THE INDYPENDENT #230: DECEMBER 2017 • INDYPENDENT.ORG

THE #METOO REVOLUTION, P10 A PUERTO RICAN JOURNEY, P12 MAVIS STAPLES’ NEW ALBUM, P17

LIFEORDER'S IN THE BELLY OF NYC’S UP! RESTAURANT BEAST BY GORDON GLASGOW, P8 GINO BARZIZZA

Reverend BillY & The StOPShOPPING Choir

Joe’s Pub at The Public / SUNDAYS 2PM Nov26 thru Dec17 $15 / REVBILLY.COM Dec 3rd 2 COMMUNITY CALENDAR The IndypendenT nOVeMBeR/deCeMBeR

THE INDYPENDENT, INC. 388 Atlantic Avenue, 2nd Floor Brooklyn, NY 11217 212-904-1282 www.indypendent.org Twitter: @TheIndypendent facebook.com/TheIndypendent

BOARD OF DIRECTORS: Ellen Davidson, Anna Gold, SUN NOV 19 Hudson Terrace LIC ART AND CONTROVERSY FRI DEC 1 Alina Mogilyanskaya, Ann 12PM–6PM • $2 suggested 621 W. 46th St. Join leading scholars and artists, 9PM–12AM • $25, 21+ Schneider, John Tarleton donation including painter and sculptor PARTY: ART AFTER DARK LIT: ZINE LAUNCH SUN NOV 26–SUN DEC 17 Audrey Flack, for an examination Join the Guggenheim Mu- EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Got a Girl Crush — a blog and 2:30PM • $15 of how art in public spaces can seum for an after-hours evening John Tarleton annual print magazine about PERFORMANCE: REVEREND serve as a fl ash point for larger featuring a DJ performance by women, by women, for everyone BILLY AND THE STOPSHOPPING social debates. This talk is part SHYBOI (KUNQ/Discwoman) ASSOCIATE EDITOR: — is teaming up with Brooklyn's CHOIR of the ongoing exhibit, “Art in the and a private viewing of current Peter Rugh New Women Space to feature an Feeling worn down by Year One Open: Fifty Years of Public Art in exhibitions, including “Art and emerging line-up of female, fem- of the orange-haired nightmare? New York City.” Tickets available China after 1989: Theater of the CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: identifying, non-binary, transgen- Reverend Billy and the Church at mcny.org. World” and “Josef Albers in Ellen Davidson, Alina der and gender non-conforming of Stop Shopping Choir will be Museum of the City of New York Mexico.” Cash bar serves wine Mogilyanskaya, Nicholas printmakers and their zines. preaching and singing and rais- 1220 Fifth Ave. and beer. Guests will be asked Powers, Steven Wishnia New Women Space ing a righteous ruckus for four for a photo ID. Tickets available 188 Woodpoint Rd., Bklyn straight Sundays. It’s the perfect THU NOV 30 at ny.guggenheim.org. No tickets ILLUSTRATION DIRECTOR: tonic for the weary activist soul. 6:30PM–8PM • FREE sold at the door. Frank Reynoso WED NOV 22 Joe’s Pub TALK: WE OWN IT: WORKER Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 6:45PM–8:15PM • $12 425 Lafayette St. COOPERATIVE STORIES AND 1071 5th Ave. DESIGN DIRECTOR: SCREENING: DAVID LYNCH: THE TRENDS IN THE FIELD Mikael Tarkela ART LIFE MON NOV 27 This English/Spanish presenta- SAT DEC 2 The Art Life examines Lynch’s art, 12PM • FREE tion from the Democracy at Work 8PM • $5, 21+ DESIGNERS: music and early fi lms, shining a WORKSHOP: HOUSING COURT Institute and U.S. Federation MUSIC: CONCERT FOR PUERTO Leia Doran, Anna Gold light into the dark corners of his 101: THE MORE YOU KNOW! of Worker Cooperatives will RICO unique world and giving audi- Housing experts from SOS Bronx outline how worker cooperatives Performers include the Super- SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER: ences a better understanding of and the Legal Aid Society will increase stability and economic tones, the Patsy Carroll Band, Elia Gran the man and the artist. Viewers lead a workshop on housing court security for marginalized com- Simon Chardiet, and Alix & the are given a private view from issues and will answer questions munities and highlight current Mechanics. All proceeds go to GENERAL INQUIRIES: Lynch’s compound and painting and concerns. efforts to build coop power and Resilient Power Puerto Rico, [email protected] studio in the hills high above Hol- 601 E. 163rd St., Bronx infl uence policy. Dinner provided. which is bringing solar generators lywood, as Lynch retells personal The Brooklyn Commons to communities hit hardest by SUBMISSIONS & NEWS TIPS: stories from his past that unfold WED NOV 29 388 Atlantic Ave. Hurricane Maria. [email protected] like scenes from his fi lms. 8PM • $10–$12, 21+ Rockaway Brewing Co. Videology Bar & Cinema MUSIC: HABIBI FRI DEC 1 4-15 Beach 72nd St., Queens ADVERTISING & PROMOTION: 308 Bedford Ave., Bklyn Drawing comparisons to iconic 8PM • $20 suggested donation [email protected] fi gures from the Smashing Pump- PARTY: REDS NEED GREEN SUN DEC 3 SAT NOV 25 kins to the Supremes, Habibi have Socialize with socialists at the 4PM–5PM • FREE VOLUNTEER CONTRIBUTORS: 4PM–9PM • $10–$50, 21+ proven capable of crafting music New York City Democratic Social- PERFORMANCE: FLAMENCO IN Sam Alcoff, Linda Martín PARTY: AFROCODE NEW YORK that is both uniquely their own ists annual holiday fundraiser. THE BOROS Alcoff, Gino Barzizza, Bennett CITY: HIP HOP MEETS AFRO- yet able to traverse borders in its Musical performances by Sound Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana Baumer, José Carmona, BEATS overarching appeal. of Ceres, DJ Erika Spring (Au kicks off its annual Flamenco in Maya Chung, Valerio Ciriaci, A crossover of genres, a fusion Baby’s All Right Revoir Simone) and The Six Six the Boros tour. Through music, Leia Doran, Renée Feltz, of cultures. Non-stop music, 146 Broadway, Bklyn Sick Girls. carols and dance, Navidad Fla- Bianca Fortis, Lynne Foster, dancing and positive vibes. Dress China Chalet menca highlights the rich holiday Priscilla Grim, Lauren Kaori code: fashionable, all black. THU NOV 30 47 Broadway customs of the Spanish-speaking Gurley, Amir Khafagy, David Tickets are $10 in advance at 6:30PM–8:30PM • $15 world from Argentina and Mexico Hollenbach, Georgia Kromrei, eventbrite.com. ART: LOVE IT OR HATE IT: PUB- to Colombia, Cuba and Puerto Gena Hymowech, Dondi J, Colin Kinniburgh, Gary Martin, Erik McGregor, Mike Newton, Donald Paneth, Federico di Pasqua, Dean Patterson, Astha Rajvanshi, Mark Read, Reverend Billy, Jesse Rubin, Steven Sherman Pamela Somers, Gabriella Szpunt, Leanne Tory-Murphy, Jamara Wakefi eld, Matthew Wasserman, and Amy Wolf. adVeRTIse In The Indy

VOLUNTEER DISTRIBUTORS: unIQue audIenCe | aFFORdaBLe RaTes | peRsOnaL aTTenTIOn Arun Aguiar, Eric Brelsford, Chris Brown, Pam Brown, Joseph Epstein, Kim Frazcek, December 2017 Lew Friedman, Ashley FOR MORe InFORMaTIOn, eMaIL [email protected] OR CaLL 212-904-1282 Marinaccio, Mindy Gershon, Tami Gold, Allan Greenberg, Zack Kelaty, Bill Koehnlein, Michael Korn, Jane LaTour, Dave Lippman, Saul Nieves, The IndypendenT and Carol Smith. The IndypendenT 3 nOVeMBeR/deCeMBeR IN THIS ISSUE

Rico and refl ects the infl uences SUN DEC 10 DONNA SINGER of Spanish culture throughout the 11AM–2PM • $50 Americas. BRUNCH: MURALS & MIMOSAS: Bronx Music Heritage Center A CELEBRATION OF WOMEN 1303 Louis Nine Blvd., Bronx STREET ARTISTS OF COLOR Art and Resistance Through CaRTe BLanChe FOR The COps, p4 SUN DEC 3 Education (ARTE) hosts a brunch Another jury fails to deliver 7:30PM • $8 in celebration of women artists and justice for a slain Black man. THEATER: LETTERS IN THE DIRT activists creating change around An immersive, participatory the world. Money raised will help The MTa’s neXT BIG MOney pIT, p6 journey through the memories of realize a mural project designed Goodbye, MetroCard. Hello, the late Aiyana Jones, shot and by young incarcerated women in digital danger. killed in 2010 by an offi cer during New York City. Included in the price a botched police raid in Detroit on of admission: an open wine and seCOnd ChanCe FOR ChaRas?, p7 the wrong home. The piece strives beer bar, homemade brunch hors A beloved LES community to honor her, combining ritual, d'oeuvres and an art exhibition center could be reborn. games, poetry, music and group honoring global women heroes. collaboration to explore all the Tickets available at generosity. TaKInG The heaT, p8 ways black folks create beginnings. com. A young writer lives the chef’s life. 603 Bushwick Ave., Bklyn 248 Roebling St., Bklyn #MeTOO, p10

THU DEC 7 SUN DEC 10 FILMS JANUS Working women prove there is 6PM–9PM • FREE 2PM–4PM • Sliding scale, $6–$15 power in numbers. MUSIC: PATRICK BRENNAN'S WORKSHOP: COUNTER-CARTOG- TRANSPARENCY KESTRA RAPHIES OF THE GLOBAL SUPPLY yeaR One a.T. (aFTeR TRuMp), p11 Composer and saxophonist Patrick CHAIN A year since the Troll King was Brennan has pursued a contrarian Is there ethical consumption under elected, what’s changed? and independent musical path for capitalism? This workshop from over three decades in search of the Marxist Education Project will aFTeR MaRIa, p12 those yet unheard somethings just trace the passage of everyday A Nuyorican returns to the around the corner. Transparency commodities from their point of island of his grandparents. Kestra is a rotating community of production to your doorstep and musicians, a polyrhythmic drum examine the infrastructure and punK sTILL paCKs a punCh, p16 ensemble and an engine of multidi- ‘externalized costs’ —human, eco- 40 years since punk exploded, rectional musical exploration. nomic, social and environmental— it’s still as relevant as ever. El Taller Latino Americano of the international fl ow of things. 215 E 99th St. New Perspectives Theatre Com- sOuL heaLeR, p17 pany R&B maven Mavis Staples sings FRI DEC 8 458 W. 37th St. to a new generation. 7PM–9PM • FREE BOOK LAUNCH: PLAYING WITH WED DEC 13 an OuTsIdeR On The InsIde,p18 DYNAMITE 6:30PM–8PM • FREE A SENSE OF PLACE: Former Greek Finance Minister

Sharon Harrigan’s father was larg- PHOTOGRAPHY: PICTURING Donna Singer explores SAM/FLICKR Yanis Varoufakis explains what er than life, a brilliant, but troubled PLACE: THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF her Jersey roots in her went wrong when Syriza came man who blew off his hand with RACE, CLASS, AND COMMUNITY photo series If It Rained to power. dynamite before she was born and Photographers Brenda Ann Ken- an Ocean. She’ll be joined died in a mysterious accident when neally and Danna Singer portray by fellow photographer CITIes aT The CLIMaTe she was seven. Harrigan’s new the realities of intergenerational Brenda Ann Kenneally at CROssROads, p19 memoir is about a daughter who poverty and a complicated tangle the International Center of Metropolises with the most goes looking for her father but fi nds of signifi cation, race and class in Photography on Dec. 13. at stake can make the biggest her mother instead. It’s about the the communities in which they difference. slipperiness of memory, the neces- were raised. Kenneally and Singer sity of grief and what it means to go will appear in conversation with RENAISSANCE CReMaTInG The LIVInG, p20 home again. anthropologist John Hartigan Jr to MAN: The Art Life, What led to the deaths of 25 Bluestockings discuss what it means to portray, showing at Videology on workers at a North Carolina 172 Allen St., Bklyn embed in and study one's own Nov. 22, takes you inside chicken-processing plant

community. Register in advance at David Lynch’s Hollywood in 1991? The answer might 2017 December FRI DEC 8 acmeticketing.com. home and showcases surprise you. 8PM–11:45PM • FREE International Center for Photogra- art works like this one to PARTY: UGLY SWEATER PARTY phy Museum (Downtown) give viewers a glimpse The TRuMp heLp hOTLIne, p21 Don your ugliest wool and come 250 Bowery of the man behind iconic Reverend Billy fi elds questions celebrate the fi ve-year anniversary fi lms like Blue Velvet and on taking a knee and keeping the of the Wildfi re Project, a commu- Mulholland Drive. resistance alive. IndypendenT The nity organizing collective founded in the wake of Superstorm Sandy in pOsITIVe pROOF, p22 the Rockaways. LOVE IN ARABIC: An exhibition at Brooklyn Starr Bar Rockers Habibi never fail to Museum looks at the meaning of 214 Starr St., Bklyn disappoint. Catch them at truth through three artists from Baby’s All Right on Nov. 29. three historical epochs. 4 COURTS

DISBELIEF DESPITE VIDEO EVIDENCE, BROOKLYN JURY LETS A KILLER COP WALK

By Indypendent Staff rial unit overseen by New York Attorney General Eric effort on behalf of the prosecu- Schneiderman and established by Gov. Andrew Cuomo tion. Even longtime critics of the DEMANDING

arlier this month, jurors at the New York in 2015 to tackle instances in which police kill civilians. criminal justice system conceded JUSTICE: Victoria ERIK MCGREGOR State Supreme Court building in Brooklyn Out of 12 initial investigations, fi ve remain open. that Schneiderman’s team present- Davis, sister of Delrawn considered what, under different circum- The acquittal comes more than three years since po- ed the evidence against the cop in Small, together with stances, would have been an open and shut lice on Staten Island were fi lmed fatally choking Eric an extremely compelling manner. community advocates on murder case — save for one detail. Garner — a father of six accused of selling loose ciga- “It was the jury this time,” said Nov. 9 in Union Square. EThe victim, Delrawn Small, 37, died after he was shot rettes. A grand jury refused to indict Daniel Pantaleo, State Assemblymember Charles three times during a late-night traffi c dispute on Atlan- the offi cer who placed Garner in a chokehold. A Justice Barron, who represents East New York and attended tic Avenue. A nearby surveillance camera captured evi- Department civil rights investigation remains ongoing. portions of Isaacs’ trial. “What this jury deliberated on, dence that directly contradicted the killer’s self-defense “How could this keeping happening?” Garner’s what they didn’t see in that video is beyond my belief. claim. Small was apparently shot without provocation mother, Gwen Carr, asked in response to Isaacs’ ac- Juries, they see police in one light and black men, their the instant he reached his killer’s car. quittal. “They shouldn’t be above the law. They should own black men, in another light. When you have a soci- It might have been a slam dunk case of murder, ex- abide by the same laws we abide by.” ety that’s criminalizing and saying black men are a men- cept that the accused, Wayne Isaacs, was a four-year Garner’s killing is one in a string of high-profi le ace to society — the ‘angry black man’ — sometimes the veteran of the NYPD who was returning home after a black civilian deaths at the hands of law enforcement oppressed internalize their oppression.” shift at the 79th precinct the night he shot Small. across the country. Ferguson, Mis- On Monday, Nov. 4 12 jurors — fi ve black, fi ve souri; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; white, one Asian, one Latino — found Isaacs not guilty Baltimore, Maryland; Cleveland, “I FEEL LIKE MY BROTHER and delivered a crushing blow to the Small family. They Ohio; and Saint Paul, Minnesota also once again raised a question that has long troubled have erupted in protests over po- advocates for criminal justice reform: Just what the hell lice-perpetrated killings. In each WAS KILLED TWICE.” does it take to convict a police offi cer of killing a civilian instance, Lady Justice’s scales ap- in America? pear to have tilted in favor of police. Firing Isaacs, as Small’s family and supporters are “I feel like my brother was killed twice,” said Small’s Here in New York, a long body count of dead civil- demanding, might prove diffi cult, as the offi cer has al- sibling Victor Dempsey, who attended a rally of about ians stands beside a record of police walking free. The ready surpassed the two-year probationary period re- 200 people at Union Square on Nov. 9 calling for Police list of the slain includes 16-year-old Kimani Gray in quired to achieve tenure on the force. According to an Commissioner James O’Neill to fi re Isaacs. The verdict East Flatbush, 18-year-old Ramarley Graham of the NYPD spokesperson, Isaacs “will remain on a non-en- “emphasized that his life didn’t matter.” Bronx and Akai Gurley, who was shot in the stairwell forcement duty status, without a service weapon, while While both Small and his killer were black, to critics of a Brooklyn public housing development by Offi cer the department conducts its internal investigation.” of the verdict the differentiating factor appeared to be Peter Liang. Lang was convicted last year of manslaugh- Isaacs’ badge. ter. His sentence: fi ve years probation and 800 hours of “If it was any one of us that had taken the life of community service. another citizen or a police offi cer, then we would have The establishment of the special prosecutions unit actually been held accountable to the law,” said Car- was an effort to circumvent the tight-knit relationship men Dixon, an organizer with the NAACP’s Legal between local district attorneys and the police who they Defense Fund. work with on a daily basis. Isaacs’ trial was the fi rst test of a special prosecuto- Isaacs’ acquittal appears not to have been for lack of SOME PLACES YOU CAN FIND THE INDYPENDENT BELOW CINEMA VILLAGE ABOVE HAMILTON GRANGE SUNSET PARK LIBRARY FLATBUSH LIBRARY LONG ISLAND CITY 14TH ST 22 E. 12TH ST. 96TH ST. . LIBRARY 5108 4TH AVE. 22 LINDEN BLVD. LIBRARY 503 W. 145TH ST. 37-44 21ST ST. SEWARD PARK LIBRARY LGBT CENTER SAVOY BAKERY CONNECTICUT MUFFIN TUGBOAT TEA COMPANY 192 EAST BROADWAY 208 W. 13TH ST. 170 E. 110TH ST. UPTOWN SISTER’S 429 MYRTLE AVE. 546 FLATBUSH AVE. JACKSON HEIGHTS BOOKS LIBRARY HAMILTON FISH LIBRARY MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS W. 156TH ST. & DEKALB LIBRARY OUTPOST CAFE 35-51 81ST ST. 415 E. HOUSTON ST. 14TH TO LIBRARY AMSTERDAM 790 BUSHWICK AVE. 1014 FULTON ST. 96TH ST 2900 BROADWAY LES PEOPLE’S FEDERAL FORT WASHINGTON WYCKOFF STARR COFFEE RED HOOK LIBRARY BRONX CREDIT UNION EPIPHANY LIBRARY HARRY BELAFONTE LIBRARY SHOP 7 WOLCOTT ST. 39 AVENUE B 228 E. 23RD ST. 115TH ST. LIBRARY 535 W. 179TH ST. 30 WYCKOFF AVE. MOTT HAVEN LIBRARY 203 W. 115TH ALIGN BROOKLYN 321 E. 140TH ST. TOMPKINS SQUARE MUHLENBERG LIBRARY INWOOD LIBRARY BUSHWICK LIBRARY 579 5TH AVE. LIBRARY 209 W. 23RD ST. HARLEM LIBRARY 4790 BROADWAY 340 BUSHWICK AVE. HUNT’S POINT LIBRARY 331 E. 10TH ST. 9 W. 124TH ST. SUNSET PARK LIBRARY 877 SOUTHERN BLVD. TACO BANDITO WILLIAMSBURG 5108 4TH AVE. BLUESTOCKINGS 325 8TH AVE. 125 STREET LIBRARY BROOKLYN LIBRARY THE POINT 172 ALLEN ST. 224 E. 125TH ST. 240 DIVISION AVE. BAY RIDGE LIBRARY 940 GARRISON AVE. COLUMBUS LIBRARY BROOKLYN COMMONS 7223 RIDGE BLVD. THEATER FOR THE NEW 942 TENTH AVE. GEORGE BRUCE LIBRARY 388 ATLANTIC AVE. KAISA’S CAFÉ HIGH BRIDGE LIBRARY CITY 518 W. 125TH ST. 146 BEDFORD AVE. STARR BAR 78 W. 168TH ST. COUSIN JOHN’S CAFE & December 2017 155 FIRST AVE. ST. AGNES LIBRARY 214 STARR ST. 444 AMSTERDAM AVE. PICTURE THE HOMELESS BAKERY CROWN HEIGHTS WANT TO HELP MCNALLY JACKSON 104 E 126TH ST. 70 7TH AVE. LIBRARY DISTRIBUTE THE INDY? BOOKS 96TH ST. LIBRARY 560 NEW YORK AVE. QUEENS BEACON’S CLOSET CALL 212-904-1282 OR 52 PRINCE ST. 112 E. 96TH ST. COUNTEE CULLEN EMAIL CONTACT@ LIBRARY 92 5TH AVE. EASTERN PARKWAY COURT SQUARE LIBRARY FILM FORUM 104 W. 136TH ST. PACIFIC STREET LIBRARY BRANCH LIBRARY 2501 JACKSON AVE. INDYPENDENT.ORG. 209 W. HOUSTON ST. 25 FOURTH AVE. 1044 EASTERN PARKWAY THE INDYPENDENT Indypendent Ad 5x7 06-23-15.pdf 1 6/23/15 1:56 PM

BROADCAST ON MORE THAN 1,300 PUBLIC TV AND RADIO STATIONS WORLDWIDE 5 BRIEFING ROOM A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman and Juan González

ELECTION A BLOW DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG ROUNDUP TO LOCAL ICONIC Tune In Live Every Weekday 8-9am ET On Nov. 7, voters in state and local elec- NEWS ICONOG- tions across the country took advantage of One week after vot- RAPHY: THOMAS HAWK • Audio, Video, Transcripts, Podcasts the chance to return to the polls for the fi rst ing to join the Writers The 5Pointz time since President Trump’s upset victory Guild of America East, building in • Los titulares de Hoy (headlines in Spanish) a year earlier to punish his fellow Repub- DNAinfo and Gothamist Long Island licans. Democrats won governor’s seats in were abruptly shut down City, Queens in • Find your local broadcast station and schedule New Jersey and Virginia and fl ipped the on Nov. 2. “[U}nions 2013, the year Washington State Senate away from Re- promote a corrosive us- it was painted • Subscribe to the Daily News Digest publican control. Voters in Maine approved against-them dynamic over and a referendum to use Obamacare funds to that destroys the esprit demolished Follow Us @ DEMOCRACYNOW expand Medicaid coverage after the state’s de corps businesses need by developer Tea Party governor, Paul LePage, vetoed to succeed,” the billion- Jerry Wolkoff. the same measure fi ve times. aire owner of the com- Here in New York City, Mayor Bill de bined newsrooms, Joe Ricketts, griped in Blasio was re-elected with 67 percent of a September blog post, foreshadowing the the vote. While the race received scant at- demise of the local digital news outlets. tention, de Blasio managed to garner over Coming on the heels of cutbacks at the lo- 140,000 more votes than former Mayor cal desk of the New York Times and the Michael Bloomberg did in his 2009 re-elec- cessation of the Village Voice’s print edi- tion campaign. Democrats also prevailed tion, the closures have left a vast void in in New York’s suburbs, winning control New York’s media ecosystem. of Nassau and Westchester Counties and “The implication is huge,” Gersh bouncing immigrant-bashing Republican Kuntzman, a former editor for Brooklyn incumbents from offi ce. A ballot measure Paper told the Huffi ngton Post. “The to convene a state constitutional convention major dailies do not cover local news on was rejected by New York voters by a mar- a granular level in the way that DNAinfo The Combahee River Collective, a trailblazing group gin of 83 to 17 percent. and Gothamist did.” of radical Black feminists, was one of the most important organizations to develop out of the antiracist and LEFTIST SURGE A VICTORY FOR women’s liberation movements of the 1960s Numerous electoral gains were made GRAFFITI ARTISTS by socialists and progressives on Nov. 7. Jurors at a federal court in Brooklyn on and ’70s. In this collection of interviews edited by Radical attorney Larry Krasner, who sued Nov. 7 sided with 21 artists who brought activist-scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, founding Philadelphia’s police force more than 75 suit against developer Jerry Wolkoff for members of the organization and contemporary times on behalf of Black Lives Matter ac- whitewashing their paintings at the iconic tivists, Occupy Wall Street protesters and 5Pointz building in Long Island City. For activists reflect on the legacy of its contributions to others, won the city’s District Attorney over two decades, 5Pointz served as a haven Black feminism and its impact on today’s struggles. race by a landslide. Across the country, for taggers and muralists in Queens, who, 15 members of the Democratic Socialists with Wolkoff’s consent, painted the build- of America (DSA) were elected to offi ce, ing in a myriad of ever-changing aerosol including Lee Carter, who succeeded in colors. Wolkoff violated the artists’ rights ousting the Republican Majority Whip of under the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act, the Virginia House of Delegates. There are jurors ruled, by failing to give them 90 days now a total of 35 DSA members holding notice before painting over their work as offi ce nationwide. he prepared to demolish the building and 2017 December In Brooklyn, DSA member Jabari Bris- replace it with condominiums in 2013. port scored 29 percent of the vote, the best Judge Frederic Block is currently weighing ever for a Green Party candidate in a City whether to accept the jury’s recommenda- Featuring Council race. In seeking to represent Crown tion and is expected to rule in the coming Barbara Smith, Beverly Smith Heights, Brisport made opposition to gen- weeks. If upheld, the verdict will represent Demita Frazier, Alicia Garza THE INDYPENDENT THE trifi cation a central tenet of his campaign. the fi rst time graffi ti has been protected un- and Barbara Ransby “We are building a political coalition that is der federal law. the social framework for the future,” Bris- — Indypendent Staff port told The Indypendent. “I want to be able to use and apply that to other struggles … I hope my campaign is an inspiration to further Green and socialist candidacies.” 6 SUNDAY DECEMBER 10, 3 PM TRANSIT STAGED-READING OF CLIFFORD ODETS' WAITING THE MTA’S NEXT BIG FOR BOONDOGGLE? $574 MILLION CONTRACT AWARDED TO COMPANY LEFTY THAT BOTCHED CHICAGO ROLLOUT By Federico di Pasqua The contactless fare scheme might seem less absurd if it increased the

ROY ARIAS STAGES (2ND FLOOR) here is one thing that New transit system’s effi ciency. This may PHIL HOLLENBACK York City’s crumbling, not be the case. 777 8TH AVE., BTW 47TH AND 48TH STS. hazardous, $43-billion The MTA has commissioned Cubic indebted transit system Transportation Inc., which designed needs to do to fi x itself: the MetroCard, to install the new replaceT the MetroCard with an app. fare system. That’s according to Joseph Lhota, The company has a singular record TICKETS $10. AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR OR RESERVE AT chair of the Metropolitan Transporta- of failures in the United States. [email protected]. tion Authority (MTA) and his allies on Chicagoan blogger Olivia Cole de- the agency’s governing board. scribed Cubic’s Ventra payment system This $574 million plan, an- as “proof that CTA hates us” after the nounced by the MTA board on Oct. Chicago Transit Authority introduced 25, will implement a fare system it to the Windy City in 2013. the utilizes contactless bank cards “From bank cards being charged and mobile payments to replace the in addition to the Ventra card, to in- MetroCard. Transactions will be explicably nonfunctional cards, to a conducted through apps like Apple completely and utterly mystifying ac- SUBSCRIBE TO THE Pay, as well as “contactless cards,” count interface online, to fundamen- credit or debit cards embedded with tally clueless customer care employees, chips that rely on wireless near fi eld to hour-long hotline waits and, oh, let’s communication technology. not forget the fact that you are instruct- INDYPENDENT “The move to a truly 21st century ed to pay cash when your already-paid- method of payment represents a critical for Ventra card doesn’t work on their step in our overall efforts at moderniz- worthless scanner... Ventra has been ing the subway system and improving (and continues to be) a nightmare,” 12 ISSUES / $25 | 24 ISSUES / $48 service for all our customers,” Lhota, Cole wrote. appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in When, last November, Cubic’s con- June, said. tactless system in San Francisco fell un- Tapping a credit card or smartphone der attack from a virus, hackers threat- THE PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT FOR A at a turnstile instead of a MetroCard ened to leak passengers’ personal data could amount to a signifi cant time- while demanding a ransom of $73,000 FAMILY MEMBER, FRIEND OR YOURSELF! saver for New York commuters. In ad- in bitcoin. The incident exemplifi ed dition, the new technology will allow how a fully digitalized fare system that all-door boarding on buses, reducing tracks rider locations and requires in- travel time. These undeniable improve- timate fi nancial information provides ments, however, come at a time of un- room for Orwellian scenarios. SUBSCRIBE NOW: precedented emergency at the agency. MTA spokesman Joe Weinstein told ...... Just as the MTA board began extol- the New York Times in October that NAME...... ling the introduction of the costly fare the agency would implement “the most system, New York City Councilmem- stringent security standards and proto- ADDRESS...... ber Helen Rosenthal released a call for cols” to safeguard riders’ data. None- an independent commission to study theless the prospect of more than 8 CITY, STATE...... ZIP...... the MTA’s runaway costs. million daily commuters being hacked EMAIL...... “By every available metric, the MTA looms over the Cubic deal. has the highest capital costs in the If Lhota caves to political pressure world, spending several times more and establishes an independent com- MAKE OUT A CHECK OR MONEY ORDER TO "THE INDYPENDENT" AND SEND TO: than other global cities for similar proj- mission, it could prevent future money THE INDYPENDENT 388 ATLANTIC AVE., 2ND FL, BROOKLYN, NY 11217 ects,” the chair of the City Council’s squandering projects like the contact- Contracts Committee wrote on Oct. less fare system, not to mention the December 2017

24 in a public letter to Lhota signed by 7 line extension and Second Avenue 27 of her colleagues. In a related press subway. Maybe then MTA would start release, Rosenthal noted that while providing an effi cient service to the SIGN UP ONLINE AT Paris was “able to build a new line for people of New York. $370 million per mile, Phase I of the INDYPENDENT.ORG/SUBSCRIBE Second Avenue subway cost $2.7 bil-

THE INDYPENDENT lion per mile.” 7 NEW YORK bluestockings radical bookstore | activist center | fair trade cafe 172 ALLEN ST • 212-777-6028 bluestockings.com

NOV 21 • 7–9:30PM BOOK LAUNCH: Asa Akira reads, signs and discusses her new anthology, Asarotica, featuring 22 short stories from A CHANCE AT NEW some of the best erotic writers out there. DEC 1 • 2–4PM ACTIVISM: A holiday card writing party LIFE FOR A LES for incarcerated sex workers. DEC 7 • 7–9:30PM READING: Taylor Mali and Diana Goetsch, two dynamic and socially engaged poets COMMUNITY HUB awarded the 2017 Rattle Chapbook Prize, share their work.

By Steven Wishnia was a center for activ- ism, arts and social ser- GIVE IT

fter fi ghting for almost vices such as computer, BACK: STEVEN WISHNIA Co-founded by Michael Ratner 20 years to save and construction-skills and Charas co- (1943-2016) President, Center for regain a beloved neigh- English-as-a-second- founder Chino Constitutional Rights; and hosted by borhood community language classes. Its Garcia speaks movement lawyers Heidi Boghosian, space, Lower East Side theater hosted the 1983 as supporters Executive Director, A. J. Muste activistsA fi nally heard encouraging premiere of Joe’s Bed- of reestablish- Memorial Institute; and Michael words from City Hall in October — Stuy Barbershop: We ing the Charas Steven Smith, New York City but the promise is still a ways away Cut Heads, the fi rst community attorney and author. from becoming reality. full-length feature by center rally At a town meeting on Oct. 12, fi lm student Spike Lee. at City Hall on Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city had But in 1996, the Nov. 6. an “interest in reacquiring” the for- Giuliani administra- mer Charas community center, that tion decided to sell three city-owned PLEASE PURCHASE TICKETS BY SUNDAY 11/26! Rudolph Giuliani’s administration Lower East Side buildings that were selling it to a private developer in occupied by community arts centers: 1998 was a “mistake” and it was time Charas, Clemente Soto Velez (CSV) to “right the wrongs of the past.” and ABC No Rio. CSV worked out “We’re ecstatic,” City Council- a deal to retain its building and ABC member Rosie Mendez told The Indy- No Rio did too, after several years pendent before a rally at City Hall on of protest and litigation. But Charas Nov. 6 — but Charas supporters are was auctioned off to Singer for $3.15 PATHMAKERS TO PEACE still waiting for more details. million, despite protesters disrupting The building, a former public the proceedings by releasing 10,000 2017 RECEPTION+GALA DINNER school at 605 East Ninth Street, live crickets. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2017 has been vacant since 2001, when It was widely believed in the neigh- 6:00 pm - 9:30 pm I Plymouth Church developer Gregg Singer was fi nally borhood that the sale was revenge 57 Orange Street, Brooklyn Heights able to evict Charas. Singer has been for Armando Perez organizing a trying for years to convert the space voter-registration drive that scared HONORING into student housing, but has been the district’s City Councilmember, Linda Sarsour stymied by neighborhood opposi- pro-gentrifi cation Giuliani Demo- Racial Justice and Civil Rights Activist tion and his inability to satisfy re- crat Antonio Pagan, out of running Co-Founder/CEO at MPower Change strictions in the building’s deed that for re-election. “I think Pagan was Co-Organizer Women’s March 2017 say it must be used exclusively as a the instigator, and we all know how “community facility.” vindictive and brutal Giuliani was,” Most recently, the city’s Depart- says Howard. ment of Buildings denied him a per- Perez was murdered in 1999, in a mit to convert part of the building confrontation with thugs outside his Leslie Cagan into a dormitory for Adelphi Univer- wife’s building in Queens. The Nov. Coordinator, Peoples Climate Movement NY sity, on the grounds that to qualify as 6 rally commemorated what would Co-Founder, United for Peace and Justice a bona fi de dorm, it had to be entirely have been his 70th birthday. for full-time students at an institu- If the city were to reacquire the tion with at least a 10-year lease. Un- building, two likely ways would be der Singer’s plan, says longtime Save negotiating to buy it back from Singer UPROSE Charas Committee organizer Susan or seizing it by eminent domain. Ei- 2017 December Howard, anyone with a student ID ther way, it would have to pay him UPROSE Brooklyn’s oldest Latino could rent a room there, so it could market value, which he says would be community based organization is an be a for-profi t hostel. Singer appealed between $80 and 90 million. intergenerational, multi-racial, nationally- recognized, women of color led, the denial to the city Board of Stan- Susan Howard says the city should grassroots organization that works at the dards and Appeals last month. void the sale, on the grounds that TO PEACE PATHMAKERS intersection of racial justice and climate THE INDYPENDENT THE The abandoned P.S. 64 was taken Singer did not show he had a viable change and a leader in the movement for over in 1979 by a group of neighbor- plan to fulfi ll the community-facility environmental and climate justice. hood activists that included Armando requirement within 45 days after the Perez, Chino Garcia and the late poet sale. She believes he thought he could Info and tickets at brooklynpeace.org 718-624-5921 get away with it because of the Giu- Bimbo Rivas, who coined “Loisaida” SUBWAY: A C to High Street; 2 3 to Clark Street as a Spanglish name for the neighbor- hood. For more than 20 years, Charas Continued on page 19

Pathmakers to Peace_5x7.indd 1 11/14/17 11:42 AM 8 WORKING LIFE

The MIsFITs BehInd neW yORK’s hauTe CuIsIne

By Gordon Glasgow pects of repetition would keep my mind from wander- a thought. I sometimes wanted to yell at the patrons, ing off. I also needed money. Impulsively, one Satur- “Don’t you assholes realize the hard work that’s gone here’s Stephen?” asked Ravi Shar- day evening after spending too much at a bar, I began into that?” Never again will I take food for granted. “ ma, the chef de cuisine at Paow- applying for line cook positions at culinaryagents. alla, the recently established culi- com. Following a string of emails and phone calls, I • • • nary powerhouse of SoHo, wiping was set up as a “kitchen trail” at three respective res- sweat off his forehead with one taurants: Loring Place, a New-American restaurant Masculinity, homophobia, abuse and racism are clas- handW while checking on the shishito pakoras with in Greenwich Village opened by ABC Kitchen alum sical tropes of old-school kitchen culture, but Shalom his other. Dan Kluger; Shalom Japan, a Japanese/Jewish fusion Japan was the only place where I felt any pinch of “Stephen? Uhm, Stephen ran downstairs,” I re- restaurant in Williamsburg; and Paowalla. I was ex- these workplace qualities — mostly from one line sponded, shaking a little, worried I would somehow pected to bring my own set of knives and spend eve- cook in particular. be blamed for Stephen’s sudden absence. ning shifts helping around the kitchen. On Tuesday, “Do you like Spanish girls?” a fat, bald chef asked Ravi peered left and right across the cramped, it would be Shalom Japan; Wednesday, Loring Place; before introducing himself. steaming kitchen before solemnly looking me in the and on Thursday, Paowalla. “Sure,” I responded, uneasily cutting up celery by eyes. “He must be in the freezer again,” he said. “Can After a couple of nights as a trail I began to won- the back kitchen window. I don’t like these types of you go get him? We have fi re on two halibuts and a der why anyone would choose to spend their life in a questions, they never lead anywhere good. vindaloo. He needs to get started on them now.” small, 95-degree rectangular box, working 13-hour- “Well, we call this window mamacita heaven,” he “Yes, chef. On my way.” days, cutting, cooking and cleaning, making hardly said proudly. “You wouldn’t believe some of the ass I walked to the narrow staircase leading down- any money in order to craft cuisine for an apathetic we see walking by. I’m Daniel by the way.” stairs, where, as in many New York restaurants, the clientele who take food for granted and are usually Chef Daniel wore a bandana, made gay jokes all prep kitchen, dry food storage, fridge and freezer are too consumed with their own vacant existence to ap- night and could talk about cocaine without end. Yet, located. “Coming down!” I yelled, so as to avoid any preciate the sacrifi ce that nameless and faceless cooks for all his vulgarity, there was also something strange- potential collision as I headed down the vertiginous put their backs into. ly personable about him. He showed a great deal of steps. I turned the tight corner of the prep kitchen, Before the freezer episode, I got a chance to talk to patience with my abominable knife skills, spending walked two doors down and came to the entrance of Stephen at Paowalla during family meal, when left- plenty of time teaching me how to properly cut scal- the freezer. over meat and vegetables are served to front and back lions even though he had many other things to do. There were a pair of black kitchen shoes with socks house staff before each shift begins. Stephen, the son In the constricted downstairs prep area, Chef Daniel stuffed into them waiting on the outside. The door of Korean immigrants, went to University of Califor- pointed to the smelly staff bathroom. “This is where was slightly cracked open. I could hear Stephen inco- nia, Davis, but dropped out in his sophomore year to we go to cry,” he said. herently mumbling to himself inside the freezer. “On- come to New York. He found a job as a back-waiter ion … fuck … shit … fi re … fuck … tamarind,” was at Balthazar on Spring Street before saving up enough • • • all I could make out. I was genuinely worried for his to enroll himself at The Culinary Institute of Educa- mental health but didn’t want to be the one to drag tion. Once he graduated he landed a 9-dollar-an-hour Dan Kluger’s Loring Place was the most modern him out of there. Then again, I also didn’t want to go job as a line cook at Morimoto in the Meatpacking kitchen I worked in. It was picturesque, almost out back upstairs to tell the chef de cuisine that my mis- District. He often wound up assisting Chef Masaharu of a Nordic lifestyle magazine. There were six sta- sion to retrieve Stephen was unsuccessful. Morimoto himself — a man famous for his obsessive tions in all: a deep fryer, a wood-fi red and a gas-fi red Stephen was the most experienced line cook standards and kitchen discipline. grill, a brick pizza oven, a pasta station and a cold working that evening at Paowalla, which special- “It was like the army,” Stephen recalled. “It was appetizer station. In a nearby corridor there was a izes in upscale Indian cuisine and is operated by painful but I’ll never regret it.” rack fi lled with long-sleeved chef’s t-shirts, pants the well-known chef Floyd Cardoz. Stephen was in After slaving it at Morimoto for two years Stephen and aprons — all clean, immaculate and bleached charge of the grill, the oven, the stove — the kitch- took a three year hiatus from cooking. He fell in love white. When I stepped into the uniform I felt more en’s most important station, always manned by an with a sommelier at Morimoto who came from mon- offi cial, like my life suddenly had a defi ning aspect. accomplished and competent cook. He had been ey, but something inexplicable eventually drew him It’s incredible, the instant sense of identity that a sweating buckets all night. Standing directly over back to the kitchen. uniform can provide. There was thrill to it too, like the grill, he’d looked like he was going to pass out playing dress-up. at any moment. The air conditioner in the kitch- • • • Chef Seth Seligman showed me around the base- en was broken and only a small fan kept the staff ment work area. semi-cool in the 90 degree heat. The culinary underworld is a cult of identity com- “This is our butcher room, rare for a restaurant I built up some nerve and slowly opened the heavy posed of eccentrics, mavericks, oddballs and indi- in New York,” he said, briskly. There was a surpris- freezer door. Stephen was in the far end of the walk-in vidualists who fi nd in the kitchen a place where they ingly tall man in there taking apart what must have with his back turned to me, head in hands. I quickly fi nally fi t in. The fast-paced, all-consuming environ- once been a cow. “Here’s the refrigerator, everything eased the door shut before he had the chance to notice ment of the back of a restaurant gives them purpose, a dated and labeled. Here’s the freezer. Over here are and rushed back up the stairs where I came back face- reason to get up in the morning. They possess a desire our newly arrived fresh fruits and vegetables. “And to-face with Chef Ravi. for belonging as much as for fi ne cuisine. When you back this way… ” Chef Seth turned around and es- “I’m sorry, chef,” I said. “Stephen seems really up- step into a kitchen all else is lost, all that matters is the corted me back down the hallway we’d been walking set and since I just met him today I don’t feel like I here and now. Food needs to be prepared and served through, “is the prep kitchen. Grab a cutting board.” can be the one to get him back upstairs.” I realized I and there is no time to dally or navel gaze. Loring Place serves New-American food, which was blabbering. There is a bizarre paradox between the front and basically means many different kinds of cuisine; in “Don’t worry about it,” Chef Ravi replied. “It’s his back of the house in the restaurant industry. Few this case, a fusion of Italian and Mediterranean with fi fth shift in a row. I’ll go get him.” things are more intense than being in an open kitch- a subtle Asian infl uence. Due to Chef Dan Kluger’s His understanding was a relief. This was my fi rst en, hearing the chef de cuisine yell out orders while time spent under Jean Georges-Vongerichten at ABC day on the job and what little I knew about kitchen each line cook has the utmost fo- work was that you never disobey an order. I took a cus on the job at hand, sweating deep breath and returned to fi nely slicing green man- profusely, trying to get food out goes to be brined. Stephen returned to his station at as soon as possible, while beyond

December 2017 TELL US YOUR STORY the grill and successfully fi nished his shift — an im- the kitchen walls you can hear pressive feat, done night after night, anonymously. families singing “Happy Birth- New York City runs on the labor of people who work day.” Meals that are painstak- hard very little money. If you would like to share your • • • ingly assembled and often take days to prepare, sometimes go story in the Indy, write us at I’d never desired to become a chef, but, as an aspiring cold on a table, waiting to be [email protected].

The IndypendenT writer, I thought that fi nding a menial job with as- eaten, or are gobbled up without 9

The MIsFITs BehInd neW yORK’s hauTe CuIsIne

Kitchen, Loring Place has a particular concentration on the use of fresh vegetables. Before customers arrived I had destemmed 40 artichokes, plucked the tops off of thousands of strawberries, diced pile on pile of zucchini, garlic, onions, kohlrabi and weird sea vegetables. I was told to go upstairs when dinner began. Chef Seth advised me to try to spend some time at each sta- tion, with one caveat: “Don’t do anything unless someone asks you to.” I spent the night as a slow cog in a well-oiled machine, annoyingly hover- ing over each line cook, helping them quickly assemble dishes. One chef had me fi nely cut tomatoes and garlic because he had run out of what had been prepped earlier. At another station, I was tasked with scooping a dollop of hummus into a small dish, topping it with olive oil, roasted chickpeas and exactly 11 pieces of cut radish, then placing precisely 12 whole grain crack- ers beside it. The crackers and the hummus, like nearly everything at Loring Place, are made in house. One luxurious aspect of working in a kitchen is the opportunity to taste almost everything on the menu. At Loring Place I was given small bites to eat by cooks from each station in the kitchen. Their baked ricotta with wood-grilled broccoli is fantastic. At Paowalla, the deep-fried squash blos- soms fi lled with goat cheese linger in my memory too — although, I once made the mistake of dipping cheese naan into the squash blossom sauce, a faux pas that Chef Ravi did not appreciate. In fact, I thought he was gonna slap me in the face. Fortunately, in the end, all I received was a dirty look. Toward the end of the night at Loring Place I found myself at the dessert station. I wasn’t so enthusiastic about preparing desserts but I knew they would give me some to try. There was also a very pretty pastry chef named Allison working there that evening, making fruit salad. She had light brown eyes and an ironclad demeanor. I got in her way several times and she abra- sively ordered me to use a different sink than hers. Her commands reminded me of what it was like to be reprimanded in grade school. “How did you end up here?” I asked, attempting to make small talk. The question struck me as funny the second it left my mouth — as if she had been dragged from her home, given a trial and sentenced to labor as a

Continued on page 15 DAVID HOLLENBACH TALKING TURKEY want to put your own stamp on the animal. Try adding a mince up the gizzard, heart and liver into a stuffi ng or teaspoon or two of paprika or cayenne, or substituting rice dressing or feed them to your dog. Otherwise these Maybe it is Thanksgiving, maybe it is Friendsgiving. creole spices or Old Bay for fresh herbs. I like to sear my items can be tossed. You’ve been bragging all over town about the feast you birds on the stovetop using a large, cast-iron enamel pan Wash and pat turkey dry with a paper towel. Using are going to serve up. Your family, friends, neighbors, before putting them in the oven. Maybe I’ll share that your hands (you can do it!), rub turkey all over with the your bar buddies and your bail bondsman will be arriving recipe next year, but we’re keeping it basic this time. lemon-herb-butter mixture. Gently tear and reach under at your pad in a number of hours. The simple truth of its skin with your fi ngers and rub the region above the the matter is you have no idea how to roast a turkey. Or INGREDIENTS breasts with the fl avoring mixture. Tuck turkey wings maybe you thought you knew how but then you caught 1 fresh turkey (10–12 pounds) underneath the bird so they will not burn. the end of a Food Network segment proclaiming that 1 stick of butter Insert garlic head and remaining lemon half into the you’ve been doing it wrong all these years. Relax. Have 1 tablespoon each of fi nely chopped turkey’s cavity. Tie the turkey’s legs together over the an eggnog. parsley, rosemary, thyme and sage cavity. This prevents the bird from drying out as it cooks Cooking is for everyone, regardless of your budget or 1 lemon and locks in the piquancy of the garlic and lemon inside. experience. And more than anything it should be fun! Life is 1 head of garlic, protruding stalk and Place bird on roasting pan breast side up and insert stressful enough in the age of latent capitalist apocalypse! papery exterior removed into the middle rung of your oven. After 20 minutes or It seems every year about this time a cast of celebrity 2 tablespoons of salt when the top is dark brown, reduce the temperature to chefs begin making the rounds, presenting the public 1 tablespoon of pepper 325 degrees. From here on out keep an eye on your bird new recipes for what is a traditional American meal. but resist the temptation to baste. While it will give you Two years ago was all about the wet brine. But no, we SPECIAL EQUIPMENT something to do, opening and closing the oven frequent- learned last year wet brines sap turkey of its natural Large roasting pan ly interrupts the cooking process. If the breasts look like fl avor, dry brining works best. That’s the beauty of food, Cooking twine they are beginning to burn, carefully give your turkey a there are a million ways of cooking basic traditional Cheese grater tinfoil hat. December 2017 December staples. It is also a side effect of the hyper-commercial- Tin foil After three to three and a half hours, or once its ization of food and can be confusing. Meat thermometer temperature reaches 160 degrees in multiple loca- Here’s a simple recipe for roasting turkey.* You might tions, remove turkey from the oven. Wait 20 minutes want to do some research on your own and decide Remove turkey and butter from refrigerator to bring to before carving. which brining technique you prefer best or skip that step room temperature about one hour before beginning preparations. When you are ready to get cooking, set *If you are looking for a meatless centerpiece dish to fi ll entirely. These instructions will work whether you have IndypendenT The brined or not. your oven to 450 degrees. Finely grate lemon to produce the turkey void, we highly recommend culinary pod- We recommend practicing a bit in advance on a chick- about a tablespoon of zest. Halve lemon. Combine herbs, caster Dan Pashman’s “veggieducken.” The recipe is en, essentially the turkey’s smaller cousin. Just adjust salt, pepper, lemon zest and the juice of one squeezed available at sporkful.com. the ratios of butter and seasoning by about a third or half lemon half with butter. — PETER RUGH depending on the difference in pounds between the two Remove turkey from wrapping and extract any innards winged creatures. After you’ve practiced a bit, you might in the bird’s cavity. If you want to get thrifty, you can 10 FEMINISM

WORKInG-CLass WOMen say ‘#MeTOO’

By Camila Quarta cause you have bravely chosen to speak out against Law Center. In low-wage jobs,

the harrowing acts that were committed against you, women, particularly black wom- ONE FOR ALL: ALTER1FO n the days and weeks since evidence of Har- please know that you’re not alone. We believe and en, face astronomical levels of People around the world vey Weinstein’s decades-long pattern of sex- stand with you.” harassment and abuse. responded to the #MeToo ual abuse surfaced, millions of women, trans As many as 80 percent of female agricultural work- A 2014 study found that 80 moment by sharing and gender nonconforming people, even men ers are abused or raped in the fi elds, according to a percent of women restaurant stories of their own around the world have exposed the scale of 2010 study in the journal Violence Against Women. workers experienced sexual ha- experiences with sexual sexualI violence in our society, telling their own sto- Because so many of these workers are undocumented rassment from customers, two- harassment and assault. ries using the hashtag #MeToo. immigrants, speaking out can mean risking deporta- thirds from managers and half A slew of men in positions of power — from Brit- tion and being torn away from their families. from co-workers. Eighty percent of hotel workers ish Defense Secretary Michael Fallon to actor Kevin Sexual violence and harassment extend to all levels also experience sexual violence on the job. Women Spacey — have been accused of sexual misconduct of society, but working-class women often experience workers in the janitorial industry — disproportion- and many of them are fi nally facing real consequenc- its impact disproportionately. One of the ultimate ex- ately women of color, 70 percent of whom are undoc- es. #MeToo set off a profound moment of collective pressions of dehumanization and objectifi cation, sex- umented — also face staggering levels of harassment, bravery, a moment that would have been impossible ual violence is part and parcel for a society that func- assault and rape. without the broad sense of solidarity and support that tions based on women’s exploitation. It both stems The #MeToo campaign struck such a profound welcomed people coming forward. from and reinforces women’s inequality and the dif- chord and became a powerful expression of the grow- I still vividly remember feeling the power of such ferent ways that women experience that inequality. ing rage not because most of us have had the expe- support during a SlutWalk protest in 2012, as we ral- Women are incommensurately burdened with un- rience of being abused and exploited in Hollywood, lied at Praça Roosevelt in São Paulo, Brazil. We were paid domestic labor and childrearing. They make but because of the pervasive reality of sexual violence all gathered in an enormous circle. At one moment, less money than their male counterparts for the same in people’s everyday lives, because our lived experi- a protester came up to one of the women leading the work. Sixty percent of families headed by a single ences fl y in the face of everything we’ve been told rally with the megaphone and whispered in her ear. mother live in poverty. The United States is still the about how we live in a “post-feminist” era. The woman with the megaphone announced that only country in the world other than Papua New We understand the signifi cance of the #MeToo mo- there was a man in the back — she pointed, we all Guinea and Lesotho that does not guarantee paid ment, just as we understood the signifi cance of mil- pointed — in a gray shirt, blue cap and sunglasses, maternity leave for new mothers. The decline in so- lions taking to the streets for the women’s marches the who was touching the women without their consent. cial spending — from the destruction of welfare pro- day after President Trump’s inauguration in what be- Hundreds of us chanted at him to get out, our voices grams to reductions in food stamps and cutbacks in came the largest day of protest in U.S. history. These getting louder, faster, angrier. He fl ed. It was the fi rst childcare services — has made the situation of women events are what allow us to recognize that the oppres- time I cried about my rape. and their families even more precarious. The devalu- sion that weighs down on us is not of our own doing Yet, despite the mass outpouring of #MeToo sto- ation of women goes all the way to and comes all the but that it goes beyond us. Our shared understanding ries, we know that there are millions of other people way from the top where an admitted rapist sits in the is what allows us to begin to challenge gender-based who can’t or choose not to speak out in this particular White House. violence not individually, but on a social level, against way. In the overwhelming majority of cases in which It comes as no surprise, then, that working-class the institutions and systemic inequalities that dictate survivors come forward, they are dismissed, their women are especially vulnerable to sexual violence in and distort the conditions in which we live. names are dragged through the mud, institutions try the workplace. A recent ABC News-Washington Post That SlutWalk protest in 2012 not only helped me to cover up the wrongdoing or retaliate against them. poll found that 3 in 10 women have put up with un- come to terms with my emotions surrounding my For decades, women have been coming forward wanted advances from male co-workers and a quarter rape but it was also the fi rst time I realized that we, about their experiences of being abused, harassed, as- have endured them from men who had infl uence over the majority, united, organized, have the power and saulted and raped by renowned men. The difference their jobs. Among women who have been subjected to potential to win. now is that they are being believed. The confi dence sexual violence in the workplace, 95 percent say that that the #MeToo welcoming has given survivors goes male perpetrators usually go unpunished. Camila Quarta is a socialist activist and a long-time beyond the inner circles of the rich and famous. Sexual violence in the workplace helps maintain organizer in the anti-sexual violence movement. She In the lead-up to a “Take Back the Workplace” women’s unequal status and creates greater obstacles was involved in the movement during its peak (2014- march that stormed the streets of Hollywood on for women to advocate for themselves. Legitimizing 2015) at Columbia University, from which she grad- Nov. 12, the Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, an sexual violence in the workplace helps legitimize it uated in 2016. organization made up of female farmworkers and outside of the workplace, contributing to and shaping women who come from farmworker families, re- sexist ideas in society at large. leased a moving letter of solidarity with the women Women are relied on as a permanent, low-wage in Hollywood who have come forward in the wake sector and many are located in overwhelmingly “fe- December 2017

of the Weinstein scandal. male” occupations based on sexist ideas about what “Even though we work in very different envi- women are supposedly naturally predisposed to do, ronments, we share a common experience of being such as nursing and teaching kindergarten through preyed upon by individuals who have the power to 12th grade. Women make up more than 75 percent hire, fi re, blacklist and otherwise threaten our eco- of the workforce in the 10 lowest-wage occupations nomic, physical and emotional security,” the letter in the United States, with nearly half of them being

The IndypendenT reads. “As you cope with scrutiny and criticism be- women of color, according to the National Women’s 11 AUTHORITARIANISM a yeaR OF LIVInG danGeROusLy undeR The TRuMp ReGIMe

By Danny Katch he beat the Democrats. The traditional fi rst party ganda and shadowy networks of American capitalism is more dominated by its to galvanize millions of people HAIL TO THE

t’s been a year since hell froze over. This insular far-right “populist” than it’s been in at least into action, which is the other CREEP: President ANDREA HANKS/WHITE HOUSE should be a moment of sober refl ection, but 80 years. side of what we’ve seen in 2017. Trump addresses U.S. it’s still so damn hard to concentrate with In the Democratic Party, the battle appears more The year of Trump has also troops at Yokota Air Base this deranged clown occupying the White unresolved. On the one hand, Bernie Sanders is the been the year of anti-Trump. in Japan on Nov. 5. House, monopolizing Twitter and crowding country’s most popular politician and the recent From the people who marched Iinto our every conversation. elections saw victories by a number of local Demo- on election night and inauguration weekend to the Donald Trump is just as brilliant as he thinks he crats associated with the Democratic Socialists of airport occupations that helped stop the fi rst travel is at one thing and one thing alone: being a world America. Socialism in at least some form is becom- ban, to the unlikely vanguard role being played class troll — a master at shooting another spitball at ing mainstream in a country whose leading po- by professional football players taking a knee and the back of your head at just the moment when you litical export has long been anti-communism. But Hollywood actresses calling out rapists, this presi- thought he’d fi nally given up, at making the exact with the important exception of Sanders’ campaign dent has made America protest again. Twitter comment to get you to break your three-day for single-payer health care, party leaders have no This spirit of resistance found its way into the vot- pledge to stop getting into internet debates. proposals — other than being less of a disaster than ing booths last month, as immigrants, trans people Twelve months after his election we’re still in a Trump — for Puerto Rico, rising rents, police mur- and socialists won local races in a powerful rejection state of shock and agitation because he keeps fi nd- ders, climate change or any other pressing issue. of Trump’s reactionary bigotry. On the whole, how- ing ways to hit new lows while he raises the stakes An objective look at the Democratic Party as a ever, there is an enormous gap between the offi cial to new highs. In January it was, “Can you believe whole — including the candidates who won the politics of the two-party system and the widespread he’s feuding with Alec Baldwin and hanging up on top-of-the-ballot races in the last election — makes desire for thoroughgoing and systematic change. It’s the Australian Prime Minister!” Now it’s, “Dear it clear that the party continues to be dominated notable that almost every signifi cant protest this God, he’s praising neo-Nazis and threatening the by centrists determined to follow the failed Hillary year has arisen more from social media and spon- Korean peninsula with nuclear annihilation.” Clinton strategy of courting all those enlightened taneity than from the many unions and well-funded The other reason why many people continue to wealthy Republicans in the sub- be baffl ed by Trump’s presidency is that he seems urbs supposedly alienated by to be defying political gravity. He somehow won Trump’s bigotry. Not only that, THE RIGHT IS MORE the election with only a 38 percent approval rating but while Steve Bannon plans a from the people leaving voting booths and has only wave of primary challenges in become less popular since, but he keeps doubling 2018 against Republican con- CONFIDENT AND RADICAL down on the pettiness and hate. gressional incumbents who are The president is “playing to his base,” as the pun- insuffi ciently loyal to Trump, THAN THE LEFT. THIS IS dits say disapprovingly. There shouldn’t be any- the left inside the Democratic thing wrong with an elected offi cial doing the very Party isn’t challenging moder- THE CENTRAL POLITICAL things that got them elected by voters — except in a ate incumbents for fear that it dysfunctional democracy where those voters repre- could undermine the party’s DYNAMIC OF OUR TIME. sent nowhere near a majority of the populace. chances at retaking Congress. Trump’s base is a minority rump, a basket of The right is more confi dent truly deplorable forces — alt-Nazis, union-busting and radical than the left. This is the central po- advocacy groups with central offi ces in Washington, billionaires, power-grabbing generals, Christian litical dynamic of our time and it hasn’t changed D.C. That’s impressive, but also limiting. crusaders and “Black Lives Don’t Matter” cops — over the past year, despite many encouraging signs The question facing us as we enter Year Two is surrounded by millions so consumed by despair of a socialist revival. Trump, Bannon and Steven whether the stirrings of a potentially powerful new that they’ve embraced the nihilism of the Trump Miller are unafraid to throw the existing ruling- left can cohere into organizations and social move- wrecking ball the way many of us cheer on the de- class order into chaos by ripping up trade deals and ments that can provide a productive outlet to the rage struction of major cities when we’re watching mov- treaties, while many leftists who are a million miles against injustice and inequality that so many people ies about alien invasions. from holding power worry that it’s not feasible to are feeling. If not, our resistance will be steered back

But if we avert our eyes from the blinding beam of take a principled stand against the border controls into following the message of right-wing Democrats 2017 December orange garbage and look at what’s been happening and bombing runs that are cornerstones of Ameri- to get in line behind “anybody but Trump.” Nothing to the rest of the political establishment since last can empire. would make the Troll King happier. November, the structures that are propping Trump This is to be expected. With vast sums of money up start to come into view. In an era of profound at its disposal from corporate America as well as Danny Katch is the author of Why Bad Govern- political polarization, when millions are gravitating reactionary billionaires like the Koch Brothers, ments Happen to Good People (2017) and Social- toward both socialism and fascism, the two-party the Mercer Family and Sheldon Adelson, the right ism…Seriously: A Brief Guide to Human Libera- IndypendenT The system has shown itself to be far more responsive to has had a 40-year head start in developing itself tion (2015), both from Haymarket Books. pressure from the right than from the left. through think tanks, media like Fox News and Bre- The wave of premature retirements from suppos- itbart, and thousands of elected and appointed of- edly “moderate” (as in corporate) Republicans has fi cials at all levels of government. made it clear that Trump’s victory last year was The good news is that the left can quickly make two-fold: he defeated the Republican Party before up ground because we don’t need decades of propa- 12 13 AFTER THE STORM

ISLAND OF LIGHT, ISLAND OF SHADOW MY JOURNEY HOME TO PUERTO RICO

By Nicholas Powers SAN JUAN beard under restive eyes. We went into the store. He grabbed beers and we drank outside as partygoers gath- ere’s where the hurricane tore off my As the JetBlue plane turned to the airport, I saw homes ered on the dark sidewalk. Pablo gestured around, “It’s “ roof,” she pointed upward. We look at with blue tarps for roofs. Trees stripped of leaves. Ware- a stateless island. It’s a shock to my mom’s generation, he could bring her right to his side. His voice rose and fell over Dropped off food. We were working 22-hour days.” exposed wood beams under open sky. houses, fi lled with shipping containers. Huge chunks of they always thought the feds would take care of them. the years separating them. He gave the phone to Yeya who I asked him what could have been done better. “The mayor

“It was horrible,” Ruth crossed her torn earth. When the wheels hit the runway, we cheered. Corruption? Drugs? The feds would clean it up. Now, laughed and talked, her eyes dancing in her face. They tied has put security fi rst, health second,” he said. “But every day NICHOLAS POWERS arms. “Doors shook. Water came into Outside the hot, damp air felt like a childhood mem- they pulled back and we’re on our own.” their lives together again and our family story fl ickered like we see more people with medical needs. There’s a lot of diabe- Hthe house.” ory wrapped on skin. It had been 30 years since I was in Light and shadow took turns between us. Cars passed Christmas lights. tes.” I thought of the cities with no electricity and asked him Her son tugged on her pant leg and she lifted him. Puerto Rico. My family fl ed long ago. My grandfather by, illuminating our faces in mid-sentence. We talked of I had to leave. Jesus pressed a “thank you” deep into me. about Puerto Rico’s future. “We hid in the bathroom.” Patting his head, she leaned ran from an abusive father. My grandmother from rural Puerto Rico. We talked of the weight crushing the is- Yeya held my face and kissed my cheeks. I got in the car and He looked away, then back at me. “People are leaving, and on the balcony to study the island. It was like a furi- poverty. He died after I was born, glaucoma blinded him land, how the colonial elite had been replaced by a busi- saw Jesus had wheeled himself out to the front porch to watch it’s going to make it worse. We’re not going to have enough ous giant had stomped and clawed the town of Utuado, by the time I was a baby. He held me regardless, a new ness elite. Anger drove his breath. The beers rose and fell me go. manpower to rebuild. Already, so many on the island are old Puerto Rico. Trees were snapped. Power lines, ripped. life in old hands. like pendulums in our hands. or disabled or poor.” Mudslides bled over roads. Grandma and I lived here briefl y. I spoke Spanish and “Electricity has been failing for a long time,” he said. He asked me where I was staying. I said in my car. He “No electricity. No water. All day to get anything chased salamanders up the walls. The jungle was my “Now this company Whitefi sh got a multi-million dollar UTUADO brought me to the kitchen, gave me plates of food wrapped in done,” she said as she rocked her son. “I don’t think it’s playground. We left, again for New York. My Spanish contract to fi x our grid and they had only two full-time aluminum and bottles of water. going to get better anytime soon.” faded but the childhood joy glowed like an ember. employees. They’ll hire gringos and none of the money is The muscleman pulled the cables, zipping the shopping cart Driving away, I looked at the mountain where people lived Growing up, I learned that Puerto Rico was a colony, going to stay here. None. The rich are getting richer and across the riverbed as a remix of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” in the dark. Turning on thin roads that coiled tight, I went up, its people and land stolen and stolen again. Shame re- the poor are being left behind.” blasted from truck speakers. A crew from the radio station up, up. On the side were wrecked homes and families talking HURRICANE MARIA placed memory. I spat Spanish from my mouth. A gulf He took a swig. “There’s mobilizing going on. Go see Magic 97.3 cheered as they caught it. On the other side, fami- in the street. A few looked at me suspiciously. opened between who I was and who I am that deepened Casa Pueblo in Adjuntas, they’ve been fi ghting the ex- lies waved on the ledge of a broken bridge. Massive pieces of it I parked and a pot-bellied man walked toward me as he The storm fed on heat. Like an angry spirit seeking re- for three decades, until the island was ransacked by a ploitation of Puerto Rico for 30 years.” lay on the rocks below. cleaned a knife. He was scared but tried to hide it. I told him lease, it climbed the sky. Warm. Sluggish. Slow. Hungry hurricane. I came back to save what I had loved and lost. “There’s 25 families stranded on the other side,” said I was a reporter. He put away the blade, called to his friends. for fury. It found more than wind on the ocean. It tasted Driving around potholes and under dead traffi c lights, Zamaris Rodriquez, one of the staff. “No electricity. No One of them said, “We have no electricity, no water. Too many carbon, the gaseous exhale of civilization. I saw storm-beaten buildings. The windows looked like water.” people are leaving. If you have money, you go. The poor have It fed on the heat spawned by a billion cars and thou- bruises. Street signs were folded by We paused whenever the shopping cart wobbled on cables to stay.” sands of jets that crossed the planet. Awakened to its the hands of the hurricane. over the river. Rodriquez had a bullhorn and shouted instruc- They pointed to Ruth Montero who lived down the street power, the storm screamed like a newborn, its 175 mile I found Caritas de Puerto Rico, AMID THE DEVASTATION, tions. Across the chasm, the cart wobbled and then was caught with two boys. I walked over and she checked me out and per hour winds lashed waves upon waves. they welcomed me in, gave me by outreaching hands. waved me in. She gave me a tour of the house as her story, Hurricane Maria’s eye opened, seeing a path. This a plate of food and testifi ed to “We come to help,” she said. “This is the fi rst time a hur- spilled out in one big wave. “Here’s where the hurricane fury, half made by nature, half by man. It violently spun the island’s pain. Danny Rojos, a INNUMERABLE ACTS OF ricane shut down the whole island. We had no nature left. All tore off my roof,” she said. “Doors shook. Water came into in space, cursed hot breaths of lightning and storm. She volunteer, shared how a client, a the cows and chickens died. What food was under the soil the house.” drew darkness over the islands as the poor nailed wood homeless man, lived on the beach. made it but everything else was wiped out.” One of her sons came by and she picked him up. “We hid over windows, heard of her immensity and said her “He ran for safety as the hurricane KINDNESS The house music thumped through the valley. We both in the bathroom. Afterwards, it was so sad. There were no name over and over … Maria. ripped roofs off,” he said, eyes bobbed our heads to it. She sheepishly shrugged. “We need to trees. Mudslides everywhere. No exit. We were out of power. wide and unblinking. “The zinc roofs fl ew through the BAYAMÓN keep our spirits up.” The staff got back into the trucks, Puerto I searched for water. People put pipes in the hillside, drank, air like knives. Even now, he can’t sleep. Too trauma- Rican fl ags fl uttering on the hoods as they drove off. showered and did laundry. They’re still doing it now.” NEW YORK CITY tized. That’s just one story.” “Jesus y Yeya,” I shouted through the gate. A large wom- On the other side, people took the supplies home. I peered We looked out from the balcony. Night had fallen. The hills The staff said Padre Monserrate could see me. We sat an dressed in a simple gown came from the house. Winc- over the ledge at the pieces of broken bridge, immense blocks were black mounds under a purple sky. A few lights shone

“Are they safe?” I asked. at the table and he talked in measured words. I asked ing at stiff knees, she opened it and hugged me. Thirty of concrete that had been snapped and thrown downstream by and people walked by like actors on distant stages. Genera- SPECIAL DELIVERY: NICHOLAS POWERS “I called,” Mom said. “But no one picks up the phone.” about relief efforts. A hundred people a day, came here years apart, crushed by a hug. raging waters. Here in Utuado, the hurricane descended with tors hummed under the symphony of coquis, chirping in the Volunteers in the town of Utuado On screen, a NASA video showed a white foamy spiral for food, water and prayer. She didn’t speak much English. I barely had enough primeval force. Breaking. Bending. Smashing. gloam. It was a beauty maybe only briefl y visible between deliver supplies to 25 families around a black hole. Like the sky had been unplugged “Anyone can come get a meal, water. It was and is Spanish to say my name right. Or ask directions. I had I walked on a road where homes lay dark, trees ripped up; bouts of hunger and panic. stranded on the other side of a and all the weight and force of the atmosphere drained still needed. The fi rst days after the hurricane were driven up and down Bayamón looking for a house with roots exposed like the tendons of a torn limb. Overhead, pow- She lit a candle. “I was thinking of leaving but I don’t think destroyed bridge. into the eye. horrible,” he said. “This generation has seen some- a large mango tree. By sheer dumb luck, a guy told me I er lines spooled from poles. Back at the car, I felt the weight I can make it. It’s scary to start over. And my parents live next Everywhere Hurricane Maria passed went dark and thing they’ve never seen before. They never saw neigh- was one street away. Sure enough, I found it. of devastation. My chest was tight. The pain on every face door. But we have to go through a lot to get a little bit of help then, slowly, photos surfaced. Dominica. Bahamas. bors dying like this. Never saw helicopters having to She showed me the backyard, the mango tree was poured into my spirit and the body instinctively tightened to from the government. The employees at the agency just talk to ADAPTING: A Puerto Rican Wrecked. Homes like piles of splinters. Roads cracked. deliver food. It forced us to care about each other, chopped down to a nub. The hurricane had broken its keep it from blurring the mind. each other while we wait.” man bathes in water fl owing

Rivers gushed through the center of town. People dig- more.” He tapped his cellphone sarcastically. “We’ve branches. Debris littered the yard. They had no gener- Someone shouted. An older man asked why I parked at Her youngest son squirmed in her lap. Her older one rode directly from a mountain stream. 2017 December ging through wreckage. become so individualistic.” ator, no electricity, just relentless heat during the day. the abandoned house. I told him I was a reporter with fam- his three-wheeler in circles in the dark. As she talked, the can- The island’s infrastructure was It churned over the Caribbean until its dark eye He gave me numbers for churches in Arecibo that de- Yeya leaned on a chair, squeezed my shoulder and re- ily in Bayamón. He looked me up and down, went back and dle fl ame wavered and the shadows of the family seemed to badly damaged by Hurricane slammed into Puerto Rico and then vanished. An eerie livered aid to towns tucked in the island’s mountains. I peated, “Terminado. Terminado.” came out with coffee, cheese and bread. I was stunned by jump on the walls as if trying to escape. Maria including the water system. quiet followed. No news came from the island. What left and in the car, got a text from Pablo Borges, an activ- Her voice was tear-choked but she waved the grief his kindness. “We need help. Trump cut Medicare and it’s less now. We happened to our family? What happened to Jesus, my ist friend. We planned to meet at the To Go food store. away. Jesus, my grandmother’s nephew, rolled in on a I drove to Utuado’s center, parked at the National Guard’s deserve to be treated like U.S. citizens,” she said. I asked what December 2017 INDYPENDENT THE

mother’s fi rst cousin? His wife Yeya? Their kids? Night had come. San Juan was a city of shadows. wheelchair. He had white hair and a stern face. One arm offi ce and asked to see the offi cer in charge. The young men message she wanted to give The Indypendent’s readers. Star- “Mom, did you hear anything?” I asked. Passing car lights showed couples or lone men or families was a twisted claw from a heart attack and he lifted it to awkwardly pointed at Jorge Nieves, who laughed at his good ing across the table, she said, “We are suffering.” “No one answers,” she said again. “They didn’t in brief portraits. Generators hummed as gasoline musk hug me. They fed me coffee, crackers and cheese. I told luck and agreed to talk. I got my things to leave, said goodbye, but in the car I looked have much.” mixed with the sea breeze. Under fl uorescent-lit stores, them I was going to the mountains to report on condi- “Everything was destroyed,” he said while pulling up a at the food from the National Guard and at her moving in the people charged cell phones and talked but often stopped tions. While they said be careful, I took my phone and chair for me. “In the fi rst 10 days, we went on 53 missions window. Getting out, I brought it to her. and looked into the darkness as if trying to see a future. dialed mom’s number. and found people with injuries. Some needed oxygen but had

THE INDYPENDENT I parked and met Pablo, young and wiry, a bushy Handing it to Jesus, I saw him press it to his ear as if no electricity. We got them generators. Airlifted them out. Continued on next page 14 Centennial Edition from International Publishers www.intpubnyc.com

mainland? Can we strengthen the island? pueRTO RICO Can we survive a changing Earth? Continued from previous page And aren’t millions being forced to ask these questions? Families fl ed cyclones in ADJUNTAS Asia. They fl ed drought in Africa. They fl ed fi res in the American West. The farther they “Go ahead.” Maribel pointed at the switch. traveled, the more they looked back to the “Turn it on.” I did and light beamed down. land that was like their own fl esh and blood. “It’s solar-powered.” She proudly pointed at the street lamps of Casa Pueblo. “When the hurricane knocked out the electricity, BAYAMÓN we still had power.” I held my hand under the glow. Weightless. Warm. Free. It was “Señora,” I called as Yeya walked out and In honor of the 100th Anniversary of like holding the future. smiled painfully at knees, still sore. She Hours earlier, I woke up in my car’s shook her fi nger at me. the Great October Revolution backseat. I saw deep night. Stars scattered “Señorita,” she made a mischievous eye- like seeds. Each one a bright grain because twinkle. We laughed. Jesus wheeled over. I International Publishers is proud to offer this Utuado had no power, no light. The island told them about the bridge, Casa Pueblo and had been thrown back in time’s abyss. the beach. They listened, catching my glow special Centennial Edition of Philip Foner’s Driving to Adjuntas was like being in a more than my words. I said it was time to get submarine as my headlights passed over a generator and that the family could pitch in. classic documentary history, with a new wreckage. Empty homes. Abandoned cars. I unfolded cash and asked Jesus to take it. foreword by Professor Gerald Horne Sagging powerlines. Guardrails washed He shook his head. Yeya looked at him know- away. Roads crumbled into a cliff drop. In ingly and took it for him. Neighbors came by. the absence of people, the nightmare future Upon learning who I was, they asked, “New $18.00 was more visible. Is this Puerto Rico de- York? What are you doing here?” I told them Order today via our website or call; 212-366-9816 cades from now? An island too hurricane- of the trip. And they nodded politely, not battered to live on? wanting to relive their hurricane night. Pay by cash, check, MO or any credit or debit card. By sunrise, I was in Adjuntas and went I got up to leave and Yeya gave me her to Casa Pueblo’s big hall where Maribel phone number. Jesus embraced me for a long showed me a photo of the fi rst meeting in time as if to say, in case you don’t make it 1980 when one man showed up. The next back before I die, I love you. She kissed my time they threw a party and hundreds forehead as if to say, you are my other son. came. Casa Pueblo united the people to Hours later, I stood at the airport. One by stop a strip mine that would have stabbed one passengers showed their ID to the agent, the earth. Then a pipeline that could have turned and waved goodbye to weeping rela- spilled poison. Now they drove trucks to tives. My eyes burned wet. My throat locked. nearby towns handing out water and food. I wanted to stay and rebuild the island. But I “We want to build more,” Maribel said had a full life waiting for me in New York. GLOSSOLALIA of the prototype street lamp. “Make an in- When the time came, I held out my ID to the dustry for the people to have jobs. We can agent too. a new album by protect the island from climate change.” SPIRIT OF... Someone called to Maribel. Time to take supplies to the towns. THE NEXT STORM I followed them as they gave water to families. Tension left people’s faces as they From the plane I studied the sky and knew took the supplies. Laughter. Smiles. Eyes the next hurricane was already being spoon- brightened with relief. I realized this glow- fed. The exhaust from this plane and all ing gratitude was everywhere on my trip. planes and cars, factories and farms were Innumerable acts of kindness had scattered heating the oceans. In a year, another hur- love like seeds for a future Puerto Rico. It ricane season will begin, another angry spirit was as if I had woken from a deep night will spin, slow and blind at fi rst, then faster and saw the people themselves were stars. and faster until its eye opens. It will careen through the Caribbean, bouncing off islands. It will shriek 100 mile PONCE per hour plus winds. It will lash homes, blast bridges and blow rivers off course. It will The beach was empty. Storm debris littered blow human lives off course. the sand. Here was southern Puerto Rico, People will stumble into a quiet morning where hurricanes hurled wind and water at of devastation. And face life or death. Mod- the land. Here’s where I played as a child. ern civilization has turned the Earth against Thirty years. Thirty damn years. I’d us. Death is here now. Death is chasing us postrock ~ shoegaze been gone too long. I waded into the sea inland. Death is forcing us from home. Life and cupped the water as if it was my own means a revolution against a system that has blood, felt each wave as if it was my own been embedded in us for hundreds of years. SpiritOf.bandcamp.com heartbeat, breathed in the breeze as if it We have to make a choice. I leaned close to was my breath. The trees were my bones. the window. The shadow of the plane rippled December 2017

The sand, my skin. The leaves, my hair. on the clouds. The island had poured so much into me that it had become my larger body. I lay on the waves as clouds darkened the sky. They foretold all the other storms to come. How much time do we have before

The IndypendenT gigantic hurricanes drive everyone to the 15

Floyd Cardoz told me in the middle of service at Paowalla, personally and from that he said I would be able to gain hauTe CuIsIne explaining that Dan Kluger of Loring Place trained under invaluable experience. Continued from page 9 him for five years. It was my last shift of the week and I was flattered at the offer. When I got home after my I was exhausted, ready to go home. Floyd was impressed shift, I sat at my desk, exhausted, staring into space. pastry chef. that I had the gumption to step into three different kitch- I couldn’t think of much — other than how much disci- Allison giggled. It was the first bit of humanity and ens without any experience, even if I wasn’t sure that it pline I needed to gain. Was I deserving enough to join the laughter I had seen from her, or anyone really, all evening. was what I wanted to do. It reminded him of himself, he thankless who dwell — day by day, night by night — in “I went to Notre Dame to study English, I thought I want- said. He had no experience when he started. He’d been on the claustrophobic, cramped surroundings of New York’s ed to be a teacher but here I am.” She laughed some more. track to become a doctor when he realized medicine wasn’t bustling kitchens, churning out haute cuisine until closing I caught her eye and we laughed together — a moment of his calling, so he dropped out of college to attend culinary time finally comes along; this poorly paid army toiling at a respite from the busy evening. school; first in Bombay, India, and later in Bluche, Switzer- job where benefits are scant and a social life impossible, all Chef Dan Kluger came downstairs. “How’s the night go- land. “My parents thought I was crazy but look where I am for the love of food and a sense of belonging? ing, kid? They feeding you or what?” now,” Floyd said. I sent Floyd an email the next day thanking him for the Chef Dan is a massive bald man with a big, joyful de- Per his life story, the bottom of all of Floyd’s emails con- offer. I wasn’t ready to join the cult of the kitchen, I ex- meanor. Born and raised in the Bronx, he named his res- tain this cliché but fitting Robert Frost quote: plained. I do, however, look forward to eating at his res- taurant after the street his father grew up on. His persona taurant one of these days. resonated through the kitchen and service. Although in Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — Loring Place, like all high-end restaurant kitchens runs on I took the one less traveled by, militaristic discipline, no one shouted abuse at one another. And that has made all the difference. Uncommonly, there were plenty of women in the kitchen too, probably a 60:40 ratio of women to men. The calm To my surprise, after a series of quick-fire questions — kitchen and its gender equanimity seemed to have a posi- What the best thing I had ever eaten? (My mom’s roast tive effect on the food itself. potatoes.) Why did I want to work in a kitchen? (I love food.) What I liked about Paowalla? (The Cheese Kul - • • • cha.) What I didn’t? (The stuffy kitchen.) — Chef Floyd offered me a job. Because I was inexperienced he would “The temperament of that kitchen comes from me,” Chef start me off at $11 an hour. He would work with me a lot December 2017 December The Indypenden The T 16 MAXIMUM ROCK & ROLL

sTILL suBVeRsIVe (aFTeR aLL These yeaRs) punK TuRns 40

By Peter Rugh cial norms, even if the band members themselves — band Chumbawamba in the early 2000s went toward GOD SAVE US ALL (2017), JAMIE REID perhaps with the exception of Rotten — never gave funding the global Indymedia network, of which this elieve it or not, it’s been 40 years since much of a thought to the theory behind the spectacle newspaper is a byproduct. punk exploded; 40 years since Never itself. They were working-class kids, relishing the op- Some have contended that punk is at heart conser- Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pis- portunity to spit the face of society. Call it political vative, that it represents a retreat from prog rock and tols. The album was an October Revo- rudeness that — as David Ensminger, author of The other forms of musical experimentation prevalent in lution of sorts, hitting record store Politics of Punk: Protest and Revolt from the Streets, the 1970s. But avant-garde punk bands like Pere Ubu shelvesB in Britain on the 28th of that month, but, as put it to me recently — “highlighted the fi ssures in the trouble that interpretation. The distaste for respect- with Red October, pressure had been building for social strata.” ability politics that the Sex Pistols’ helped promulgate months, years even. Listening to Never Mind the Bullocks today, it is visible today on Trump’s Twitter account and in There was the release of the Sex Pistols’ fi rst single is still as raw and, for the most part, funny as ever, numerous “alt-right” Pepe memes. But it can likewise the year before, “Anarchy in the U.K.,” which opens despite the fact that many of social mores the band be spotted on the nascent dirtbag left, whose expo- with “vocalist” Johnny Rotten declaring himself the transgressed have long since dissipated. The treat- nents have argued for embracing vulgarity as a politi- anti-Christ, plotting the downfall of the nation and ment of mental illness and abortion on “Bodies” ac- cal tactic rather than letting right-wingers like Rush mocking capitalism over Steve Jones’ growling gui- tually makes the band come across as conservative by Limbaugh have all the fun. tar and Paul Cook’s pounding drums. Then came today’s standards. There has always been a tension within punk be- the band’s appearance on the Thames Television pro- Paul Cook was in town in October, promoting a tween a rejection of the dominant culture — what gram "Today" that December, during which Jones new musical venture he’s launched with his former Marxists call the superstructure — and a desire to called the stuffi ly condescending host, Bill Grundy, a Pistols’ bandmate Steve Jones. I mentioned how transform it. “You have to scale up if you want to “fucking rotter” live on air. the Sex Pistols' caustic approach to publicity seems make huge social changes,” Ensminger said. “But the With bands like the Ramones, and the New York to have been revived by our commander-in-chief, Black Panthers weren’t huge and they made an enor- Dolls before them, punk had been brewing amid the Donald Trump. mous change to both popular and political culture. urban decay of 1970s New York before the Pistols “You’ve got yourself a punk president,” Cook said. La Raza, the same thing. Dedicated subcultures re- came along, but the Brits gave the genre what would Yet Ensminger cautions against a singular interpre- ally can make large impacts.” come to be its defi ning attitude, one of complete dis- tation of what defi nes punk. “You could say, ‘Punks Will punk last another 40 years? taste for respectability and pretension. are assholes and [Trump’s] an asshole’ or ‘Punks are “We’re always going to want to return to punk,” “God Save the Queen” is a punk manifesto if ever repugnant and he’s repugnant.’ But you could also said Ensminger. “It embodies the primal qualities there was one. “We’re the fl owers in the dustbin,” say, ‘Obama is punk because he’s black and he’s we desire. Punk speaks to all the individual trauma Rotten screams. “We’re the poison in the human ma- breaking through the [White House] color barrier.’” you are experiencing and allows you, with minimal chine. We’re the future, your future.” There are “multiple competing truths about what effort, to participate in a response to it; whether it is Rotten later refl ected on the dustbin those fl owers punk is, ideologically speaking,” Ensminger elaborat- creating a fanzine out of nothing or a blog, or learn- sprouted from. Britain was “completely run-down ed. “But most of us would probably want to believe at ing two or three notes and the next thing you know with trash on the streets, and total unemployment — least that, over 40 years, it has provided a personal, you are up on stage. You go from someone being just about everybody was on strike,” he said. “Every- urgent and permanent counter-narrative to monocul- passive to someone who is a creator. It lowers the body was brought up with an education system that ture, hegemony, ‘the powers that be’ — this voice of bar for participation, so you can jump into and stir told you point blank that if you came from the wrong dissent coming from a community that is democratic, up culture.” side of the tracks … then you had no hope in hell and participatory. Punks are anti-authoritarian, whether no career prospects at all.” it’s the church, the state, the business, the school. And A longer version of this article was published in Right off the bat on “God Save the Queen,” Rotten it’s an immersive DIY experience, where a lot of it is October at indypendent.org. Follow Peter Rugh on proclaims Elizabeth II “ain’t no human being.” The about being hands-on, doing it yourself, whether it is Twitter @JohnReedsTomb. song climbed nearly to the top of singles charts on the alone or within a community.” eve of the Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee. It was a symbolic The descendants of 1977 — the Dead Kennedys dethroning, stripping Her Majesty of the reverence in San Francisco and Minor Threat in Washington, blindly afforded to her by her loyal subjects. D.C., to cite just the tip of the iceberg — explored the At his Soho shop in London, Pistols manager Mal- terrain the Pistols opened up, developing a punk ethos colm McLaren sold t-shirts designed by artist Jamie within emergent underground scenes that sprouted Reid, featuring the Queen’s face mutilated by a safety up in their respective cities. pin through her lips. The appropriation of what was Punk took rock and roll back to the basics. Anyone up until then a symbol of domesticity could be read as who knew three chords and had two friends could a sexist attack on matriarchy or a feminist takedown grab a cheap guitar and form a punk band. Inspired of the English conception of the feminine. by seeing the Pistols perform, Joe Strummer formed McLaren and Reid were students of Situationism the Clash. The band melded punk with reggae and — a French hybrid of Gramscian Marxism and the funk, hybridizations that Rage Against the Machine surrealism that sought to disrupt cultural hegemony and others later built on. through art. With slogans like “Be realistic, demand Punk’s culture of participation extended to po- December 2017

the impossible” and “Under the pavement lies the litical fronts. Activist collectives like Positive Force beach,” the art movement rose to prominence for its in Washington, D.C., emerged from punk scenes. propagandistic infl uence on the general strike that Throughout the eighties and up to the present, mon- had rocked France nine years earlier. ey raised at punk shows from Tokyo to Los Angeles The Pistols never toted a political line. Rather, the has funded women's shelters, fed the homeless, reno- nihilistic image they projected generated a shocking vated disused buildings and supported antiwar cam-

The IndypendenT spectacle that opened up a space for questioning so- paigns. The commercial success of the British punk 17 MUSIC

New release for 2017. MaVIs’ Harmonica blues, MedICIne FOR Chicago style The sOuL

She wants to talk them off the ledge. CHARLYNE ALEXIS If All I Was Was Black This won’t be the album that unites By Mavis Staples us. Rather, it’s a gentle urging to lib- Anti-Records, 2017 erals and lefties to reach out and try to bring our conservative brethren up to speed. By Brady O’Callahan Nowhere is this more resound- ing than the standout track “Build t’s time for more love.” At a Bridge.” Staples mourns the fact “ least Mavis Staples seems to that in a country so divided, we se- think so. quester ourselves: “I’m tired of us It's been a little over a year living so lonely.” And she presents since Donald Trump elected a seemingly impossible solution. PresidentI and I, at least, think rea- “Gonna build a bridge right over the sons to be happy are few and far ocean, so you can walk right over to CDs and digital downloads are available To see the rest of the catalog and listen to sound samples go to: between. Everyone on both sides is me,” she sings, her voice elevated by from iTunes, Amazon, and several other rehashing and relitigating the 2016 a supporting chorus in an arrange- e-tailers and download portals. RANDOMCHANCERECORDS.COM election. We can’t agree on much, ment that seems to indicate this will except that we all can’t believe we’re require a group effort. where we are. I feel as if every piece Tweedy does a fantastic job show- I’ve written or read in the past few casing Staples' voice throughout the months has included the phrase “in album. The instrumentation adds 35 years of celebrating music a country so divided.” How do we only what is needed. And though Sta- of peace and resistance! make it out of this crisis? Hell, how ples' pipes aren’t as powerful as they do we make it out of 2017? used to be, her spirit is as fi erce as “I’ve got love to give and it’s time ever. Make no mistake here: Staples for more love,” Staples sings. is the star of the show. “Thank God for Mavis,” I say to If If All I Was Was Black lacks the myself. punch of recent albums that tackle A gospel and R&B legend, Staples politics head on, name names and has been performing for more than make enemies, that’s because this al- 60 years. Bob Dylan called her sing- bum doesn’t care much for punching. ing voice "the most mysterious thing It’s good medicine, even if I can’t tell I'd ever heard" and proposed to whether it is meant to heal us or no- marry her in the mid-1960s. She and vocaine to overcome the pain. December 2 her family were also close with Dr. Maybe it’s both. Charlie King & Rick Burkhardt Martin Luther King and Staples' con- By omitting any real specifi cs about nections to the civil rights movement our current grievances, Staples adds make her latest album that much a certain nuance and timelessness to December 9 more poignant. these songs. Staples is 78 years old With If All I Was Was Black she and the problems confronting us to- Thea Hopkins once again plants her fl ag in the re- day are older. There’s something re- The Peace Poets sistance. Written and produced by markable about someone who is still Jeff Tweedy of the bands Wilco and willing to show up, time and time Tweedy, the album is a unique entry again, to try harder as Staples does December 16 in the growing list of recent artis- here. What excuse do we have? Gloria Matlock & Michael Nix tic expressions of dissent. It doesn’t come across as particularly angry. It Jeremy Aaron doesn’t name names or point fi ngers. It proposes resistance through love and understanding.

“We Go High” borrows its cen- 2017 December tral phrase from Michelle Obama’s Saturdays at 8 p.m. famous speech. Staples proclaims, “I Community Church of New York Unitarian-Universalist know they don’t know what they’re 40 E. 35th St. (Madison/Park) doing when they tell their lies, spread New York, NY 10016 around rumors. I know they’re still The IndypendenT The human and they need my love.” doors open 7:30; wheelchair accessible The songs on this album prob- 212-787-3903 ably aren’t going to reach the ears of www.peoplesvoicecafe.org anyone who didn’t walk away from Michelle’s speech with a sense of Suggested Donation: $18, $10 PVC subscribers hope. Staples is trying to reach the More if you choose; less if you can’t; no one turned away people who align with her politics. 18 HISTORY

a GReeK TRaGedy FOReTOLd

Adults in the Room: My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment By Yanis Varoufakis Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017 the distant future. Another novel but workable est rates to attract Japanese, idea was that Greece would swap its largest debt German and eventually Chinese MODERN ORACLE:

And The Weak Suffer What They Must? obligations for new 30-year bonds that had cru- capital. Higher interest rates Former Greek Finance MARC LOZANO By Yanis Varoufakis cial provisions: Annual payments would be sus- meant American manufactur- Minister Yanis Varoufakis. Nation Books, 2016 pended until Greece’s national income increased, ers’ costs jumped and consumer and would then be linked to its economic growth. purchasing power nosedived. It would have been a win-win solution for both Then the party stopped with the fi nancial crash By Bennett Baumer sides, but the Troika rejected all of Varoufakis’ of 2008. Varoufakis thinks the United States can proposals. It held the upper hand: It could close no longer effectively manage the global economy. long with French economist Thomas Greece’s banks and turn off the liquidity spigot. Va- The Great Recession decimated Americans’ already Piketty, former Greek fi nance minister roufakis wanted Greece to play hardball and default stagnant incomes, so they do not have the purchas- Yanis Varoufakis is making econom- on its ECB debt if that happened. He was convinced ing power to absorb surpluses and recycle money ics sexy again. Journalists enjoyed German Chancellor Angela Merkel did not want to that they did in previous generations. snapping photos of Varoufakis, clad force Greece to leave the Eurozone, the 19-nation Varoufakis warns that unstable, debt-ridden inA a black leather coat, commuting to the fi nance group that shares a common European currency. He countries are a breeding ground for fascism. While ministry’s offi ces on his Yamaha motorcycle. But his believed a “Grexit” would have spurred a stampede Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party is hobbled short tenure in the Greek government was marked out of the Eurozone by other debtor countries like by murder trials and corruption charges, elsewhere by clashes with the country’s creditors and ultimate- Italy, Spain and Portugal. However, the Syriza gov- the far right is capitalizing on economic insecurity ly with the leadership of Syriza, the left-wing party ernment lost its nerve and did not default. The chap- by blaming immigrants for society’s problems. that came to power in Greece in early 2015. ter “Lions Led By Donkeys” details what happened Varoufakis, like Piketty, advocates a federal Eu- Varoufakis, a self-described “erratic Marxist,” when the Troika shut Greece’s banks down and the ropean Union system that would socialize debts, also happens to be a gifted storyteller who can deftly Syriza government capitulated. stabilize debtor countries’ economic growth and relate personal experiences to larger themes without Adults in the Room unfl atteringly portrays Greek democratize the EU bureaucracy. After his stint as sacrifi cing analytical rigor. It’s not something you Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and how he cracked fi nance minister, he came away convinced that no would expect to fi nd in your average fi nance min- in the face of intense diplomatic pressure, bank one country by itself could successfully challenge ister, but he is no ordinary government bureaucrat. closures and the threat of be- He opens Adults in the Room, his memoir about ing kicked out of the Eurozone. his short time in government, by describing a late- When Tsipras agreed to impose AN OUTSIDER’S TALE OF night meeting in a Washington bar in which former a new round of austerity on U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers asks him if his country in order to procure CRASHING THE ULTIMATE he would behave as an insider or outsider. It is a sly a new loan from the Troika, narrative construct, as Varoufakis tells all from the Varoufakis resigned and sped INSIDERS’ CLUB outsider-insider perspective and recounts the nego- away on his motorcycle. He was tiations over Greece’s debt with the “Troika”: the fi nance minister for just fi ve and International Monetary Fund, the European Com- a half months. Europe’s powers that be. He cofounded DiEM25 mission and the European Central Bank (ECB). Readers should pair Adults in the Room with Va- (Democracy in Europe Movement 2025) — “a pan- Varoufakis names the individual actors in the roufakis’ And The Weak Suffer What They Must? European, democratic, humanist movement” — Greek tragedy, but where he really shines is in ex- The title of the latter is derived from an infamous that seeks to transform the European project while plaining the central economic and political forces scene in the Greek historian Thucydides’ recount- preventing it from sliding into a 21st century version that created Europe’s economic crisis. ing of the Peloponnesian War, in which the Athe- of fascism. Greece’s population is 10.75 million but its public nians demand that their weaker rivals uncondition- It won’t be an easy task. But from his writing, it debt is around 330 billion euros ($390 billion). He ally surrender or else face complete annihilation, is clear Varoufakis knows exactly who and what he argues that Greece is in a modern-day debtor’s pris- because “the strong do as they like while the weak is up against. on and cannot pay its sovereign debt without a seri- suffer what they must.” More than 2,000 years lat- ous restructuring. Adults in the Room takes pains er, Varoufakis contends, this same merciless logic to describe his attempts to end the country’s “fi s- can be found in today’s neoliberal global economy. cal waterboarding” at the hands of the Troika. Va- He does us the favor of showing us how we came WEB EXCLUSIVE roufakis demanded new debt terms and some debt to this moment. The Greek debt crisis, the future of Europe, Trump’s cancellation — “haircuts” for the banks and other In his retelling, the United States shifted in the tax cuts, the rise of far right movements around the institutions that held Greece’s bonds. One problem 1970s from an industrial powerhouse that ran large world amid deepening economic inequality and was that the ECB’s charter explicitly prohibited debt trade surpluses to a debtor nation, within which more. Check out Bennett Baumer’s interview with December 2017

cancellation and bailouts, thus stacking the deck economic and political power shifted from industri- Yanis Varoufakis at indypendent.org. against the debtor nation. alists to Wall Street. Once in power, Varoufakis got creative. He of- “The trick for America to gain the power to re- fered to convert Greece’s unsustainable debt pay- cycle other countries’ surpluses… was to persuade ments to perpetual bonds that paid lower but per- foreign capitalists to voluntarily send their capital petual interest, and the country would be able to to Wall Street,” he writes. Wall Street offered high

The IndypendenT choose when to pay off the principal, sometime in returns on investment in the form of higher inter- 19 GLOBAL WARMING

COasTaL CITIes On The edGe

Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban

Life in the Age of Climate Change cause there is so much glob- roots community-support effort that These are preliminary answers to the GARY MARTIN By Ashley Dawson al wealth centered in cities morphed out of Occupy Wall Street complex questions of how to deal with Verso, 2017 and invested in urban real when Superstorm Sandy hit New York catastrophic climate chaos. Ultimately, estate, those in economic City in 2012. Occupy Sandy attempted Dawson states, the problem is capital- and political power do not to rebuild homes and support com- ism. It is a system that seeks profi ts above By Nancy Romer want the rest of us to talk munities, particularly in the Rocka- all. That means it has no regard for the about what is about to hap- ways. But while thousands of people natural environment, requires constant he U.S. environmental pen. He believes we will inevitably be responded to the call for help, like growth, dumps its toxic residues in poor movement has often his- forced to retreat from the coastal and the city school food-service workers communities and communities of color torically put “cities” in riverine cities and resettle inland. who volunteered to serve meals to the and resists planning and regulation — opposition to “nature.” Extreme Cities is well-researched hundreds of people sleeping on cots in and it cannot correct itself. Yet over half the world’s and accessibly written. Its main focus high-school gyms, he also shows how Dawson looks toward the efforts of Tpopulation now lives in cities, and the is New York City, primarily as a case these loving attempts at help can feed “energy democracy” or nationalization natural disasters of the last several study of the effects of climate change into the hands of governments that of renewable energy, and advocates for years have shown how extreme weath- and the social movements responding have little or no interest in addressing the developed nations that caused cli- er can be most devastating to the urban to it. He weaves in experiences and ex- the underlying issues that create both mate change to pay a “climate debt” to poor—Hurricane Katrina drowning periments from other cities, but always climate change and the inequality that developing nations so they don’t have to elderly people in New Orleans—and returns to Gotham’s history and future. exacerbates its effects. He points to the add further destruction to our planet in how the social inequality intensifi es The vast majority of major world solidarity of groups that are part of the order to feed their people. His is a utopi- that, like Hurricane Maria devastating cities have been built next to water — New York City Environmental Justice an vision of shared interests, of interde- a Puerto Rico hobbled by debt and a oceans, rivers, deltas and lakes — and if Alliance, the Alliance for a Just Re- pendence of communities and peoples, shaky electrical-power infrastructure. global warming melts the polar icecaps, building and to other grassroots efforts of the joy of communities and working In Extreme Cities: The Peril and sea levels could rise as much as 50 feet to give decision-making and resource- toward the common good. He would Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Cli- over the next century. Dawson deftly allocating power to the people in our ask us to keep those coalitions intact mate Change, Ashley Dawson asserts shows us how building hard barriers most affected communities. in order to grow our shared power, to that while cities are the sites of the most against rising water is doomed to fail, On the fi fth anniversary of Hurricane keep getting the people most affected to greenhouse-gas emissions, “it is in the that we need to work with, not against, Sandy, thousands of New Yorkers ral- make the decisions needed for our com- extreme city that the most important the natural systems around us and lied and marched to demand immediate mon futures and to shift the balance struggles for human survival will take understand that water must go some- action on climate justice. Their demands of power to the people and away from place.” He defi nes “extreme city” as an where, and the land must be replenished fi t neatly into Dawson’s paradigm: Get capitalist control. urban space where extreme economic with residue that the water can bring Sandy victims back in their homes, re- Can we do that? Short of that trans- and political inequality threaten its own back to the shore. He compares cities pair public housing, stop building on formation of political activism and will, sustainability. How a city copes with in Holland, which are recognizing this, waterfronts, retrofi t all large buildings short of system change, we will be vic- that “has everything to do with how with Louisiana, where with fossil-fuel to reduce emissions, create good union tims of our own lethargy in the face of well it will weather the storms that are barons controlling the state and local jobs in the renewable economy, divest climate chaos. bearing down upon humanity.” governments, the coast is shrinking all public pension funds from fossil-fuel While we know about the dire predic- because the wetlands and marshlands stocks, systematically get to 100 percent tions of rising temperatures, acidifi ca- that historically protected the land from renewable energy by 2050, levy a pollu- tion of the oceans, melting glaciers and fl oods have been destroyed for oil drill- tion (or carbon) tax to pay for climate polar ice, and rising waters, why don’t ing and shipping. projects, have public ownership of re- we talk about this existential threat Dawson takes a critical but respect- newable energy grids and enable a full more often? Dawson suggests that be- ful view of Occupy Sandy, the grass- and just recovery for Puerto Rico.

announced his presidential campaign in June 2015, it hired sold, it was on the verge of getting city funding to renovate the ChaRas a subcontractor for “administrative support” — which, ac- building. That could have been done for less than $1 million. Continued from page 7 cording to an email obtained by the Hollywood Reporter, But with Singer having stripped its interior, she says, “now consisted of paying actors $50 a head to cheer and wear pro- we’re looking at a complete gut renovation.” liani and Bloomberg administrations’ lax oversight of de- Trump T-shirts. Councilmember Mendez has asked for a meeting with the velopers. If the Charas people got the space back, they would like to mayor’s offi ce to discuss what to do next, but hasn’t heard 2017 December “He didn’t realize that he had a community and a body of use it in the same way it was before — a mix of artists’ studios back yet, says press secretary John Blasco. The mayor’s offi ce supporters who were watchdogs,” she says. and rehearsal spaces, community nonprofi t offi ces, classes declined to comment. Singer doesn’t want to sell it. “He remains eager to begin and as a place for meetings, performances and benefi ts. Rents “The center has to be open to the community. The sooner the lawful development of P.S. 64,” his public-relations fi rm, in the neighborhood have gotten so expensive that it’s next to the better,” says Garcia. “We’ve got people who’ve been in- Gotham Government Relations (GGR), said in a statement. impossible to fi nd space for any of these purposes, they say. volved with the project for 40 to 50 years and people who are “The East Village has changed in the 20 years since P.S. 64 “I don’t see any reason to change,” says Garcia. fresh. It’s going to be beautiful.” IndypendenT The was sold. The original group that occupied the building has Renovating the 110,000-square-foot fi ve-story building no presence in today’s community.” would be a massive job. Singer’s PR fi rm says it would cost Steven Wishnia performed at Charas with the rock’n’roll GGR associate Nicole Silver said 950 people from the $60 million. Completely rebuilding ABC No Rio, a four-sto- bands False Prophets and Gateria. neighborhood had signed a petition supporting the dorm. She ry building slightly less than one-tenth as big, will cost more said she would email it to The Indy, but never did. than $8 million. GGR has represented Donald Trump since 2010. When he The sad thing, says Howard, is that before Charas was 20 BOOKS

KILLed By CapITaLIsM

The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government and Cheap Lives By Bryant Simon The good times didn’t last forever, as Squeezing out every last cent for profi t also put inten- New Press, 2017 the railroads were superseded by high- sifying pressure on the Roes. An expansion plan failed, ways. The number of good jobs shrunk, leading to a mountain of debt, which resulted in renewed never to return. Instead, Hamlet be- pressure on the workers inside the Hamlet factory in the By Steven Sherman came one of countless places competing months before the fi re. to attract any sort of workplace, a rural The federal Occupational Safety and Health Adminis- n 1991, a fi re at a chicken-processing factory in ghetto where the barriers to escape to a more prosper- tration (OSHA) failed to protect the workers. Simon doc- Hamlet, North Carolina killed 25 workers. While ous future were steep. It managed to get the Roes, who uments the way the law that created OSHA was fl awed briefl y a national-news story, it soon disappeared in the 1980s were looking to move their chicken factory from the start. It gave states discretion about how they from the collective consciousness. Now, over 25 away from the more unionized and regulated environ- enforced it, so states like North Carolina watered it down. years later, Temple University historian Bryant Si- ment of Pennsylvania. Nothing resembling the regime of surprise inspections Imon has written a book, The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story North Carolina aggressively marketed itself as a place needed to keep factory owners honest emerged. of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives, welcome to such businesses. Its union density and average In the wake of the fi re, numerous lawsuits were fi led, that uses the story of the fi re to illuminate the human wage were the lowest in the country. In fact, it became some of which resulted in some money being directed to- (and animal) costs of the direction American society has the most industrialized state in the nation on a per capita ward survivors. But it was not more than a drop in the taken since the 1970. It is a magisterial work that lives up basis in this way. Ironically, the increased participation of bucket compared to what was actually needed to heal the to the challenge. women and African Americans in the paid labor force, an trauma. Simon compares the aftermath of the Hamlet fi re The book begins with a harrowing account of the fi re accomplishment of progressive social movements, helped to the Triangle Shirtwaist fi re of 100 years ago. (At both itself. According to Simon, many people in Hamlet lay the make labor even cheaper. Hamlet and Triangle, many workers were trapped because blame for the tragedy on owner Emmett Roe and his son Although Roe had practiced some forms of paternal the owners had locked exits from the outside to prevent Brad, who relocated from Pennsylvania when they pur- management and civic engagement in Pennsylvania, he theft.) Hamlet drew national media attention and resulted chased the Imperial Food Products factory. Although the never bothered to do so in Hamlet. In fact, he never even in some beefi ng up of OSHA in North Carolina, but it was Roes do not come off well, the book is basically a refuta- put up a sign on the factory adver- tion of the idea that blame can be neatly placed on a couple tising what was being produced in- of venal individuals. side. He didn’t bother applying for USDA INSPECTORS SHOWED Simon’s narrative is organized around the contrast be- the required permits to remake the tween two phases of capitalism, which he summarizes factory, nor did he follow all the with two words — “more” and “cheap.” (More academi- procedures required regarding the LITTLE INTEREST IN THE cally minded readers would use “Fordism” and “neoliber- considerable amount of water need- alism.”) During the phase of “more,” beginning with the ed to operate the chicken factory. New Deal of the 1930s, the government worked to insure Roe did not bother to register his SAFETY OF WORKERS. demand for goods by taking measures to keep employ- business in North Carolina, which ment high and creating a social safety net. Consequently, might have led to someone noticing his poor safety record nothing like the workplace-safety and pro-union efforts wages tended to rise. in Pennsylvania. None of this seemed to matter much to catalyzed by Triangle, which bore fruit in the New Deal. In the era of “cheap,” beginning roughly in the 1970s, authorities at the time. This is a great book. Even six years after Occupy, the government took measures to ensure that businesses could The U.S. Department of Agriculture frequently in- horrors of working-class life illuminated here remain produce goods as cheaply as possible. The resultant drop spected the Hamlet factory, but strictly for food safety. largely hidden. But since The Hamlet Fire’s publication in wages was somewhat offset by the resultant cheap pric- It showed little interest in the blatant endangerment of in September, it has received only limited attention. One es of goods. Simon’s history offers a multisided, close look workers — loose wires and such — so long as it did not can only hope that professors of sociology and related ar- at the consequences of the “cheap” regime in a particular affect the food. Roe received help from local employment eas discover it, since it conveys many of the concepts they time and place. agencies in fi nding single women with children as workers. grapple with in vivid, jargon-free prose. It is a book all Simon paints a golden age in Hamlet’s history in the They were the workers most likely to fear losing their jobs, Americans should be studying and learning from, as we time of more. The small town, near the South Carolina and thus the least likely to complain. continue to live in the world of cheap food, cheap govern- border about halfway between Charlotte and Fayetteville, The chicken produced was also part of the system of ment and cheap lives. was a key transportation hub for railroads and had thou- cheap. Industrially produced and processed chicken, sands of union jobs servicing trains, mostly held by white turned into nuggets and tenders, emerged as the cheapest men. As a result, many working people were able to en- way to turn grain into protein. It was easy to prepare and joy something like a middle-class lifestyle. Women largely consume, crucial for people who no longer had the time to December 2017

worked in their homes raising kids. That golden age was prepare more elaborate meals for their families. Loaded more dross for African Americans, who were mostly ex- with fi llers and encased in fat, sugar and salt, these chicken cluded from this prosperity, although there were some rail- products helped contribute to obesity in many with few road workers and a small middle class of professionals. dietary options. This made it possible to portray them as That unions were for a time powerful in this North Caro- moral failures. Simon writes graphically about the conse- lina town is one of a number of revelations that unsettles quences of the drive to cheapen the product both for chick-

The IndypendenT familiar cliches about the South. ens and the farmers who grew them. 21 REVEREND BILLY’S TRUMP HELP HOTLINE

Dear Reverend Billy, Street bankers or is it the party of all of us? Dear Shantel, I can’t believe it’s been one year since Trump The big banks are fi nancing climate change, First of all, congratulations to your son. Did was elected. It feels like we fell through a col- gentrifi cation and war. With your impatience, he take the knee all by himself? This bodes lective wormhole into an alternate universe. Burt, you’re saying that “the resistance seems well for his future — he’s got what it takes! The Women’s March in January was very en- to have petered out” just as this new genera- You raised him well, but then you seem to be couraging, but since then the resistance seems tion is beginning to etch its way into offi ce. saying in your letter that you needed the coach to have petered out — at least it doesn’t feel It won’t be so easy to kick the offshore 1 per- to defend your boy and that you couldn’t do like it has the same momentum it did in the centers out of their posts, but this year’s elec- it yourself. beginning. Do you have any shreds of hope tions were a start. Let’s roll up our sleeves and Talk to the right-wingers. Look them in the to offer? get to work, because we have a long way to go. eye. Your son is doing the patriotic thing. We — Burt, Greenpoint need peaceful police at home and we must stop — Rev. Billy fi ghting racist wars abroad. Express yourself! Well, Burt, the date on your letter precedes That is how we show respect for our country! the November 7 elections, the triumph of • • • When I took the knee with the Stop Shop- Jenny Durkan, an out lesbian, in the Seattle ping Choir at Trump Tower’s front door, we

mayor’s race and of Danica Roem, a trans- Dear Reverend Billy, witnessed the guards — with body armor, JON QUILTY gender person, who was elected to the House My son took a knee the other day before his machine guns and dogs — step to the side and of Delegates in Virginia. Ravinder Bhalla is middle school basketball game. Personally, I let us face the building directly. We thanked now the Sikh mayor of Hoboken. Andrea don’t even know why they play the anthem them after our ritual, because they respected Jenkins, the Minneapolis City Council- to begin with but I’m a little bit concerned that we were Americans expressing ourselves, bound winner, is the fi rst black transgender about the way some of the other parents re- as guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. This is the woman elected to public offi ce in the United acted. Some of them actually scolded my right that my father, now in his 90s, fought for States. Maybe she can get the killer of Phi- son in front of me and I was more than a tad when he put himself in harm’s way in WWII. lando Castile into prison. peeved that the coach didn’t stand up for my And in 2017, we are strengthening our rights Point is: Many of the get-out-the-voters in child. My son loves basketball and all his every time that we use them to speak up or this revolution attended their local Women’s friends are on the team, but I’m concerned take the knee. March. They got the lesson taught by the mil- for his mental wellbeing. I saw that you took — Rev. Billy lions of people with hand-made pussy caps on a knee at a protest at Trump Tower and that January day: the future is all of us and the thought you might have a suggestion. GOT A QUESTION FOR REVEREND BILLY? future is now. [email protected]. These wins are a glorious fi rst step, but the — Shantel, Long Island trouble is that they are Democrats. That party has a crisis going on. Is it the party of Wall

Extreme Cities The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change by Ashley Dawson

“A ground-breaking investigation of the vulnerability of our cities in an age of climate chaos. .” —Bill McKibben, author and founder of 350.org

“Dawson makes a convincing case that, unless urban dwellers and civic leaders engage in a fundamental reconceptualization of the city and whom it serves, the future of urban life is dim.” —Publishers Weekly

Available at versobooks.com and wherever books are sold December 2017 December

@versobooks The IndypendenT The 22 EXHIBIT

pROOF In The aGe OF dOuBT

‘Proof: Francisco Goya, Sergei Eisenstein,

Robert Longo’ frame, convey a wondrously tory itself in terms of his winner-take-all © ROBERT LONGO, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST, METROYORK, PICTURES, AND GALERIE NEW THADDAEUS ROPAC; LONDON, PARIS, SALZBURG. Brooklyn Museum | brooklynmuseum.org melodramatic sort of old- mentality, worldview of evil scapegoats Through Jan. 7 fashioned pathos. and endless, self-congratulatory lies. (A Next is Francisco José disconcertingly large number of Ameri- de Goya y Lucientes (1746- cans seem to happily agree.) Like other By Mike Newton 1828), one of the pre-eminent authoritarians, he wants to redefi ne real- Spanish painters of his day, ity, but he doesn’t want anyone to seek fter the 2016 presidential who has fi ltered into the modern era out contrasting or contradicting truths election, I was one of many mainly through his etchings — small — he doesn’t want anyone else to believe who spontaneously posted works, often made in private that feel that reality can be redefi ned. an all-black image to social centuries ahead of their time. His series Representation — whether a newspa- media. In the immediate The Disasters of War (1810-1820) — per article, a political speech or a work Aaftermath of Trump’s victory, there was with grotesque impressions of Spain’s of art — is never neutral. The works in a need to express something along with early-19th-century war against Napo- this show create potent records of the the sense that nothing could express that leon’s armies — and similar series like times in which they were produced, while mix of fear, frustration and grief that hit The Art of Bullfi ghting (1815-1816) and remaining the clear result of personal last Nov. 9. An all-black image — with The Proverbs (1815-1823), show hu- and artistic mediation. All three art- its deathly/funereal associations — was man fi gures confronting strange stripes ists are concerned with human subjects all that fi t. of monstrously inhuman power. Almost confronting the big things that threaten Brooklyn-based artist Robert Longo 200 years later, these works remain them, with these subjects often retaining (born 1953) may have been acting on haunting and — very oddly — comfort- some vestige of heroism even in failure. similar impulses when he made “Untitled ing, a rare mix due to their combined Perhaps the most optimistic work in the (Obama Leaving)” (2017). The piece, sense of somber defeatism and dark, re- show is Longo’s Untitled (Black Pussy like most of his work, is a large-scale latable humor. Hat in Women’s March) (2017), which charcoal drawing. One of its paired pan- Longo’s imposing works on paper are shows an anonymous woman at the mas- els shows Barack Obama and his entou- sourced from photographs, often ones sive anti-Trump protest early this year, rage walking off an airport tarmac, the found on the internet. Some feel a little gazing forward into cascading New York ex-President’s facial expression the com- frustrating, such as drawings based on City daylight. Is this the most objective,

bination of hope and resignation that he headline news that seem to rely on those most accurate record of that day? No, JONATHAN DORADO, BROOKLYN MUSEUM so often wore. The second panel, though, often-tragic, real-world associations for of course not, but there’s just no way is pure darkness — the whole sheet of much of their emotional resonance. For around it: It has power. paper covered with charcoal dust. The example, the show includes images of juxtaposition suggests a slight movement massed riot police in St. Louis, an atomic- through time, like a comic-book page or bomb test blast, and the Charlie Hebdo fi lm stills: from a grim but palpable pres- magazine offi ces, among other things. But ent to some unimaginable future. there’s really no denying the raw power This work is part of “Proof,” currently (not to mention the careful craftsman- on view at the Brooklyn Museum, which ship) of Longo’s work. Charcoal is a sup- puts Longo’s work alongside that of Ser- ple drawing medium with a unique sense gei Eisenstein and Francisco Goya. The of physical heft, and by rendering newsy Brooklyn Museum has lately presented photos in such poignant and weighty a streak of progressive-minded, socially forms, Longo creates an epic encounter conscious exhibitions. This show is part with the concerns of the day.

of that, but it comes to its politics in a Longo’s art starts with photos, but he GOSFILMOFOND (NATIONAL FILM FOUNDATION OF RUSSIAN FEDERATION) stranger, more elliptical way. Rather augments and edits to heighten the mood than trying to rally viewers around any before re-rendering them in charcoal. The Robert Longo. Untitled (Black Pussy Hat particular cause, it asks them to question exhibition shows how, in creating Unti- in Women’s March), 2017. Charcoal on the nature of “proof” — the ways real- tled (Raft at Sea) (2016-2017), he added mounted paper. ity is mediated, codifi ed, distorted and waves to an image of refugees fl oating in dramatized. Dramatized, especially: The the middle of a rough ocean; an already art is almost all striking, severe imagery, harrowing image made even more so. It’s Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. The delivering its various looming horrors in here, in this kind of conscious amending Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El stark black and white. of reality, that the exhibition’s concerns sueño de la razón produce monstruos), The show begins with Sergei Eisen- with “proof” really come in. The point plate 43 from The Caprices (Los stein (1898-1948), the gifted Russian here isn’t just that some objective reality Caprichos), 1797–98. Etching and fi lmmaker who defi ned the powers of exists — of course it does, and the inter- aquatint on laid paper. cinematic montage, while also chroni- net makes it easy to fi nd all the studies, December 2017

cling Soviet history in fi lms like Battle- photographs, and raw data you could ship Potemkin (1925) and October (Ten want. And yet, the internet has also am- Still from Sergei Eisenstein’s Alexander Days that Shook the World) (1927-28). plifi ed the ability of individuals to mold Nevsky, 1938. Seven of his fi lms are displayed simul- their own realities, shaped through ideol- taneously, with no sound or titles, and ogy and partisanship. slowed to a crawl: What’s left are his Donald Trump seems to believe that

The IndypendenT cinematographic images which, frame by he should have the power to recast his- 23 December 2017 December The Indypenden The T