Author: Rachel V. L. Jones

June Jordan was a powerhouse poet, activist, journalist, and educator. One of the most widely-published and highly-acclaimed writers of her time, Jordan was active in the civil rights, feminist, antiwar, and gay and lesbian rights movements. Through her poetry, essays, plays, and children’s literature, she spoke passionately about race, class, sexuality, and political struggles around the world.

Jordan was born in Harlem in 1936, the child of Jamaican immigrants who raised her in Bedford-Stuyvesant. A gifted student, she began writing poetry in elementary school. She attended boarding school in New England, where her teachers encouraged her writing but never shared the work of any Black writers with her. After earning a BA from Barnard College, Jordan began teaching at the City College of New York in 1966. She published her first book of poetry, Who Look at Me, in 1969. She went on to teach at Yale University, Sarah Lawrence College, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook, before becoming Professor of African-American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she founded Poetry For the People.

Jordan’s essays were published in magazines and newspapers around the world. She also published more than twenty-five major works of poetry, fiction, and children’s books before her death in 2002. In an interview shortly before her death, Jordan said that “the task of a poet of color, a black poet, as a people hated and despised, is to rally the spirit of your folks…I have to get myself together and figure out an angle, a perspective, that is an offering, that other folks can use to pick themselves up, to rally and to continue or, even better, to jump higher, to reach more extensively in solidarity with even more varieties of people to accomplish something. I feel that it’s a spirit task.”

Jordan’s books of poetry include the collections Kissing God Goodbye: Poems, 1991-1997, Haruko/Love Poems, Naming Our Destiny, Living Room: New Poems 1980-1984, and Things That I Do in the Dark. Her essay collections include Affirmative Acts: Political Essays, June Jordan’s Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint, Technical Difficulties, and Civil Wars: Selected Essays 1963-1980.

You can access several online, full text works by Jordan in the City Tech Collection, including:

Life as Activism: June Jordan’s Writings from the Progressive

Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays of June Jordan.

It’s March, which means it is Women’s History Month, a commemoration of “the specific achievements women have made over the course of American history in a variety of fields”…with one notable exception: the field of domestic labor.

Domestic labor—cooking, cleaning, childcare, and other activities related to household maintenance—remains largely invisible and undervalued. Domestic labor is mostly done by women, and particularly women of color, who keep those around them fed, safe, clean, and cared for. It is essential work, without which no other economic activity could take place, but it is considered unworthy, for example, of being an achievement to celebrate during Women’s History Month.

Silvia Federici, who was one of the organizers of the Wages for Housework movement, has described domestic labor as “a form of gendered economic oppression and an exploitation upon which all of capitalism rests.” Domestic labor enables others to work outside the home, and to enjoy higher status jobs and better wages. It is the invisible work that makes all other work possible.

If women in the United States earned minimum wage for their unpaid domestic labor, they would have made $1.5 trillion last year, according to a recent article in the New York Times. Imagine what would happen if women either refused to do any domestic labor or insisted on being paid for it. Our entire economy would be transformed.

Of course, some people are paid for doing domestic labor. During the past three decades, as more and more women entered the workforce, those with enough income (usually white, college-educated, and middle to upper class) began to pay others to help care for their children or clean their homes or even buy their groceries for them. The majority of domestic workers in the United States are low-waged women of color and immigrants. Women with privilege working outside the home have depended on outsourcing domestic labor to women with less privilege. Even though there have been efforts to organize and protect domestic workers from exploitation, they don’t have much protection, and are often denied formal benefits and time off to care for their own families.

During the last year, with schools and offices closed and an New York State executive order that classified most domestic workers as “inessential”, more people had to perform their own domestic labor rather than outsourcing it. Many women with privilege have been forced to quit their jobs, as they can no longer hire domestic workers to help them. Because of the pandemic, some have become more aware that their careers and comfortable lifestyles depend on the underpaid labor of undervalued domestic workers. It seems like a good moment to reevaluate the low value assigned to life-maintaining labor and to start celebrating women for all of the kinds of work they do.

Want to learn more about women and work? Check out these ebooks from the City Tech Library!

[This post was co-authored with City Tech Librarians Nora Almeida and Wanett Clyde.]

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“A white ally acknowledges the limits of her/his/their knowledge about other people’s experiences but doesn’t use that as a reason not to think and/or act. A white ally does not remain silent but confronts racism as it comes up daily, but also seeks to deconstruct it institutionally and live in a way that challenges systemic oppression, at the risk of experiencing some of that oppression. Being a white ally entails building relationships with both people of color, and also with white people in order to challenge them in their thinking about race. White allies don’t have it all figured out, but are deeply committed to non-complacency.”  White Allyship 101 by the Dismantle Collective

February is Black History Month in the United States. As 2020 demonstrated, the situation of Black people in the US is still challenging, often unfair and discriminatory. One way we can honor the historical struggles of Black Americans is to invest in the ongoing work to make our society and ourselves (if we are not Black) less racist. For nonBlack people, February 2021 is a good opportunity to educate ourselves on how to be better allies to our Black family, friends, and neighbors. There are many excellent educational online materials on Anti-Racism free and open to all:

Films

The PBS website offers several films about racism in America, adding historical context to racial issues. PBS’ programs include profiles of police departments, documentaries that cover the treatment of African Americans since slavery, and films about both past and current civil rights activism.

Readings

“The case for reparations“

“I used to lead tours on a plantation. You wouldn’t believe the questions I got about slavery.”

“Allyship and accountability glossary“

Podcasts

1619  An audio series on how slavery has transformed America, connecting past and present through the oldest form of storytelling.

Code Switch: “fearless conversations about race…hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race head-on. We explore how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and everything in between.”

Seeing White: “Just what is going on with white people? Police shootings of unarmed African Americans. Acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists. The renewed embrace of raw, undisguised white-identity politics. Unending racial inequity in schools, housing, criminal justice, and hiring. Why? Where did the notion of ‘whiteness’ come from? What does it mean? What is whiteness for?”

Uncivil: “Uncivil brings you stories that were left out of the official history of the Civil War, ransacks America’s past, and takes on the history you grew up with. We bring you untold stories about resistance, covert operations, corruption, mutiny, counterfeiting, antebellum drones, and so much more. And we connect these forgotten struggles to the political battlefield we’re living on right now. The story of the Civil War — the story of slavery, confederate monuments, racism — is the story of America.”

Other Online Resources

The Color Line: “A lesson on the countless colonial laws enacted to create division and inequality based on race.” from the Zinn Education Project

Facing History and Ourselves: “Facing our collective history and how it informs our attitudes and behaviors allows us to choose a world of equity and justice. Facing History’s resources address racism, antisemitism, and prejudice at pivotal moments in history; we help students connect choices made in the past to those they will confront in their own lives.”

Talking About Race is a comprehensive, multimedia site produced by the National Museum of African American History & Culture, with rich offerings.

Weeksville Heritage Center is an historic site in Central Brooklyn that preserves the history of Weeksville, one of the largest free Black communities in pre-Civil War America.

Our own wonderful African American Studies Department has its own list of recommended resources, well worth checking out. Beyond the City Tech campus, there are hundreds of CUNY events celebrating Black History Month.

This is the second part of a two-part post on Winter Holiday Foodways and Cookbooks, co-written with Monica Berger, our Instruction and Scholarly Communications Librarian. The first part of the blog is here.

For those who love sweets, the winter holidays are a highly anticipated time of year! This is the season when many special desserts are made by diverse cultures to celebrate their holidays.

Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, memorializes a miracle during the Jewish rebellion against the Greeks, where the Jews were able to regain the ancient city of Jerusalem, and restore their desecrated Temple in Jerusalem. The miracle was that the oil for the menorah in the Temple, only enough for one night, lasted eight days and nights. To honor the sacred oil, for generations the theme surrounding Hanukkah cuisine has been deep fried foods, including delicious desserts. In Israel, the most popular holiday treat is sufganiyah which translates to doughnut in English. It is a specialty item for the holiday because it’s sweet and deep fried, sold exclusively around the holiday season. Sufganiyot (the plural of sufganiyah in Hebrew) originated in Europe. Jalebi, a treat enjoyed by Iraqi Jews, is basically a funnel cake, made out of a flour-based dough then deep fried and soaked in a sugar syrup. One exception to fried desserts is rugelach, an Eastern European pastry, which are crescent-shaped dough cookies filled with fruit preserves, poppy seeds, or chocolate and nuts. Hanukkah Sweets and Treats is a kid-friendly introduction to making these and more. The Kosher Baker is an excellent resource for dairy-free desserts.

Kwanzaa is an African-American festival that lasts from December 26 through January 1. Its purpose is to celebrate African-American family and community, while honoring African ancestors and culture. The holiday is based on seven guiding principles, one for each day of the observance: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. Celebrations begin by lighting candles, giving gifts, and decorating with the African colors of red, green, and black. Throughout the week, favorite African-American dishes, as well as traditional African and Caribbean favorites, are on many menus. On December 31, the holiday culminates in a feast called Karamu. Desserts might include soul food favorites like Sweet Potato Pie, Peach Cobbler, or Caramel Cake. Global Bakery has recipes for delicious cakes from Africa and the Caribbean perfect for Kwanzaa, including Ginger Cake, Rum Cake, and Semolina Cake. A wonderful book on African-American foodways is Vibration Cooking: Or, the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl by Vertamae Smart-Grosveno. It is a cookbook/memoir reflecting on food as a source of pride and validation of Black womanhood, and it inspired filmmaker Julie Dash to make Daughters of the Dust.

Christmas: There are many special treats identified with Christmas, such as German Stollen, Spanish Turrón, French Bûche de Noël, and Italian Panettone and Struffoli. The United States is best known for its varied Christmas cookies that reflect America’s immigrant heritages. City Tech Professor Michael Krondl is a food writer and culinary historian. He is also the author of Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert. You can listen to his recent interview on The Takeaway about the history of Christmas cookies. His story starts in the Middle Ages, when honey and spices were very expensive and reserved for the most special festivities. Because of their precious ingredients, people started making and giving cookies as gifts during the medieval Christmas season. For your own holiday cookie baking, take a look at The Great Minnesota Cookie Book : Award-Winning Recipes from the Star Tribune’s Holiday Cookie Contest. 

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November is Native American History Month, and a good time for non-Natives in Brooklyn to acknowledge the Lenape peoples who lived here before us. 

Land Acknowledgements are given to recognize the indigenous peoples who originally occupied “our” land but who were then displaced. Land Acknowledgements are often offered in places as statements of honor and respect for the places’ original inhabitants.

Land Acknowledgements can raise awareness about histories that are often suppressed or forgotten. The acknowledgement process involves asking: “Who lived here before us?” “What happened to them?” “Who should be accountable for their displacement?” “What can be done to repair the harm done to them?”

The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture (not a real government agency but a “people-powered department”) offers a resource called Honor Native Land: A Guide and Call to Acknowledgement.

Here are their answers to the question: “Why practice Land Acknowledgement?”:

•          Offer recognition and respect

•          Share the true story of the people who were already here

•          Create a broader public awareness of history  

•          Begin to repair relationships with Native communities  

•          Support larger truth-telling and reconciliation efforts

•          Remind people that colonization is an ongoing process

•          Opening up space with reverence and respect

•          Inspire ongoing action and relationships

And here is their step-by-step guide to acknowledgment:

1. Identify: “The first step is identifying the traditional inhabitants of the lands you’re on. . . it is important to proceed with care, doing good research before making statements of acknowledgement.”

2. Articulate: “Once you’ve identified the group(s) who should be recognized, formulate the statement.. . . Beginning with just a simple sentence would be a meaningful intervention in most spaces.”

3. Deliver. “Offer your acknowledgement as the first element of a welcome to the next public gathering or event that you host . . . Consider your own place in the story of colonization and of undoing its legacy.”

In Brooklyn, and at City Tech, we currently occupy land that was known originally as the “Lenapehoking” or the Land of the Lenape. Lenapehoking included present day New Jersey, New York, and Delaware. At the time of European settlement, in the New York City and Brooklyn area alone, there were about 15,000 Lenape living in 80 settlements.

The destruction and displacement of the Lenape people began with European contact. Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed into New York harbor and traded with the Lenape in 1524. Verrazzano was followed by the Dutch in 1598. With every new contact between the Lenape and Europeans, more Lenape died due to disease and war.

By 1623, according to some accounts, there were only 200-300 Lenape left. European settlers pushed the remaining Lenape out of the East Coast and pressed them to move west. Today, after numerous wars, treaties, and forced displacement, most Lenape live in Oklahoma and Canada, with only a small number remaining in New York.

More on local Lenape history and culture forthcoming in Part 2!

The Open Admissions Strike of 1969 was a dramatic event that radically transformed CUNY. In 1969, a group of City College of New York (CCNY) students occupied campus buildings. CCNY was 97% white despite being in Harlem. Students demanded that the college reorient towards Harlem’s communities of color. They also demanded an education that valued and reflected their diverse backgrounds. Other CUNY campuses were shut down in solidarity, buildings were set on fire, and the police were called in to quash riots. In the end, CUNY students fought for and won change. Their persistence forced CUNY to negotiate their demands, and their protest led to a new open enrollment policy.

CUNY had a reputation for student activism before 1969. In the 1930s and 40s, the colleges that would become CUNY, were major centers of student activism. Many students had Eastern European and Italian immigrant backgrounds that embraced trade unionism and social protest. During the 1950s, CUNY was one of the few places where students on the left in the United States dared to organize openly and in the turbulent 1960s, CUNY became a focus of student protest.

Continue reading “CUNY’s Open Admissions Strike of 1969”