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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Dangerous Talk – @ the chalk face

Dangerous Talk – @ the chalk face:


Dangerous Talk

Talking is dangerous. Jesse Hagopian, a teacher leader from Garfield High School, says that their boycott, “began with a conversation in the teacher’s lounge.”
In the fall of 2011 I found myself in many conversations with people I had never before met. Conversations about economic justice, about the possibilities for and nature of change, about racism, about schooling and about democracy. I had these conversations in Zuccotti Park, at Occupy Springfield Massachusetts, at Pulaski Park in my hometown of Northampton, Massachusetts, at Occupy Montreal.  These opportunities emerged because people claimed a space for themselves, a public space, and said- ‘Let’s talk.’ The conversations were dynamic, thoughtful, attentive, popping with an incredible energy. One of my favorites, a discussion about Marxism leading to a discussion of the possibilities of democracy among a group of us that had gathered at one end of the park to hear an impromptu lecture from a philosophy student at NYU.  One of the most difficult, trying to speak with a young man about the need for social security as my feet got cold and numb in the surprise October snow in