Multicultural Art and Poetry
Carlos: Guillermo, I still remember the first time we met. You were about to start your senior year at the University of California, Riverside.
Guillermo: Yes, it was the summer of 2012.
Carlos: Our friendship began when you became my research assistant. Now you’re on your own fascinating research journey, examining the experiences of Latino college athletes. How did you get into this topic?
I’m no artist. Never have been. I’ve always enjoyed viewing art, but I can’t draw or paint a lick. I even finished at the bottom of last December’s family cookie decorating contest.
Thankfully, the Riverside (California) Art Museum didn’t know about my failings when it asked me to become the consulting humanist for its new venture, the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, better known as The Cheech. I stepped into a brand new world. Here’s what happened.
Continue reading Diversity and Speech No. 38: Conversations at The Cheech – by Carlos Cortés
In the film and TV industries, the lack of diversity is a crisis that stretches back decades and remains largely unresolved despite increasing demands for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). It is a multilayered issue that occurs both in front of the camera and behind it. Be that as it may, discussions on the two are disproportionate, with diversity in casting a more prevalent and publicized matter than the latter. Public awareness and criticism spell the difference, as they often spark movements like #OscarsSoWhite that push the industry to take visible strides.
The same cannot be said for diversity in production crews, where gender and racial gaps continue to persist. UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity Report reveals that women and people of color (POC) remain vastly underrepresented behind the scenes, taking up less than a third of key roles. While this is already an improvement from a few years ago, much can still be done to improve diversity among crew members.
Continue reading Diversity of Film and TV Staff Still Lagging – by Rose Joneson
As a lifelong basketball fanatic – and a years ago mediocre point guard on my high school team, my unconscious (okay, conscious) bias against the game as it is played by women got, “slam dunked” on during the recent NCAA women’s basketball tournament.
Wow, what have I been missing all these years? Heck, the girls’ championship game, watched by 9.9 million viewers, the highest ever, was a lot more exciting to me than the boys’ games.
Continue reading “Nappy-headed hoes (2.0)” – by Terry Howard
Carlos: Tell me, Teri. How did you come up with the idea of teaching history through rock and roll music?
Teri: I’ve always loved music. From the time I became a history teacher in 1998, I thought of music whenever we reached the twentieth century. Then it hit me. Why not help students reconsider U.S. history by structuring a course around music? It worked.
Carlos: Well, if music works for teaching high school students, why not for diversity workshops, too?
“What are the typical saboteurs of genuine efforts to have cross-racial dialogues about race?”
That was the opening question posed to Phyllis and Eugene Unterschuetz, co-authors of Longing Stories in Racial Healing. They were invited by Terry Howard, co-founder of Douglasville’s 26 Tiny Paint Brushes Writers’ Guild, to speak at our Nov. guild meeting.
The book is a memoir of the White couple’s immersive journey across the nation exploring the deep, murky, irritable waters of racism. Their mission was to have a candid and honest conversation about racism in a room mostly filled with people of color.
Continue reading The Audacity of Baby Steps and Hope! (Part 1) – by Leslie Nelson
Local Distinguished Author Award 2022I’m deeply honored by this award from the prestigious SoLit Alliance. Literature is my passion and growing up in Bermuda’s 24 square miles, I explored the vast world through reading. You should have seen me with a pad of paper and a number 2 pencil while still in diapers. I published my first story at age 16 and wrote grants and newsletters for decades. But not until coming to Chattanooga did I blossom as a writer, and thought of myself as one.
Continue reading SoLit Award Acceptance Speech – by Deborah Levine
Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press
Why do we now say Kyiv instead of Kiev? It’s because Kyiv is the Ukrainian pronunciation and Russia’s invasion is a culture war. Their disputes are old-as-dirt and Ukrainian Nikita Khrushchev tried to enable a Ukrainian revival with the transfer of Crimea from Russia. But, Soviet repression went beyond land and sovereignty.
With the USSR dissolution, Ukraine established a new government with its own national anthem in Ukrainian, not Russian. It’s no accident that Putin’s treaty demands include protection for the Russian language. It may seem trivial, but imagine if England suddenly tried to re-establish British control over America and insisted that we revert to British English. If England were like Putin, you might go to jail if you refused to spell “color” as “colour”, the original, British version. Or what about our patriotic song, “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”? That melody was originally an unofficial national anthem of England. We wouldn’t tolerate going back to its original title: “God Save the Queen”. We’d fight a new War of Independence.
Continue reading Culture Wars: Can artists win? – by Deborah Levine
Woke people don’t stereotype, right? And, of course, white men can’t jump. Hm. Consider the following.
For relaxation, my wife Laurel and I attend a bi-weekly creative writing workshop. For a recent assignment, our instructor Jo Scott-Coe asked us to write about chocolate. Each of the other participants wrote about food. Not me. For whatever reason, Jo’s assignment triggered thoughts of former National Basketball Association guard Jason Williams.
No person looks forward to a visit to the hospital or other similar healthcare settings. Oftentimes, being in the hospital is a process that is scary, uncertain, and full of anticipation for answers and recovery. Research has shown that healing is made better by the arts, which bring humanity to institutions such as hospitals, elder and hospice care, as well as those living at home with chronic diseases like cancer or Parkinson’s.
Despite research that supports arts in health, many health institutions do not have programs incorporating the arts. This is why the National Organization for Arts in Health (NOAH) has remained committed to expanding awareness and acceptance of the arts as a vital component for healing, public health, and wellbeing.
Continue reading Integrating the Arts in Health – by Patricia Lambert