My brother is love

This piece is a testament to the life’s work of my friend and colleague, Dr. Milton Brown, who retires from 40 years of educating, May 18, 2007.

Milton Brown is a mirror
who helps us see our better selves
Milton Brown is a teacher
who teaches who he is
and lives what he teaches
Milton Brown is a part of the Great Circle
who connects us
with something larger
My brother is love
My brother is love
Because he is direct
Because he can connect
The dots
of our inner self
And asks
What do you see?
Who
can
you
be?
What would you choose?
if you could
just
breathe
To be
Still
until
There is no time like right
now
How much of the present do we fight
And waste on the future?
How much of now
do we capture
when we are
living
in
then?
My brother is love
Because he is direct
Because he can connect
The dots of our inner self
Milton Brown is a mirror
who helps us see our better selves
Milton Brown is a teacher
who teaches who he is
and lives what he teaches
Milton Brown is a part of the Great Circle
who connects us
with something larger
My brother is love
My brother is love
Because he digs beneath
To find out what’s underneath
The thick veil of our socialized lives
I have worshipped alongside my brother
In the sanctuary
that is our classroom
Watching him pry open minds
Through inquiry
Never knowing what we might find
In this process of discovery
It is not racists--
It is racism
It is not sexists--
It is sexism
We
must
break
the system
Craft new lenses
For the people
To rebuild our humanity
To rework the insanity
That says
one
person
can’t
make a difference
His defiance
His resistance
Says
That’s simply bullshit
(a rationalization for inaction)
I have struggled alongside my brother
Improvising a harmony
Between an unlikely jazz duo
Sure he might miss a note or two
Forget to attach a document to an email
But the music
Yes
the music
Will continue to play
Even as the Sandias call him west
An opus
Of impeccable quality
That he has composed
That he has supposed
Leads to
consciousness
My brother is love
Because he digs beneath
To find out what’s underneath
The thick veil of our socialized lives
Milton Brown is a mirror
who helps us see our better selves
Milton Brown is a teacher
who teaches who he is
and lives what he teaches
Milton Brown is a part of the Great Circle
who connects us
with something larger
My brother is love
My brother is love
because he beckons us
To redefine victory
Voice
and visibility
Are the new terms
of social justice
Process process process
Nothing less
This is the action
That calls us out of the dark
Out of the contradiction
Of words written on a page
Easily spoken
Not often lived
Righteous rhetoric
Of the
hyperbolic heretics
Who missed it
It
Is
process
Not an arrival--
A departure
Not salvation--
But survival
If we think we’re there
We’re not
We’re lost
We have lost
Justice demands
that
we
remain
visible
And vocal
Hoarse
Though we may be
Lonely as we might feel
It
is
too
soon
to go home
My brother is love
because he beckons us
To redefine victory
Voice
and visibility
Are the new terms
of social justice
Milton Brown is a mirror
who helps us see our better selves
Milton Brown is a teacher
who teaches who he is
and lives what he teaches
Milton Brown is a part of the Great Circle
who connects us
with something larger
My brother is love
My brother is love
Because he teaches us
Because he beseeches us
to draw the circle large enough
to include us all
The staff
The faculty
The students AND
The neo-nazi
The homeless and dispossessed
A conservative right-wing republican on occasion
Even
The administration
He provides
a pedagogy
of community
Instructing us
To find out
Where we overlap
Sure
his message might come in the form of a 20 page email
With big words
And
Something like
“You might think I’m being confrontational
But I’m not”
Yet this is his confessional
His laying himself out to us
Leaving no stone
(That his students created in community)
Unturned
It is his testimonial
To the constructiveness
Of dialogue
And the potential
Destructiveness
Of silence
That wreaks violence
On the potential
of a new cultural ethos of
Community
My brother is love
Because he teaches us
Because he beseeches us
to draw the circle large enough
to include us all
Milton Brown is a mirror
who helps us see our better selves
Milton Brown is a teacher
who teaches who he is
and lives what he teaches
Milton Brown is a part of the Great Circle
who connects us
with something larger
My brother
is love

Zinn's "A People's History of the US: 1492-Present"

A space for us to discuss our ongoing reading and evolving understanding of US History. What perspective has Zinn offered that was new for you? How does it fit in with your understanding of history? How do you connect this history with our present? Talk about how your lens is sharpening and/or widening.

What's next for VoICE?

As we continue to meet in order to learn from and challenge one another, here is a virtual space to brainstorm ideas for our way forward. Given our success in advocating for fair trade coffee, we need to follow this with further action related to other fairly traded products, as well as other service opportunities and activism. Discussions could include upcoming service events, reflections on service activities, other social justice groups we can connect with, reading/writing projects, awareness-raising activities, etc.

Resistance and Revolution (and hope)

I wanted to open up a spot here on the blog where we could begin sharing stories of resistance that we find (e.g., the striking Detroit teachers; strikes in Oaxaca, Mexico; Purdue students on a hunger strike seeking a sweat-shop free guarantee in their bookstore, etc.). We could also use this as a space to discuss historical or present revolutionary figures that we may be reading up on. This space is intended, then, to engender hope in our own struggle for justice and equity here at Bellarmine and in the wider local and global community.

Fair trade coffee

We discussed taking up Bellarmine about their distribution of coffee that is not fair-trade. Seattle's Best does in fact have a line of fair-trade, but we don't use it (it may cost a nickel or dime more per cup). I suggest that we take up this issue with the administration before Christmas break and demand that they start providing fair-trade on campus.

Here's a website with more info about the benefits of fair-trade: http://equalexchange.com

Also, this is the line of fair-trade offered by Seattle's Best (wow they offer one whole type and don't even advertise it!!)
http://seattlesbest.com/products/Product.aspx?productID=17

We could start simply by talking to the administration and see if they are aware of this issue (how can they not be?) and see how they respond (probably by sending us up the ladder to talk to someone else). Any thoughts?

Taking our consciousness home

Given much of the talk in our recent Bb forum surrounding privilege and how we take our evolving consciousness home, let's also open up a space here to share some of our holiday discussions--strategies, experiences, ways we'd say things differently next time, etc.

hooks claims that if we cannot confront these issues within relationships where there is love, there is little chance we will be able to take them up elsewhere, effectively. [Her challenges sound so simple, but are so complicated.]

A moment of creation revealed

Rebecca Solnit (2004), in Hope in the Dark, describes a moment of creation as that moment in which creativity, democracy, and justice take one step forward. In many ways, these 48 hours provided us with a moment of creation for which we seek to extend, expand, and exploit toward even more fulfilling possibilities as a result of the event. In what way was Shantytown III a moment of creation for you? What are some ways forward such that our celebratory lunch finale is not where the experience ends?

The Organic Intellectual's (abridged and evolving) Reading List

Please post your your book ideas for generating a more critical consciousness and an activist spirit.

Welcome to VoICE--Voices for Inquiry, Community, Equity

Welcome.