Mission Mission

Without the Internet:

1. There wouldn’t be so many white people in the Mission trying to gentrify the festivities
2. The absence of white people gentrifying things in the Mission would negate the need for the politicization of formerly stoic, spiritual, neighborhood traditions

Burn the Internet!

[Photo by Rusty Hodge]

A number of readers pointed us to local writer/performer/mom/activist Aya de Leon‘s blog post titled “Dear White People/Queridos Gringos: You Want Our Culture But You Don’t Want Us – Stop Colonizing The Day Of The Dead”:

Dear White People (or should I say Queridos Gringos/Gabachos),

Let me begin by saying it is completely natural that you would find yourself attracted to The Day of The Dead. This indigenous holiday from Mexico celebrates the loving connection between the living and our departed loved ones that is so deeply missing in Western culture. Who wouldn’t feel moved by intricately and lovingly built altars, beautifully painted skull faces, waterfalls of marigold flowers, fragrant sweet breads and delicious meals for those whom we miss sharing our earthly lives. I understand. Many cultures from around the world celebrate these things, and many of them at this time of year. As a woman whose Latin@ heritage is Puerto Rican, I have grown up in California, seeing this ritual all my life and feeling the ancestral kinship to this reverent, prayerful honoring of the departed.

Let me continue by saying that it is completely natural that you would want to participate in celebrating The Day of The Dead. You, like all human beings, have lineage, ancestors, departed family members. You have skulls under the skin of your own faces, bones beneath your flesh. Like all mortals, you seek ways to understand death, to befriend it, and celebrate it in the context of celebrating life and love.

I understand.

And in the tradition of indigenous peoples, Chican@ and Mexican-American communities have not told you not to come, not to join, not to celebrate your dead alongside them. In the tradition of indigenous peoples and of ceremony, you, in your own grief and missing your loved ones have not been turned away. You arrived at the Dia De Los Muertos ceremony shipwrecked, a refugee from a culture that suppresses grief, hides death, banishes it, celebrates it only in the most morbid ways—horror movies, violent television—death is dehumanized, without loving connection, without ceremony. You arrived at El Dia De Los Muertos like a Pilgrim, starving, unequal to survival in the land of grief, and the indigenous ceremonies fed you and took you in and revived you and made a place for you at the table.

And what have you done?

Like the Pilgrims, you have begun to take over, to gentrify and colonize this holiday for yourselves. I was shocked this year to find Day of the Dead events in my native Oakland Bay Area not only that were not organized by Chican@s or Mexican@s or Latin@s, but events with zero Latin@ artists participating, involved, consulted, paid, recognized, acknowledged, prayed with.

Certain announcements of some of this year’s celebrations conjured visions of hipsters drinking special holiday microbrews and listening to live music by white bands and eating white food in calavera facepaint and broken trails of marigolds. Don’t bother to build an altar because your celebration is an altar of death, a ceremony of killing culture by appropriation. Do you really not know how to sit at the table? To say thank you? To be a gracious guest?

Read on for more on the politics of it all, and how Halloween used to be spiritual before white people let it get commercialized.

[Photo by Rusty Hodge]

Reader M. McDonell wrote in with this essay about this year’s event:

Walking with the Dia de los Muertos procession in 2011 was one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had in San Francisco. I came upon the slow-moving crowd by accident and was transfixed by the solemn, beautiful spectacle. Abashed that I didn’t have a candle or a painted face, I nonetheless felt welcomed.

The walk was surreal; the familiar street made strange by the lack of noisy traffic, and my neighbors by their elaborate makeup.

When we arrived at Garfield Park, I wandered among the alters, near to tears thanks to beautiful and sad tributes to friends and relatives. I contemplated what I might do to celebrate my grandmothers and grandfathers.

The event’s goal is to help us “contemplate our existence and mortality — a moment to remember deceased friends and family, and our connections beyond our immediate concerns.” And, wow, for me, this happened. Rarely do events live up to their promise; this one went far beyond.

Fast forward to 2014. Circumstances have kept me away from Dia de los Muertos for several years, but this year I was ready to go back, and I invited my brother and sister in law and their kids to come up for it as well. I warned him: it is beautiful, sad and maybe a little scary. Do you think the kids will be up for it? He said yes.

We painted our faces, stowed candles in our pockets, and headed down Harrison. First stop, Garfield park. The alters were sparse this year and I could see that my relatives weren’t coming face to face with their own mortality. Maybe the procession would get us into a more appropriate headspace.

We planned to meet up with the procession at 24th and Bryant, but it seemed to be running ahead of schedule. We walked down 24th and were told to “get back, get out of the way,” as a police escort cleared the street for a Native American dancers. Thus, we became (and stayed) spectators rather than participants. The people I expected to see–my friends and neighbors gorgeously dressed to celebrate their ancestors–were bookended by political activists. It’s an election year and oversized versions of the fliers I’ve been recycling for the last month were being waved around on sticks. Add in a dash of “no development,” and “no evictions,” the vague save the Mission sentiments, and the procession went from a solemn contemplation of life and death to a political rally. And a loud one at that. Drums beat, bands played.

My sister-in-law turned to me and said, “This is like Mardi Gras!” No, I wanted to say, it is nothing like that, but I couldn’t deny the circus going on around us.

San Francisco, can’t we have nice things? Can’t we have a themed event without everyone bringing the ax they have to grind? The political posters were inappropriate and disrespectful. The goal of the festival bears repeating:

To “contemplate our existence and mortality — a moment to remember deceased friends and family, and our connections beyond our immediate concerns.”

I was hoping the evening would be a chance to take a moment and reflect and pay my respects. Three of my friends lost their fathers this year. Instead, a “Yes on H” poster distracted me from my reverie. Okay, you got me. What is H? Something to do with graveyards? Time off work to attend funerals?

As soon as I got home, I looked it up. Prop H would require “certain Golden Gate Park athletic fields to be kept as grass with no artificial lighting.”

Sigh.

San Francisco, I know you have a lot to say, but take a deep breath and look around. Maybe now isn’t the right time for your pitch. Maybe this isn’t your parade. Set down the sign, pick up a candle, and help the planners of Dia de los Muertos realize their goal. We can talk about fake grass tomorrow.

Thanks, M.

[Photo by Rusty Hodge]

Katie & Brittany sat down with Eric Reid, who is starting a new theater company aimed at providing meaningful roles for people of color. Which is awesome. SF has a real diversity problem. Specifically, the African American population is disappearing. And there is far too little effort being made to address this. Eric missed a World Series game to talk with them, so the least you could do is look at his flyer (below), which is also awesome. Here’s their report:

A press release came across our inbox about a new-to-us theater company called Theatre Madcap that was doing a “deliberately diverse” production of True West. Even though we knew we couldn’t make the show to review it, we were intrigued. So we asked the Co-Founder and Artistic Director, Eric Reid, to coffee to tell us about his company and his show.

Katie: Tell us about Theatre Madcap.

Eric: We started it, my wife and I that is, about 2 and a half years ago. We started it really because as a black actor I’m frustrated that I can’t find a lot of roles for myself, or If I’m auditioning for something it’s always “ethnicity ambiguous” roles, nothing really for black folks or persons of color at all. So I thought if it’s going to be hard to be in theater, I might as well do it myself and struggle for moi.

Brittany: What have you been working on so far?

(more…)

Capp Street Crap reports, in a post titled “I’ll drink to this: Uptown’s employees are buying the bar”:

Some good things are meant to last, even in the Mission in 2014.

After months of uncertainty following the death of owner Scott Ellsworth, Uptown’s bartenders are about to finalize a deal to buy the beloved Mission dive bar. Uptown bartender Shae Green said she, the five other bar employees and one of Ellsworth’s good friends, have just a few legal loose ends to tie up with Ellsworth’s siblings before the bar is theirs.

According to Green, Ellsworth’s sister in Colorado, Pam Stutheit, made it happen.

“She wanted to keep the bar open to honor Scott, a community center for folks,” she said.

Luckily, the soon-to-be owners are also on good terms with the landlord and are taking over the lease, which has four more years on it, with an option of renewing for an additional five years.

News of Uptown’s purchase is a bright spot in what lately has felt like a sea of disappointment.

Read on for more news and photos.

[Photo by Capp Street Crap]

[via Gray Powell]

THREE ANDREW W.K.'S SINGING KARAOKE 🙌 I CAN NOW DIE HAPPY

A video posted by Therese (@omgdannydevito) on Nov 11, 2014 at 3:33pm PDT

While perusing the CMJ best-of lists from the past week, I discovered this fun duo from LA. They’re called Girlpool and they play cool songs filled with constant harmonies and straight-forward lyrics. Looks like they played Brick and Mortar earlier in October, so hopefully they’ll be back soon. They’re also releasing an EP on Nov 18. For now, you can hear two of their songs on their bandcamp page from their split with Philly/LA-based Slutever.