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When Media is in Our Own Hands: Storytelling as Organizing

July 1, 2009 by amalia deloney

Women from CrossingBarriers and All Parks Alliance for Change make their videos

Women from CrossingBarriers and All Parks Alliance for Change make their videos

Storytelling predates the written word. People have been telling stories for as long as we have had speech. Stories are learned image-by-image, rather than word-by-word, and are retold from the heart. Throughout history, stories have been used to educate, express, advocate and organize. It is through the sharing of stories that communities build their identities, pass on traditions, and construct meaning.

50+ Group Leader from Twin Cities Community Voice Mail

50+ Group Leader from Twin Cities Community Voice Mail

When a story is shared, a powerful connection is built –and from this connection personal stories have the ability to move both the storyteller and the listener to create a shared political view of the world…and then of course, move towards collective action. Adapted from Fourth World Rising, Main Street Project, Third World Majority, and the Center for Digital Storytelling 9/15/06

Across the United States, movement-building organizations are placing storytelling central to their organizing. In Philadelphia, the Media Mobilizing Project’s slogan is “movements begin with the telling of untold stories.” Here in Minneapolis, the Main Street Project believes that “one-by-one we reach people, share our stories, and build relationships.” Recently, as part of our Justice 2.0 Initiative, we started to lead “Storytelling for Social Change” workshops. In these trainings, we teach community members that “everyone has a powerful story to tell, because we all see, hear, and perceive the world in different ways.”  We believe that the power of storytelling in organizing is its ability to create empathy and build relationships between different people and communities by connecting both the storyteller and the listener within a common narrative.

Staff and Community from Just Equity make a video about the impact of Light Rail on St. Paul's Rondo Neighborhood

Staff and Community from Just Equity make a video about the impact of Light Rail on St. Paul's Rondo Neighborhood

For the historically disenfranchised communities we work with (whether migrant, communities of color, or low-income) we know that survival depends on maintaining the identities, languages, and traditions that hold a community together. To this end, media–in our own hands–can be a valuable storytelling tool that supports our self-determination, preserves our collective identity, and strengthens our struggles for social and economic justice.

Recently, the Headwaters Foundation for Justice awarded $215,000 to 24 Minnesota-based not-for-profit organizations. In keeping with Headwaters’ mission to support grassroots organizations and promote social, racial, economic and environmental justice, grants were given to organizations that address systems change. All grantees were invited to participate in a 2-part “Storytelling for Social Change” workshop with us. In the first session, participants learned about the application of storytelling in a variety of contexts, and the potential of multimedia technology to support the use of narrative in their organizing.

In the second session, participants developed a multimedia narrative related to their Headwaters Social Change grant. Take a minute and watch the short videos these organizations created, and reflect on what it could look like if our communities had the media skills, digital literacy, technology and access to create media about the root causes of the problems we face.

Posted in Communication Rights, Digital Divide, Internet for Everyone, Media Action Grassroots Network, Media Justice, Racial Justice, Social Justice | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Farm and Food File: Take free trade-please

June 10, 2009 by NES

By Alan Guebert

When the international trade portion of your resume is as thin as Ron Kirk’s – you do remember that Kirk, the former mayor of Dallas, is now U.S. Trade Representative, don’t you – likely you’d stress personal ideals over professional accomplishments when talking about your new job.

Kirk did just that in a May 22 speech to the U.S. Meat Export Federation. As Barack Obama’s trade ambassador, Kirk explained, he’d be guided by “raging sense of pragmatism and a practical sense of urgency.”

Golly, I’m pretty familiar with the English language but I have no idea what that gibberish means. Maybe it’s Texican for Hey, I’m two months into this job so don’t complain until I actually do something.

If so, fair enough because Kirk is stepping into one of the darkest, most unexplored corners of the Obama White House where few even talk about trade let alone promote it.

And for good reason; trade policy -and, specifically, the North American Free Trade Agreement -was one of the few banana peels Obama slipped on during his otherwise textbook-perfect 2008 presidential race.

More importantly, since taking office the job-crushing recession has pushed trade even farther down the Administration’s to-do list.

Events, however, keep trying to raise it back up. The H1N1 swine flu outbreak clobbered U.S. pork exports and, in turn, U.S. hog markets, despite no known link between pigs, their meat and the disease.

The global flu reaction did give Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack another chance to promote a proposed – and still going nowhere after five years and $130 million of federal promotion – mandatory, national animal identification program as a way to quickly counter regional and global market concerns.

Just as the scare was building, April 29, a U.S. Department of Agriculture report sternly warned American ranchers and farmers that the continued lack of a national livestock tracking system might soon cost the beef sector $13.2 billion a year in lost sales to other nations, like Canada and Australia, who already have trace-back programs.

Most U.S. producers, however, see mandatory livestock ID as a costly, unnecessary government intrusion into their business. USDA admits that only 510,000 of 1.4 million U.S. livestock farms have voluntarily signed on to the current premise ID program.

Indeed, NAIS, the acronym for USDA’s ailing National Animal Identification effort, is an almost perfect example of what Kirk and his band of raging pragmatists face. NAIS, say trade experts, is an imperative for future growth of U.S. meat exports and yet there aren’t 10 cowboys west of the Potomac – let alone the Pecos – in any state that support it.

Can Kirk and his “practical sense of urgency” – or more truthfully, anyone -solve the dilemma? Not likely; NAIS is headed to the back burner to simmer for the summer.

It will have plenty of company. Already there are the pending free trade deals with Peru… and Panama… and Columbia… and (yawn) Korea and no one in Congress wants to stir any of ‘em. Then there’s that messy stew called Doha.

The front burners warm a few kettles of fish, too. One has our NAFTA partners, Canada and Mexico, claiming America’s finally-implemented country of origin labeling law is trade restrictive; both want the World Trade Organization to broaden it or boot it.

And that’s just Kirk’s crowded starting point. Just how confusing is it for this former mayor? The last ag trade press release posted on the trade rep’s website (http://www.ustr.gov/) is dated Nov. 1, 2008, three days before his boss’s election.

Then again, maybe Kirk’s urgent inaction simply means that the Boss prefers no trade deal over a bad trade deal. How, ah, pragmatic.

Posted in Agriculture, Economic Development, Economic Justice | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

Health Care Reform in Rural America: What’s food got to do with it?

May 11, 2009 by Niel Ritchie

I got a call on a Thursday afternoon from the White House Office of Public Liaison inviting me to a roundtable discussion on rural health care reform at the Executive Office Building the following Monday. Conference calls were not an option, so recalling my friend and colleague Dee Davis’ admonition: “When the White House calls, you go,” I got the ticket and went.

HHS Rural Report

HHS Rural Report

The May 4 meeting, fourth in a series of stakeholder gatherings, was chaired by Nancy-Ann DeParle, Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office of Health Reform, and featured Dr. Mary Wakefield, Administrator at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Tina Tchen, Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, and Representative Mike Ross (D-AR) who serves on the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee of Energy and Commerce. It coincided with the release of a new report from HHS entitled “Hard Times in the Heartland: Health Care in Rural America.”

It was my privilege to be there representing the League of Rural Voters and the National Rural Assembly, alongside farmers and ranchers from around the country, leaders from the National Farmers Union, National Family Farm Coalition and Farm Bureau Federation, and experts from the National Rural Health Association, Rural Policy Research Institute, Fishing Partnership Health Plan, Center for Rural Affairs and others.

The 90-minute discussion focused on the rising cost of health insurance to farm families and the shrinking number of health care professionals practicing in rural America. Rep. Cox made it clear that major reform of the system was necessary to keep the costs of Medicare and Medicaid from swamping the federal budget.

As I waited for my turn to speak, I got thinking about the sad spectacle of dialysis clinics springing up across the country in response to the explosion of obesity-related diabetes, which is of course, completely preventable. How much does all that treatment cost?

I recalled the school lunches that were part of my experience some 40 years ago: balanced meals made fresh each day (with USDA-provided ingredients) by a half dozen real cooks in the kitchen. The dishes were not disposable and you ate what was in front of you (except for the beets!).

I also remembered when Pepsi and Coke took over the high school vending areas to help the school “earn” money, and marveled years later at how city schools turned over their food service to Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

And now we have an epidemic of obesity, diabetes and heart disease that is killing us, literally and figuratively. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

So I thanked the Administration for the opportunity, noted the burgeoning costs of diet-related health problems like obesity, diabetes and heart disease and stressed the need for a systems approach to health care reform.

I encouraged us all to focus attention on improving diet and nutrition among youth and senior populations as one strategy for reducing long-term health care costs – a strategy which would also expand local and regional markets for food and farm products.

I finished by acknowledging that President Obama has done a great job of connecting the dots on a number of complex issues already and reiterated my hope that the Administration would continue to help rural America connect the dots on this challenge as well. Healthy food, healthy kids, healthy economies, healthy communities: we have the opportunity to make progress on all our goals simultaneously.

Posted in Agriculture, Economic Development, Health Care | Tagged , , | 1 Comment »

Straight talk about the middle class recovery

May 11, 2009 by Kat Vann

Dr. Richard Levins has a gift for straight talk. He’s Professor Emeritus of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota, but explains his take on economic recovery in a way that makes perfect sense to non-academics like me. On May 7, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran a few of his words on the op-ed page as their letter of the day:

Nobel economist Paul Krugman (Opinion Exchange, May 6) tells us what every middle-class Minnesotan already knows: The path to economic recovery is not paved with lower wages. A healthy, middle-class economy requires middle-class wages.

How do we get those middle-class wages? Legislation is before Congress to make it easier to join a union. Those unions can then bargain for the higher wages our recovery will need. No borrowing from China, no printing money and giving it to mega-banks – looked at this way, the proposed legislation sounds a lot like an economic stimulus plan that makes sense for the middle class.

Besides being easy to understand, Dr. Levins is very smart. If you’ve got a couple of minutes, check out this nifty little video he made about the middle class and what unions have to do with it:

Like most of us, I consider myself to be part of the American middle-class. And like most of us, I’m struggling to get a grip on our current mess of an economy. Legislation that helps drive middle-class wages in a positive direction seems like a no-brainer to me. Thanks for the lesson, Dr. Levins.

Posted in Economic Development, Economic Justice | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

I am, we are, POWERFUL!

May 6, 2009 by amalia deloney

The ¡Justice/Justicia 2.0! initiative is a new program at Main Street Project.  Grounded in a media justice approach, the program was designed to support rural Latin@s, other communities of color and allies to use interactive Web 2.0 technologies, including blogs, Facebook and Twitter to advocate for immigrant rights and other issues important to their communities, as well as combat anti-immigrant and racist voices in the media.

Recently, we worked with the Organizing Apprenticeship Project to train their 2009 class of organizers.   The Organizing Apprenticeship Project is a Minneapolis based organization that works to advance racial, cultural, social and economic justice in Minnesota through organizer and leadership training, policy research and strategic convening work.

During the day-long training–which was part of our Justice 2.0 initiative–organizers learned “story telling for social change” skills.  The morning was spent in a session called “Path to Power” led by Hope Community Youth/Adult Organizer, Chaka Mkali. Our goal following Chaka’s training, was to re-frame what power looks like and who holds power.  This short video was one of the results.

As organizers, activists and cultural workers, we know that the connections between media – its form, content, and who owns it – are inextricably tied to issues of social justice, power, and equity.  Connecting media issues to core social justice and human rights issues is crucial.  Our media justice initiatives work towards digital justice, addressing the need for both access and representation so that all historically marginalized communities can work towards new relationships with media and share a new vision for its control, access, and structure tied to social justice and equity.  Learning to recognize and honor our personal power is an important first step that has everything to do with challenging stereotypical and demeaning images of our communities and ourselves.  When we tell our own stories– we take important steps towards building community, strengthening social change and reclaiming power for us all.


Posted in Communication Rights, Digital Divide, Media Action Grassroots Network, Media Justice, Racial Justice, Social Justice | Leave a Comment »

Farm and Food File: Big biz and the Big U

May 3, 2009 by mainstreetnews

By Alan Guebert

When David Chicoine explains his new, part-time job—one of eleven members of the board of directors at seed giant Monsanto Co.—it all sounds very smart, very modern, very… good.

“Big companies like Monsanto,” related Chicoine in an April 21 telephone interview, “have contacts anywhere they find talent. Their only interest is high quality work.”

Chicoine’s anywhere and talent, however, are very uncommon; he’s president of South Dakota State University (SDSU), the state’s Land Grant university and its premier research and teaching institution. That makes him one of an elite group whose entire membership is fewer than that of the U.S. Senate.

It also makes him, by anyone’s recollection, the first Land Grant president to sit on the board an agriculture-based, transnational corporation that contributes millions to fund ag research and infrastructure at Land Grant universities around the U.S.

The directorship, which became effective April 15 and is subject to shareholder approval in 2010, carries a fat paycheck for the slim work. As Monsanto’s Form 8-K, filed April 20 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, wordily notes, Chicoine will pocket “an annual base retainer having a value of $195,000.”

Sweet, but there’s more. Continue Reading »

Posted in Agriculture | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

The Digital TV Doldrums

April 22, 2009 by NES

A great post from our friends over at the Daily Yonder on another challenge that rural Americans are facing with the DTV transition: Even if they get the necessary converter box, some of them might still end up with fewer channels than before because of the weaker digital signal in rural areas – unless they buy a special outdoor antenna.

The NTIA program set aside funds for converter boxes, but not for antennas, an added cost for rural residents [...].

“To a lot of the folks who call us, I just say ‘Antenna, antenna, antenna,’” reports Mark Holt, Services Coordinator at KET: The Kentucky Network. “The digital signal is weaker than analog, so if the station you watch now has static or snow, the picture will likely disappear altogether when it goes digital. The indoor antenna with ‘rabbit-ears’ is just not going to work anymore for a whole lot of people.”

Posted in Broadband, Digital Divide, Digital TV Transition, Internet for Everyone, Media Justice | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

Farm and Food File: How to hide 8 million acres in plain sight

April 15, 2009 by mainstreetnews

By Alan Guebert

American farmers and global food makers have had more than a decade to get comfortable with wild, year-to-year swings in crop acres brought by decoupled, “freedom to farm” ag policies, an 800 percent boom in biofuel production and an increasingly hungry export market for American meat and grain.

Still, the 2009 Prospective Planting Report, released March 31 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, held a punch no one saw coming. According to USDA, American farmers will plant 7.8 million fewer acres of key crops this year than last.

That’s a lot of acres growing nothing more than last year’s stubble and next year’s dreams. It’s akin to European farmers not planting one square centimeter of Belgium and nearly half—the flatter half, one reckons—of Luxembourg.

On this side of the pond, the unplanted acres are just a million less than what will be planted to cotton, 8.81 million, this year.

The cuts are as broad-based as deep, says USDA. Corn acres will drop slightly, down 1.2 percent, while soybeans will show a modest boost. Plantings for most other crops, however, are forecast to fall; some to flat-out tumble.

For example, USDA sees sorghum acres down 16 percent, barley plantings down 6.6 percent, winter wheat off 7.3 percent, cotton down 7 percent, sunflowers down 17.7 percent, durum wheat down 10.5 percent and peanuts off by a whopping 26.7 percent.

Add all those downers up and 2009 total planted acres are 8.8 million acres less than 2008. Increased plantings in rice, hay, oats (come on, oats?) soybeans and sugarbeets, however, trim that total to 7.8 million.

If you let professional market watchers scratch your head over the drop, though, most will be done long before you.

Why? If you subtract the huge acreage increases farmers unleashed in 2007 and 2008 due to soaring corn prices, says Darrell Mark, an extension marketing specialist at the University of Nebraska, 2009’s total is “nearly in-line with plantings seen from 2003 to 2006” when market prices were—like this year so far—more modest. Continue Reading »

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