Free People of Color, 1855 Washington (now DC)

2011-08-08 16:52:00
gender-diffs among Black landowners in Wash. County, 1855… Curious…
I do not have time now, but I am dying to look into why (on p. 127 of Washington at home: An illustrated history of neighborhoods in the nation’s capital; second edition, 2010, JHU Press, Kathryn Schneider Smith, ed.)

4 of the 5 black landowners in what is now roughly the Brightwood neighborhood (via the 1855 Washington County assessment listing 31 landowners along the 7th St. Turnpike, opened in 1822, from Rock Creek Church Rd to the District Line

(presumably meaning to what was then Boundary Street, now FL ave., marking the border of the Federal City, aka City of Washington) Line, were women.

No time to delve, must check this wonderful book out again in a few weeks!

(still interesting, and still no time… Must remember to add this comment and book ref. to Slavery Project on WikiTree -anybody have time to take over the Project, please??)
Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
23 February, 12016 HE

SHIR business plan from 2011

Just in case this can be of use to someone else:
Solutions for Healthy and Independent Reasoning
(SHIR)
Business plan, last updated: June 2011
S. D. Jones, Director
Washington, DC 20008
Executive Summary
SHIR is a cooperative community enterprise working to provide
educational tools by which the paradigms of critical thinking and
equality, the birthrights of all people, are actively promoted.
SHIR focuses on movement-oriented educational techniques which
simultaneously build love of learning and community in ways which
incorporate natural curiosity and multiple learning styles. SHIR
implements this focus through community affirming walking tours as
the primary form of outside-the-classroom learning.
The long term vision of SHIR is to provide guided walking tours of
Washington, D.C. with emphasis on the history of African-American
neighborhoods in the city. These tours will incorporate multi-media
history from different neighborhoods by time period and demographic
era, and feature participatory discussions of the values held across
those communities and neighborhoods over various time frames.

The marketing section needed more work, as this business failed in 2013.

Read, Write, Run, Teach !

ShiraDest
18 February, 12016 HE

Where I fit via how I’ve contributed?

I recall giving a class on Community Cooperation that had far more impact than I’d expected, generating heated discussion, and thanks. I was surprised that folks thanked me for bringing up the topic of Community, and protection of the most vulnerable members of society, but I was also grateful to have been able to make that impact. To reach people who otherwise may not have seen Community in that light.

I think it was actually the class I taught in 2011, but this class, in 2010, taught me how to teach in Community:

Page 1 of Handout:

Community Empowerment via Local Currencies “Mifnei Tikkun Ha-Olam”
Shira Jones, DC Beit Midrash, DC JCC, 16 August 2010, Ki Tetse
In Ki Tetse, Aliyah 5, (24:1-24:4 of Dvarim), a man is required to write a Get in order to divorce his wife.
Rabban Gamliel: Mishnah Gittin 4:21
“At first, a man would convene a court in a different location [from where his wife was living]and cancel the get [he had sent and not inform her of his actions]. Rabban Gamliel the Elderpassed a law prohibiting men from doing so, in order to repair the social order Mipnei TikkunHa-Olam.”
Other uses of the principle of Tikkun Ha-Olam occur with an apparently similar aim, accordingto Jill Jacobs2, namely the aim of protecting society and the most vulnerable members ofsociety.
In this vein, money which is created by and issued in and for the local community alsoconstitutes an act of Tikkun Olam, benefiting the most vulnerable members of society.
Local currencies are forms of money created by communities for local circulation in thosecommunities. These locally created forms of money accomplish three main objectivesrelated to protecting vulnerable members of society.
•When issued on the basis of local goods or services, they increase the amount of moneyavailable in local communities, further empowering communities to create sustainable localbusinesses and making more money available for loans, donations and local projects;
•They encourage buying local, thus keeping resources in local communities and reducingsupply and distribution chain travel distances, thereby reducing carbon emmissions;
•When issued on the basis of real goods or services, local currencies incentivize long-terminvestment in the local economy, rather than short-term investment in capital markets.
These currencies return monetary decision-making to communities directly affected bymoney (while by contrast, monetary decisions are generally made outside the community),and retain more overall money in the local community. Local currencies are often referred toas Green MoneyGreen MoneyGreen MoneyGreen MoneyGreen Money Green Money Green MoneyGreen MoneyGreen Money for reasons related to both Governance and Economic Benefit of Money.
1Drawn from “Annulment of Marriage”, Judith Hauptman, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/annul.html
2Jill Jacobs, The History of “Tikkun Olam”, http://www.zeek.net/706tohu/index.php?page=2
Shira D. Jones, destinie_jones@yahoo.com, DC Beit Midrash, “Green Money, Tikkun Olam”

Page 2 of Handout:

How do Green or Local Currencies provide (get, keep and grow) these benefits?
Governance of Money
Economic Benefit of Money
By increasing overall levels of available money, theyprovide more opportunities for community participationin economic decision-making and project development.
By increasing overall levels of available money, theyprovide more resources for donation, loans to theunemployed, the vulnerable, local businesses, etc.
By keeping more resources in local communities, theyallow greater (practical) economic priority-settingparticipation by more members of those communities.
By keeping more resources in local communities, theystop the draining of local resources to distant areas (sothe wealth is no longer accessible to the community).
By providing a stake in local institutions, localcurrencies provide incentives to ensure transparencyand accountability in local community institutions.
By providing a stake in local institutions, localcurrencies provide incentives to invest in long-termlocal production and to upgrade local infrastructure.
Local Currencies in Washington, DC:
Anacostia Hours, issued and accepted in Mt. Rainier, MD and accepted by some DC businesses
http://www.anacostiahours.org
Potomacs, exchanged and accepted at local businesses in Petworth, DC
TakomaTime, a Time Bank3 issuing Time Dollars in Takoma Park and Adams Morgan, DC
The Catalyst Bank, a Time Bank issuing Time Dollars in DC and VA
http://community.timebanks.org/group.php?mode=curr&sid=f0f0291be3a33d7b7729da4e03f57948
Currencies which are issued by community based institutions are generally easier to obtain,particularly for vulnerable members of the community who have difficulty accessing market-based (jobs or credit) means of obtaining more scare Federal money.
Local currencies also tend to allow greater levels of inclusion to members of the localcommunity in the decision-making processes of those currencies, while General PurposeMoney, such as the US Dollar, tends to have far more closed (non-inclusive) and lesstransparent and less publicly accountable decision-making processes. This lack of inclusionshuts out most of the direct stakeholders from governance, preventing most money usersfrom having a voice in money, which so vitally affects all of our lives.
Community-based currencies expand the number of Direct Currency Stakeholders who canexcercise participatory decision-making power over money. Thus more people can create,keep, and grow their own resources, to the benefit of the entire community, by building,using and investing in local community institutions.
3With thanks to Deborah Hittleman Flank for information on both Time Banks listed here…
Shira D. Jones, destinie_jones@yahoo.com, DC Beit Midrash, “Green Money, Tikkun Olam”

DC Beit Midrash Sources for 16 August class:
Mishnah Gittin 4:2
“Annulment of Marriage”, Judith Hauptman, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/annul.html
Jill Jacobs, The History of “Tikkun Olam”, http://www.zeek.net/706tohu/index.php?page=2
http://www.anacostiahours.org
http://community.timebanks.org/group.php?mode=curr&sid=f0f0291be3a33d7b7729da4e03f57948
Shira Destinie A. Jones, Mphil dissertation, 2010, University of Bath, http://opus.bath.ac.uk/18960/
Bio Blurb:
Shira Destinie Jones is a native Washingtonian, teacher of mathematics, Hebrew, and Greekfolk dance, and singing enthusiast with 12 years of Unix expertise. She holds a Master ofArts in Teaching Secondary Mathematics, a Masters of Philosophy in economic social policy,and is a published poet and author working to help restore the balance of justice in our damaged world.
(Now I am grateful to be working to build a Kinder world…)
Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
29 February, 12016 HE

Grateful to a Grandmother not of my blood, but certainly of my heart and soul

2008-06-20 14:05:00
Happy Past Experiences
Alot of my past is best left forgotten, but I am grateful to have had a Great Grandmother who adopted us (my mom’s mother died when grandma Laverne was 8) and looked after me when I was very small.
That was Grandma Marie. She always saved me The Mini Pages from the Washington Post and seeing her was always a peaceful and interesting time. She told me the story of my great great grandfather the crazy Cherokee Hayes Wheeler Mayo who went missing for three days when the Maine blew up. The Navy apparently thought he was dead until he turned up drunk with some interesting and apparently inplausible excuse that Grandma Marie seemed to think was characteristically colorful and odd. She also mentioned my taking somewhat after him, being a ‘rambunctious child’ and never staying still. She always had a smile when she told me about him, and frequently looked at me with that same slightly mischievious and ever so slightly almost shocked look. It’s hard to explain, but I always felt that she stood somewhat in awe of him, whilst looking just a tiny bit askance at the same time, and wondered just how closely I took after him. Whatever the case, I nearly felt like he was a hero as she told funny stories about him which I’ve forgotten details to, but remember the love with which she told all of his descendents about him. Grandma Marie, to my knowledge, never had children of her own, but my grandmother, mom, and I were like her own descendents, and I am proud of that. She taught me how to sew on an old black Singer treadle sewing machine, stitching the words I Love You onto the cloth, explaining how she had been a seamstress and her husband, Adolphus Johonson, a very kind man, had been a tailor. She once told me to make sure to carry at least $50 at all times because one day years ago Grandpa Johnson had been arrested for Jay Walking and he didn’t have the money to make bail. She laughed as she told me how she had to go down to the jail and get grandpa out, lecturing him on the way home, as she was known to do. She was such a strong personality, and so loving and bright.
And a wonderful Great Grandma.
Marie Nash Johnson.
Bright Blessings,
shir.
Read, Write, Dream, Teach !
ShiraDest
22 February, 12016 HE

Gullible is Wanting to Believe (reflection may cure…)

A classmate at Annapolis told me that they’d taken out the definition of ‘gullible’ in the dictionary and replaced it with my photo one day. I was furious, because shipmates aren’t supposed to bilge each other, and that to me was bilging.

But I want to believe that a better world is possible, a kinder world:
Perhaps the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would be a good ‘summation’ of what I want to see in the world?

[An aside: what I personally want may be quite different from what others want, of course. I would personally like to see a world where every person is free to travel anywhere, and where every person has a key to a very small flat -consisting of one room, well insulated, with a small kitchen, a bathroom with a shower, and a bed. For free, with absolute lifelong rights. Also free would be brown rice (or similar equivalent grain), green leafy vegetables, and dried beans. That is the bare minimum that a person needs to live, and that (along with free Public Library borrowing rights and Health Care) should be totally free without question to every person at all times. Whether they work or not, deserving or not. No paperwork, no hassles. But for anything else a person may want, above this (deliberately quite Spartan and barebones) minimum, a person must contribute to society -i.e. work. That is what I would like to see eventually, not going into political views…]

I look back 20 years on, now I see that I’ve always been accused of being gullible and naive, yet to be gullible, I think, is not from foolishness or stupidity, but from a stubborn refusal to believe that anyone could be dishonest.

Read, Write, Run, Teach ! ShiraDest, 16 February, 12016 HE

(update Edit from 2008 LJ entry: Yet every time I’m taken in by those who talk of dedication to ideals, and every time, I have wanted to believe. I went to Cambridge, as I came back to Bath, expecting nothing, yet finding other dedicated souls in places I had not looked before. Perhaps it is the expectations, desire to believe, desperation for drive, which brings the disappointment. Perhaps it is not only drive, not even a little rest, but mostly detachment that helps one fulfill full potential, live up to that long grey line. To be able to report with pride to those who have gone before us that we lived up to our calling.
No, work and determination must play the largest part, along with reflection.

(maybe this is why my fellow JROTC cadet Mahlon called me “overmotivated” all those years ago… I wonder if that’s why Monica and the other kids assumed I was dating my Tanzanian running partner at the DC Army National Guard youth camp, and Dawn thought I was dating my friend Shedrick from the NAI flight camp; wonder if their perceptions have changed over the years, despite little contact;)
Yes, hearing what you want to hear and believing it…
(But it’s hard to say ‘No, you are not being entirely truthful’…)
Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
22 February, 12016 HE

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last speech

(originally posted back on 2007-01-10, and I still agree…)
Dr. King’s Last Speech

<a href=”http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/pwork/0412/041216.htm” title=”Dr. King’s last speech…”>Why Dr. King was really assasinated</a> :

“The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold: We must create full employment, or we must create incomes. Now, our country can do this. John Kenneth Galbraith said that a guaranteed annual income could be done for about twenty billion dollars a year. And I say to you today, that if our nation can spend thirty-five billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God’s children on their own two feet right here on earth.”
…
“I want to say to you as I move to my conclusion, as we talk about “Where do we go from here?” that we must honestly face the fact that the movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. (Yes) There are forty million poor people here, and one day we must ask the question, “Why are there forty million poor people in America?” And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising a question about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. (Yes) And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s marketplace. (Yes) But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. (All right)
Now, when I say questioning the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. (All right) These are the triple evils that are interrelated. … In other words, “Your whole structure (Yes) must be changed.” [applause] A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will “thingify” them and make them things. (Speak) And therefore, they will exploit them and poor people generally economically. (Yes) And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and it will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these problems are tied together.”

Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
19 February, 12016 HE

Ike on war

2006-05-31 12:20:00
A speech on the need for change, and yes, poverty does lead to terrorism (read Dr. Martin Luther King’s last speech)…
“With those kinds of numbers, it doesnÂ´t take a nuclear scientist to figure out a smarter approach to improving our security situation. To quote President Eisenhower, speaking with far-sighted vision in 1953: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies… a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.””

Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
19 February, 12016 HE

Being an American when it hurts

I was just reading the comments of the founder of NVC on reactions in a refugee camp. It struck me that those reactions were the same as the reactions to me in Izmir. When I lived in Izmir, teaching English, one day one of my neighbors saw me walking up the stairs toward our building, and she took my arm (as women often do in Turkey) to walk with me and talk. But her talk was more of a harrangue. She let loose on me about how my government was blaming them for a genocide which they insist did not happen, and that it was all very hypocritical, particularly when the US operates Guantanamo. I was thunderstruck that she would hold me, a person who had left my country of origin to find a job elsewhere, and to whom she could direct this rant only because I was one of the rare expatriats to spend the time and effort to learn Turkish, responsible for the Apology request. So, unfortunately, I responded defensively, pointing out that I personally had nothing to do with my government policies, did not agree with much of those policies, and had not voted for the administration then in power! None of those defensive arguments changed her speech. Now I see that, like the man in the camp, she needed to vent. I wonder if, had I allowed her to vent, simply listening and validating what she needed to say to any random American, would that incident and relationship have ended more positively?

Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
20 March, 12016 HE

BeWelcome, like SERVAS

I just found a group that is much like Servas, which I joined in 2004. They seem to share the same goals of building a more peaceful world through non-violence and meeting others.

http://www.bewelcome.org/blog/create/finish/6549

http://www.bewelcome.org/members/ShiraDest

I am happy to have found BeWelcome, which seems to be in line with the ideas of Non-Violent Communication, and hope to volunteer my time, as soon as I have found a paid position teaching Mathematics!

Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
22 March, 12016 HE