Sociologist Tim Black discusses his new book, When a Heart Turns Rock Solid, about three Puerto Rican brothers on and off the streets in Springfield, MA over two decades.

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Tuesday’s Middletown Food Not Bombs appeal hearing at the Dept. of Public Health and the breakfast/demonstration on the street beforehand was covered in CT News Junkie and on the Hartford Courant‘s front page Wednesday. (I’m wondering why the Courant puts “sharing” in scare quotes in nearly every article they write about FNB. Anyone have ideas on that?) Read the full story

Greg Tate, founding co-artistic director, and actors Chinaza Uche and Brian Kopp discuss Hartbeat Ensemble’s Plays in the Parks 2009 and its theme: the economy hits home.

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After a series of crackdowns by Middletown officials against Middletown Food Not Bombs, the food activists are going on the offensive.  Today, FNB filed a federal injunction that would halt a cease and desist order which bars the group from meal-sharing activities unless food is prepared in a Health Department registered kitchen.   The target of the injunction is both the city of Middletown and the state of Connecticut.   According to the FNB press release, the cease and desist order also applies to “political” activities as well.  And, in a lawsuit filed on Friday, FNB argues that attempts to stop FNB’s public meals infringe on the group’s constitutional rights and has a chilling effect on such activities elsewhere.  Read the full story

I don’t count. And maybe you don’t count either. What makes us important to the people that we the people, put in office are; what color our skin is, how much money and power we have, what gender we are and how old we are. On the surface, the landscape seems to be diversifying; but the attitudes, practices and injustices are the same. The same racist attitudes, sexist beliefs and flagrant discrimination towards our elderly population still exist. It is right before our eyes, as it has been for years; and still, and still, and still; we won’t crawl out of the abyss.

Listen, my people. I have been around a long time. I have not only seen discrimination and injustice; I have felt its sting more than once. And I’m feeling it again. What is currently happening in our state and local government in the way of budget cuts and backroom tactics is just that, discriminatory and unjust. The poor, people who are currently experiencing homelessness, the sick, the mentally ill and the aged are all getting hit hard.  Social services are always the first to go. Public safety services are the next and then it goes into our schools with the removal of arts programming and transportation. It’s always the same. It never changes, and that is apparent again in the way our state and local government is trying to fix budgetary issues.

The thing is; they know exactly what they are doing, they know who will suffer and they just don’t care because it doesn’t further their own political careers or agendas. It doesn’t fund those special projects and it doesn’t get a certain populations vote.  You’re fooling yourself if you think otherwise. You see – if you are poor, homeless, sick, in recovery, mentally ill or from another culture there is this punitive attitude that permeates.  In the good old US of A, you’ve got to pull yourselves up by the bootstraps and if you don’t, if you can’t, you are penalized and punished by those in power. You are punished repeatedly by society as well. I think that attitude is part of the reason why many of our elected officials are getting away with obvious discriminatory practices towards and upon this States poor, ill and aged. Not only do politicians have this attitude, so does the constituency. But I ask this: how can we pull ourselves up, when we keep getting set up to fail? How can we help ourselves without the resources?

It’s a cycle that is long overdue to be broken.

It’s written somewhere that hope springs eternal, but based on what I’ve seen over and over again, my level of hope for this city and this state is waning fast. Until we the people change our attitudes towards racist ideals, gender and age discrimination; and how we treat our fellow human beings, it will remain the same.