ussocialforum
U.S. Social Forum on Why Progressive Politics Matter
originally posted by Jorge Rivas for Colorlines [click here]
Jun 25th
ColorLines set up a camera at the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit this week and asked attendees why a vibrant progressive movement is necessary right now. Watch some of the answers.
US Social Forum: Getting Started on the Streets
originally posted by Seth Freed Wessler for RaceWire [click here]
Jun 23rd
Thousands of marchers streamed through the Detroit streets for three miles yesterday to open the US Social Forum. Today, activists from across the country continue rolling into the humid Detroit heat on bikes, in buses, in packed vans and by air to get the conference moving.
I’ll be posting to Racewire for the rest of week with stories from Detroit and from the Social forum. Today I’ll be looking at the impact of the predatory mortgage crisis and what groups here are doing to fight back.
In the month of May, Michigan saw a rising rate of foreclosure—46% higher than a year ago—and ranked fifth in the nation for foreclosure filings.
Photo: ColorLines/Hatty Lee
U.S. Social Forum: Foreclosures Still the Story in Detroit
originally posted by Seth Wessler for Colorlines [click here]
Jun 23rd
Bombed out houses and unemployment lines; empty factories and empty lots. These are the images that have come to animate Detroit’s decline, its deep and deepening depression, its seemingly disproportionate share of the pain doled out by the country’s economic downturn.
This story is true. On a drive through Detroit’s neighborhoods today with Sandra Hines, a local organizer with the group Moratorium Now!, a group fighting against the continuing crisis of foreclosure and eviction, I rolled through whole neighborhoods filled with burnt out houses and overgrown lots where homes once stood. For decades these neighborhoods have been deconstructed, first by redlining and the disinvestment that accompanied white flight and then by the decline of auto industry jobs.
But this is not exactly the story of Detroit in this recession. By the time the foreclosure crisis hit, many Black neighborhoods were already gone, the homes without residents to be evicted, the wealth already vanished. It was in the other neighborhoods, those that had survived, those that were thriving, that many families were robbed of their homes.
Sandra Hines is part of one of those families. I met her two years ago when I was traveling the country researching the racial impact of the economic downturn for our Race and Recession Report. Hines showed me the home she moved to with her parents when she was 18, the home into which they they poured their hard earned income and that they passed down to Sandra and and their two other daughters when they died.
When times got tough and the family needed money to get some work done on the house, they took out a loan. Without their knowing, they’d bought a predatory adjustable loan. The payments exploded and they got behind on their payments. The home was lost to foreclosure. They moved to an apartment.
The family’s home is in west Detroit on a street lined with old trees and mid century two-story brick homes with cropped lawns. The house stands there empty, owned by someone who bought it from the bank for a fraction of its value. The building that held two generations of her family’s wealth and a lifetime of her memories is now padlocked and she’s shut on the outside.
ColorLines will be releasing Sandra Hines’ full story in the coming weeks as part of a video collaboration with GritTV. Check back for more later.
Her story is like that of millions of others and it’s not a story past. As Michelle Chen just wrote on Racewire, a new report by the Center for Responsible Lending shows:
The recession still has more damage left to do. From 2007 to 2009, about 2.5 million foreclosures were completed throughout the country, and now, millions more homes are facing the same fate. About 1 in 6 Latino homeowners, and 1 in 10 Black homeowners have either lost their homes already or are at “imminent risk,” compared to 7 percent of White owners, according to the Center for Responsible Lending. The organization’s new analysis of foreclosure statistics from 2007 to 2009 confirms previous research, but the timing of the report is a bleak reminder that the economic crisis has not yet bottomed out in many areas.
Read Michelle’s whole blog here.
Foreclosures have largely left the news. Unfortunately, they are very much still the story.
Photo: ColorLines/Hatty Lee
U.S. Social Forum: Getting Started in the Streets
originally posted by Seth Wessler for Colorlines [click here]
Jun 23rd
Thousands of marchers streamed through the Detroit streets for three miles yesterday to open the U.S. Social Forum. Today, activists from across the country continue rolling into the humid Detroit heat on bikes, in buses, in packed vans and by air to get the conference moving.
I’ll be posting to Racewire for the rest of week with stories from Detroit and from the Social forum. Today I’ll be looking at the impact of the predatory mortgage crisis and what groups here are doing to fight back.
In the month of May, Michigan saw a rising rate of foreclosure—46% higher than a year ago—and ranked fifth in the nation for foreclosure filings.
Photo: ColorLines/Hatty Lee
Fixing the World at the U.S. Social Forum
originally posted by Seth Wessler for Colorlines [click here]
Jun 22nd
It’s no secret that today’s progressives are experiencing a churning set of not-so-lovely emotions, ranging from frustration to anger to grief. After eight years of George W. Bush, many of us expected the country and the world to be in a very different place now. But 18 months into Obama’s term, we’ve seen many of the most catastrophic policies of the Bush administration continued and retooled, and the collective weight of this not-change has put many in a pretty bad mood. Many–myself included–are yearning for a little jolt.
That’s why as many as 20,000 of these progressives–lefties, radicals, liberals, agnostic independents and the rest–are expected to arrive in Detroit this week for the second U.S. Social Forum. It’s the domestic outgrowth of the the World Social Forum, which can be understood as Davos for those not convinced that markets alone can solve the globe’s problems.
The gathering will run all week and will consist of panels, workshops, marches, mixers and work on the ground in Detroit. It promises to pull people from across movements, generations and regions and will be about as multiracial as the country it’s about. It’s raison d’être: To “declare what we want our world to look like and … start planning the path to get there.”
At the least, the Social Forum promises to be a good time. Who among us doesn’t love drinks and debate with 20,000 of the country’s most pathbreaking activists and progressive journalists? (Well, OK, “us” being political nerds like myself.)
At most, it’s an opportunity to think beyond the bounds of where we are, to make plans and to build new community in a time when we need to feel like the world is moving with us not against us–and that we’re moving together. It’s a time to think big. Indeed, that’s what the thing is about.
As the oil continues to flow in the Gulf Coast and the bullets fly in Iraq and Afghanistan, children are killed by police and by border patrol, states across the U.S. threaten to follow Arizona’s path to apartheid and unemployment and foreclosures continue to hit Black neighborhoods like a wrecking ball, the Social Forum promises to be a place to find solutions and celebrate victories.
All week, I’ll be in Detroit reporting for ColorLines, joining the crowds, digging up the stories and the back-stories and sending them your way. Check the site throughout the week to stay in the loop.
And if you’re going to be in Detroit, ColorLines would love to meet you! So here are the places we’ll be.
ColorLines and the Applied Research Center at the U.S. Social Forum
Start the week off right. The Applied Research Center, ColorLines’ publisher, and Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC)-United invite you to kick off USSF in color!
• FREE admission and appetizers
• Recession-friendly happy hour drinks and tacos
• Dancing and music hosted by The Cupcake Collective
Tues., 06/22 | 6-10pm (brief program at 6:45) | 311 E. Grand River, Detroit 48226 (Google Maps: http://bit.ly/9EP8Cu) (walking distance from the march)
WORKSHOPS AT USSF
Using New Media to Win Racial and Gender Justice
Innovative and interactive technologies are scoring victories for racial and gender justice, via storytelling, advocacy and opinion leadership. What’s getting heard and making an impact?
Wed, 06/23 | 1-3pm | Woodward Academy: 1476
Co-sponsored by ColorLines and Feministing