BY JUDITH TACKETT
Any vendor of The Contributor can accept VENMO as payment. Technology is a barrier to those experiencing homelessness. Many of our vendors don’t have phones or bank accounts, or use online commerce. Thus we simplified the VENMO process by using one account for all vendors. This means YOU MUST IDENTIFY YOUR VENDOR when using VENMO. Here is the skinny on how to do it right.
#1 You must have a VENMO account. Sign up at www.venmo.com if you haven’t already.
#2 SCAN THE SQUARE QR CODE in the top left corner of the cover of this paper using your phone or tablet camera. Then press the button that appears once it has been recognized.
#3 CLICK the blue “Pay or Request” button on the screen with The Contributor yellow and black logo.
#4 TYPE in the amount you wish to pay The paper costs $2. Tips are welcomed. Vendors get all the money you send and can pick it up the next business day at our office.
#5 Most importantly, TYPE YOUR VENDOR’S NAME AND BADGE # in the “What’s this for?” box. Then hit the PAY button. Their name and 4 digit badge #
should be written on the front cover of the paper below the QR code. You must identify them to insure they will get the money. First name, last initial and 4 digit badge # will ensure that a vendor with a similar name doesn’t get confused for your vendor. You can also leave feedback in this field. But always identify the vendor. If they didn’t write their name or badge # on the cover of this paper, please describe where they were and what they looked like. This usually can identify them.
#6 HIT THE PAY BUTTON.
#7 The FIRST TIME you pay anyone using VENMO you will be asked to enter the last 4 digits of their phone number. Type 6829 in this field. Our phone number is (615) 829-6829. Or, you can scroll down and skip this step. (VENMO wants to protect you from sending money to the wrong person with a similar name. The next time you pay a vendor using our account, you won’t be asked to verify again.)
#8 ALWAYS TAKE THE PAPER HOME WITH YOU. When vendors sell out, the satisfaction of having a business that sells out its products begins to sink in! Vendors who sell out, come back to our office to buy more. This helps our vendors meet their sales goals. And, it is there that we can meet with them, give them their VENMO payments or mail and work on solving their barriers to housing and life’s goals.
#9 Friend us on VENMO and leave feedback. Open the app and click on “Me” at the bottom. Then select “Transactions” to see your payments. Click on the payment to The Contributor in your transaction list and then click on our icon at the top of the screen to see all of those transactions between us. On this page you can “Friend” us and click on the speech bubble icons of all your payments to leave feedback on your experience. Constructive feedback and praise help encourage our vendors to do their best.
Amanda Haggard & Linda Bailey Co-Editors
Holly Bowman Director of Development
Jesse Call Operations Consultant
Ree Cheers
SOAR Manager
Will Connelly Executive Director
Bri Givens Case Manager
Chelsea Jackson Manager of Vending Operations
Cathy Jennings Director of Finance
Andrew Krinks Editor Emeritus
Caroline Lindner Case Manager
Esther Mwandiko Kitenge Engagement Specialist
Raven Nye Director of Housing Initiatives
Rachel Ternes Housing Navigator
Andrew Terry IV SOAR Referral Specialist
Carli Tharp SNAP Specialist
Justin Wagner
Coordinator & Reporter
Tom Wills
Barbara
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I sell the paper in a little neighborhood friendly commercial spot in East Nashville. One of the great things about East Nashville is it retains 19th century pre automobile city codes, which makes it very pedestrian friendly, but it’s a little tough for people in cars to stop there for me. I prance around the corners as lights allow, or just sit where pedestrians can say hello, which allows me to make funny comments, pet dogs and make more personal connections. I like that. However, I had a goal to try to get to a Christmas dinner with some long lost relatives. It’s just a sad story that many poor people or even others have about their family dynamics. My grandfather had blamed my mother for my father’s suicide. That side of the family cut off my sister and I, both orphans. My uncle and I had lost track of each other for 40 years. Then he found me.
Anyway, I was really desperate to get some real money flowing and get more people involved with the paper. So I went
up to the Greenfield Kroger at Gallatin Road. There was a homeless man with a broken wrist that hadn’t healed properly because he couldn’t get medical care. He got fired when he broke his arm. You may recall that Tennessee is a "right to work" state. A person can be fired for hurting themselves, and there will be no consequence to the corporation. He failed to get an appointment before his insurance expired. He used his last money to go buy a tent. He didn’t eat for a week. Now he won’t abandon his spot for any reason because he’s afraid he won’t eat that day.
I did see some of my customers stop and offer ways to help him. One cyclist even brought a new sleeping bag for him. Sometimes that’s all you can do. People are afraid to leave the one spot they found that might be safe.
As is usual, in a dire situation, he is feeling isolated, hopeless and doing some self-medicating. I have told him how The Contributor is such a helpful
place. They can help him get an address, foodstamps, and a place to live. He’s doubtful. And he doesn’t feel he can meet any kind of time deadlines. I told him the deadline is pretty flexible. He can get there anytime in the morning up until about 12:30 in the afternoon to get a training session and some free papers. On a Monday , Wednesday or Friday. But keeping track of the day of the week when you are that down is difficult. It can be difficult to keep the phone charged, stay oriented to a regular schedule or even the time of day specifically. He is still doubtful. This is actually normal for someone who’s in this type of situation. Just remember if you were trying to talk to someone, it might take a number of conversations, some warm food, hydration, and a while before trust can be built. Anyway, he gave me “his” spot for an afternoon.
A lovely gentleman named Mike stopped and bought the paper. When he saw me back at my usual spot, he
parked, walked out to the middle of the pedestrian intersection where I am, and bought the second wrapping paper edition. I thanked him, learned his name, and know that he will be looking out for me. So many people have stopped to buy the paper, read my articles, and then comment back to me about it. I get to publish nearly every issue, and that is so exciting for me. My goal is to become a photojournalist, researcher and/or a journalist.
I would never have been able to have such a big goal if The Contributor had not assisted me at every turn to stabilize my life. Although it was the pandemic that finally destabilized me all the way down to “tent level,” I know that each circumstance is different. The main thing is, let's not allow anyone to drop down into the pit of despair alone.
So I just want to thank each and every one of you customers, whether you buy from me or someone else. Your hearts are so big, and so full of love!
McIntosh is the founder and senior associate of the National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum at Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College. This article first appeared in Peace and Freedom Magazine, July/August, 1989, a publication of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Philadelphia, PA
Through work to bring materials from Women’s Studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often noticed men’s unwillingness to grant that they are over-privileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to improve women’s status, in the society, the university or the curriculum, but they can’t or won’t support the idea of lessening men’s. Denials which amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages which men gain from women’s disadvantages. These denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened or ended.
Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of white privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.
I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was “meant” to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.
Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in Women’s Studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about white privilege must ask, “Having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?”
After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from women of color that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to
understand why we are justly seen as oppressive, even when we don’t see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence.
I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group.
My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow “them” to be more like “us.”
I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have chosen those conditions which I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can see, my Black co workers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and line of work cannot count on most of these conditions.
1. I can if I wish to arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
3. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
6. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
7. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
8. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece
on white privilege.
9. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods that fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.
10. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
11. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
12. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.
13. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
16. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world’s majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
17. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
18. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to “the person in charge,” I will be facing a person of my race.
19. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.
20. I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.
21. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.
22. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of race.
23. I can choose public accommodations without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
24. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
25. If my day, week, or year is going
badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones.
26. I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more less match my skin.
I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me, white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one’s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.
In unpacking this invisible knapsack of white privilege, I have listed conditions of daily experience that I once took for granted. Nor did I think of any of these perquisites as bad for the holder. I now think that we need a more finely differentiated taxonomy of privilege, for some of these varieties are only what one would want for everyone in a just society, and others give license to be ignorant, oblivious, arrogant and destructive.
I see a pattern running through the matrix of white privilege, a pattern of assumptions that were passed on to me as a white person. There was one main piece of cultural turf; it was my own turf, and I was among those who could control the turf. My skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to make. I could think of myself as belonging in major ways and of making social systems work for me. I could freely disparage, fear, neglect, or be oblivious to anything outside of the dominant cultural forms. Being of the main culture, I could also criticize it fairly freely.
In proportion as my racial group was being made confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable and alienated. Whiteness protected me from many kinds of hostility, distress and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit, in turn, upon people of color.
For this reason, the word “privilege” now seems misleading to me. We usually think of privilege as being a favored state, whether earned or conferred by birth or luck. Yet some of the conditions I have described here work systematically to overempower certain groups. Such privilege simply confers dominance because of one’s race or sex. I want, then, to distinguish between earned strength and unearned power conferred systematically. Power from unearned privilege can look like strength when it is in fact permission to escape or to dominate.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 6
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5
But not all of the privileges on my list are inevitably damaging. Some, like the expectation that neighbors will be decent to you, or that your race will not count against you in court, should be the norm in a just society. Others, like the privilege to ignore less powerful people, distort the humanity of the holders as well as the ignored groups.
We might at least start by distinguishing between positive advantages, which we can work to spread, and negative types of advantage, which unless rejected will always reinforce our present hierarchies. For example, the feeling that one belongs within the human circle, as Native Americans say, should not be seen as privilege for a few. Ideally it is an unearned entitlement.
At present, since only a few have it, it is an unearned advantage for them. This paper results from a process of coming to see that some of the power that I originally saw as attendant on being a human being in the United States consisted in unearned advantage and conferred dominance.
The question is: “Having described white privilege, what will I do to end it?”
I have met very few men who are truly distressed about systemic, unearned male advantage and conferred dominance. And so one question for me and others like me is whether we will be like them, or whether we will get truly distressed, even outraged, about unearned race advantage and conferred dominance, and, if so, what will we do to lessen them. In any case, we need to do more work in identifying how they actually affect our daily lives. Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the U.S. think that racism doesn’t affect them because they are not people of color, they do not see “whiteness” as a racial identity. In addition, since race and sex are not the only advantaging systems at work, we need similarly to examine the daily experience of having age advantage, or ethnic advantage, or physical ability, or advantage related to nationality, religion, or sexual orientation.
Difficulties and dangers surrounding the task of finding parallels are many. Since racism, sexism and heterosexism are not the same, the advantages associated with them should not be seen as the same. In addition, it is hard to disentangle aspects of unearned advantage which rest more on social class, economic class, race, religion, sex and ethnic identity than on other factors. Still, all of the oppressions are interlocking, as the Combahee River Collective Statement of 1977 continues to remind us eloquently.
One factor seems clear about all of the interlocking oppressions.
They take both active forms, which we can see, and embedded forms, which as a member of the dominant group one is taught not to see. In my class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.
Disapproving of the systems won’t be enough to change them. I was taught to think that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitudes. But a “white” skin in the United States opens many doors for whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us. Individual acts can palliate, but cannot end, these problems.
To redesign social systems, we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these taboo subjects. Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist.
It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.
Although systemic change takes many decades, there are pressing questions for me and I imagine for some others like me if we raise our daily consciousness on the perquisites of being light skinned. What will we do with such knowledge?
As we know from watching men, it is an open question whether we will choose to use unearned advantage to weaken hidden systems of advantage, and whether we will use any of our arbitrarily awarded power to try to reconstruct power systems on a broader base.
*This is an authorized excerpt of McIntosh’s original white privilege article, “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies,” Working Paper 189 (1988), Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesley College, MA, 02481.
Nashville received a record $9.7 million in Continuum of Care (CoC) funding this year. That’s roughly a 200-percent increase over the past seven years to fight homelessness in Nashville-Davidson County.
During the same time period, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) allocation grew by 55 percent to a record high allocation of $3.16 billion, which was distributed among 385 local CoCs.
According to HUD, the CoC Program is, “designed to promote a community-wide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness; to provide funding for efforts by nonprofit providers, states, Indian Tribes or tribally designated housing entities." It also should work with "local governments to quickly rehouse homeless individuals, families, persons fleeing domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, and youth while minimizing the trauma and dislocation caused by homelessness; to promote access to and effective utilization of mainstream programs by homeless individuals and families; and to optimize self-sufficiency among those experiencing homelessness.”
The way I usually like to describe a CoC is as three things:
1. A designated geographic area, which in our case is Nashville-Davidson County;
2. An organized community effort to build a system that is capable of preventing and ending homelessness for people in a collaborative way; and
3. A competitive federal funding stream to support this work.
For years, Nashville’s federal CoC allocation hovered between the $3-$3.5-million mark. Then local leaders started to ask the question how we could increase the federal CoC allocations to Nashville, we realized that we first must fix our systems approach and become more collaborative. That’s when the CoC partners started focusing on improving its Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) to collect client-level data and measure outcomes, changed the HMIS Lead Agency, started implementing coordinated entry utilizing the HMIS database, restructured the CoC governance including adding a strong committee system, and revamped CoC required governance documents.
In addition, the CoC started working closely with HUD technical assistance providers, which in essence are consultants paid for by HUD, to help local CoC’s with the restructuring. This allowed for clarity and closer communication with HUD to understand complex federal requirements.
It is important, however, that CoC leaders understand that HUD wants to see collaborative local efforts that include all possible funding sources (government and private) to build a strong homeless crisis response system.
Nashville has not experienced the highest percentage increases among Tennessee cities between Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 and FY2023. Thus, the CoC may want to communicate with Memphis and Chattanooga and compare ap-
BY JUDITH TACKETTMetropolitan Development & Housing Agency (MDHA)
Oasis Center
Office of Homeless Services (OHS)
Park Center
Safe Haven Family Shelter
The Contributor Inc.
The Mary Parrish Center
The Salvation Army
Urban Housing Solutions, Inc.
TOTAL
*This includes $381,251 in CoC Planning Funds.
proaches in systems improvement.
While CoC awards are competitive, HUD usually examines progress within one city. In other words, we compete against ourselves. For example, if HUD finds that homelessness data has improved, that there are more projects funded that focus on HUD priorities (which is permanent supportive housing for people experiencing chronic homelessness households experiencing domestic violence, youth programs, and Veterans), then HUD may be inclined to reward a city with more dollars than the year prior. An increase in the overall federal allocation certainly helps.
Another interesting comparison is between the cities of Nashville and Memphis. In size, the cities are similar. However, in FY2018 Memphis already received $6.7 million in CoC funding compared to Nashville’s $3.6 million. Nashville, then sharply caught up with the restructuring of its CoC and even surpassed Memphis in FY2021. Learning from other cities may be a good strategy to continue Nashville’s trajectory of increasing funding.
And finally, I did a comparison of peer cities, which the Nashville Chamber typically uses due to their similarities in size and economy. I added in parentheses the results of last year’s Point In Time (PIT) count numbers, which are based on a one-night homeless count at the end of January of 2023.
Denver stands out. The reason is that cities like Denver ($32.8 million in CoC funds), Houston ($59.6 million) and Baltimore ($29.3 million) fall into a category of CoCs that, frankly,
Percent of Total CoC Award
they were not asleep at the wheel in the 1990s when the federal government started dishing out large grants to cities and began formulating the concept of the Continuum of Care. They went in strong and collaborated closely with HUD. Granted, they also generally had notably larger homelessness numbers than Nashville. Thus, the initial formula that the federal government used to divide up CoC funds were significantly more generous with those cities. However, there is hope. I spoke with federal officials a few years ago to figure out how Nashville could go about increasing its CoC funds. The response was threefold:
a) Show that you are continuously improving your collaborative systems approach, find local dollars to replace federal funds, and reallocate funds based on performance and when you could replace the federal funds with other dollars;
b) Ensure that you have nonprofits who apply for every available bonus funding or special government allocations such as the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program, which eventually increased Nashville-Davidson County’s CoC funds by $1.9 million; and
c) Once we feel we have high quality HMIS data and a well-functioning systems approach, we should talk to HUD about revisiting our overall allocation to increase funding to a similar level such as Houston, which currently is the CoC all others are looking to.
The key to success remains in serving people well by making housing accessible, offering individualized and sustainable support services, and implementing a true Housing First effort, which HUD supports.
Back in 1968, after months of lingering in Congress, the Fair Housing Act was passed. The Fair Housing Act, championed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was passed on April 11 — exactly one week after his assassination. In honor of Black History Month, this month’s column outlines the Civil Rights laws that protect your housing rights.
As originally passed, The Fair Housing Act made it illegal to discriminate in housing on the basis of someone’s race, color, national origin or religion. Since 1968, The Fair Housing Act has been amended to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex (both gender identity and sexual orientation), familial status (having kids under 18 in the house), or disability. The different categories that are protected are each referred to as a “protected class.”
The Fair Housing Act says you cannot treat someone differently because of their membership in a protected class. These protections extend to all aspects of housing: buying, renting, and even the mortgage lending process. There
BY JULIE YRIARTis a common misconception that a landlord can discriminate if the landlord does not accept government funding, but that is not true. The Fair Housing Act also applies to private landlords.
Tennessee also has its own laws that protect against housing discrimination: The Tennessee Human Rights Act (THRA) prohibits discrimination on the basis of someone’s race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial status, or disability. The THRA also protects people from discrimination based on “creed.”
“Creed” is a funny word. We rarely use it, yet it is part of our law here in Tennessee. Most laws include definitions of words, but the THRA does not include a definition for creed.
Recently, I looked into the definition of “creed.” According to the Black’s Law Dictionary “creed” is defined as a “guiding principle; a motto.” If you’re religious, think of the Nicene Creed. Many universities also have a creed: The University of Tennessee has the Volunteer Creed. Your creed might include the practice of
The Tennessee Fair Housing Council is a non-profit organization that provides free legal services to people that have faced housing discrimination.
(615) 874-2344
www.tennfairhousing.org
holistics: the burning of sage or incense, meditation or some other non-religious practice.
What are you supposed to do if you think you are being discriminated against on the basis of your race, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, disability, or familial status?
First things first: make sure you are documenting the situation. If you’ve applied to rent somewhere and the apartment is available until the manager sees what you look like, make
sure to take a photo or screenshot of the listing advertisement. Have a friend or coworker call about the apartment to see if it is still available. If the apartment is still available, discrimination may be at play and you may wish to pursue a claim under the Fair Housing Act and Tennessee Human Rights Act.
The Tennessee Fair Housing Council is a non-profit organization that provides free legal services to people that have faced housing discrimination. Give them a call and see if they can help: 615-874-2344. You can also visit their website that has lots of information about your rights: tennfairhousing.org. Alternatively, you can file a complaint with the Tennessee Human Rights Commission, which is tasked with enforcing the Tennessee Human Rights Act.
Julie Yriart is the Legal Director for the Eviction Right to Counsel program at the Nashville Hispanic Bar Association. Yriart’s columns focus on common myths and misconceptions around eviction and give practical tips to renters.
Columnist Barbara Womack chats with a local Black history maker
As we close out Black History Month, we need to recognize the unsung Black History makers who are making history everyday and infecting their goodness on others. One of those unsung heroes is Dr. Katherine Y. Brown, EdD, of Nashville.
Dr. Brown, who founded Learn CPR America, has received many accolades, far too many to mention, but here’s a short list of just a few of them: In 2001, she became the first Black person to earn a doctoral faculty position in the history of Belmont University. In 2021, she received the Athena International Leadership award. This accomplishment made her the first woman in Nashville and possibly in the country to be the first dual recipient of the Athena Traditional Award (2021) and the Athena Young Professional Award (2015) — and the first Black woman to do so. In 2023, she became the first Black woman to receive the American Heart Association's Martin E. Simmons Award for Advancing Heart Health. She is also the new AHA ReSS Champion Award recipient.
Dr. Brown is married and the mother of four children. Anthony, 30, is a nurse; Sydney, 23, is in medical school studying to be a physician; Irving, 22, graduated from Fisk University at the age of 19; and Robert, 15, is a student at Father Ryan High School with ambitions of becoming a medical pilot. All of her children teach CPR.
Dr. Brown said she instilled in her children a sense of community that made them driven with a strong desire to be of service to others.
"I tell my kids that community service is not
History is a mixture of actions and reactions. Or, better yet, history is responses toward conjunctions of various issues in and of life. For instance, the Fisk Jubilee Singers are an African-American a cappella group that originated in 1871. This group embarked on a European tour to raise financial means for Fisk University. The Jubilee Singers introduced "Slave Songs" to the world and in turn helped preserve Negro Spirituals.
This African-American tradition, just as other black history aspects and moments in time, opened an enormous amount of doors towards the aspects of African-American movement.
Queen Victoria was so impressed with the Fisk Jubilee Singers that she stated that they must be from a “Music City,” and 50 years later in the 1920s as WSM's Grand Ole Opry was gaining popularity, that the nickname began to take hold. Now, 104 years later, the growth and development of Nashville is still expanding and the nickname "Music City" continues to hold firm and fast to its principles. This city continues to break racial walls and
BY BARBARA WOMACK
an option, it is a responsibility,” Brown says.
Dr. Brown has led an extraordinary life of service to her community and to the world. Internationally, she has taught CPR to more than 300,000 people. Dr. Brown explained why she is so dedicated to teaching the world CPR and why she will go anywhere to do so.
“I provide free CPR because lives matter,” Brown says. “I initiated the concept of bringing CPR training to street corners and unexpected places because cardiac arrest can happen at any time, to any person, anywhere. The nature and location of one's work should not dictate
its value. The world is my classroom.”
In 2016, Dr. Brown established the KYB Leadership Academy. This initiative empowers college, high school and middle school students by exposing them to global leadership and education on pulmonary hypertension.
"Everyone has a unique purpose,” she said. “We must empower them to recognize their worth and let their inner light shine regardless of past experiences.”
She has taken youths to Dubai, Costa Rica, South Africa, Turks and Caicos Islands and other countries to support the
organization's mission.
Dr. Brown is not only the "Queen of CPR," she is the author of five inspirational books. Her works extend to addressing chronic diseases and health disparities, she is a lecturer, she has presented conferences including the American Association of Medical Colleges and the National Institutes of Health and she is the first Black person to lead a grassroots initiative that led to her training over 300,000 people for free in CPR.
She says, "If you can teach a child to ride a bike, I can teach them CPR and that's what I plan to do."
She insists that there’s a need to go everywhere from the grandest mansions to the homeless camps in the woods in order to spread her ministry of teaching CPR to the world because it’s something that anyone can learn to do, she says. Community health efforts, like free CPR, show that one person can educate and enhance the lives of so many others. And while there are many Black unsung heroes who don't get the recognition they deserve, they, like Dr. Brown, but go along doing God's work and God's will. Although Dr. Brown has received numerous awards, she is Black History personified and worthy of our respect every day and not just in February. She has left an indelible mark around the world in terms of CPR training for underserved people. We wanted to share her story and her purpose in life as we approached the culmination of a wonderful Black History Month.
Mayor Freddie O’Connell has been a long-standing transit advocate. Early in his political career, he served on the boards of Nashville MTA (now WeGo Public Transit) and Walk/Bike Nashville, a civic nonprofit that advocates for safe means to move through the city by foot, bicycle, and transit. Eventually he chaired both of these boards. All this was prior to becoming a member of the Metro Council and eventually moving on to the city’s top position.
Having built a reputation as the Transit-Advocate-In-Chief for the city of Nashville, it came to no surprise when the Mayor announced that his office would work swiftly to try to get a referendum before voters that would create a designated revenue stream to upgrade Nashville’s transportation system. One day after the announcement to add a transit referendum to the Nov. 5 ballot, the mayor spent some time chatting with The Contributor about his goals around the referendum.
O’Connell said that it was time to build a, “safer, more convenient, and less expensive future for how we move around our city.” To him, he explained, that means to invest in sidewalks, signals, service and safety.
In other words, while the city wants to ensure the public transit system, particularly bus services, are more readily available and accessible across Nashville, all types of transportation modes will be considered from walking, bicycling to driving cars. If the November referendum passes, O’Connell said, the Transportation Improvement Program would deliver sidewalks to communities that otherwise would not see them in a generation. The program would include bike lanes, greenways, and it would break up the logjam of outdated traffic signals making car rides smoother.
WeGo, Metro’s department that runs the city’s public transit system, and the Nashville Department of Transportation (NDOT) have already been starting to move toward aligning transit infrastructure programs. O’Connell said the Transportation Improvement Program would accelerate this existing work by utilizing the IMPROVE Act, which is state legislation that enables municipalities to establish a dedicated funding source. A first step is to develop a Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), which has to be ready to be audited by the end of March.
But Nashville is not exactly starting from scratch. Over the last decade, the city has conducted more than 70 plans and studies receiving input from 65,000 Nashvillians. O’Connell is clear that there is still intense public input underway before a final TIP will be presented to the State Comptroller’s office. Debriefing of the 40 city council members started immediately after the announcement. In addition, the
city is working with a technical advisory committee and a community advisory committee to inform the process over the next few weeks.
“We expect this to be a pretty quick, but also a pretty robust check on the work that’s been underway now for decades,” O’Connell said.
The Community Advisory Committee met on the day of the announcement as well, correct?
Indeed. They had their kickoff meeting [that afternoon] too. It was great because the introductory part of that committee’s process included our Director of Transportation Policy doing an exercise with them that he actually did with the entire Mayor’s Office staff, which was inviting everyone to share their transportation stories. It was a really great experience to hear all that community input into that first real official day of the conversation.
Besides WeGo, NDOT, the Mayor’s Office and the two committees. Are there other departments and private consultants or firms on the team that puts this program together?
We brought in Michael Briggs into the Mayor’s Office from Vanderbilt University. He is serving in the role of director of transportation planning. He also is the lead on coordinating all of this. We also have Kendra Abkowitz, who stayed with our administration after joining the Cooper administration. She is the director of sustainability and resiliency, and she’s supporting the policy work that Michael is coordinating across departments. Metro Planning has been involved early because a lot of the current policy planning emerged just around the time that Nashville Next [was developed] almost 10 years ago. Lucy Kempf (the executive director of the Metro Planning Department) and her team are pretty instrumental in this.
There are a lot of different ways that Metro departments are involved. Metro Social Services through the Know Your Community and Community Needs Evaluation work has mapped commute times. We know how important transit access has been to homeless residents, and so we are making sure the Office of Homeless Services is engaged in this work. First responders, because we know that the planning process is going to need input on emergency vehicle access and overall routes and traffic because we hear all the time that congestion issues are actually impacting response times.
There is very much a whole government engagement. But the two main organizations, as you identified, are WeGo and NDOT, and then Planning is probably third in that.
WeGo and NDOT had already engaged HDR as one of the principal consultants, working
with them on a master mobility study. We [are taking] this opportunity to make sure that this planning and study work underway would be suitable for a Transportation Improvement Program that could go on the ballot. That has actually worked out very nicely.
What is it exactly that people will actually vote on in a referendum on Nov. 5?
What we’re asking voters to do is give us a future that lets us choose how we move around the city. At the end of the day this is an opportunity to secure dedicated funding for transportation infrastructure investment over a multi-year period. That’s what the vote will be about.
There are already speculations that the ask will be to fund this transit plan through an increase in sales tax. What are some other funding mechanisms that are on the table and when will a decision be made about which one to use?
The IMPROVE Act gives us a handful of revenue options that we can dedicate. Sales tax is one of those. Hotel/motel tax is one of those. There is a residential development surcharge. There is a rental car option. I think there are one or two [options] that may not be applicable in Nashville, but it is those kinds of things.
I think after the Titans Stadium deal already added the one-percent hotel/motel tax increase, it’s going to be pretty difficult to consider increasing that again so soon. We haven’t gotten the final plan in the 2018 Transportation Improvement Program that was offered by Mayor [Megan] Barry. The IMPROVE Act revenue only amounted to about a third of the overall anticipated revenue required to build out the program and that is very likely going to be similar for us.
I do think sales tax is on the table.
We think that getting something approved, even if it’s not as large an investment as the 2018 program that was proposed, will jumpstart something that will give us better access to funds that we get to bring back to Nashville.
We know we’ve got our committee and council members and some of the community conversations on a quick timeline, but we’re trying to meet a Comptroller requirement to have something done by the end of March. So, we’ll be working on that six-to-eight week timescale.
What do you hope will be the estimated annual revenue a successful referendum will create?
WeGo’s operating budget hovers at a little over $70 million, and we’re trying to put $10 million or more in the capital spending programs into sidewalks and other things [to provide] safer infrastructure. Looking at that,
I’m not sure we know yet what that revenue target (for the referendum) is.
So, I’m not sure I have an answer yet about how much we should be spending. We’re focusing on the additional things we’d really like to do, like ensuring that we can run our transit service 24/7/365 and that we can offer more cross-town routes that are often linked to community transit centers.
If the referendum passes, which departments will receive and oversee the new revenue?
Most of it will go to WeGo and NDOT because they will be the ones primarily in charge of implementation. Some of it will go to ensure that WeGo can acquire vehicles to support the new service levels. It will go to hiring more bus operators. NDOT will get more capacity to construct more sidewalks and do some of the streetscape improvements that we’ll have on some of the major corridors.
There probably will be some amount that would go to Metro Planning, or for instance, a lot of the cost for sidewalks ends up being curb and gutter improvements, so there may need to be some capacity for Metro Water to be involved in it. Sometimes there is utility coordination when you’re doing corridor improvements but the biggest implementing parts in Metro will be WeGo and NDOT.
Nashville’s transit referendum failed in 2018. What will make the difference in this new transit program for the 64 percent of Nashvillians who voted against the 2018 plan?
I think a few things happened. For one, [and] even for me as a long-time transit advocate, I admit, I was surprised that the 2018 plan included a $1-billion tunnel under Downtown. That was not something I was expecting. I think a lot of Nashvillians were not expecting that. And as somebody who tries to advocate for how useful transit is as a tool for financial empowerment, affordability, and accessibility, that plan had most of its capital allocated to light rail.
We are anticipating a plan that is a little more regional in outlook, a little more practical in terms of service levels, and much more modernizing in terms of technology and things that benefit motorists and all users of the road. We’re expecting this to be something that expands basic service levels. And, again coming back to that, one of the top priorities of the plan is to give us a much faster opportunity to put sidewalks in communities that need them and that can help people connect directly to transit.
I also think [there was] such a sudden drop in trust after Mayor Barry’s administration ran into challenges, and she wasn’t in office by the time of the 2018 referendum vote. So, we are spending as much time as we can this year focusing not just on fiscal responsibility
but on delivery of core city services within our existing budget. We’re trying to showcase [an] effective approach in government that works for people to build confidence and restore trust.
Let’s talk about the interconnectedness of affordable housing and transit for Nashville’s poorest neighbors. When transit systems improve, housing costs around improved public transit corridors could potentially increase. In other words, this could speed up gentrification along major corridors and possibly displace poorer neighbors. How will the city balance that to ensure Nashvillians get to stay in Nashville?
I’d be interested in the data of this. I guess one thing I will say is that transit improvements are very popular. People want to live where transit access is good. And so, certainly the demand goes up.
One of the things we’re already consciously looking at, and why Metro Planning has been at the table from the get-go, is that the Housing Division of Metro is in the Metro Planning Department. Metro Planning is already mapping along some of the existing corridors that are consistent with nMotion, our strategic plan for transit. They’re looking at where we’ve got not only Metro-owned land or Metro buildings that are currently unused or underused but also combining that with a recent report from the Urban Institute that showcases land owned by churches, other faith communities, educational and healthcare organizations that could support housing. So, we are looking at where along these corridors we can ensure
that we get the opportunity to actually build long-term affordable housing.
We’ve also gone back and reviewed the old affordable housing and transit task force that Mayor Purcell chaired, and we’ve got the Housing Division looking at anti-displacement strategies. The whole point is, we want to build access to existing communities. One of the biggest points of the overall program should be to increase access to the city for Nashville’s working class and people who are not in higher income [brackets].
There is no dedicated funding for affordable housing or support services to keep people in housing. Is that something your administration is looking at next?
The IMPROVE Act specifically empowers us to offer dedicated funding for transportation infrastructure. We don’t have any equivalent of an IMPROVE Act for housing. This is why when I was on the Metro Council it was so important for me, and I know this is equally important for so many of my colleagues, to follow the recommendations of the Affordable Housing Task Force report (of 2021) to put $30 million for three years continuously into the Barnes Housing Trust Fund. While that wasn’t dedicated funding, it certainly helped us get that fund up to the $100-million mark, which was critically important for continuous delivery of affordable housing. When we tried through the Metro Council to dedicate some of the Convention Center surpluses to affordable housing, the state actually intervened and effectively said we can’t do that. When we tried
to build tools like inclusionary zoning, the state intervened to say we can’t do that. And so, it’s very tricky to get dedicated funding for affordable housing.
We do have a study underway, the Unified Housing Strategy, that the Housing Division is working on to evaluate some of the revenue recommendations in the Affordable Housing Taskforce report. I think some of them are very likely not legal at this time, but if others are, we will be looking at how we could enable those streams of revenue. But it is much more challenging right now under Tennessee law to dedicate revenue to housing than it is to transit.
You know I have been an outspoken critic of Metro’s use of some ARPA funding and the lack of oversight, especially how it’s been used towards homelessness. Will this new Transit Plan include clear measures of how Metro intends to provide solid oversight of how the city spends the taxpayer dollars?
Yes. When the state cleared this legislation, they knew how important that question would be for anyone who chooses to go do this.
The initial program has to be audited by the Comptroller. It has to demonstrate not only enough planning details but also the financial details that come along with it. So, it’s not like we can put something on the table that is one map, go get voter approval, and then switch it out with some other map. There is a lot of structural accountability in the way the program would even work with a necessary audit by the Comptroller before we can even put it on the ballot. And then that stays intact
over the life of the program. There is a lot of structural accountability here.
As you know well, we on the Metro Council did create a COVID Oversight Committee, and while I worked with my colleague Councilmember [Courtney] Johnston to put some accountability measures into the homelessness money, it isn’t quite the same thing. It was onetime discretionary funding, which I think is always a little harder to build systems around.
I think overall the Oversight Committee did good work. But I think you’ll remember, I was not fully supportive of the design of this allocation of money, and it’s challenging because our administration wants to ensure that not only are we using the money as effectively as we can but that we also are delivering accountability around that to ensure that we’re doing what we said we were going to do. I’ll say that’s a work in progress for us right now.
But the IMPROVE Act ensures stronger accountability measures out of the gates than what we did with our American Rescue Plan funding.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Coming back to that question of designated funding for housing versus transit. I do see transit as affordable housing policy. It really was a financial empowerment tool for me and is the only reason I was able to become a homeowner when I was younger. And I think more people deserve that opportunity, and I think this program will deliver that opportunity for more Nashvillians to lower their overall household cost through transportation as a part of the affordable housing conversation.
“The Contributor” está trabajando con uno de los principales periódicos en español La Noticia para llevar contenido a más lectores en Middle Tennessee. Nuestros vendedores de periódicos han pedido durante mucho tiempo que nuestra publicación incluya contenido que apele al interés de residentes de habla hispana en nuestra comunidad.
“The Contributor” is working with one of the leading Spanish-language newspapers La Noticia to bring content to more readers in Middle Tennessee. Our newspaper vendors have long requested that our publication include content that appeals to the interest of Spanish-speaking residents in our community.
El financiamiento del plan mejoraría, expandiría y proporcionaría mejores aceras, señales, servicio y seguridad.
Por Yuri Cunza Editor-In-Chief @yuricunza
El 15 de febrero de último, el alcalde Freddie O’Connell anunció que avanzará con un proceso para colocar financiamiento dedicado para proyectos de transporte e infraestructura en la boleta electoral de noviembre.
Después de obtener la luz verde en los aspectos legales y financieros del proceso, la administración está poniendo un referéndum frente a los votantes de Nashville el 5 de noviembre próximo.
"Creo que la mayoría de ustedes saben lo personal que es este tema para mí. Mi inicio en el servicio público fue mi nombramiento en la junta directiva de Nashville MTA. El acceso al transporte público y el uso de bicicletas fueron las claves para mi propio camino hacia la propiedad de una vivienda", dijo el alcalde O'Connell. "Más personas merecen esa oportunidad porque esto no se trata de mí. Se trata de las personas que viven aquí y si pueden permitirse quedarse aquí. El costo del transporte es casi igual al costo de la vivienda en Nashville, y ya es hora de abordar nuestros problemas de transporte para que Nashville se convierta en una ciudad más habitable. Un lugar donde quieras quedarte".
‘Elige Cómo Moverte’ - Un Pase de Acceso Total a Aceras, Señales, Servicio y Seguridad, es el nombre colectivo de todas las actividades de Metro en torno a promover, aprobar e implementar un Programa de Mejoras
en el Transporte (TIP). El alcalde y su equipo interactuarán con la comunidad, el Consejo Metropolitano y dos comités asesores para elaborar un programa de mejoras en el transporte en las próximas semanas. Ese trabajo ya está en marcha.
Nashville tiene más de 70 planes y estudios informados por más de 65,000 aportaciones de la comunidad desarrolladas en los últimos 10 años. Después de asumir el cargo, el alcalde O'Connell encargó uno de sus tres comités de transición para considerar Cómo se Mueve Nashville para llevar rápidamente las mejores ideas de estos planes a la vida. Una recomendación del comité fue que el alcalde busque financiamiento dedicado para los sistemas de transporte de la ciudad.
Después del anuncio de hoy, O’Connell se unirá a la primera reunión de un Comité Asesor Comunitario compuesto por representantes de todo el área metropolitana que proporcionarán comentarios críticos sobre el contenido del programa de mejoras en el transporte y su impacto en las comunidades.
Conoce tus derechos:
¿Que hacer en caso de una redada?
1. Mantenerse callado
2. Sólo dar nombre y apellido
3. No mentir
4. Nunca acepte/lleve documentos falsos
5. No revelar su situación migratoria
6. No llevar documentación de otro país
7. En caso de ser arrestado, mostrarla Tarjeta Miranda (llámenos si necesita una)
Basados en la Quinta Enmienda de la Constitución, los derechos de guardar silencio y contar con un abogado fueron denominados Derechos Miranda luego de la decisión de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de Estados Unidos en el caso Miranda vs. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, de 1966.
Un Comité Asesor Técnico separado proporcionará orientación técnica sobre la viabilidad; oportunidades actualizadas; y pasos necesarios para abordar la peatonalidad, la conectividad y la eficiencia del transporte en todo Nashville.
El alcalde O’Connell continuó, "Terminé pudiendo comprar una casa porque tuve la opción de opciones de transporte seguras, convenientes y económicas: el autobús, una bicicleta y aceras. Más personas deberían tener estas opciones. Espero con interés la conversación que vamos a tener al respecto este año y escuchar las historias de transporte de los demás".
El alcalde O'Connell está comprometido a hacer de Nashville un lugar que funcione para todos los nashvillians. Una de sus 15 soluciones en las que hizo campaña fue llevar los planes a la realidad. Actuar sobre los últimos 15 años de planificación de transporte en Nashville permitirá a la ciudad reducir retrasos para los conductores, reducir el estrés de llegar al trabajo a tiempo y permitir que
más personas estén en casa para la cena o el juego de fútbol de un niño y devolver tiempo a las pequeñas empresas que a menudo se pierde en un viaje.
Después de un período de participación con la comunidad y las partes interesadas clave, el alcalde O'Connell presentará un programa que se centra en lo que él ve como conectores críticos: aceras, señales, servicio y seguridad. Cerca de una semana después, el 21 de febrero, el alcalde Freddie O’Connell compartió su agradecimiento al Consejo Metropolitano al aprobar el primer Plan de Gastos de Capital de su administración.
"Estoy encantado de que el Consejo Metropolitano el martes votara por unanimidad para aprobar el primer Plan de Gastos de Capital de mi administración que invierte $514 millones en vecindarios en todos los rincones del condado de Davidson. Este plan fue creado con responsabilidad fiscal en su núcleo y garantiza que no haya nuevas presiones sobre la deuda como parte de nuestros costos operativos.
"Al priorizar las escuelas, la infraestructura de transporte, el servicio de tránsito público de WeGo, el mantenimiento en parques y bibliotecas, y el servicio al cliente, estamos cumpliendo con las prioridades identificadas por la comunidad y sus representantes en el consejo. Estamos invirtiendo en nuestro activo más importante: nuestra gente, y estoy orgulloso de dar este paso importante hacia la realización de nuestras metas compartidas".
Quienes deseen obtener más información, mantenerse involucrados y seguir el proceso pueden visitar Nashville.gov/transit
Envíenos sus sugerencias por e-mail: news@hispanicpaper.com ó 615-567-3569
BY DARRIN BRADBURY, THE BEAT
I met a lady on 8th Avenue who plays the spoons and is also an artist. I’ve talked to her three times already. I met a friend of hers the other day who is also a musical entertainer he plays piano. She plays spoons the way I was taught, but she plays the little ones. They are silver, which have the best sound. A unique sound. She’s younger than me. About 65.
You know I did the America’s Got Talent blind audition? If I make it to round three, I’m going to do something different because I believe every person in this world has a gift of some kind. The Lord has given me so many gifts I want to show the world some of them. I used to sing a song called, “Rock and Roll Lullaby.”
I got so much talent that the Lord did give me. I feel my music. I can show you better than I can tell you.
I hope The Contributor can start filming some of us to show that we may be homeless, but we’ve got talent and sprit and we’re not giving up.
I just want to get out there. The thing is, my stories being published helps me sell my papers. When I got a story, I push it. I cant get to Berry Hill very much anymore, but I went on Sunday for a little while. Different kinds of people out there who are more into the real, real hard rock. I can play some of that crazy stuff, but I don’t feel it and I’m not into it so I don’t like playing it.
One REALLY soggy, wet, rainy day, I was out trying to sell my papers like always
The water is deep in several places at my spot, that’s nothing new, It happens A LOT!
As I step off the sidewalk and onto the curb
In that moment I observe
A truck speeding toward me
As it travels down the road,
Swerving ever closer to me as it negotiates the curve,
As it passes by, I was sprayed with water from EVERY direction,
The papers are kept nice and dry
Safely tucked away in my bag wrapped in plastic
But I was was dripping wet
There is NO DOUBT in my mind
That was clearly his intention!
How can I be so sure of that?
He is pointing and laughing
But that didn’t last long-
With his tires spinning out of control and all that water displaced
They found the mud hidden underneath
And where did all that mud end up?
All over his white pickup truck!
His smiling and laughter suddenly came to an end
Almost as quickly as it had began
Replaced with fussing and cussing for ALL to hear
A whole lot of words that aren’t worth repeating here
I know some people will say
He got what had coming that day,
And while I suppose that may be true,
Still, as he drove away, I couldn’t help but think
How different this encounter might turned out
If only he’d simply applied The Golden Rule:
‘Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.’
It’s easy to say and can be SO hard to do
Especially when others don’t do the same in return
But it’s worth ANY effort you put forth
That I guarantee
The benefits are immeasurable,
Though they may not be physically seen
But IF you stay the course at least you will know
YOU HAVE DONE THE RIGHT THING EVEN WHEN OTHERS DON’T
If YOU set a good example when dealing with people you meet in your community and on the street
You can be certain that others will follow your lead!
Ghostbusters I & II
Release Dates: 6/8/1984 & 6/16/1989
Runtimes: 1:45 & 1:48
Rated: PG for both movies
Now these two movies started the whole Ghostbusters franchise. They are funny at times and serious at times. Slimer was first introduced in the first movie. Now, I don’t know about you, but a movie where Slimer meets Casper?
Does ANYONE remember when The Contributor changed its format from a newspaper to a sleek glossy magazine?
It was perceived at the time by those in charge as a positive change, and they had the power to make it happen, vendors thoughts and opinions WERE NOT taken into account. Thankfully this disastrous experiment only lasted seven months (13 issues.)
Finally, the realization became crystal clear to EVERYONE that this WAS NOT what the vendors or the customers wanted at all! Something they would’ve known IF they would’ve asked and listened to vendors when we tried to speak out. Instead they shut us down, threatening to take the badges we worked so hard to earn if we didn’t acquiesce.
had decided to step away from her role.
Once again, it seems The Contributor is on the verge of what could be perceived as potentially major changes.
To his credit, the newly appointed Executive Director Will Connelly was a part of The Contributor from the beginning as one of the papers co-founders, and I’m sure he brings a vast array of talent and skill to the table.
Still adding to that nagging feeling that just won’t go away, is the fact that Tom Wills Contributor co-founder and longtime Director of Vending has also recently taken a step back from his role. This too was without any warning to the vendors.
that the vendors and customers are not yet aware of.
I know some people say change is good, and hey, I get it, change can teach us to adapt, and helps us develop resilience. Change can also provide new opportunities we might not have found for ourselves. It offers individuals a chance for personal growth and development.
However, for people like me who hate, despise, even fear change it can and often does upset a very delicate balance in the way my mind and my world works.
And at least for me, it brings to mind that very familiar uneasy feeling that I can’t seem to shake, similar to when the paper was temporarily converted to a magazine.
Zombieland
Release Date: 10/2/2009
Runtime: 1:28
Rated: R
Did you know that Woody Harrelson was arrested for marijuana possession during filming, which delayed shooting for a day? Bill Murray pretends to be a zombie in which someone shoots him in the head killing him. Now Bill Murray in real life probably would reenact this scene.
The solution? After the voluntary resignation of the former Contributor board, a team of former employees and volunteers stepped in. Cathy Jennings, in her wisdom, put together a team and they revived The Contributor in newspaper format, and in spite of Covid-19, it managed to survive when SO many others failed, it’s even continue to thrive thus far.
After courageously taking on the challenge and serving The Contributor’s Executive Director for just over 5 years, not only reviving it, but expanding the scope of services it offers its vendors, suddenly, without warning (at least to the vendors), Jennings made an announcement that she
Chelsea Jackson, former office manager, has been tapped to fill this role. I have the upmost respect for her, and know her to be quite capable, but it’s just NOT the same.
Sudden, unexpected changes like these can have an effect on the paper in both positive and/ or negative ways.
So just how will these latest changes affect the day-to-day operations of the paper? Its content? Will other members of the staff and volunteers shift their positions, or worse yet, leave altogether?
There is no way to know for sure, unless or until it happens.
It does make me wonder what other changes are yet in store in the future for The Contributor
At this point, I would like to remind those in a position of power with the ability to make sweeping changes that when it happened in the past we lost what made The Contributor special! It lost the people who gave it a HEART and as a direct result, it subsequently failed. As a writer and vendor for this publication who takes pride in the product I offer to the public, I say talk to the vendors get their thoughts and opinions BEFORE making ANY major changes that could potentially affect their livelihood, then make changes accordingly, improve the product if you can, but DON’T lose what makes it SPECIAL otherwise it too will be doomed to fail, just as the magazine did in the past. Thank you for your time.
What About Bob?
Release Date: 5/17/1991
Runtime: 1:39
Rated: PG
This movie should have been called, "What About Bill ?"
I became homeless in July 2023 after a psychotic episode and a divorce. I had my friend take me to the Women’s Mission. I was promised a bed, multiple resources, a case manager to help with my mental illness, three meals a day, clothing, etc.
I was given a very thin blanket and a mat to sleep on the floor for the first week. I may have slept two hours a night that first week, not good for mental or physical health. My case manager was very rude, as were 90 percent of the people who ran the Mission. There were only two bathrooms with showers to accommodate 600 women.
I was really happy with the hard boiled egg though. We were not allowed to take food or drinks into the Mission. There were vending machines, but I never had money for those. I went hungry a lot of days at the Mission.
etc! There were no resources to be had at the Mission.
Coming Soon to a Paper Near You: The G-Man and the King. And, no I don’t mean Elvis. I’m talking about Godzilla and King Kong!
The meals were horrible also. Breakfast consisted of rice, hard french fries, fake sausage and some mornings a hard boiled egg. Lunch and dinner weren’t much better.
I was given one pair of jeans to wear and no way to do laundry. When I could get in the shower, I was putting dirty clothes back on. I lived at the Mission for three and a half weeks when I felt like the employees there forced me on the streets because of the way they treated me. They did not try to, “build anyone up.” Instead they kicked us while we were down.
I discovered that there were so many resources on the street. Certain places would give clothes, shoes, blankets, meals, bus passes,
On September 28. 2023, I was told about The Contributor newspaper. Wow! I was put on a list for housing, applied for food stamps and received a free bus pass anytime I bought papers. And they serve breakfast before every meeting. The best part is the volunteers. They actually treat the vendors like human beings, and will do anything to help you succeed in life, you just have to put in the footwork. When you do get housing, they furnish your apartment. They go above and beyond to make sure the vendors have what they need. I have told many of my homeless friends, “If you want to get off the streets, go to The Contributor paper office, not the Mission.”
Selected by Charles Williams
Charles Walter Stansby Williams (1886–1945), the editor of the following selections, is today probably the third most famous of the famous Inklings literary group of Oxford, England, which existed in the middle of the 20th century, and which included among its ranks the better-known and longer-lived Oxford Dons J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis—but he was arguably the most precocious and well-read of this eminent and intellectually fertile group. He was also known to have influenced Dorothy Sayers, T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden. Lacking a proper degree unlike his fellow Inklings, this genius Cockney-speaking author, editor, critic, and playwright was eminently well-versed in both philosophical and theological writings of the remote past as of the present day (the mid-20th century) and used this familiarity to good effect in his poetry, supernatural fiction and his lesser-known devotional selections designed for the spiritual benefit of the faithful in the Church of England. This series of profound quotations, encompassing all walks of life, follows the sequence of the themes and Bible readings anciently appointed for contemplation throughout the church's year, beginning with Advent (i.e., December) and ending in November, and reaches far beyond the pale of the philosophical and theological discussions of his day. It was under his hand, for instance, that some of the first translations of Kierkegaard were made available to the wider public. It is hoped that the readings reproduced here will prove beneficial for any who read them, whatever their place in life's journey. — Matthew Carver
THE Christ of God was not then first crucified when the Jews brought Him to the cross; but Adam and Eve were His first real murderers; for the death which happened to them in the day that they did eat of the earthly tree was the death of the Christ of God or the divine life in their souls. For Christ had never come into the world as a second Adam to redeem it, had He not been originally the life and perfection and glory of the first Adam.
William Law: The Spirit of Love
WHAT is Christ but the death of the body, the breath of life? And so let us die with Him that we may live with him. Let there then be in us as it were a daily practice and inclination to dying, that by this separation from bodily desires of which we have spoken, our soul may learn to withdraw itself, and . . . may take upon herself the likeness of death, that she incur not the penalty of death.
St Ambrose: On the Death of Satyrus
OUR Lord wishes to reveal what He is; Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, hath everlasting life. As if He said; He that believeth on Me hath Me: but what is it to have Me? It is to have eternal life: for the Word which was in the beginning with God is life eternal, and the life was the light of men. Life underwent death, that life might kill death.
St Augustine, quoted in Aquinas: Catena Aurea.
. . . EVERYTHING the good man is suffering through God he is suffering in God, and in suffering my suffering in God, God is my suffering, my suffering God.
Eckhart: The Book of Benedictus
DOST thou wish that it always cost Me the blood of My humanity, without thy shedding tears?
Pascal: Pensées
ALL angels, all saints, all the devils, all the world shall know all the deeds that ever thou didest, though thou have been shriven of them and contrite. But this knowledge shall be no shame to thee if that thou be saved, but rather a worship, right as we read of the deeds of Mary Magdalene to her worship and not to her reproof.
Middle English Sermons
THE enticement of earthly lusts creeps in and the outflow of vanities takes hold of the mind, so that the very thing which you desire to avoid you think upon and turn over in your mind. It is difficult for a man to guard against this; to escape it altogether is impossible. For our heart is not in our own power, and our thoughts suddenly stream forth and confound our mind and reason, and draw us in directions other than we purposed. Who, indeed, among the many passions of this body, among the many enticements of this world, can walk securely and purely? The eye looks, and the sentiment of the mind is deflected; the ear hears, and the resolution is perverted; the sense of smell acts and hinders thought; we touch and take fire.
St Ambrose: De Fuga
WE seek truth in ourselves, in our neighbours, and in its own nature: in ourselves, judging ourselves; in our neighbours, sympathizing with their ills; in its own nature, contemplating with a pure heart.
St Bernard: The Steps of Humility
DESIRE never does anything else but pursue and flee; and whenever Desire pursues what it should, and as far as it should, a man keeps within the limits of his perfection. This Desire, however,
must be ridden by Reason . . . Reason, like a good horseman, directs Desire with bridle and spur. It uses the bridle when desire is pursuing (and this bridle is called Temperance, which prescribes the limits up to which pursuit may be carried); it uses the spur when Desire flees, in order to turn it back to the spot from which it wishes to flee (and this spur is called Courage or Magnanimity, the virtue which points out the spot where we ought to take out stand and to fight).
Dante: Convivio
I LOVE because I love; I love in order to love. St Bernard: On the Song of Songs
THE very toys of all toys, and vanities of vanities, (those ancient favourites of mine) were they which so fast withheld me; they plucked softly at this fleshly garment, and spake softly in mine ears: Canst thou thus part with us? And shall we no more accompany thee from his time for ever? And from this time forth shall it no more be lawful for thee to do this or that for ever? . . . And now I much less than half heard them, nor now so freely contradicting me face to face, but muttering as it were softly behind my back, and giving me a privy pluck as I went from them that I might look once more back: yet for all this as I hesitated they did hold me back from snatching away myself, and shaking them off, and leaping from them to the place I was called unto; for violent custom thus rounded me in the ear: Thinkest thou to be ever able to live without all that?
But by this time it spake very faintly.
St Augustine: Confessions
4TH WEDNESDAY IN LENT
. . . IT is needful to us for to show it to our power and get and keep the virtue of discreet abstinence as our Lord Jesus and His Apostles and other saints have both taught us and given us example; keeping the body and feeding as it is needful thereto after the kind thereof and the travail that longeth thereto. In manner as a horse oweth to be kept for to do his journey, so that he fail not by default into much abstinence on the one side and that he be not rebel to the spirit and too proud by pampering on the other side, but in a good face of abstinence that teacheth the virtue of discretion.
The which discretion, as Saint Bernard said, is not only a virtue but also a keeper and leader of all other virtues: for if that lack, that same virtue is vice.
The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, tr. by Nicholas Love.
4TH THURSDAY IN LENT
A CERTAIN monk was sitting by the monastery, and whilst he was occupied in great labours, it happened that strangers came to the monastery, and they forced him to eat with them contrary to his usual custom, and afterwards the brethren said unto him, "Father, wast thou not just now afflicted?" and he said unto them, "My affliction is to break my will."
The Paradise of the Fathers
GREAT is the difference betwixt a man's being frightened at, and humbled for his sins. One may passively be cast down by God's terrors, and yet not willingly throw himself down as he ought at God's footstool.
Thomas Fuller: A Wounded Conscience
ENGLAND! awake! awake! awake! Jerusalem thy sister calls!
Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death, And close her from thy ancient walls?
Thy hills and valleys felt her feet, Gently upon their bosoms move: Thy gates beheld sweet Zion's ways; Then was a time of joy and love.
And now the time returns again:
Sponsored by Matthew Carver, publisher
Our souls exult, and London's towers
Receive the Lamb of God to dwell
In England's green and pleasant bowers.
Blake: Jerusalem
HE who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars.
Blake: Jerusalem
IF thou hast prayed for thy companion thou hast also prayed for thyself, but if thou hast prayed for thyself only thou hast impoverished thy petition; and if thou hast shown that thy brother hath offended thee, thou hast also shown that thou hast offended thyself.
The Paradise of the Fathers
ALMIGHTY God, have mercy on N and N and on all that bear me evil will, and would me harm, and their faults and mine together, by such easy, tender, merciful means as Thine infinite wisdom best can divine, vouchsafe to amend and redress, and make us saved souls in heaven together where we may ever live and love together with thee and they blessed saints, O glorious Trinity, for the bitter passion of our sweet saviour Christ, amen.
Ascribed to Sir Thomas More.
'THIS mind was in Christ Jesus'—[St. Paul] means as man: being in the form of God—that is, finding, as in the first instant of his incarnation he did, his human nature informed by the Godhead—he thought it no matching-matter for him to be equal with God, but annihilated himself, taking the form of servant: that is, he could not but see what he was, God, but he would see it as if he did not see it, and be it as if he was not, and instead of snatching at once at what all the time was his, or was himself, he emptied himself so far as that was possible of Godhead and behaved only as God's slave, as his creature, as man, which also he was, and then being in the guise of man humbled himself to death.
Gerard Hopkins: Letters
WHAT Adam and Eve went trembling behind the trees through fear and dread of God, it was only this wrath of God awakened in them; it was a terror, and horror, and shivering of nature, that arose up in themselves, because the divine life, the birth of the Son of God, which is the brightness and joy of the soul, was departed from it and had left it to feel its own poor miserable state without it. And this may well enough be called the wrath and justice of God upon them, because it was punishment or painful state of the soul that necessarily followed their revolting from God. But still there was no wrath or painful sensation that wanted to be appeased or satisfied, but in nature and creature; it was only the wrath of fallen nature that wanted to be changed into its first state of peace and love.
William Law: Christian Regeneration
INTO myself I went, and with the eyes of my soul (such as it was) I discovered over the same eye of my soul, over my mind, the unchangeable light of the Lord . . . He that knows what truth is, knows what that light is; and he that knows it, knows eternity. Charity knows it. O eternal Truth! and true Charity! and dear Eternity! Thou art my God, to thee do I sigh day and night. Thee when first I saw, thou liftedst me up, that I might see there was something which I might see; and that as yet I was not the man to see it. And thou didst beat back the infirmity of my own sight, darting thy beams of light upon me most strongly, and I trembled both with love and horror: and I perceived myself to be far off from thee in the region of utter unlikeness, as if I heard this voice of thine from on high: I am the food of strong men, grow apace, and thou shalt feed on me; nor shalt thou convert me like common food into thy substance, but thou shalt be changed into me.
St Augustine: Confessions
27. Place above a ceiling
You choose to be your own worst enemy, When you’re too lost to listen and too blind to see. Longing to learn what Love’s all about?
But dead set intent on keeping everyone out. Longing to learn what Love’s ‘sposed to be?
But strangers are an Invasion of Privacy.
With so much damage done,
By someone or somebody.
On Purpose or Unintentionally?
You’re still a long ways away from destiny. If prison’s a decision, than who holds the key?
Everyone has their untapped potential, That makes them uniquely something special.
The cause and effect of experience. Some you can help and some you can’t.
What does it matter to have so much Gold?
When the fact of the matter,
Is you’re just getting old.
There are some things in Life, That you just can’t buy, And some things that should never be sold. Someone right beside you, to have and to hold, With more than enough Love, To keep you warm when it’s cold. Like a fire in the night burning out of control.
WRITTEN BY
CHRIS SCOTT FIESELMANHow much do we hurt the ones we Love? I’ll never forget what I did to my brother. It started with a foolish, for nothing fight.
Too young to know the difference, Between wrong and right.
He was an artist and I was a poet. We hung our artwork on our bedroom walls, So everyone would know it.
Things that were truly “One of a Kind,” That you could never again ever possibly find. I don’t recall who tore the first piece, Of artwork off the wall.
But that was the day Brother Mik the Artist, Gave up trying and lost it all.
All those fine works of art that came from his heart, That would never be seen again. For me it was a new beginning. For him it was a terrible end.
He never drew again...
Evil for Good, from the hand of a friend. When you did the best you could, To do right by them.
In the heat of the battle, You’re searching for truth. Now, how you going to act?
When it happens to you.
1.
sing.
29. Dueler's strike
31. Overnight lodgings
32. Shoelace bunny ears
33. Divine saying
34. *Producer and star of "Poor Things"
36. *"The ____ of Interest"
38. Table hill
42. Wooden pin
45. *Like nominated ones
49. Love-love, e.g.
51. Meat-cooking contraption
54. Roaring of an engine
56. Hindu religious teacher
57. Forum, pl.
58. Deed hearing
59. Medical diagnostic test
60. Abe Lincoln's hat material
61. #20 Down, e.g.
62. Traditional learning method
63. *Da'Vine ____ Randolph
65. Orinoco or Grande
67. *Ryan Gosling's character
Like New and Improved, Classic Rock and Roll, That touches your soul, whoa-oh-oh...
Everyone has their untapped potential, That makes them uniquely something special. The cause and effect of experience. Some you can help and some you can’t.
Everyone is someone with something to offer.
Maybe somebody you should be, Holding open the door for?
A chance meeting may seem like, Mere Coincidence.
May mean so little to you.
May mean so much to them.
Remember... Anyone and Everyone, You come across,
Has something or someone, That they loved... That they lost...
Consider the Source?
All this had to happen because? Unfortunately, They have their life to live. And Thankfully, You have been Blessed with yours.
Everyone has their untapped potential, That makes them uniquely something special. The cause and effect of experience. Some you can help and some you can’t.
Lord... Please don’t hold this sin against them. Let me not avenge myself by, my own hand. Forgiveness given freely, Seventy Times Seven. No matter what they do to me, Lord... Keep Loving Them... Lord, Keep on Loving Them...
For the sake of The Gospel, you’ll wear the chains. You carry the cross. You Trust in His Name. “Father Forgive Them, For they know not what they do.”
When you say, “I’m a Christian!”
Can you say that too?
Lord... Please don’t hold this sin against them. Let me not avenge myself by, my own hand. Forgiveness given freely, Seventy Times Seven. No matter what they do to me, Lord... Keep Loving Them... Lord, Keep on Loving Them...
Sometimes, you just want to cry. Can’t understand, the reasons why.
When you don’t know, What you’re supposed to do. Let the Love come, Shining Through. Oh, Lord yea!
Lord... Please don’t hold this sin against them. Let me not avenge myself by, my own hand. Forgiveness given freely, Seventy Times Seven. No matter what they do to me, Lord... Keep Loving Them... Lord, Keep on Loving Them...
Lately my phone keeps giving me an alert to reenter the password for my old email account. I’ll get around to it eventually, Pisces, but today I’ll just click “dismiss” another 14 times and then take care of it when I’ve got a moment to focus. I’ll probably have to reset the password and it might take a few steps. I guess when I say this has been happening “lately” I mean ever since I’ve had this phone. Which is still pretty new. Less than four years old, I think. The point is, Pisces, that I’ll get around to reentering that password when I’ve got a few extra minutes to myself. It’s possible, Pisces, that we have to make the time we need to take care of those little things that are stealing our time by the second. I mean, anything’s possible.
And the award for my favorite sign in the Zodiac goes to…the envelope please…But before I open the envelope, Aries, I want you to think about this moment we’re in. That little drum-roll between having a guess, a hope, a fear and then suddenly you know. And the win might be spectacular. The defeat might be devastating. Within minutes the ecstatic, rambling victor is being played-off by the band. And then it’s over, Aries. And the discomfort of unknowing slowly begins to build again. So before I open this envelope, let’s sit in this space together and just not know. You’ve already got a guess who my favorite is, anyway.
The sun is out! Let’s have a pool party, Taurus! Call Gemini and see if we can use her grill. I’ll pick up some chips and some ice and WHOA!!! Hang on! It’s still freezing out here! I definitely should have put on something besides these zodiac-themed swim trunks. I guess just because the sun is shining we can’t assume we’re in the clear. But we’re not wrong, Taurus. We’re just early. Let’s head back inside for some hot chocolate. You can keep your floaties on. Our time is coming.
GEMINI
I heard you recently issued an official statement condemning all of the bad things and praising all of the good ones. That’s great news, Gemini, now everybody knows you’ve been paying attention. But what are you going to do next? It’s one thing to announce that you’ve noticed the difference. It takes another couple of steps before you’re actually helping anybody. It’s worth it, though. If you get good at it, you might even forget to make an official statement.
You can save 5 percent on today’s horoscope by enrolling in auto-ship! Receive a block of text like this one every month without the hassle of running out or repeated reorders. Ready to enroll? Simply do nothing. Your life will continue on in much the way it is now. You’ll have the same familiar fears and avoidance behaviors. You’ll feel a lot like you do today every day. But if you’d rather change something, Cancer, you have an option to decline this service. What’s the smallest change you could make for the better? You probably already know.
Quick, Leo, what do magicians, elephants and swimmers have in common? That’s right! They all have trunks. What about Cheetos, Detroit and MGM Pictures? Whoa, you’re good at this! They all have mascots that are big cats. All right, you’ll know this one for sure, how do better sleep, more water and less self-criticism go together? You can’t think of anything? That’s you, next week, Leo! Actually, you can start right now. Fill up that cup and know that you’re doing it right.
The old toaster had a little dial with a picture of a light-tinted slice of bread next to a dark-tinted slice of bread. If you turned the dial toward the dark slice, your toast would come out burnt. If you turned the dial toward the light slice, almost nothing would happen at all. I assumed I was just using it wrong. I tried interrupting the dark-cycle early. I tried repeat-runs on the light-setting. The usual result was still charred-crust or vaguely-warmed bread. Then I remembered what the poets say, “The purpose of a system is what it does.” So I got a new toaster with a little digital timer that makes perfect toast. What failing system will you replace today, Virgo?
The rain is nice, Libra, but I’m getting tired of all the mud. I guess the grass just hasn’t grown enough yet to hold everything in place, and whenever I walk through the yard I track some gunk up the stairs and across the porch. Even if I take my shoes off at the front door I end up with muddy socks, or caked-up pant-legs. There’s mud flakes on the kitchen floor and in the folds of the futon. I open the refrigerator and mud spills out of every drawer. It bubbles from the HVAC vents and crusts across the curtains. “But the rain is nice” I whisper, as mud finally consumes me whole, pulling me under with a thick wet flop. Watch what you’re tracking into your house, Libra. This stuff builds up.
I always have to interrupt when people get upset about a new movie and say things like, “This is the worst film in the history of cinema!” because I know they’re wrong. I know because when I was 9 years old, my friend Tim and his cousin Toby and I spent an afternoon shooting a sequel to E.T. on Tim’s dad’s Camcorder. I don’t remember many specifics, but there was a skateboard chase and several lightsaber fights. Whatever movie you’re talking about, it was worse. We also had a blast making it. Actually, Scorpio, rather than sitting here talking about the worst movies of all time, why don’t we get up and make something. Even if it’s terrible, it’ll be a better use of our time.
Most of the time, Sagittarius, my mind does not incline toward gratitude. It’s not that I lack anything. I have a place to rest, a place to work, food to eat, and a deaf dog to tell my troubles to. But I expect those things to be there for me. I take them for granted. So I’m trying to practice noticing the real gifts in what I’ve been treating as the bare minimum. I find I’m grateful for this chair, for hands that will work, for the buttered banana bread on my plate, and for this old dog’s sweet empty ears. You can try it too if you want, Sagittarius. Start where you’re sitting.
I went to the dentist for a filling and now the left side of my lip and jaw are totally numb. They said I’m not supposed to eat anything because I might end up chewing on my own cheek and I wouldn’t even know it. So, sitting here at lunchtime, not eating anything, I started to think about the other ways I’ve been numb. The suffering I’ve ignored from people right next to me. How I’ve pushed away uncomfortable realities as “not my responsibility” because it’s easier to go on not feeling. And as I thought about all those things, I noticed a little tingle in my lip. The feeling is coming back, Capricorn. It might hurt a little extra at first, after all, you’ve been chewing on your own cheek — but let it come. And don’t go numb again.
I didn’t want to scrape the ice off my windshield this morning. Isn’t it spring yet? Why should I have to do extra work? So I just didn’t. I started the car and squinted through a little clear spot under the windshield wipers and tried to aim for the stop sign at the end of the block. I guess that’s mostly why I’m stuck with my front two wheels in the air and my back two in this koi pond. I wonder, Aquarius, if there’s sometimes some extra work we have to do on ourselves even though it doesn’t seem fair. I’m starting to think that might be the only way to get where we’re trying to go.
Oppenheimer was released on July 21, 2023. It’s currently still playing in local theaters at the same time that it’s blowing-up online streaming. On Sunday, March 10, this movie will triumph at the Oscars, but it won’t come as a big surprise. Oppenheimer was way up on my list of must-see 2023 films, and the Barbenheimer summer movie frenzy felt like the real return to the theaters after years of pandemic paranoia. It also demonstrated the enduring lure of staring at giant images and listening to big sounds in the dark with strangers. We don’t acknowledge it in this secular post-postmodernity, but film screenings are rituals and theaters are sacred spaces.
Oppenheimer is part historical apology, part war picture, part bedroom drama. Mix them all together and watch it go boom! Sort of. Christopher Nolan brings a signature, subdued style of acting to all of his films. You see similar stylized performances in Kubrick movies and — to some degree — in Hitchcock. Kubrick’s affected actors bring a lot of weird tension to their interactions. But where Kubrick achieves a subtle surrealism, Nolan is sometimes accused of only draining the emotion out of his actor’s performances.
But Nolan’s penchant for flat characters creates a lot of space for Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh to deliver one of the best ensemble performances of 2023 in Oppenheimer. Another aspect of Nolan’s muted emotional tone is that it helps to embed his cast of cameo actors into the film with less movie star disruption. Matt Damon, Gary Oldman, Kenneth Branagh, cult icon character actor James Remar, Casey Affleck and many, many more all play supporting parts here. The Oscars don’t have an ensemble award, but Oppenheimer might take Best Cast in a Motion Picture at the SAG Awards on Feb. 24 by sheer force of numbers. That’s how we won the big one, kids.
Cillian Murphy is extremely likely to win the Best Actor Oscar for his title turn in Oppenheimer. Murphy delivers a transformational characterization of a heroic, haunted and horny Robert J. Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic
bomb.” It’s a legacy performance that cements Murphy as one of the great actors of his generation. And Emily Blunt gets my vote for Best Supporting Actress. Blunt plays Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty Oppenheimer. She’s a super complex character, but she’s ultimately only revealed through a handful of scenes. I want to watch Oppenheimer again just to watch Blunt. The further I get from the film the more important and exactly written this character feels. Pugh isn’t nominated for an Oscar, but she’s luminous as Oppenheimer’s longtime lover and a communist radical. Her character stirs-up lots of personal and political complexities here. And, like Blunt, Pugh and Nolan deserve plenty of credit for bringing many memorable moments to a relatively small amount of screen time.
One of the wonders of Murphy’s performance is that he’s in nearly every scene of this film. The only other actor who’s really given real room to roam is Robert Downey Jr. in what might be his best performance in a career full of great ones. RDJ is Atomic Energy Commission chairman, Lewis Strauss. He is magnetically unlikable as a conniving bureaucrat who resents Oppenheimer’s political clout after his bombs secure the Japanese surrender and the end of World War II. Contributor readers might remember his early career as a breakout member of Hollywood’s 1980s Brat Pack. That was before the actor thoroughly derailed his professional reputation with a series of legal scandals resulting from an out of control drug addiction. RDJ was nominated for his first Oscar for his title role in Chaplin (1992) before he went to prison and even experienced homelessness just as he was emerging as one of Generation X’s best young actors. He’ll get his Oscar this year, completing one of the most inspiring creative comebacks we’ve seen in movies.
Oppenheimer is currently playing on all screens everywhere
Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.
