Hunger Games Social Change
by Tom Pope
the Capitol. District 10 supplies the beef for the Capitol, yet the community has little meat to survive. Katniss’ District 12 could be thought of as the Appalachian mining industry. The benefits from the mine aid the wealthy in the Capitol.
The sponsors spend money to their favorite contestants in a way that the wealthy flock to the carpets of the Academy wards. Or like the millionaires who set up candidates for the presidential primaries.
Donations from sponsors range from medicine and food to weapons, which can be sent into the survival arena from silver silk parachutes. You could imagine the sponsors as being munitions dealers or contractors that control the money flow from the society.
However, despite the obstacles of oppression, Katniss finds a way to gain support. In her first Hunger Game, Katniss used nonviolent resistance of noncooperation. The climax’s demand for her to kill her last opponent failed. She threatened to take her own life with her opponent rather than provide a killing by each other for the watching sponsors. She touched a nerve. Sponsors, who saw a love commitment, demanded a social change in the games.
In Catching Fire, she touches another nerve. Her lack of supplies became a symbol of defiance. She operated within the rules of the contest to become known, then appealed to other districts for supplies. Until that point, districts had not supported rivals to their district. She realized the gift of support from District 11 was meant for another, but that person asked the supply to be given to her as a thank you for an earlier support.
Katniss saw the strength of an entire district pooling their funds to help out one of the contestants. Katniss reached out to nurture that growing unity.
The movie shows a powerful response to oppression. District 12 became a police state with images of SWAT teams and Special Ops Units roaming the streets. Minor crimes tolerated for years became seen as a lead up to major dissident action. Almost sounds like “Broken Windows.” In the heart of the district, the mines were closed, pushing the district to further starvation.
Yet Katniss' recognized of the hand salute to show her support for the opposition. She ignited a unity for a movement from the districts.
Baltimore’s images keep coming into play with the scenes from Catching Fire. Yet Katniss methods shows a model for success.
[1 Find a celebrity who believes in a community’s rights
[2 Build coalitions with other communities facing the same problem
[3 Build resources by pooling funds, supplies, and communication with others
[4 Develop communication to let others in the community know of opportunities
[5 Appeal to the high ground to touch the heart of the public who aren’t familiar with the details
Baltimore may be an image of the Hunger Games, but people in communities like Baltimore can also raise their hands in the salute of defiance of oppression.
Prompt:
[1 Which fiction have you seen that sets up models of defying oppression?
[2 Which methods have you found from fiction work to stop power elites?
[3 When you use models of community organizing, where do you look find those models?
Where Does the Money Go?
by Tom Pope
According to Ruth Wilson Gilmore, associate director of the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the CUNY Graduate Center, the business machine is a powerful force in California because of the redistribution of resources.
What happens to the wealth of the thousands of minorities who become locked up and can not find employment later in life?
A look at Oakland shows an example of the redistribution of wealth. A difference exists between the mainstream white/middle class community in the suburb areas of the East Bay and the neighborhoods of Oakland, according to the Pueblo blog.
Around 40 percent of Oakland’s general fund supports the police as the city’s largest expenditure. Meanwhile, other cities like Sacramento funded police at 23 percent of the general fund, according to figures from 2011-2012. One odd figure when viewed deeper is that Sacramento and Oakland actually have comparable crime rates.
Why the huge police budget in Oakland? In essence, suburbs are benefiting from Oakland’s huge police spending, which redistributes wealth from the inner city to the suburbs.
The redistribution of wealth also comes from the political/economic tool of asset forfeitures. According to Alternet’s Aaron Cantu, the state uses the power to confiscate a person’s property during a crime. Law enforcement justifies the seizing of property and cash as a way to break up narcotics rings. But according to Cantu, the tool can also be used when a person is not convicted, or even charged with, a crime.
Asset forfeitures bring to mainstream areas millions of dollars, which are then used for police salaries. Those funds are then spent in malls of the suburbs, rather than the economy of inner city. Those funds don’t appear in new rec centers or parks of the inner city.
Shifting patterns of financial investments leading to prison growth, results in more jailed young people of color, according to CUNY’s Ruth Wilson Gilmore in her book, Golden Gulag. The increase in punitive measures such as the “three strikes” law point to a troubled future of California.
In the battle for social change, Baltimore was only the example that ripped into the headlines. Yet other cities face similar unfairness of political and economic power.
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If you found this helpful, please contact Glenn at Glenn@FamersBlvd.Org.
PROMPT:
Design your list of must-haves for your community. Which parts of the community’s income have proven to be more valuable for your area? Why?
Describe in a comment how those factors of income have changed over the past 30 years.
Baltimore’s Bastille
by Tom Pope
Stokes, served as head of the Taxation, Finance and Economic Development Committee. Stokes backed the effort “to get these apartment conversions going,” but he worried that “homeowners and small business would pay” for the new incentive.
The pilot program fails to answer some key questions. Stokes’ effort probably seeks to bring business into the poorer areas because of the increase in downtown activity. However, his move may not redirect vital dollars to poorer areas. He doesn’t answer how the city makes up for the 15 percent tax break to developers. Does that mean extra financial burdens on the poorer areas? Does that mean less rec centers or funds for books and computers in schools?
What advantage will be seen by affordable housing?
According to The Brew, the Metropolitan Partnership Ltd. of Vienna, Va. group paid $6 million for the former Maryland National Bank skyscraper at 10 Light Street to convert the Art Deco tower into 445 apartments.
Yet developers claim the city’s high property tax rate makes old building apartment conversions too costly. Meanwhile the city Department of Finance aimed to increase downtown population to attract 10,000 new families.
This raises the possibility that at least some apartment conversions could escape paying any taxes for a number of years on the increased value of their property.
The scenario of “zero” property taxes is acknowledged in today’s bill before the City Council.
What does this mean for the poor? One report estimates that the 15-year credit will result in a 57 percent reduction in property taxes. If these savings are passed onto renters, new families coming into Baltimore will pay much less for city services than those renters and homeowners who are presently struggling.
“Downtown wants the same incentives to convert buildings that now have less occupancy,” Stokes said. “That’s why I’ve been asking for a tax reduction for the entire city rather than parceling it out. A significant across-the-board property tax decrease – that would be a game changer.”
Baltimore’s situation did not develop overnight any more than the oppression by the Evrémonde family in A Tale of Two Cities. A persistence of concentrated poverty in Baltimore has been happening during the last 40 years.
Baltimore’s Housing Authority channels limited resources on rehabilitating 1,000 houses in neighborhoods it considers “the most viable.” At some point, its plan aims to demolish the housing considered the most distressed.
One blogger posted that the city simply replicated the problem. People are expected to buy abandoned homes in struggling neighborhoods with no guarantee the neighborhood would improve. "It's basically the same initiative, just re-branded," said the blogger, who asked to remain anonymous, according to The Brew.
Dan Kildee, president of the Center for Community Progress is reported to have said that, “Anybody who’s spent any time in Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore or Flint, can see what the market has done to those neighborhoods — its destroyed them.
"The only way you could stop things going south would be to control the real estate, and the only way to do that was to buy a lot of it," said Ed Rutkowski, the founder of the Patterson Park Community Development Corporation, a largely self-financed group which bought and renovated houses in the neighborhood for 12 years, leading the way for developers.
While the recent descriptions from The Brew speak of Baltimore and how a development can shatter the hopes for the American Dream held by the poor, the images harken back to the storming of the Bastille. People held in the prison were placed there legally.
When laws are used to deprive people of their part of society, then perhaps the laws are illegal. We admire the protestors who stormed the Bastille. Maybe we should admire the protestors who flooded the streets of Baltimore. Law is one thing, yet a higher morality asks whether the laws are part of a fair justice.
If you found this helpful, please contact Tom at TomP47@aol.com or Glenn at Glenn@FamersBlvd.Org.
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