J ournalism for P eople B uilding a B etter W orld
W inter 2020
Moore’s Ford Bridge is considered the site of the nation’s last mass lynching.
Deradicalization in the Deep South HOW A FORMER NEO-NAZI MAKES AMENDS
The
BUILDING BRIDGES Issue
HOW TO MAKE AMENDS, REPAIR, HEAL Yes, You Can Change Someone’s Mind (But Not With Facts) Why Reparations Is Not Only an Amount of Money—It’s Healing
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Issue 92 YesMagazine.org
+ The Importance
of Friendly Civil Disobedience
YES! BUT HOW
Recipes by Alexandra van Alebeek Illustrations by Fran Murphy
A COUNTERCULTURE Loaf of Bread: As more home bakers
rediscover how to capture wild yeast and turn it into nourishing loaves of bread, they are part of a growing kitchen movement standing up to the industrial food system.
Wild Yeasts and Ancient Grains STEP 1
Capture wild yeast and make your own sourdough starter Sourdough bread begins with the starter, made by capturing wild yeast from the environment and using it to ferment flour and water. Because yeast cultures vary depending on where you are, every sourdough starter tastes a little different. Here's how to make your own sourdough starter using an ancient grain. You’ll need: Quart mason jar with lid All-purpose einkorn flour Water Scale
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Day 1: Mix 60g of flour with 60g of water, and let it sit for 24 hours at room temperature. (Do not sterilize your jar. Your starter uses naturally occurring and varied yeasts and lactobacilli bacteria from your environment.) Day 2-5: Repeat the flour-water feeding. You should notice bubbles around day 2 or 3 (exciting—your starter is alive!). Once this happens, store your starter in the refrigerator to slow down fermentation. Day 6: At this point you should have an active starter. Give it a name! Throw out half your starter and give it a hearty meal of 100g flour and 100g water. To keep your starter alive, you’ll need to feed it equal parts water and flour every third day or so. I usually recommend 60g of water and 60g flour. If you’re not planning to bake bread at the feeding time, throw out half the starter before feeding to keep your starter at a manageable size. It can take two to three bread-baking cycles before your starter is strong and yields predictable results. Professional bakeries have had their starters for generations.
STEP 2
Make bread with an ancient grain Flour: I chose einkorn wheat for this recipe. Einkorn was domesticated around 9000 B.C. Little about the grain has changed as it nearly became extinct and was never hybridized for industrial markets. Einkorn is noted for higher protein and nutrient content as well as gluten that is more digestible than that in industrial wheat. Emmer and spelt are also ancient grains that work for bread baking. You can experiment with different types and ratios of flour as long as the total added flour equals 500g. For example, if you’re looking for a denser bread try a higher ratio of whole wheat flour. Tools: There are a couple tools you might want to consider adding to your toolbox. Only the scale is absolutely necessary, but all will make bread-baking considerably easier.
Scale Cast iron Dutch oven with lid Banneton (or an 8-inch bowl with a heavily floured tea towel inside) Lamé (or a razor or sharp serrated knife)
Time: 2.5 hours plus a 12-hour cold bulk fermentation.
Ingredients: 100g mature sourdough starter 350g room temp water 400g all-purpose einkorn flour 100g whole wheat einkorn flour 11g salt mixed with 20g water
Instructions: 1. Add the starter, water, and flour in a bowl. Mix well so that no dry flour remains. The mixture will be quite sticky, do not worry. Let sit for 10–20 minutes. 2. Add the salt and water mixture to the bread dough. Incorporate, mixing only as much as necessary. Let sit 10–20 minutes. 3. Folding: In the bowl, grab the bottom of the north side of the dough. Stretch until just before it rips and then fold the dough towards you threequarters of the way. Take the south side of the dough, stretch, and fold all the way over. Repeat this process with the east and west sides. Let the bread rest for 20 minutes. Then repeat this folding and resting step three more times. 4. Shaping: Lightly flour your work surface. Take the dough out of the bowl, and shape it so that it’s rectangular, arranging it so that the short side faces you. Take the south side of the dough, stretch it, and fold it up three-quarters of the way. Take the east side of the bread, stretch it, and fold it up and to the left. Repeat this with the west side. Then take the north flap and fold it all the way over the bread. Roll the dough so that the folding seams are underneath, touching your counter. Use your hands to push the dough away from your body and then tuck it back toward you, creating surface tension along the outside of the dough. Rotate the dough with each push and tuck and continue this motion until the boule is a uniform shape with strong surface tension. This is not kneading, but shaping. Most sourdough, including this one, is actually a no-knead bread. We want the natural yeast to do as much of the work as possible. 5. Place your bread seam-side up in a lightly flowered banneton. Cover with a tea towel and place it in the refrigerator for 12 hours. 6. Next day, preheat your oven (with the Dutch oven in it) to 500 degrees. Take out the Dutch oven, and gently roll your bread into it directly from the refrigerator. Sprinkle some flour on the top and score the dough by slashing the top. Put the lid on the Dutch oven and bake the loaf for 25 minutes. Then take the lid off, and bake for another 15–20 minutes. 7. Remove the bread from the Dutch oven, and allow it to cool for about 10 minutes before slicing, sharing, and enjoying!
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Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino are Ohlone, people indigenous to the San Francisco Bay Area. They run Cafe Ohlone in Berkeley, which serves three kinds of bread—none with industrial flour.
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Flour Power
Ancient grains. Little-known tiny grains. Mighty locally adapted grains. They are all rising up to replace your All Purpose Flour. It’s not just baking, it’s a battle for our food system. Story by Liz Carlisle | Photos by Federica Armstrong
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PEOPLE WE LOVE
Yasmeen Wafai
DRAG QUEEN ACTIVISTS in popular culture with the success of RuPaul’s Drag Race and drag shows in nightlife venues throughout the country. For some performers, though, drag is about more than just developing a persona and lip-syncing to dance hits on stage. Meet three drag queens who have combined activism with drag, and have fought for everything from LGBTQ rights to anti-violence efforts. They've made a big splash
VIVICA C. COXX
SISTER ROMA
HONEY MAHOGANY
This North Carolina-born a n d r a i s e d drag queen is the interim executive director of the LGBTQ Center of Durham and has been performing in drag since 2013. Since then, Coxx has started their own social justice drag troupe, House of Coxx. The troupe is made up of 15 people and is based out of Durham, they said, but has performers in other states as well. Coxx said they have always been into activism and advocacy. They have worked as a peer mentor for an elementary school and have also worked with nonprofits. They said they were offered internships that paid very well, but they didn’t accept the positions because they wanted to work with people who felt different and help them be more comfortable. Coxx’s troupe puts on shows that are relevant to current events, they said. Their first show concerned the importance of giving enthusiastic consent in sexual activity, and other shows have covered pride, honoring Black femmes and trans women of color, and a tribute to the victims of the Orlando shooting. “My drag creates space for people to breathe for the first time in a really long time,” Coxx said.
In 1985, S i st e r R o m a m o v e d to San Francisco from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and met The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a nonprofit organization made up of queer and transgender "nuns" who focus on community service, ministry, and outreach to people living on the edges of society. She became enamored with the group and has been a sister for 32 years. Roma has been active in the fight against HIV and AIDS and raises money for those impacted. She has also worked with LGBTQ youth, anti-violence campaigns, and more. “I need to make the world a better place,” she said. Perhaps her most viral activism effort was when she created the #MyNameIs hashtag campaign to call out Facebook for its real names policy. Roma said she fought to help people understand that LGBTQ people have identities that are authentic and can’t always be proven with a piece of paper, and that Facebook’s policy facilitates harassment and violence against a vulnerable population.
Before
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s h e wa s
a c o n t e sta n t
on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Honey Mahogany was a college student in California who was passionate about social justice. When approached by a friend to participate in their film project in drag, Mahogany accepted and found the experience empowering. Mahogany said a lot of drag is centered on fundraising. Drag shows have been a way to raise money for those who live with HIV and AIDS and for other LGBTQ causes, she said. Participating in drag means throwing out and challenging social constructs, and there is a part of drag that is innately centered on social justice and activism, Mahogany said. “It’s its own kind of activism,” she said. Drag and activism are powerful together because drag is a way of getting people’s attention, she said. While activism can happen without drag, it can also help provide a platform for social justice.
Bridging Our Differences in a Breaking World
IN DEPTH
The
BUILDING BRIDGES Issue
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DERADICALIZATION IN THE DEEP SOUTH How a former neo-Nazi makes amends. Story by DJ Cashmere | Photos by Sara Wise
Shannon Martinez, right, does her deradicalization work at home on a phone, surrounded by her family, including daughter Jane Foley.
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ANALYSIS
YES, YOU CAN CHANGE SOMEONE’S MIND But facts alone won’t do it, researchers say. Amanda Abrams
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h e r e ’s s o m e t h i n g fa scina t ing a bou t s t o r i e s that recount a major change of heart. Like the one of C.P. Ellis, a White member of the KKK, and Ann Atwater, a Black community activist, who in 1971 were thrown together as co-chairs of a group focused on school desegregation in Durham, North Carolina. Initially mistrustful of one another, they soon saw how much they had in common. Eventually, Ellis renounced his Klan membership and the two became close friends. Or the one about John Robbins, the animal rights activist, who tells of visiting a pig farmer who housed his livestock in cramped, inhumane conditions. Over dinner and conversation, the farmer—a stoic, rigid man—broke down, remembering his grief over having to kill a pet pig as a child. Eventually, Robbins reports, the man abandoned pig farming altogether. What brings about these kind of deep changes? We all have closely held beliefs that form the basis of much of our thinking and actions. What does it take to shift them—and how can others facilitate the process? I’m asking this as we enter the 2020 campaign season and a presidential election that is probably the most significant in a generation. Sure, it’s important to respect others’ opinions; none of us has the corner on the truth, and we can have wildly different ideas about which policies are best for the country. But racism, sexism, xenophobia, meanness, hate? No. Those are never acceptable responses. So whether you’re talking to your Trump-loving father-in-law, a neighbor who repeats Fox News talking points about “criminal” children detained at the border, or a friend from college who’s Two particpants in a San Francisco Make America Dinner Again event give empathy and storytelling a try. That’s what researchers say is needed to increase understanding. PHOTO BY MAYKEL LOOMANS
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CULTURE SHIFT
Small Works How to Find Time for Friendly Civil Disobedience | 60
The YES! Crossword Building Bridges | 64
Powerful Ideas Emerging
Teachers protest in Morgantown, West Virginia. They went on strike in Februrary 2018 over health care costs and pay. The strike inspired similar strikes across the nation. Opposite page: Appalachia stereotypes came from common images from the War on Poverty era of the mid-1960s, when President Lyndon Johnson and Ladybird Johnson visited Tom Fletcher in Martin County, Kentucky.
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PHOTO BY SPENCER PLATT/GETTY
GRANNY HAZEL TAUGHT ME HOW TO FEED THE CHICKENS. Hold the ear of dried corn in both hands and twist to pry the kernels from the cob, then throw it out into the yard for the waiting chickens to eat. I loved watching them peck away at the ground, eating the corn our family had grown that summer. At 5 years old, I’m sure I thought the chickens were her pets. Maybe I thought she just fed them like that because she liked to watch them peck at the ground, too, softly clucking as they did so. It wasn’t until years later that I learned she killed those chickens by twisting their necks with her bare hands to feed her family. This gentle, kind woman did what she had to do, just like countless Appalachian women before, during, and after her time.
Granny Hazel was a complex, fully realized person, as are all Appalachian people. But, because of the images propagated about the region by media and Hollywood, most only know Appalachia as one thing. Either the kind granny teaching her granddaughter to feed the chickens, or the necessary violence that is killing your own animals to eat them. Stories about Appalachia, who tells them and who gets to claim them, matter a great deal when it comes to understanding the place and people more fully. And that understanding is critical, because without a deeper and more complete understanding of Appalachia, it will be hard for its people to build a brighter future that crosses lines of division and works toward parity between race and class. Appalachia has been portrayed in various oversimplified and negative ways throughout modern history. Scholars such as Meredith McCarroll point out that the common stereotypical images of the region that most people know today came from the War on Poverty era of the mid-1960s. The images were voraciously mined by media makers shortly after President Lyndon Johnson stood on Tom Fletcher’s porch in Martin County, Kentucky, to declare his administration would fight tirelessly to end American poverty. These images—of an all-white populace, depressed-looking men hunched over from years working in the mines, dirty-faced and barefoot children, and women in shift dresses, holding a baby in one arm, cooking over a wood stove with the other—have defined Appalachia for at least two generations. In her new book, Unwhite: Appalachia, Race and Film (University of Georgia Press, 2018), McCarroll tells us these images are buttressed by generations of images that came before: the lazy, shiftless, oftentimes violent hillbilly man and his over-sexualized wife with their many underfed children. That these images have now shifted to be more about the out-of-work but noble coal miner, is nothing new; this trend of “rediscovering” Appalachia happens every 20–30 years, right about when the nation needs an explanation for some kind of major shift in economy or politics. But what
PHOTO FROM LBJ PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
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The Lies We’re Told About Appalachia The old exploitative images are indelible: out of work, White, needy. They obscure the region’s diversity and long tradition of activism. Ivy Brashear
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