A challenge issued

Real Change
‘Best of the fest’ 2021

by Lee Nacozy | January 13th, 2021

Catch movie and panel highlights from Social Justice Film Festival 2020: ‘TRANSFORM: Another World Is Possible’

Seattle’s Social Justice Film Festival and Institute and Northwest Film Forum are presenting Best of the Fest 2021, showcasing the award-winners from the 2020 Social Justice Film Festival that took place this past fall. The mini-fest will run the weekend of Jan. 22-24, entirely online — just like the first time around.
Read more in the Jan. 13-19, 2021 issue.
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Real Change
Grand redesign

by Dave Gamrath | January 6th, 2021

Book review: ‘Why We’re Polarized’ By Ezra Klein

We are a polarized nation, and have fallen into two warring camps: urban vs. rural. In “Why We’re Polarized,” author Ezra Klein provides his view on how America got so polarized and what the future will likely bring. Klein’s core argument is that everyone engaged in American politics is engaged in identity politics; identity politics have taken over. We are locked into our identities, and there is virtually nothing that can happen to change our minds. Identity shapes how we understand the world.
Read more in the Jan. 6-12, 2021 issue.
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Real Change
‘Wonder Woman 1984’ is the ideal film to usher out the Trump era

by Cliff Cawthon | January 6th, 2021

Before 2021 sets in and gives us a presidential administration that believes in … well, science, it makes sense to look back at 2020 and, if you’re a masochist, all the Trump years. One bit of vocab that can help us reflect on the captivating urge to follow or support Trump is “toxic positivity,” which is well shown in one of 2020’s last big movies.
Read more in the Jan. 6-12, 2021 issue.
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Real Change
Literature alights what was once burned books

by Joe Martin | December 30th, 2020

Book review: ‘Thomas Mann’s War: Literature, Politics, and the World Republic of Letters’ by Tobias Boes

Flames of ignorance and hate lit the darkness on a May evening in 1933. The consuming pyre was fed by thousands of heaped books set on fire by Nazis and their sympathizers. The incendiary event was the culmination of a torchlight parade of students, which ended on Opera Square in front of the University of Berlin. With the fascist state now firmly entrenched, various authors deemed undesirable and enemies of the new order would have their works expunged: Jewish and non-Jewish writers alike. Such events would be staged throughout Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich.
Read more in the Dec. 30, 2020 - Jan. 5, 2021 issue.
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Real Change
Local fashion and jewelry designer Malia Peoples talks about ethical fashion and the struggle of commodified creativity

by Kamna Shastri | December 9th, 2020

Fashion designer and jewelry maker Malia Peoples has long been keen to make fashion more sustainable and ethical, even before those qualities became buzzwords. In a world swarming with fast, cheap and trendy fashion, Peoples was keenly aware of the cost of such work and dreamed of creating a fashion brand that would be more eco-friendly and conscious.
Read more in the Dec. 9-15, 2020 issue.
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Real Change
Path with Art endeavors to keep art accessible in the virtual world

by Kamna Shastri | December 2nd, 2020

When COVID-19 shut down the world, the local arts organizers of Path with Art knew they couldn’t abandon their students. For many students, the free classes offered by Path with Art created a community and a belonging that would become even more necessary than it had been prior to the pandemic. Path with Art mostly serves people who are working through being unhoused, an addiction struggle or other trauma and offers art classes free of cost to foster community, healing, facilitate self-expression and forge agency.
Read more in the Dec. 2-8, 2020 issue.
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Real Change
Family Health

by Susan McRoy | November 25th, 2020

A poem

All that family is is a room full of people with a candle in the middle of it.

… All that family is is keeping the candle lit.

What do you do when one relative says,

“Ba Hum bug, gafaw, I can’t do this, WHEW.”

And blows the candle out.

First of all, the whole room is dark.

… Do you grab the guys collar and say,

“Hey, you just blew the candle out. You take responsibility, and re-light the candle.”

Read more in the Nov 25 - Dec 1, 2020 issue.
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Real Change
Social media is anti everything

by Joe Martin | November 18th, 2020

‘Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation’ By Andrew Marantz

“Since World War II, the lunatic fringe in the United States had always included a few hundred freaks with swastika tattoos; now there was an increasingly organized white-supremacist movement in America, one that had several points of contiguity with both Congress and the White House. This was novel, and terrifying; yet it was often referred to in the mainstream press as merely ‘edgy’ or ‘controversial.’”

Read more in the Nov. 18-24, 2020 issue.
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Real Change
Taking up space, even on the Eastside, even during COVID

by Kamna Shastri | November 18th, 2020

Angie Hinojos Yusuf encourages curiosity with public art

When Angie Hinojos Yusuf exhibited her lit sculpture work “Adelita,” depicting one of the women soldaderas of the Mexican Revolution, a mother and daughter approached. The daughter was around five years old, Yusuf remembers, and from afar the air carried their voices as they sang “La Adelita,” the Mexican corrido that told the story of a woman who followed Madero, madly in love with him while also fighting in the revolution.
Read more in the Nov. 18-24, 2020 issue.
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Real Change
A challenge issued

by Mike Wold | November 12th, 2020

First-generation story not defined by DREAM Act, Harvard or Yale

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio should be an American success story: Born into a poor immigrant family, she eventually got a degree from Harvard and is now a doctoral candidate at Yale. She is also undocumented, having come to the U.S. when she was 4 years old.
Read more in the Nov. 11-17, 2020 issue.
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