"Greetings AlterGatherers (new and old!)
I write you today with great joy after yesterday's happenings. The public display of unity is without a doubt historic and monumental. But what moved me the most was the conversation that occurred within that DTE-electricity-less* room. (*I say DTE-electricity-less because as Ron Scott pointed out, there was a whole lot of electricity in that room within ourselves and between one another.)
I have to commend everyone for their fearlessness to walk down the street singing, and for their bravery in sharing things they may not have shared before. I have to commend everyone who listened so intently, as people spoke so deeply without a public address system. From my conversations with folks following it was a rather emotionally draining opportunity for some (myself included), so I encourage us all to unpack that and ask why? And furthermore let’s ask ourselves what we’re going to do next.
Many people shared that the healing they needed themselves or others to work on involved trusting others, listening, patience, forgiveness, making themselves “uncomfortable”, speaking out, speaking with neighbors, and seeing the humanness in everyone. Nothing could make me happier than hearing these responses. AlterGather has never really been a formal community organizing group— although we all are committed to the initiative of taking the sheds down. But I find the most amazing part about the folks who come to AlterGatherings is that they build empathy and understanding with their brothers and sisters. I will personally continue to support the work being done by Diverse GP and others to get the sheds removed, but I wonder how much good it would do if we’re still afraid of our neighbors. Thankfully we all seem committed to building physical bridges as well as mental/spiritual/emotional ones.
I also saw a variety of solutions ranging from putting on neighborhood events to supporting Detroit businesses to abolishing the prison system to visiting other communities to raising up the humanity of people who are different from oneself to education reform to active listening skills. I hope to explore these deeper with additional AlterGather events coming up.
Which leads me to my next point: there’s some more amazing things going on in the immediate and distant future! Check them out below.
• TONIGHT: Grosse Pointe Park City Council Meeting. Oh boy will this will be a fun one after last night. 7 PM at city hall, 15115 Jefferson Ave.
• Jefferson-Chalmers Neighborhood Clean-Up Saturday October 4th 9 AM - 2 PM. Meet at @ JEBA, 14628 East Jefferson (at Manistique) to get assignments & supplies. Full information on flier (attached). Also for those who don’t know Jefferson-Chalmers + Grosse Pointe are definitely our roots— if you haven’t made it over to the Jefferson-Chalmers community you absolutely must see what’s going on over there.
• New Work New Culture Conference, October 18-20th. This looks like a really ridiculously good event and I’m really bummed I’m out of town.
• East-Jefferson Soup, October 19th 6 PM at Coffee & (___), 14409 E Jefferson Ave, Detroit, MI. Soup is a democracy-driven community-centric crowd-funding potluck that is one of the best things happening in Detroit right now as far as I’m concerned. It started off city wide but they noticed that certain neighborhoods have certain needs, spawning neighborhood Soups. This will be the second E-J Soup. Full information on Soup here: http://detroitsoup.com/
• Cider Social and re-opening of Lakewood-East Park (aka Angel Park), Saturday October 25 from 12 PM to 3 PM at the Gazebo. Full information attached.
• AlterGather Recipe Share Thursday November 20th at 7 PM. Last year’s was so great that we decided to do it again, conveniently 1 week before Thanksgiving. Bring a paper recipe to share with the group. Why is the recipe important to you? We’ll distribute copies so that folks can add it to their cookbooks. Location TBA.
Thanks again all. So excited with the momentum being built.
In peace,
Peter @ AlterGather
PS: Cat Stevens's "Peace Train" was playing from the speakers in downtown GPP as I walked back to my car. I'll take it as a good sign."