Author Archives: mbgomez

War and Peace: Intentioning more or less harm on the Palestinian people in Gaza?

[War and peace are the two ends of a continuum when disagreement is present. When methods to resolve conflict by peaceful means appear ineffective or there is not sufficient agreement on all sides to use peaceful means, the movement toward using arms continues. Once a decision is made to use arms to resolve a conflict, those initiating war expect that killing will occur. There are moral principles that anchors war, for example: minimal killing of civilians, targeting less populated areas, maintaining humanitarian structures (water supply, sanitation, hospitals, educational centers), maintaining human rights for prisoners of war. Maintaining these types of moral principles are in line with International Humanitarian Law which provides legal mandates for human rights during war time.]

Peace Walk by Plum Village groups in Washington DC, June 23 2024

Increasing data on the current war on Gaza by the Israel military, following the attack on Israel by Hamas resulting in killing and kidnapping of civilians, question whether the intention of the Israel government is to inflict greater ‘revenge’ harm on the Palestinian people. This is evidenced by reports of little adherence of Israel’s military to the International Humanitarian Law to protect civilians and humanitarian structures. Several research articles published in the last 4 months provide data showing the devastating public health impact due to these human rights violations.

Major public health impact:

Humanitarian structures in Gaza targeted and destroyed

“The first phase of the Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip from 7 October through 22 November 2023 resulted in widespread damage to critical civilian infrastructure protected under IHL, including health, education, and water facilities. Spatial statistical analysis suggests widespread damage to critical civilian infrastructure that should have been provided protection under IHL. These findings raise serious allegations of Israeli military violations of IHL, especially in light of Israeli officials’ statements explicitly inciting violence and displacement and multiple widely reported acts of collective punishment against the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip.” Asi, Y., Mills, D., Greenough, P.G. et al. ‘Nowhere and no one is safe’: spatial analysis of damage to critical civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip during the first phase of the Israeli military campaign, 7 October to 22 November 2023. Confl Health 18, 24 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13031-024-00580-https://conflictandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13031-024-00580-x#Tab3

Indiscriminate killing of women and children in war on Gaza (since October 2023)

“While large numbers of children and women have been killed in attacks on Gaza over the last 15 years, the proportions during the initial phase of the latest offensive are conspicuously higher (figure 2). Women and children were 30–41% of those killed in attacks on Gaza in 2008–2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021, but they make up 67% killed from 7 October to 24 November. This striking increase in mortality, which suggests an indiscriminate approach to civilian targets, is concordant with the investigative report (11) and Poole and colleagues’ study demonstrating a lack of special protection for hospitals.” Wispelwey B, Mills D, Asi YM, et al. Civilian mortality and damage to medical facilities in Gaza. British Medical Journal Glob Health 2024;9:e014756. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2023-01475

Aid to Gaza obstructed resulting in widespread starvation of adults and children

“Nearly the entire population of the Gaza strip, or 96% of the population, are facing acute food shortages, with more than 495,000 people including children facing starvation due to an extreme lack of food, according to figures released today by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).” Devastating new figures reveal Gaza’s child hunger catastrophe. June 25 2024. Save the Children. https://www.savethechildren.net/news/devastating-new-figures-reveal-gaza-s-child-hunger-catastrophe

Structural racism as major determinant of Palestinian health inequities

“The structural violence⁹ against Palestinians is rooted in settler and indigenous dynamics that are further complicated by anti-Muslim racism,⁸ serving as mutually reinforcing forms of structural racism. Structural racism is defined as “the totality of ways in which societies foster [racial] discrimination, via mutually reinforcing [inequitable] systems…(e.g., in housing, education, employment, earnings, benefits, credit, media, health care, criminal justice, etc.) that in turn reinforce discriminatory beliefs, values, and distribution of resources”.¹⁰ As with other forms of racism, a system meant to both “structure opportunity” and “assign value” based on the social construct of race,¹¹ this dynamic results in a devaluation of Palestinian life that illuminates widespread Western support for ongoing indiscriminate killing and the withholding of the bare necessities for survival.

Decades of structural violence, racialized discrimination, and human rights violations have stunted Palestinian health care systems across the territories and perpetuated health disparities across populations. The geographical fragmentation of Palestinians has created a hierarchy of Palestinian health outcomes—best among Palestinian citizens of Israel (PCI), worse for Palestinians in the West Bank, and significantly worse for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. For Palestinians in the occupied territories, life expectancy is nearly a decade shorter than Israelis’, and child, infant, and maternal mortality are several times higher. Regular exposure to violence, dehumanization, humiliation, and hopelessness creates a significant Palestinian mental health burden.¹² Yet evidence also illustrates discriminatory health access and resulting health disparities for the underserved PCI.¹³ These Palestinians report shorter life expectancies than their Jewish counterparts, higher infant and maternal mortality rates, and greater risk of chronic disease, despite ostensibly having access to the same Israeli health system.^14,15 Although Palestinian refugees are not included in this discussion of Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied territories, their racialization has prevented many from returning to their homes in Palestine and has cemented their fragmentation…resources are not allocated equally, nor by need, but by race, even within the same geographies. Israel is the only sovereign entity in the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. While the international community continues to recognize Israel as the occupying power of the Palestinian territories, rendering the nation with certain obligations toward Palestinian health and well-being, these obligations remain unfulfilled. Palestinians report significant disparities in terms of health care access, with lower per capita health expenditure ($3,145 in Israel vs. $306 in Palestine in 2017, a 165% difference) and disproportionately fewer physicians, nurses, hospital beds, and facilities for health specialties.” Asi YM, Sharif MZ, Wispelwey B, et al. Racism as a Threat to Palestinian Health Equity. Health Equity. 2024.8,1. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/heq.2024.0027

These studies/reports call into question the intention of the Israel government and military and whether its actions is for greater harm, mass genocide, against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Further investigation is required to assess and act on: the lack of protection of civilians through the International Humanitarian Law and its enforcers, the short and long term plan to rebuild Gaza for return of its Palestinian citizens, the short and long term plan for addressing the trauma of war, displacement, and structural determinants of health inequities on the Palestinians of Gaza and the region, and the short and long term plan for addressing the trauma of war on the Israeli people.

The continuum is still available between war and peace, more or less harm. How do we assure action toward peace, least harm, between the Jewish people of Israel and the region and the Palestinian people of Gaza and the region. Here are some: Donating to “Go Fund Me’ campaigns to help Palestinians in Gaza; here is one example, soup kitchen in North Gaza. Donating to different international organizations providing humanitarian support for the people affected by war in Gaza/writing letters of support to your political leaders for support to be sent to them; one example is the United Nations support arm for Palestinians. Write your political leaders about stopping aid to fund the war. If the US stopped sending funds and war machinery and ammunition to Israel the conflict would change to less harm. Calming yourself through prayers and meditation to see more clearly what is yours to do; and sending healing energies/prayers to those suffering in this conflict. Organize a listening circle to listen with friends and family to support each other in their action toward peace. If you are able to walk, take 20 – 100 steps throughout the day and invite in someone in the conflict zone to walk with your steps in peace and compassion.

Healing our way toward justice

There is no separation, the work of social justice and the work of healing. Many of the behaviors that lead to small and large injustices come from selves that have not yet healed. People -and the unjust systems they have built and continue to build- we attempt to ‘change’ are not healed and themselves have suffered injustices, in their families, their communities and their nations. How do we make sure we do not act out of fear and greed, the characteristics that fuel the very systems we are trying to change? Fear and greed in anyone results in diminishing ability to see others as an extension of ourselves because we feel separated. We consume and compete and become attached to individual accomplishments as ways to fortress ourselves against this fear. We are in constant states of contraction, holding ourselves hostage to fear and greed. And in these tight states of mind and heart, holding onto past and present embodied injustices, we say we are working toward justice outside of us. Healing ourselves begins the true path of healing all injustices outside of us. While we cannot wait until we have healed all the traumas, small and large, inside of us before we contend with the systems and policies that are unjust, they must go hand in hand.

The upcoming book, Healing Our Way Home published by Parallax Press by Valerie Brown, Kaira Jewel Lingo and myself is an example of this internal healing journey occurring right alongside the external work of social justice. (Order for 20% discount here with code HOME20)

We have been doing the work of justice, paused, and realized that the deeper inner work of healing is necessary to continue the external work of justice-healing justice. This healing journey slowly reveals a self that is clear and discerning in all decisions. Healing from the wounds of this and previous lifetimes brings us slowly back to a more authentic version of ourselves. This self can see our connection with others on the human level even while their actions may cause great harm. As we work for social justice, we cannot let other’s hatred water the seeds of hatred in our own hearts. This is the deepest form of injustice. So what do we do? We heal our hatred, and greed, and delusion so that as we do our work of justice outside, we are not at risk of acting like the ‘enemy’. If we are to change these times of great injustice, it requires us to look deeply and heal the injustices we have inside ourselves. Tomorrow Tuesday Feb 13 2024 at 7pm est, on zoom, we will read from this book of healing for our collective liberation from racial and social injustice. All are welcome to join us here– and invited to go deeper still on this journey of understanding and justice.

Join us: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwoc-2hrz0sGtThtMouMhAxBsmEfT31VXWH#/registration,

Baltimore’s 2023 road to privatization and why we continue to organize and build a people’s movement for public benefit

Baltimore excelled in 2023 in its privatization/neoliberal practices of assuring elite private entities benefit disproportionately at the expense of public control and social good.

[Neoliberal- a theory of political economic practices proposing that human well-being can best be advanced by the maximization of entrepreneurial freedoms within an institutional framework characterized by private property rights, individual liberty, unencumbered markets, and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices, such as public:private partnerships (explicit or implicit)] Adapted from David Harvey

Let’s look at some of these privatization redevelopment practices which were camouflaged in the language of ‘benefiting the public’ in Baltimore throughout 2023.

Public:private strategies ignoring public control and social good

Most recently, the unanimous vote in the Planning Commission to allow a private developer, P. David Bramble of MCB Real Estate, LLC, to accumulate more of the Inner Harbor public waterfront space is a typical taking of public land (land owned by the city of Baltimore) for private development and profit. This will allow Bramble’s group to expand their holdings and profit while removing public access to the waterfront. In addition, there is existing legislation which requires that these lands remain accessible for the benefit of the public. Some city council members have already indicated they support amending this legislation to accommodate this privatization of public lands. This is how the state accommodates the private developer, hence neoliberal practices.

Another examples: earlier in 2023 the state of Maryland under the direction of Governor Wes Moore turned over the Orioles baseball stadium-Camden Yards- and management of the land to John Angelos, the Orioles owner. Camden Yards was previously managed by the Maryland Stadium Authority, a public entity. With the turnover to the private owner Angelos, a publicly controlled private entity is now set to work with a profit-making motive. What this means is in order to maximize profits, necessary infrastructure upkeep will need to be minimized to maximize profits. Assuring that the stadium receives the upkeep needed to maximize benefit to the public is of little value because the benefit is turned inward to the private entity and its profit-driven motive. Because of the control that sports franchises have over entertainment we can see this private entity demanding government support to maintain the stadium in the future.

Then there is the upcoming attempt to privatize our water and sewage system, again! [As a reminder, in 2018 Baltimore city voters turned out in high numbers to ban privatization of the city’s water and sewer systems.] And yet five years later in 2023, the neoliberal government (officials who have a responsibility to the public’s health but honor elite corporations) are back at it again with another attempt at privatizing a public resource. This time a Baltimore Regional Water Governance Task Force is making recommendations to allow privatization of our local water and sewage system which would potentially minimize local control of local resources while ensuring profit to private interests. With a suggested $5 – $15 million price tag for this transition, this line from the Task Force’s report leaves the public wide open to foot an indefinitely pricey bill:

Transition costs assumptions are forward-looking and actual costs will be based on resource availability for yet undetermined set of issues, by parties not yet determined that will once formed determine the extent of need for third-party support.
Baltimore Regional Water Governance Task Force

Why couldn’t this ‘undetermined’ cost be better directed to hiring and training up government staff to assure a functioning and adequately maintained water and sewer system? This would allow greater local control of this valuable resource instead of control by a private profit-driven entity: profit margin yet undetermined.

In 2023, Baltimore’s struggle with privatization did not stop with only one utility. We are experiencing the disaster of a profit-driven utility ownership with our gas and electric provider as well. Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) delivers gas and electric utilities to Baltimore city and surrounding counties and presented to the state’s Public Service Commission a rate increase over the next three years. Many residents testified as to the severe hardship this would incur for them, particularly those with lower and set incomes. Regardless of this public rally for fairness and benefit, public officials agreed to BGE’s rate hike resulting in a greater than 3% rate increase each year over the next three years. Besides continuing a reliance on gas through more infrastructure development, the company will receive almost an additional $408 million in revenue. Instead of voting against this severe hike, Maryland Public Service Commission voted to defray some of this cost from customers by using a federal tax credit and assure BGE receives its income. Again, using public funds to assure the company receives the income they want.

At the funding level of the state, Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) continues to misrepresent itself it stating it is supporting local grassroot efforts in impacted communities. Its’ supposed role of assuring equitable development that provides a social good has been slow to manifest. Instead what we see is consistent funding to the Goliaths of anchor institutions with profit-driven motives and little funding to organizations doing community-based cooperative redevelopment in historically low income and Black neighborhoods-legacied by urban renewal and redlining. Unless local community-driven organizations partner with anchor institutions known to the Department, funding is mostly denied. This reliance of the state on anchor institutions to define what equitable development looks like continues historical public:private partnerships that do not serve the public. For example, the Johns Hopkins Medical Complex and its proxy development arm East Baltimore Development Inc. receives yearly grant awards for inequitable development from Maryland’s DHCD (and city funders over the years). This occurs even while such institutions continue to engage in uneven development that disproportionately benefits the institution relative to the local Black community that it is gentrifying. One example of DHCD’s uneven grant funding can be seen in the lack of support for a local Black-led non-profit located in Old Town/Middle East, Village of Love and Resistance (VOLAR), two block from the Johns Hopkins Medical Complex. After four consecutive attempts to receive funding for its affordable cooperative housing and community hub development, it has resigned itself to stop seeking funding from the state which insists that it partner with the likes of Johns Hopkins University, who the state trusts. Meanwhile, the local community does not trust this anchor institution that has systematically exploited the people and the land of East Baltimore.

Organizing for local control and public good

With such clear corporate and elite preferential strategies advantaging private businesses over the public good and local control, organizing to reclaim benefits to local communities has been growing in 2023, extending into 2024.

While the Baltimore Planning Commission has shown their allegiance to elite ownership with little regard for community input in the planned expansion of the Inner Harbor (including increased parking, removing maximum height limits for buildings on the site), residents still have the opportunity to change this. Approval by the city council for the conditions that will allow redevelopment of the Inner Harbor by Bramble’s Team is required; this will require hearings with testimony and hopefully deep listening before a vote is made. The first public hearing will be held on February 13 at 2pm est and public testimony is invited. So 2024 will see residents and activists testifying as to the clear privatization disadvantages to the public good (less green space for public use, lost of view due to increased height of buildings and increased buildings, maintenance that is cost-cutting to assure larger profit margin, lost of flowing design from street to waterfront, city dollars supporting a private developer’s planning process, finding public funds to support a private developer’s development and profit making, lack of a transparent public process for development of this public land). Due to the existing City Charter governing the explicit use of this land for public benefit voters will decide through a ballot in November, whether to amend the City Charter. In addition, developers, activists and residents have organized themselves in the form of the Inner Harbor Coalition. This group hopes to build sufficient support to place an opposing plan on the November ballot for redevelopment of the Inner Harbor. They require 10,000 signatures to place this on the ballot.

The pushback on the attempt to privatize our water and sewage system is another of Baltimore’s growing social movement against privatization and for local control and public benefit. A coalition of organizations sent a clear letter opposing the Water Governance Task Force efforts toward privatization. On January 8^th 2024 the sixth meeting to discuss the Task Force’s report was held by Baltimore City government. The seventh and final meeting will be held on January 25^th at 6pm virtually. Notes from all six meetings can be viewed here (scroll to bottom). Please join the movement in opposing privatization of Baltimore’s water and sewage system by sending your comments (individual or organizations) to this email address: [email protected] and cc [email protected]

Another part of the movement to stop privatization has been 1199 SEIU’s organizing for fair payment by anchor institutions into the city funds, to be redistributed back to local community for investment in public health infrastructure, housing, transportation, education, recreation. This payment program is the PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) agreement that city council officials negotiate with big anchor institutions. Instead of these big institution, such as hospitals and universities, paying property tax like regular citizens or private corporations who own land and/or conduct businesses, they negotiate to pay a percentage of the taxes they would pay were they not in this category. The last PILOT negotiated in 2016-set to expire and renegotiated in 2026- literally gave these anchor institutions a way out of paying their fair share of taxes by paying only 10% of what most people pay. Yes, again Baltimore city government favored capitalist exploitation by not ensuring that big institutions pay their fair share of taxes even while the city continues to provide infrastructure and other city resources to them as it does to regular citizens. However, regular citizens do not get to ‘negotiate’ with the city, state, or federal government how much taxes they should pay. Now we have an opportunity to negotiate a more fair PILOT with these big institutions who, like the Johns Hopkins Institutions, receive grants from the city, state, and federal government (noted above). With decreased payment of taxes and continued grants from the government, these institutions do not pay their fair share into the city and state coffers to assure our city is habitable and safe. The 1199 SEIU campaign is organizing to assure this is on the ballot for voters in November 2024 and require 10,000 signatures. To support this campaign reach out to [email protected] for more information.

Placard reads: YOU’D NEVER GUESS
This forest you are walking through was once a beach. Although beaches always seem to look the same, geologists know that they are constantly changing. Three thousand years ago this was open ocean. Over time, the shoreline has moved to the west, while the cape has moved north, creating land where none existed before. If the same processes continue to operate as they have in the past, Cape Henlopen will join the inner breakwater of Lewes Harbor within the next 50 years.

Not all public officials consistently voted in favor of private wealth gain and neoliberal practices. In 2023 some government officials moved in the direction of increasing public benefit, joining our people’s movement for the social good. For example, state delegate Stephanie Smith consistently advocated for and acquired funding for organizations addressing the result of uneven development in Baltimore City. She fought for $11M in funding for community development and transit improvements across the 45th District, including funds for housing, the Pennsylvania Station redevelopment, and community retail spaces. City Council woman Odette Ramos led the fight for an Inclusionary Housing Bill, and won. The bill requires that any market-rate multi-family development building more than 20 units and receiving government subsidy must have more than 15% of their units as affordable housing (for 30 years). Read more about this legislation here. We look forward to continued public benefit from these individuals and hope that others do similar work in their capacity as public officials.

The year 2023 showed us the imbalance between private profit-driven elite institutions and public and non-profit organizations with a primary mission of assuring the social good in Baltimore and Maryland. The year 2023 also reminded us that those aware of the continued journey toward individualized wealth are rallying forward to stop these continued market-driven, winner-take-all strategies. Will 2024 move scales toward love and justice for the greater good or toward further competition, injustices, and satisfying the greed of the few? It’s up to us to decide how we will act toward justice and balance the social good and individual greed. Baltimore can continue building this people’s movement that aim to benefit the good by challenging the public officials who ignore their voters in favor of elite interests. This is an election year in the city and state and we have the opportunity to vote with our feet. Now that you see this, what is yours to do for the benefit of all?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: True Power

Today in the US, we celebrate and honor the memory and accomplishments of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We invite in his spirit into our life. We acknowledge the positive qualities of ancestors and the many blessings that we continue to benefit from their lives: past, present, and future.

On reflecting on Dr. King, I ponder what it is we are celebrating. My thoughts return to Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh’s discussion of power. This understanding of power as “the ability to influence people” and how we use this influence is one of the many reasons why Dr. King is remembered all year, and celebrated today. Using this ability to influence for good, motivated by a heart of love, this is Dr. King’s legacy. Not using this influence to cause harm, to separate, or to lie, this is his legacy. This is true power.

Power can be edgy. With influence one can become greedy, selfish, and loose sight of what is right. What helps us stay the path of love and benefit? This would be the people around us, the conditions, nurturing our mind of compassion. Who surrounded Dr. King? That would be the movement that was already in existence and building when Dr. King became more active in the 1950s-1960s Civil Rights Movement in the US. That would be the context of his dedication to his faith, love, his study of theology and philosophy, and his pastoring in a Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL. These were the conditions, the supporting context that assured Dr. King’s influence grew, and grew more compassionate and just. This is true power.

Dr. King’s continued self-inquiry- in the pulpit, in the jail cell, in public protest, in family life, in community groups- assured that his power remained humble, of the people, and in the service of justice. His continued self-inquiry assured that he would not become corrupt. His consistent quest for understanding how we could build beloved communities of justice included his prophetic influence calling for love to be our ground of being.

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Today we again celebrate this type of power, true power, by acknowledging Dr. King’s existence and his legacy. Dr. King’s prophetic power in calling for an end to poverty, to assure that we don’t annihilate ourselves and our planet, plays out today. This is seen in the recent report from Oxfam stating: “extreme concentrations of wealth led to weaker growth, corrupted politics and the media, corroded democracy and led to political polarisation… The super-rich were key contributors to the climate crisis, with a billionaire emitting a million times more carbon than the average person. They were also twice as likely to invest in polluting industries, compared with the average investor.”

In a world that continues to build its kingdom of militarism, racism, and poverty let us celebrate ancestor Dr. King, in a sacred way: with action. Let us act together into our most true form of power: collective power. Find your power and gift it for the collective liberation of all humans and the earth. This is true power to our ancestors, let us move forward Beloved Community.

‘Vacants to Value Program’: Baltimore’s Vacant Properties NOT for Community Control

I wrote about Baltimore’s Vacants to Value program in the past. It is part of a landscape of Baltimore’s community development programs that assures speculative and predatory investors acquire land from the city-with the least hassles. Per the then housing commissioner from that writing in 2017 ‘‘… We are working hand in hand with the developers and mitigating the risk that they would otherwise face.’ This program of Baltimore city’s Housing Department is a cog in the wheel of assuring uneven development continues in our city. There has been multiple complaints from multiple sectors, saying the same thing: the Vacants to Value program caters to big developers and not individual or small community developers. Baltimore’s government-owned vacant property is not available for community control: by all means necessary.

In the backdrop of a city, and state (Maryland), which keeps touting that it has awakened to the history of uneven development enforced by US policies and laws, these deceiving programs like Vacants to Value, continue to assure uneven development.

VOLAR and allies march to Vacants to Value, Baltimore City Housing Department. 2022 Dominic T. Moulden

Village of Love and Resistance (VOLAR) is a Black and Brown-led community development organization in East Baltimore rebuilding toward equity and healing. VOLAR is currently experiencing its own biased treatment as they attempt to acquire a small strip of land – 601 Ensor street– from the city, through the Vacants to Value program. VOLAR has spent the last year in the unfair bureaucracy of the Vacants to Value program, with long wait periods and no answers to acquire this land to renovate into a community park. After 8-9 months, they told VOLAR they could not purchase the property. After pushback, they offered one option to VOLAR: an Exclusive Negotiation Period of 6 months that assured VOLAR continued to be in negotiation for the land. During this time, VOLAR would have to come up with the near $4.5 million dollars to renovate their existing property, adjacent to the strip of land on Ensor street. Note that this was not money for the renovation of the small strip of land on Ensor! This was a requirement by the Vacants to Value program to show redevelopment money for property owned already by VOLAR.

BIAS ALERT: Does the Vacants to Value program require this type of paternalistic scrutiny to all the big developers that acquire land through their program? How is this type of behavior congruent with: ‘We are working hand in hand with the developers and mitigating the risk that they would otherwise face.’

Guards refuse to let three members of VOLAR enter with letters for Vacants to Value. Dominic T. Moulden

Tired of waiting for fair treatment and not receiving a response to the head of the program, Tony Bedon, VOLAR and allies marched to the Baltimore City Housing office where the program is located at 417 E. Fayette street on September 30 2022. Two days before the protest march, VOLAR called and left a message on Bedon’s voicemail asking for someone to come downstairs once VOLAR and allies arrived at the building, to deliver in person: our letter of request, 459 signatures on petitions from local neighbors in regard VOLAR acquiring the property, and individual letters from marchers with same request. Three of VOLAR’s members attempted to enter the building and were stormed by five security guards competing to deliver the message: you cannot come in this building, the building is closed. Right! This was 330pm est on Friday. Baltimore city government offices close at 430pm est. The guards then forced the door close, locked the doors, and would only speak to the three people through the crack between the doors. VOLAR asked that one of the guards call upstairs to Bedon’s office to send someone to engage with the citizens of Baltimore. One of the guards, said she would. After waiting 15 minutes and knocking at the door, VOLAR was told, through the crack between the two doors, that no one was in the office, it was closed. Meanwhile, people were entering and leaving through the door on the otherside of the building on Baltimore street. VOLAR and allies were not deterred. Folks rallied outside, sang and danced, shared food. At 430pm, employees started streaming out of the door. I guess they forgot to let them out at 330pm when they closed the building?

The cowardly behavior of Baltimore city representatives in our housing office is difficult to swallow. Outright ignoring, disrespecting, and lying to citizens who they are being paid to serve is unacceptable.

VOLAR protesting in the streets of Baltimore, reclaiming land for a community park. Dominic T. Moulden

VOLAR is left wondering, why does the program persist in ignoring citizens in low income Black communities when they are ready to reclaim land and steward the land? Are city representatives so afraid of Black people power?

VOLAR exists to right the wrongs of a history and legacy of uneven development-in line with Jim Crow, redlining, urban renewal, gentrification, mass incarceration and police brutality. All these policies and actions have been allowed to run amok in our city, leveraged by the wealth of the elite developers like Johns Hopkins University and Medical Campus, Under Armour/Kevin Plank, Michael Beatty and others.

The corruption and racial and class pandering to white and wealthy developers must stop, if we will ever change our city to one that is more equitable. With all the double talk about racial equity, VOLAR’s experience is evidence that the city of Baltimore continues the settler colonizer tactics to assure white supremacy and its legacy of segregation and inequity continues.

It is time to change those in power. You are invited to vote with your feet and beak people. Line up!

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: Courage, Compassion, Clarity, Fearlessness

I recently attended a retreat focused on entering the new year with clarity, compassion, and courage. I left the retreat thinking about people who embodied these attributes; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to the top of the list. I added fearlessness! Today we continue to reflect on and honor Dr. King’s legacy that calls us here in these United States of America and beyond, closer still to justice and collective, true peace.

These are hard times, times that call for great clarity. We risk evolving into more despair and violence if we are not clear headed in our thinking. Dr. King, in the midst of the violence of anti-Blackness and the 1960s Civil Rights movement, called on love to strengthen him and to remind him of compassion for his enemies: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” This deep compassion required wholesome courage and fearlessness. Together clarity, compassion, courage and fearlessness fueled him in the midst of violence to turn toward love, and have the strength to stay in a powerful love of justice.

In the midst of these chaotic times, many are fatigued and tired of the unknown of the next COVID19 variant; adapting to and/or grieving an anemic government that shows no leadership and instead seek only to bolster greed, division, and hatred; depressed and stressed out from a climate disaster brought on by the three poisons Dr. King named (racism, poverty, and militarism).

In these times, we can turn toward ancestors who went through great difficulties and resisted with love. On a day when we honor Dr. King and his legacy, let’s truly honor all of him by lifting up him in us. Let us get to clarity by slowing down and being aware of ourselves so we can take care of what needs to be cared for to act from presence and not from old stories. When we pause, we remember who we are, we remember compassion; our compassionate action comes from a bigger place, a place of clarity. We understand we must practice non-violence and have the courage to do so, even while someone might be acting toward us with violence; because compassion and courage comes from clarity. Compassion is not weak, it is courageous, it is fierce, and acts toward balance, justice. Our fearlessness in the face of all forms of adversity must be wholesome. We can reach all this when we pause and find the stillness to look deeply. We recognize that we have the courage to act with a bigger heart than our so-called enemies…heck, we remember we have a heart! We are able to see that we are part of have a bigger goal: our peace of mind that leads to the liberation of the collective.

If we are to live into Dr. Kings’ legacy, we cannot continue with the same attitudes of greed, hatred, and ignorance of those causing environmental harm, racial and social injustice, and government corruption. We call on the spirit of Dr. King, the ancestors, inviting them into our struggle for justice and collective healing today. We honor them by committing to developing our clarity, compassion, fearlessness, and courage on this path of true liberation.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Presente!

EBDI, warriors in the war of gentrification: why we need trauma-informed redevelopment

Gentrification is a war on the people whose neighborhoods are being demolished. Like any other war it leaves the people and the place traumatized while the victors collect the spoils, in this case, a built environment and a socially engineered community that ignores and erases the history of those who were displaced. In East Baltimore, EBDI, or East Baltimore Development Inc. continues to be the vanguard warrior of gentrification of Middle East Baltimore. This pseudo public-private corporation initiated, led, and assured that their private developers collect the spoils of the war of gentrification in an 88-acre redevelopment while traumatizing the people of Middle East Baltimore. Twenty years later, the trauma continues.

In 2001 EBDI initiated the removal of more than 750 historic low-income Black families from Middle East Baltimore to make room for the Johns Hopkins Biotech Park. They began the process of gentrification by first demonizing the place and people to create a public story that the only way to remedy the situation was to displace people and take their land. This was the first phase and this structural violence caused a trauma to the people. Once the government was satisfied that there was sufficient publicity to justify using eminent domain to take people’s land, the city council representatives voted to throw their constituents under the ‘gentrification’ bus. This was the second phase of gentrification, continued structural violence, and continued the trauma to the people. This support of government then allowed the public subsidies to pour in: public support of private wealth growth, more structural violence against the marginalized. This was the third phase and continued the trauma. Of course, the big non-profits jumped in to subsidize as well, such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation and others, building greater power. This was the fourth phase and continued the trauma. With all this support, EBDI then attempted to displace historic residents with little or no benefit by offering them payment for their homes based on the current value, relocation payment based on 1970s’ value, demolition of houses adjacent to occupied houses, and no assistance in finding appropriate housing for displaced residents. Each of these violations occurred within the overall displacement process of residents and collects into phase five and continued the trauma.

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WAR of GENTRIFICATION

Phase 1 – Demonization of community

Phase 2 – ‘ Justifiable’ government stealing of private land through policy ie. eminent domain

Phase 3 – Government subsidies for private development ie. TIF, CDBG

Phase 4 – Greater power of private and public partnerships

Phase 5 – Displacement/violation/exploitation of historic residents/businesses

Phase 6 – Failed promises of benefit to existing/historic community

Phase 7 – Rebuilt environment is unaffordable, attracts a different race/class, erasure of history

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Save Middle East Action Committee, SMEAC, a non-profit formed by residents threatened by EBDI and the Johns Hopkins Biotech Park, stepped in to organize residents to demand some form of equity in the process. They door-knocked block by block and found out what fellow-residents wanted. They convened meetings to hear from residents and they demanded meetings with the powerful stakeholders of EBDI, Johns Hopkins Institutuions, and the Foundations to discuss the needs of residents. SMEAC was one intervention, a protection against the violence of gentrification, that served to provide a healing from the overwhelming trauma that was growing. Simply by being present, SMEAC was enacting a trauma-informed process of redevelopment because it was led by community stakeholders. SMEAC convened residents together who listened to each other and acknowledged that this was difficult, this was painful, but together people’s strength would get them through it somehow.

Townhomes in the EBDI rebuilt 88-acre starting at $250,000, April 2021

Townhomes in the EBDI rebuilt 88-acre starting at $350,000, subsidized by Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions for its staff/students. November 2019

Fast forward 20 years to 2021. While the project promised that by 2011 it would have rebuilt the community by offering more than 8,000 jobs to the city of Baltimore, this has yet to manifest. Try less than 2000 jobs and less than 40% of them to local residents in East Baltimore. Another trauma to the historic residents, another systemic violation, phase six of the gentrification war-predictions/promises made on unsubstantiated data to ‘justify’ public support. SMEAC fought for 1/3 low-income, 1/3 moderate rate, 1/3 market rate housing to be built in the redeveloped area- disregard for legislation is normal in war. We’re still waiting on the 1/3 affordable housing. Another structural violence, trauma to residents. We’re still waiting for the return of those who were displaced- supposedly 30% or greater suggests a successful redevelopment project (who decided that?). Yet another trauma and phase six of this war, assuring the intended social make-up of the rebuilt environment. While waiting for the 1/3 housing affordable to low income and working class people, we watched the completion of the $350,000 townhomes at the end of 2019.

Mural in Middle East Baltimore erases history of the neighborhood in rush to rename/rebrand neighborhood in social engineering of rebuilt community/ Biddle/Washington August 2021

The war of gentrification manifests not only in phases one – six outlined above. It continues through the resultant built environment with its shiny new buildings and manicured landscape. It manifests in the unaffordable housing and amenities offered in these structures which cater to a particular class of people: high cost amenities like Starbucks, fusion cuisine, and a pharmacy with unaffordable items. This is the seventh phase of the war and another trauma as it continues the erasure of historic residents in the rebuilt environment. Residents within a block of the demarcated 88-acre of EBDI’s war-zone, still walk down to the 2500+ blocks of Monument street to shop for affordable food and amenities and trek to the pharmacy on North avenue. The most recent erasure is the mural sponsored by EBDI in the war-zone to mark the history of the area, a sanitized one. No image of SMEAC or its leaders who fought to assure some level of respect and equity was afforded to residents and businesses being displaced, of Ms. Lucille Gorham who named the community ‘Middle East Baltimore’ in the 1970s, a life-long activist for affordable housing whose family was displaced from the home she moved into from Middle East during the EBDI-war, or the many church leaders who marked the different corners with a space for folks to remember hope and spirit.

Historic residents continue to distrust EBDI and the Johns Hopkins Institutions, with little faith that this public-private power-house understands how traumatizing the rebuilt 88-acre has been and continues to be, to those who came back and to those who didn’t or couldn’t’ (because they died).

Subsidized housing at Merton Courts in East Baltimore renovated to mixed-income housing May 2021

Until the trauma suffered from the uprooted residents of Middle East Baltimore has been acknowledged, there cannot be healing. The US is a country that was built on atrocities, structural violence, that resulted in immense trauma in the pursuit of land, power, wealth. This trauma still has not been acknowledge, nor healed. Locally and nationally, redevelopment continues in this same way today, uprooting people from their homes and neighborhoods, leaving trauma in the war for wealth and power. The warriors who lead the devastation can not be the ones who lead the path of healing this trauma because they cannot see beyond their own goals and fabricated scripts and talking points. It will require collectives, inclusive and led by resident stakeholders, that acknowledge and begin the healing path of the trauma of gentrification’s war on land and people. Meanwhile, we can learn from what happened and continues to happen in Middle East Baltimore and urgently enact alternative methods of redevelopment. We must take into account the history of serial forced displacement since the displacement of indigenous peoples in the 1600s to current-day projects like EBDI and the displacement of low income Black people. Redevelopment must be equitable and to do so, it must be trauma-informed so we do not continue to cause harm and we heal the existing trauma.

Demolition of Perkins Homes in East Baltimore currently underway, to make room for mixed-income housing without one-for-one replacement of affordable housing. July 2021

Sure would be nice if we could model this right here in Middle East Baltimore and East Baltimore, given all the non-trauma-informed redevelopment currently underway at Perkins-Somerset-Oldtown and Lester Merton Courts. [A future blog will consider how this trauma of continued displacement continues to affect residents over the long term.]

Celebrating Juneteenth: inward and outward

Many folks are asking ‘how do we celebrate Juneteenth’ in a way that commemorates the history of our ancestors and all those who participated in freedom from enslavement for Black people.

There are many ways: we can start with ourselves, getting to know who we are so when we show up, we know what we bring into a space. Knowing ourselves is a life journey. In this journey of self-discovery, we find out what needs healing, what needs maintaining and elaborated. We find our joys and know how to bring joy to others and we find our suffering and know how to help others with theirs. We help our siblings with their trauma from today and the past. By knowing how to heal our own pain from all forms of forced marginalization-be it racial, class, gender, sexual, health- we bring our healed self forward and share our experiences. We celebrate our continuation of the ancestors in our continued liberation

The kind of ‘self’ we are and becoming, when reflected on mindfully, can already be an outward offering in celebration of Juneteenth. We can also work with our collectives on different campaigns around justice and healing. This includes making calls, going to meetings, showing up for rallies and legislative sessions/public hearings, contributing ideas. All this done in the spirit of love of equity and resistance of injustices continues the celebration of Juneteenth. We can also act individually in writing letters to editors, create blog sites that address issues of justice and healing, contribute time and resources to different groups working on issues of love and justice. And wherever we step, when we step in awareness and choose our thoughts of love and justice, we are showing up in celebration of Freedom.

Village of Love and Resistance – VOLAR

For a specific contribution, here’s a Funding Campaign by Village of Love and Resistance-VOLAR. As a co-founder of VOLAR, I know we are about freedom and healing justice. We are celebrating Juneteenth by inviting folks in to help us raise money for renovation of one of our recently acquired buildings. The less money we borrow to renovate, the more equity we will have to return money to our community investors (we are using the buildings to establish a Community Investment Trust for our low-income neighbors to become investors in land, to co-own and be decision-makers in their neighborhood!)

VOLAR GoFundMe Campaign – Celebrating Freedom Forward and Juneteenth

Share the link with your networks and help VOLAR reclaim land, heal, and build a powerful base of organized people in Baltimore.

Celebrating Juneteenth: emancipating ourselves from mental enslavement

Come celebrate this major day of freedom for African Americans in the US. What better way to do so than to take the time to take care of yourself, in community. We remember the ancestors that never gave up faith in the truth of the opportunity for freedom. We’ll come together to practice the art of mindfulness, for the emancipation of our mind and body. Kaira Jewel and I look forward to welcoming all those who identify as Black, Indigenous, Person of Color. We will celebrate the freedom of being in our beautiful ‘skin’ and the obstacles that might still enslave us based on the same. Join us on this wise, healing, and joyful path of liberation!

Registration website: https://www.garrisoninstitute.org/event/virtual-retreat-emancipating-ourselves-from-mental-enslavement-a-bipoc-day-of-mindfulness/

Virtual Retreat: Emancipating Ourselves from Mental Enslavement: A BIPOC Day of Mindfulness

June 19, 2021, 10 AM – 3:30 PM ET (There will be a 60 min off-line break for lunch)

Program Description:
These times are challenging for all, especially for our BIPOC community. This daylong gathering will help us to pause and take time to remember that our minds and bodies hold these challenges and that they can be released. We can emancipate ourselves.

We come together in tenderness, community, and cultivating peace to look deeply into the ways we can free ourselves of painful and habitual patterns of reacting that limit our freedom.

The day will consist of meditation, honoring our ancestors, instruction, times for deep and healing rest, creative mindful movement, sharing in small groups and building community.

Registration Website: https://www.garrisoninstitute.org/event/virtual-retreat-emancipating-ourselves-from-mental-enslavement-a-bipoc-day-of-mindfulness/

Facebook: facebook.com/garrisoninstitute

Twitter: @GarrisonInst

Instagram: @GarrisonInstitute

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/the-garrison-institute

What it means to stay woke for racial justice for George Floyd

Staying woke to racial justice became a “thing” over the past few years, especially after the death of Freddie Gray in April 2015 and continued [police] violence against Black bodies captured on video. In the past 12 months it became a “super thing” because of the killing of George Floyd and continued violence against Black bodies. Today, May 25 2021, is the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s killing. It’s a day of reckoning of whether we will continue to wake up for racial justice for Mr. Floyd, Mr. Gray, Ms. Jones, Ms.Bland and the known and unknown others who have been unjustly persecuted and killed with the support of the police state.

This is the intention that we must carry: I will stay woke for racial justice.

We must stay woke even while the #Black Lives Matter rhetoric from the colonized spaces continue to crack open and reveal the superficial actions of White Supremacy over the past year. We must stay woke even while we’re “returning to normal” [after 14 months of a pandemic that claimed almost 3.5 million lives worldwide].

In these past 14 months some reflected on the value of Black lives because of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on those who are working poor, non-white, and essential workers. Almost 3 months into this pandemic we saw George Floyd’s body being disposed of callously, collectively. Because we were already vulnerable and unrooted from our normally distracted and sleepwalking minds, we paused, and the images of Black death and Black protest made an impression. There were sufficient conditions at play in our society to allow a collective engagement with the history of violence against Black people. We caught a glimpse, an opening, into an America that was reckoning with its nursemaid of White Supremacy. In some corners it seemed the nursemaid was being asked: “why did you rear me this way?” Eyes were “seeing” the truth of our inhumanity against each other, against the “other”, against all that was not white.

On the anniversary of George Floyd’s killing and 14 months into a pandemic, almost 50% of the US has been vaccinated against COVID19-the virus causing the pandemic. And while this may protect us from being infected with the virus while we resume our normal busy way of being in the world, it also supports us falling back to sleep to racial justice. During the pandemic many of us had to stop our normal lives and quarantine, we slowed down. And in this pause we had more time to be kind to ourselves and to see ourselves in others. We began to wake up to what was in front of us-the birdsong and the less polluted air; and the racial violence against Black and Brown bodies. And many joined the protest against white supremacy. The vaccine may allow us to resume our busy lives. But this business numbs us to seeing each other as ourselves. The vaccine in effect also immunizes us against feeling kindness and compassion for ourselves and for others, immunizes us against being woke.

We have been vaccinated against our heart continuing to open. Our busy lives inhibit the maturation of the heart actions of our humanity. As we resume our fast-paced lives we also resume our selfishness, our greed and want to stop this ‘nonsense’ of racial equity and seeing our interconnection with each other. In fact, in spaces of power we think that we should return to business as usual- the distracted minds and closed hearts nourished by moving too fast and consuming so much we could not see each ourselves in each other.

This is a call out to all those whose heart broke open during these past 12 months: don’t close it back up. Keep feeling that trauma of racism and ignorance as this forces us to find ways to heal and understand our collective history of racial injustices and its legacy, so we can recover ourselves. This call out is to all of us who, over the past 12-14 months, have managed to look at the person on the street begging for support and asked: why?

Don’t go back to sleep. The right evolution of our humanity depends on our collective awakening. Stay woke, whatever it takes.