Tag: Beyond Yellow Springs

Syrians. Afghans. Somalians. Columbians. Kosovars. Iraqis.

More than 60 million people around the world are refugees and migrants, according to recent UN figures, and over half of them are children. Not since World War II have this many people been displaced from their homes.

What can a village of 3,500 do?

That’s one question motivating the upcoming roundtable event, “An Uncertain Welcome: Displacement, Migration and Refugees,” which will be held Thursday and Friday, April 14 and 15, at Antioch College’s South Gym. Organized by the college and Community Solutions, the event is free and open to all villagers interested in understanding refugee issues in greater depth.

The refugee crisis “definitely marks what’s going on in our world — it’s a feature of our time,” said Rick Kraince, associate professor of cooperative education at Antioch College and a co-organizer of the event.

“Destabilization of the Middle East and north Africa by the Western powers, with our government at the forefront” has been a huge driver of displacement, he said, together with U.S. policies in Central America that go back decades. Climate change is another driver. The Syrian war has its roots in the “worst drought of 900 years,” said Susan Jennings, executive director of Community Solutions, citing new research linking climate change, conflict and migration in the Middle East.

“Uncertain Welcome” will explore many of these issues, opening with a keynote on Thursday evening, 7–9 p.m., by Ethiopian human rights scholar Semahagn Gashu Abebe, who will address food security issues and the forces affecting displacement and migration. The event continues on Friday, 8:30 a.m.–5 p.m., with roundtable discussions focused on the causes of displacement, the forces shaping our perceptions of the crisis and the support systems currently in place, as well as the urgent question of what individuals and communities can do to help.

But another impetus for the gathering, according to the organizers, is to counter negative and demonizing rhetoric about refugees.

“Where we are in our national discussion is disturbing,” said Kraince. “Presidential candidates are competing to outdo each other to be unwelcoming to refugees,” he added, citing rhetoric by Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Kraince believes that civil society — the sector of society that includes nonprofits, educational institutions and faith groups — has a special responsibility to respond to such rhetoric, and to foster an atmosphere of tolerance and welcome. Jennings agreed.

“Community Solutions and Antioch College and village leaders have all been very distressed by the rhetoric around refugees,” she said. “It’s so important that good people speak up. Even though we’re a small community, our voices are important.”

Indeed, villagers have already spoken up — and signaled their willingness to help. In December, Village Council unanimously passed a resolution of support for any local efforts to relocate Syrian refugees to Yellow Springs. That action followed Governor Kasich’s statement in November that he opposed the entry of Syrian refugees into the U.S. and Ohio. And in February, Rev. Aaron Saari, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, organized a meeting to brainstorm ways to aid Syrian refugees, including exploring steps to bring refugee families to the village.

Around 40 villagers turned out for that meeting, said Saari recently. But as eager as people are to open their homes to refugees, the resettlement process is long and complex. Catholic Social Services of the Miami Valley is the primary coordinator for refugee resettlement in our region, Saari said, and according to that agency, Syrian refugees are not currently being placed in the Dayton area. Resettlement, when it happens, could take five or more years, he added, and requires that a community build out the necessary supports for refugee families — affordable housing, medical and social services, job training and language classes.

“It’s a tremendous investment of time, talent and treasure,” said Saari, who will be speaking about a possible Yellow Springs refugee initiative at the upcoming roundtable. The April event will be followed by another meeting in May, Saari said, to determine what form of commitment to the Syrian refugee crisis villagers are willing and able to make.

Yellow Springs has a history of welcoming refugees, according to Scott Sanders, Antioch College archivist and another roundtable speaker. He’ll be telling the story of the Conway Colony, freed slaves who were relocated here in 1863 by Moncure Conway, an abolitionist. Among them were Eliza and Dunmore Guinn, who established a home on Grinnell Road and have descendants in the village today. Another story Sanders will relate involves the Folkmanis family, who came to Yellow Springs as displaced persons after World War II, thanks to the efforts of First Presbyterian Church, Antioch College and the local community. Atis Folkmanis, who was 10 years old at the time of the family’s relocation, went on to graduate from Antioch and later became a major supporter of the college with his wife, Judy.

Kraince believes that Antioch College today has “real momentum” around contemporary refugee issues, in part because of its students’ wealth of co-op experiences. Since reopening, the college has made about 750 co-op placements, Kraince said, more than 90 of these overseas. About a dozen students have worked specifically on refugee issues in their co-op placements, he added. Some of those students, as well as graduate students from Wright State University studying migration, will bring their work and perspectives to the roundtable.

“We hope this will be a launching board for other collaborations,” said Kraince. “There’s a lot of knowledge here.”

According to Saari and others, it’s not yet certain what form villagers’ collective response to the Syrian refugee crisis will take. But it does seem clear, given the village’s history and its present engagement with refugee issues, that Yellow Springs residents are unlikely to sit out what Jennings called the “largest humanitarian crisis since World War II.”

“With the roundtable and other actions, we’re hoping to help shape a compassionate and informed response,” she said.

For more information about roundtable topics and participants, villagers can email info@communitysolution.org. Child care is available for the event; those needing child care are asked to contact the organizers in advance.

Local landscaper Talis X spent Memorial Day weekend in a Cleveland jail after leading a spontaneous street protest on Saturday when a judge acquitted a white Cleveland police officer in the 2012 shooting of an unarmed black couple.

Talis X was visiting his hometown to protest another police shooting — that of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was gunned down by a white officer last year while holding a replica handgun — when the news broke about acquittal. He headed downtown.

“There were two to three hundred gathered in Public Square and more were jumping out of buses,” Talis X said. Arriving amidst the chaos, he organized a mass of people in chants through an alley, upsetting diners in a nearby restaurant before the police showed up.

“With no justice, there should be no peace,” Talis X said of the disturbance. “I want to disrupt people’s happiness because I’m not happy, and I can’t let you do this to my brothers and sisters anymore.”

Talis X was one of 77 protesters arrested that day, with a video arrest on CNN. He went on to lead social justice songs in jail and collect the names and phone numbers of his fellow inmates. They are now organizing together for justice as the “Cleveland 77.”

“I turned that negative into a positive,” Talis X said. “There were 77 of us who were arrested and now we’re all moving together, we’re all united.”

Talis X will speak about his recent experiences as a prisoner held in deplorable conditions and as an activist working to bring justice for victims of police violence at an Antioch College teach-in on mass incarceration on Saturday, May 30. Talis X will join with correctional officers, formerly incarcerated people and educators and activists during the event, 1 to 4 p.m. in McGregor 113.

As fellow panelist Cathy Roma, who has been teaching in prisons since 1990, sees it,  prisons are a massive business that aren’t about rehabilitation but about “keeping people in the beds.” The problems are systemic, she said, ranging from the failed War on Drugs to the cancellation of Pell grant money for prisoners to earn a degree while they serve time.

“It is our country’s racialized form of control — we had slavery, then we had Jim Crow, now we have prisons,” Roma said.

The teach-in caps a four-day long series on prison justice on campus initated by third-year Antioch students Charlotte Pulitzer, Charlotte Blair and others. With an eye to the larger issues of police brutality and racial oppression, the event also focuses on the difficulties faced by prisoners with a disability.

Other events scheduled are a presentation on “Disability Incarcerated” with a University of Toledo professor on Wednesday, a screening of the documentary “The New Asylums” at 7 p.m. on Thursday, in the Antioch College Science Building, room 219, and a TEDx Talks screening from the Marion Correctional Institution at 7 p.m., on Friday. There is a $5 suggested donation for each event, or the donation of two to 12 books for prisoners.

Pulitzer wrote in an e-mail that she came up with the idea for the event as part of an Antioch independent study on prison justice issues in order to “wake people up.”

“There is such an oppression of voices and experiences in our own backyard that we need to be made aware of,” Pulitzer wrote. “To not listen to those voices is not only perpetuating that oppression, but it also denies a huge opportunity to better our own communities.”

Pulitzer has spent the semester visiting with nine incarcerated women at the Dayton Correctional Institution as part of an independent study with three other Antioch students. After hearing their experiences of the justice system, Pulitzer said she believes that the system is broken and more needs to be done to “stop the mass incarceration and oppression of our brothers and sisters.”

Blair said that visiting the prison as part of the independent study has been an eye-opening experience.

“There is definitely injustice happening and as a white Antioch student it’s easy to be buried in your books and not be exposed to other people’s problems,” Blair said.

Antioch assistant professor of cultural anthropology Emily Steinmetz, who is advising the independent study, is also teaching in the prisons this semester as part of an “inside outside” class where Antioch students learn alongside prison inmates, exploring subjects such as race and citizenship. Learning together “breaks down the stereotypes of each group,” Steinmetz explained.

“We think incarcerated people are scary, but when you meet them as peers, you forget they are incarcerated,” Steinmetz said. “The common humanity is what you see.”

Other speakers at the Saturday teach-in may include a group of incarcerated men from Marion Correctional Institution, who will speak via Skype; a few female correctional officers from the Warren Correctional Institution; Danni West of TGI Justice Project, a group of transgender people in and out of prison working to fight against “police violence, racism, poverty and societal pressures;” a representative from Black & Pink, a group speaking out against “the violence of the prison industrial complex against LGBTQ people;” Najmunddeen Salaam of the Healing Broken Circles non-profit that educates and trains incarcerated people; Cheryl Meyer of Wright State University, an author on maternal filicide and female reproductive rights, and Jonathan Platt, an Antioch alumnus who started Story Chain, a project to record prisoners reading books to their children. A final presentation will focus on sentencing and re-entry issues for people labeled as sex offenders, according to a handout.

Roma has spent 25 years in prisons, first as a Wilmington College professor, and now as a choir director at three prisons, which she visits every week. She believes in the importance of “cross pollination” between inmates and “outmates” and in the power of music to spur change.

“Lives can be changed when people go in and see what’s going on in prisons,” Roma said. “I also want to make life better in there by bringing [the inmates] music and I also want to hear their music.”

Roma, who has brought the local World House Choir she directs into the prisons for concerts, also believes music can unify people, make them feel safer and help them control their own space, citing the fact that every movement for social change has been accompanied by singing and chanting.

Talis X only recently learned chants as part of Black Lives Matter Miami Valley, and now leads protestors in his own versions, such as “OH–IO, police brutality has got to go.” A victim of police brutality when he was 14 years old who claims he is still today stalked and harrassed by police because he is black, Talis X said he decided he would risk  jail time for the cause of justice:

“If I have to take the risk, if that is what it takes to change things, I don’t mind putting my life out there.”

For more information, contact Pulitzer at cpulitzer@antiochcollege.org.