to the encampments of self-described water protectors at Standing Rock. Over the months that encampments had grown up along the Cannonball
YES! PHOTO BY SARAH VAN GELDER
River at Standing Rock, Native people have entered the camps on foot, in caravans of cars and trucks, and on horseback. They have come from as far away as Ecuador and Norway, and from as close as the neighboring Cheyenne River Reservation. Many brought their own stories of battles with resource companies—stories of wealth taken, and of polluted water, air, and soil left behind. So when members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe called for help stopping the Dakota Access pipeline, the story had a familiar ring. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had fast-tracked approval for the pipeline, which was to carry 450,000 barrels per day of pressurized fracked oil from the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota to Illinois, where it would link to another pipeline that would carry it to the Gulf of Mexico. The project, deemed too risky to build upstream from the water supply of the mostly White city of Bismarck, North Dakota, was rerouted to cross the Missouri River just a few miles upstream from the tribe’s reservation. In spite of a visit by President Obama, the Standing Rock tribe had been mostly alone in its fight to stop a project it sees as a threat to their existence. That is, until dozens, then hundreds, and eventually thousands of Native and non-Native people joined in. Toward fall they endured several rounds of mass arrests during violent confrontations with a militarized police force. “It’s a no-brainer,” Wanda Johnson of the Burns, Oregon, Paiute tribe said when I asked her why she’d answered the call to join the Standing Rock Sioux in opposing the pipeline. “Without water, what will the people do? What will the farmers do? What will the animals do?” Johnson said. “Somebody has to stand up and say this is enough!” A Bigger, Changing Story
The fate of Standing Rock matters not only to those who stand to lose access to clean water on the reservation and in cities and towns downstream. It also represents a powerful challenge to
a global system that takes the land and resources of those less powerful, leaving behind poverty, pollution, displacement, and, in many cases, the annihilation of a people. Standing Rock is an unfolding story, very much in progress, of what it might mean to put people first, along with a stable climate and a livable world for future generations. It offers a glimpse of how we might live together, while also protecting other forms of life. We founded YES! Magazine 20 years ago to tell stories like this about people fighting for their communities, health, liberation, loved ones, and for Mother Earth—stories about people who believe that the world can be a better place and that they can help make it so. When we started in 1996, we believed that the much-celebrated prosperity of that decade was illusory. Many believed climate change was a distant threat—it wasn’t. A rising tide of economic growth was supposed to lift all boats and alleviate poverty and inequality—it didn’t. Racism wasn’t discussed in most public arenas, especially those controlled by White people who believed the issue could be safely ignored—it couldn’t be. The signs were there to be seen. We were an unjust society on an unsustainable path. Today, the urgent need for change and the societal anxiety have only increased, creating fertile ground for the rise of a demagogue like Donald Trump. But as the lock hold of the status quo loosens, generative change also becomes more possible, and we can see that positive alternatives were arising from the creativity and fresh leadership emerging everywhere, especially at the grassroots. When we started YES!, we set out to report on what was, in fact, emerging. Hate and despair can bring out more of the same, but so can positive change, solidarity, innovations of all sorts—if the news gets out. So we talked to internationally renowned visionaries, and to people who were growing food in empty city lots. We reported on changemakers in the gritty neighborhoods of Detroit and in crunchy Northern California. We researched the U.S. prison
system and the alternatives, examined the meaning of real health and how we get it, and we looked for the best solutions to the climate crisis. We talked to people protecting their watersheds from corporations, and to those who were starting worker cooperatives and local food systems. As of this, our 80th issue, we’ve covered a lot of leadingedge change. And here are a few things we found: The changes are holistic. People’s lives are not segmented into issues or sectors, and neither are the movements they lead. So now we see movements for climate justice that also explore new economic solutions; or Black Lives Matter, which promotes the leadership of women and LGBTQ people, for example. We are whole people, so why wouldn’t we work for whole-systems change? And why wouldn’t we want to work together? The stories that guide our lives are shifting. Our culture has put money, consumerism, and profit first, discounting the value of authentic relationships and the natural world. But increasingly, people are reassessing what matters most, and considering their responsibilities to one another and to future generations. The rise of indigenous leadership is influencing many as they rethink what’s important. We are physical, embodied creatures who can’t thrive in a poisoned environment. We are the water, and air, and the Earth, and even the microbes that live in our guts and in the soil. To paraphrase Walt Whitman, we contain multitudes. We can learn and create things wholly new, and we can build on the learning of past eras to change things in the next. We have the capacity for empathy and for deep understanding, and a yearning for connection. That may be why so much joy is unleashed when people break through divides and recognize their common humanity. And we are capable of making choices. Perhaps that’s the lesson of this era of climate brinkmanship, yesmagazine . org
::
yes ! winter
2017
11
ND: Protecting Farms | 32
WA: Blocking Fossil Fuels | 18
MN: Real Estate Co-op
MT: Wildlife Highways | 25
ID: Organizing for LGBT Rights | 25
WI: B SD: Lakota Economics | 32
OR: Parenting From Prison | 16
MI: Communit WY: Reviving Bison | 24
CA: Living Wage Jobs | 21
IA: Welcoming Refug NE: Green Economies | 27
UT: Navajo Representation | 24
MO: Healing Racism | 27 CO: Backyard Gardening | 16 KS: Reviving Rural Groceries | 28 NV: From Chain to Co-op | 17 OK: A Cherokee Seed Bank | 23 AZ: Defending Immigrants | 23 AR: Lowering Recidivism | 40 NM: Protecting Water Traditions | 22
TX: LGBT Megachurch | 22
HI: Restoring Native Land | 17
LA: Women’s Decarceration | 38
AK: Preserving Families | 21
SOLUTIONS BY TOPIC:
14
yes ! winter
2017 ::
yesmagazine . org
Community Health
Conservation
Local Democracy
MA: Taxing Carbon | 49 NH: Buying the Neighborhood | 48
ME: Clean Elections | 46 RI: Urban Food Forest | 49
p | 34
VT: Sharing Goats | 50
Blocking a Mine | 26
CT: Fix-It Shop | 45
NY: Sustainable Housing | 45
NJ: Watching the Police | 49
ty Education | 33
MD: Expanding Voting Rights | 44
PA: Civil Disobedience | 48
gees | 30
DE: Supporting Immigrants | 44
OH: Union Co-ops | 25 IL: Community Biking | 31
WV: Heritage Tourism | 44
IN: Looser Drug Laws | 26
KY: Citizen Forestry | 43 TN: Youth-Led Biking | 42
VA: Ending School Policing | 37
SOLUTIONS
NC: Cooperative Grocery | 42
A STATE-BY-STATE CELEBRATION OF THE CREATIVITY AND RESILIENCE OF COMMUNITIES
SC: Buying Families Homes | 37
AL: Organizing Immigrants | 37 GA: Trans Activism | 43 MS: Black-Owned Land | 41 FL: Native-Centered Education | 42
Food
Living Economies
Justice & Equality
W
e tracked some of our favorite solutions from each of the 50 states, looking for ideas and innovations that show what can happen when people come together to make their communi-
ties better. These ideas addressed some of our country’s greatest needs—starting with the need to safeguard and strengthen democracy. All around the country, we found people making determined moves away from fossil fuels; breakthrough economic ideas that create quality jobs and boost real wealth—not just profits; projects designed to grow healthier food and happier people; and groups who have discovered ways to respect, protect, and empower everyone. So how did we choose? We looked for solutions that came from the ground up. Though some of them led to bigger policy changes, they all had at their roots the passion and organizing power of regular people. We looked for solutions that could be models—though they grew from the needs and genius of particular places, they can be adopted and hacked to change things elsewhere. Some of them already have been; some of them were inspired by what others far away did. Perhaps most importantly, we looked for solutions that by their very nature brought communities closer together. Here’s what we found. —Christa Hillstrom
yesmagazine . org
::
yes ! winter
2017
15
WEST
Washington
TRIBES LINK ARMS AGAINST FOSSIL FUELS WIELDING HUNDREDS OF YEARS OF TREATIES, WASHINGTON TRIBES TAKE A STAND
T Terri Hansen
he Quinault Indian Nation encompasses 200,000 acres of magnificent, productive forests, swift-flowing rivers, gleaming lakes, and 23 miles of pristine Pacific coastline. The Quinault River flows from deep in the Olympic Mountains through a lush temperate rainforest to Lake Quinault before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. It’s a short hike from the Lake Quinault Lodge to visit some of the tallest hemlock, Douglas-fir, and
Western red cedar trees, and the largest Sitka spruce tree in the world. The Quinault own and manage Lake Quinault and the Quinault River from the lake to the Pacific Ocean, and co-manage the fisheries throughout their fishing areas—inland and at sea. But the tribe’s ancestral lands and resources are under threat by Houstonbased Westway Terminals, which has applied for permits to expand its current crude oil shipping and storage facilities in Grays Harbor, Washington. If approved, the expansion would add capacity to receive, store, and ship about 17.8 million barrels of oil annually by rail, and store an additional million barrels on site. It’s one of many proposed projects that would increase the transfer of raw fossil fuels to proposed ports on the Pacific coast, dubbed the “gateway to the Pacific,” for
18
yes ! winter
2017 ::
yesmagazine . org
export to lucrative Asian markets. In response, the Quinault have joined a growing coalition of other governments and allies to form a resistance to fossil fuel expansion along the West Coast, at the heart of which is hundreds of years of treaty rights and case law. “We are a fishing, hunting, gathering people who care deeply about our land, water, and resources, as well as all life dependent on a healthy ecosystem,” said Fawn Sharp, the nation’s president. “These proposals threaten our economy, our environment, and our culture.” Treaties, according to the U.S. Constitution, are the supreme law of the land, and do not expire. Many agreements between the federal government
Members of the Lummi Nation burn a symbolic check in protest of the proposed Gateway Pacific coal export terminal in 2012. The terminal was eventually defeated when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ruled that the project would impact the Lummi Nation’s fishery at Cherry Point, which is protected under the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott.
PHOTO BY PAUL ANDERSON
yesmagazine . org
::
yes ! winter
2017
19
MIDWEST Indiana
UNDERGRADS TAKE DOWN UNFAIR DRUG LAW
I
n 2007, four undergraduates from DePauw University showed up at the Indiana Senate to oppose a bill that would expand the state’s “drugfree zone” law to include bus stops and schools. Such policies have been adopted around the country since the 1970s, imposing harsher penalties on dealers doing business where children are present. Though the premise made sense on paper, the law’s potential impacts in the college’s hometown of Indianapolis became a class project. When the students mapped out the proposed expansion in relation to Black and Latino neighborhoods, they found that Indianapolis would become a superzone: Virtually anywhere drugs were sold in the city fell within it, penalizing offenders with decades-long prison sentences. Nonviolent offenders—particularly people of color—were already disproportionately affected by sentencing laws. The students found that in Indiana, a Black man was 18 times more likely to be imprisoned on drug charges than a White man, even though their rates of drug use are roughly the same. In Indianapolis, where 35 percent of the population is Black, harsher sentences would only exacerbate the disparity. Kelsey Kauffman, the students’ professor, recalls a contentious meeting: “It turned into a knock-down, dragout fight between the Democrats and Republicans.” The bill was later defeated in the Indiana House of Representatives. Similar bills were proposed in the years to come. By 2013, lawmakers had scaled back the size of the zones from a radius of 1,000 feet to 500 feet, making Indiana one of the most progressive states in the nation when it comes to drug-free zoning. —Araz Hachadourian
26
yes ! winter
2017 ::
yesmagazine . org
Activists Joe Rose, Gary Quaderer, and Paul DeMain, all of Ojibwe descent, tie eagle feathers to a staff erected at the entrance of the Harvest Education Learning Project Camp in Wisconsin. Music, food, and ceremony are part of the teaching process at the camp.
Wisconsin
OJIBWE TRIBE PUSHES INDUSTRY TO ABANDON PLANS FOR OPEN-PIT MINE
T
he drill rigs are gone. A couple of dozen boreholes lie abandoned where mining company Gogebic Taconite had dug core samples for what was to be the largest open pit mine in the United States. Until last year, construction of the GTAC iron ore mine was underway in Wisconsin’s Northwoods despite protests from environmental activists. But opposition grew stronger as a coalition of local scientists, activists, and Native Americans worked to fight the mining proposal, which they argued would have contaminated vital wetlands. Ojibwe tribal member Paul DeMain says tailings from the mine would have harmed thousands of species of plants and animals in the Penokee Range and destroyed the Ojibwe tribe’s livelihood by tainting its water supply. Ojibwe members who live on the Bad River Reservation just south of the proposed mine site rely on water from the Penokee Hills, which flows down the lower
basin of Lake Superior and the Bad River. In March 2015, GTAC announced it was dropping plans to build the $1.5 billion mine. The decision followed an independent environmental assessment conducted by local scientists from nearby Northland College, who worked with the Ojibwe tribe to map out all the potential hazards. According to Glenn Stoddard, an attorney for the tribe, their treaty with the U.S. government guarantees the Ojibwe the right to hunt, fish, and gather on that very land. But what halted the mine, he says, was public pressure on GTAC from groups inside and outside the reservation. Raising awareness about the mining project and its environmental risks was therefore critical, says DeMain, who started the Harvest Education and Learning Program. Operating alongside the mine site on public land, HELP teaches Natives and non-Natives about the Ojibwe’s dependence on Bad River’s water and land. “When you’re fighting the potential for contamination, water becomes the bottom line,” he says. — Jaime Alfaro
PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL DEMAIN
MIDWEST
Nebraska
“MADE IN THE NEB” CREATES A NETWORK OF LOCAL FARMS, BUSINESSES
I
At Davey Road Ranch in Lancaster County, Nebraska, Ben Gotschall, energy and local food director of Bold Nebraska, produces artisanal meats and cheeses, including grass-fed beef, free-range duck, and handmade cheese, while building grassland health and quality.
Missouri
AFTER FERGUSON, A HOMEGROWN SPACE FOSTERS HEALING
I
n the weeks following the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, Wellspring Church in Ferguson became a space for protestors to meet, talk about issues, and strategize for change. Two years have passed, but Wellspring’s pastor, The Rev. F. Willis Johnson Jr., wants to keep those conversations going. He teamed up with another local church to create The Center for Social Empowerment, hoped to be an incubator for social justice solutions in Ferguson. The center stems from the idea that while policy changes are needed—like those recommended in a 2015 U.S. Department of Justice report—they don’t address the problem of racism within the community. To do that, Johnson says, the experiences of individual community members need to be considered. The center holds monthly conversations that are open to the community and partners with organizations and schools
PHOTO BY MARY ANNE ANDREI FOR BOLD NEBRASKA
to bring discussions to them. The meetings engage participants in reflecting on their own experiences with race and hearing the stories of others. This creates a shift from “debate rhetoric” to dialogue, says Nicki Reinhardt-Swierk, one of the program’s coordinators. “When we can get people to realize that the world as they understand it is not the world as experienced by other people, that’s how you start seeding change and sprouting action.” In these forums, participants discuss actions they can implement in their own lives to change the role race plays in their community. Those actions don’t always include protesting, explains Reinhardt-Swierk. They might be recognizing the racist connotations of the word “thug” or changing the way an elderly woman interacts with a cashier. “From [conversations] we can raise a healthy and loving challenge,” adds Johnson. “Now that I know better, I can push myself to do better. I can see my role in reconciliation and in my community.” —Araz Hachadourian
n 2012, a group of Nebraska ranchers learned the Keystone XL pipeline would pass through their lands. Determined to stop it, they teamed up with environmental advocacy group Bold Nebraska and tribal communities along the proposed pipeline route to create the Cowboy and Indian Alliance. The coalition protested in members’ home states and in Washington, D.C., eventually winning a veto from President Obama that halted construction. Coming together around an anti-corporate project got Nebraskans organized and introduced them to one another, says Jane Kleeb, Bold Nebraska’s founder. After succeeding, Kleeb says, locals started to explore moving away from a dependence on fossil fuels while supporting local farmers and businesses. So they started Made in the Neb, a directory of more than two dozen sustainable Nebraskan businesses that range from ranches to small shops selling skateboards or artisanal soaps. Made in the Neb aims not only to encourage people to buy local but also to provide examples of what is possible. “[We want to] show there are alternatives—alternative ways to buy meat, alternative ways to put up energy,” says Kleeb, who hopes the project will help overcome Nebraska’s reputation as a red state with little interest in the environment. Art Tanderup joined Bold Nebraska after learning that the Keystone XL pipeline would pass 600 feet from his corn, soy, and rye fields. He started investigating solar energy and eventually installed panels on his land. Since the launch of Made in the Neb in May, Tanderup says he’s had more than 400 people come by his farm to learn how he did it: “It’s something people see that they can do to make a difference.” —Araz Hachadourian yesmagazine . org
::
yes ! winter
2017
27
Louisiana
WOMEN WHO SEE BEYOND PRISONS FOR DECADES, WOMEN WITH A VISION HAS GIVEN BLACK WOMEN WHAT THEY NEED TO GET HEALTHY AND SAFE—AND STAY OUT OF PRISON 38
yes ! winter
2017 ::
yesmagazine . org
Executive Director Deon Haywood sits with Women With A Vision staff: (left to right, front) Desiree Evans, Michelle Wiley, Mwende Katwiwa, Deon Haywood, (left to right, back) Raven Frederick, Nia Weeks, Dianne Jones.
SOUTH
F
Zenobia Jeffries orty-four-year-old Dianne Jones of New Orleans says she’s 30, and will always be 30. It’s not that she’s afraid of getting old, or lying about her age. Thirty is the number of years she was sentenced to serve at a Louisiana prison in 1993. It is also the number of years her 27-year-old son was sentenced to serve for armed robbery in 2006. “It’s like a pain that we thrive off of, because you know
30 years is something that I can’t believe. It’s a mark on me,” says Jones. “Once I had it, now my kid has it.” PHOTO BY LAURA MCTIGHE, WOMEN WITH A VISION
Jones has been in and out of the Louisiana penal system since age 14, when she was arrested and sentenced to two years for stealing a car. The final straw came in January 2014, when she served a weeklong sentence for marijuana possession at Orleans Parish Prison, the city jail for New Orleans. The jail’s “tent city,” now torn down, was assembled in 2006 as a temporary holding facility for prisoners after Hurricane Katrina. “A week in hell” is how she describes her time in the leech-infested tent with about 200 other women. When she was released at one o’clock in the morning, Jones says, she had determined that that would be her last time behind bars. “Imagine how scared I was, as a woman walking the streets like that by myself at that time.” Jones says she doesn’t want any other woman to be in that position. So for the next year and a half, she volunteered with groups that helped ex-offenders—mostly men—and worked to start her own program to help women transition back to regular life after prison. Then she came across Women With A Vision (WWAV). “It’s a place where you can get whatever you need,” she says of the social justice nonprofit, which specializes in helping marginalized women of color. “And if they don’t have it, they can point you in the direction to somewhere that does.” WWAV staff estimates that the group has helped more than 120,000 women since its grassroots beginning nearly 30 years ago. Its work has focused mostly on “harm reduction”—reducing negative consequences of drug use—as well as improving awareness of health issues, but recently has expanded to decriminalizing sex workers. In the past five years, WWAV has helped to launch a legal campaign and diversion program to help sex workers caught up in the criminal justice system avoid jail. Because the population of women yesmagazine . org
::
yes ! winter
2017
39
YES! BUT HOW? DIY WAYS TO LIVE SUSTAINABLY
yesmagazine . org
::
yes ! winter
2017
59
60
yes ! winter
2017 ::
yesmagazine . org
Give the Gift of YES! Inspiration All Year Long
YES! HOLIDAY GIFT SALE Save 63% on Gift Subscriptions SECRETS TO A LONG LIFE: THE LATINO PARADOX
P owerful I deas , P ractIcal a ctIons
STRONG FRIENDSHIPS DEFYING DEMENTIA WHY “MANNING UP” IS THE WORST THING TO DO
no .
IT’S OK IF WINTER MAKES YOU SAD
76
winter
2016
HOW TO CREATE A CULTURE OF
GOOD HEALTH MIND + BODY + COMMUNITY
THE ANTIDEPRESSANT, ANTI-ANXIETY BACKYARD GARDEN
One low price. Now, with unlimited access to both print and digital editions.
+
ONE TRIBE STANDS IN THE WAY OF THREE PIPELINES THE DEAL THAT RETURNED THE COLORADO RIVER TO MEXICO
SAVE TIME—ORDER ONLINE. Or call 800-937-4451. Or use the order card on Page 11.
YesMagazine.org/gifts Nonprofit. Independent. Subscriber-supported.