Deap Vally
The voice, they lyrics, the sound, the look. I love it all and have their latest album on replay. I’ll let this LA rock duo speak/play/riot/peacefully-motha-effin-protest for themselves. Visit Chicago soon, OK?
And I am not ashamed of my mental state
And I am not ashamed of my body weight
And I am not ashamed of my rage
And I am not ashamed of my age
And I am not ashamed of my sex life
Although I wish it were better
I am not ashamed I am no one’s wife
Although the idea does sound kind of nice
“Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City” by Matthew Desmond
This book is at once heartbreaking and genius. Fittingly, the author Matthew Desmond received a MacArthur “Genius” grant in 2015, a year before this book was published. “Evicted” is an investigative journalism-style book that profiles landlords and tenants in several Milwaukee neighborhoods, from the black inner city on the north side to the white trailer parks on the south side. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in social justice or the housing market. It’s a very informative look at why evictions are on the rise and how devastating they are for the families and communities they affect–one court ordered eviction and the payments and consequences snowball out of control. I love Desmond’s objective reporting; the landlords, who are as callous and cold as they can be forgiving, get equal play here to defend themselves.
The reasons for evictions vary and poverty reaches its brutal fingers into all areas of a life that can lead to even darker places in the pit (addiction, disability, discrimination). The whole book relays brutal anecdotes of unfair housing and regulatory practices and organizations that portend to help but are often just a busy signal at the end of the line. That anyone can survive hanging on like this is incredible. I think it’s important we remember that although there are agencies that are supposed to help social problems like poverty, it’s more than often not enough–and the dominoes fall fast. We need to keep aware of what’s going on in these neighborhoods and why so we can make decisions that help across the board (ie. healthcare).
Read the whole book, but here are a few interesting insights on how women, and especially black women, are at a particular disadvantage in this cycle:
“Women tended not to negotiate their eviction like men did, and they were more likely to avoid landlords when they fell behind. These responses did not serve them well.”
“Belligerent as it was, Jerry’s [a tenant] confrontational response aligned with Tobin’s [a landlord] blunt and brusque way. Property management was a profession dominated by men and by a gruff, masculine way of doing business. That put men like Jerry at an advantage.”
“In Milwaukee’s poorest black neighborhoods, 1 female renter in 17 was evicted through the court system each year, twice as often as men from those neighborhoods and nine times as often as women from the city’s poorest white areas. Women from black neighborhoods made up 9% of Milwaukee’s population and 30% of its evicted tenants.”
Barack and Michelle Obama
Barack specifically called out his girl at the farewell address speech this week in Chicago. Through his thanks, he teared up, and knowing how soul matey this pair has seemed throughout his entire presidency, you know this was just another genuine example of feeling too. While their friendship, teamwork and equal relational status are all admirable qualities worth emulating in my own relationship, I have to take a feminist aside here and fist pump the prez. Growing up (Bill Clinton was president), it always seemed like men in power had wives as show horses or bargaining chips, never really as sidekicks. Plus, men didn’t cry. Not really anyway… But Obama’s tears on a center stage for his beloved reminded me how far we have come even in the last 20 years about what strong masculinity can represent. You can cry out with love for your wife and still be the leader of the free world—in fact, it probably makes you more trustworthy as a leader. More of this please. #mykindoffamilyvalues
