Week 02 Afternoons of Activism

The second week for the afternoon of activism had me feeling like I'm in Newark. I got to campus... I can't even remember what I did anymore. Oh, I had a meeting about a bunch of events I am part of organizing, and I swung by the screening of Slavery By Another Name a documentary on the decades following emancipation and the use of the prison system to supply cheap labor in the United States. The documentary includes reenactments and the star was Raymond Spencer who is currently a student at Essex County College. After the screening, the was a Q&A with Spencer.

I was critical because at the UII, nobody had reminded me of the event on Tuesday. I want to change that culture. I want us to be spreading the word and taking it for granted that we are going to need to be reminded. To see the event on a ticker outside the campus as I lock up my bicycle is not the same as someone, ideally this would have been Raymond, saying, hey remember to attend my screening. Nobody gave me fliers to hand out to my class and that is me as the current professor of the course on the history of african american cinema. But, as I said, I was feeling Newark this Wednesday, and it was probably on me to remember. No use in displacing agency. These are questions, I want to be asking.

At 3pm, I planned to head over the Military Park for the Occupy Newark General Assembly when I realized I had left my wallet at home. It would not have been too big a deal except later that evening I was attending a reading at Hunter and would need identification to get into the school. So, instead of going to my second afternoons of activism, I hopped on bicycle back home, found my wallet, and then returned to campus just in time to meet up with the UII Haiti focus group who was heading to the panel on Humanitarian Design at Parsons The New School with Dr. Margaret Stevens, ECC Associate History Professor and Director of the Urban Issues Institute.

I was able to stay for Dr. Stevens' presentation and another presentation and then had to leave to head up to the Sharon Olds reading at Hunter College.

En route, I learned that the best dollar pizza is at Essex and Rivington. I am still to check it out.

I was okay that I missed my participation in the demonstrations. I am learning how much my body can physically handle. Right now, it is Friday night, it is raining. I have decided to stay home and not go to the event Women Writing the World at NYU. I need to rest. I have two things to prioritize, the afternoons of activism and writing my dissertation. I feel like the energy, excitement, and fun that I had going out and about in Newark and New York will sustain me for a while. For when I do too much, that is when I can forget my wallet at home, which makes it difficult to follow through on my commitments. It is a challenging process to find a good balance between engagement in the social and nurturing the personal. To follow through on my commitment to activism, I promised I would hold a sign on Thursday and rethink how much I can handle during a week. For me, I realize that commitment to the dissertation keeps me grounded, and I am planning to try to find a balance between the afternoons of activism and the dissertation, which means I think I need to let go of my involvement with the poetry community in New York City for now.