by Susan Fried
Sounds of cheering rose from the crowd as people lined up to drop their ballots into the ballot box by Garfield Community Center on Saturday, October 24. A group of about 100 people had marched from Pratt Fine Arts Center near 20th and Jackson to the ballot box on 23rd and Cherry to honor the memory of Rahwa Habte, a community organizer and a fierce advocate of voter rights.
Continue reading Rahwa Habte Memorial March to the Ballot Boxby Bri Little
Skye Dior is ready for stardom, and she’s not just waiting around for it to come to her. She’s starting earlier than most: the 8-year-old South Seattle recording artist recently released a video for her pop banger “Clap,” and before the pandemic, was performing with other Seattle greats — such as Rell B. Free — and planning a tour.
Continue reading Young Seattle Rapper Skye Dior Is on the Riseby Beverly Aarons
Rat City Records & Relics — gone. Cow Chip Cookies — gone. The famous downtown Elephant Car Wash — also gone. If you just arrived in the Emerald City, you can be forgiven for not noticing that Seattle’s cultural and business landscape has been … terraformed. Yes, I know the old saying: “The only constant in life is change.” But what happens to a city when the places where people gather, connect, and build community disappear? What happens to a city’s soul when locally owned and quirky is replaced by corporate-owned and … well, boring? Since 2018, Vanishing Seattle filmmakers Cynthia Brothers and Martin Tran have been documenting Seattle’s rapid transformation in a six-film series, so they’re intimately acquainted with the city’s metamorphosis. I had the opportunity to speak with them about how the city has changed, why they’re documenting disappearing places, and how they’ve been personally impacted by it all.
Continue reading Seattle Isn’t Dead But it Is Vanishing: A Conversation With Vanishing Seattle Filmmakersby Pari McDonald, Ana McDonald, Marina Rojas, and Chiara Zanatta-Kline
(This article originally appeared on the South End Stories Youth Blog.)
The voices of those who are furthest from opportunity, who are actively being suppressed and kept from voting, must be heard, especially during this election. Ana (18), Pari (15), and Cymran (13) McDonald decided they wanted to do something about creating easy, accessible ways for the communities that they love and who have lifted them up in life, to register to vote. The sisters worked with young adults Chiara and Marina to build Mini Voter Registration Boxes for areas where QT/BIPOC voters may have difficulty printing voter registration forms or may not be able to easily get stamps or envelopes, especially during COVID. The girls also wanted to ensure that young voters were easily able to access voter registration by providing texting and QR codes to register online. Boxes were placed in the Central District, New Holly, White Center, High Point, Renton, Federal Way, and Tacoma.
Continue reading OPINION: Let’s Go VoteThe Morning Update Show — hosted by Trae Holiday and The Big O (Omari Salisbury) — is the only weekday news and information livestream that delivers culturally relevant content to the Pacific Northwest’s urban audience. Omari and Trae analyze the day’s local and national headlines as well as melanin magic in our community. Watch live every weekday at 11 a.m. on any of the following channels, hosted by Converge Media: YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Periscope, and whereweconverge.com.
We’ll also post the Morning Update Show here on the Emerald each day after it airs, so you can catch up any time of day while you peruse our latest posts.
Today on the Morning Update Show:
150 days of Seattle Protests; Cannabis in the Black Community Recap; Sean Goode of Choose 180; Luis Rodriguez of The Station; Ayron Jones cracks Billboard Top 10; and 59 Million People Have Voted.
by Erica C. Barnett
(This article was originally published by PubliCola and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
Foreshadowing what will likely be a heated debate over Mayor Jenny Durkan’s plan to wall off $100 million in the city budget for future “investments in BIPOC communities” that will be decided by an Equitable Investment Task Force appointed by the mayor, Seattle City Council central staff released an unusually blunt memo last week cataloguing potential issues with the mayor’s plan.
The memo raises two high-level issues with Durkan’s proposal. First, according to the staffers, it duplicates work that the City has already done, perpetuating the City’s practice of asking members of marginalized communities to provide recommendations again and again without ever taking action on those recommendations.
Continue reading Council Staff: Mayor’s Proposals Could Promote “Racism Cloaked in the Language of Anti-Racism and Equity”by Ronnie Estoque
On Saturday, Vietnamese Americans for Biden (VAB) held a march and rally to galvanize the local community to cast their ballot for Biden in the upcoming election. The rally began with supporters congregating at Othello Park, with supporters eventually making their way to New Holly to submit their ballots. Above Othello Park, an airplane flew overhead displaying a Trump 2020 banner.
Continue reading Vietnamese Americans for Biden March Fueled by Trump Rally Assault at King Plazaby Ben Adlin
Need an excuse to splurge on something delicious? A reimagined version of Seattle Restaurant Week opens this weekend and offers more options than ever, including an assortment of independent eateries in the South End.
The twice-annual festival kicked off Sunday and — contrary what its name might suggest — spans almost an entire month. Between now and Nov. 21, participating restaurants will offer special meals at two different price points: $20 for lunch or $35 for dinner.
Continue reading Seattle Restaurant Week Spotlights South End’s Global Cuisineby Sean Goode
As a child, my family was always on the move — 12 different homes in 12 years of school. It was always something: hiding from my abusive father, getting evicted, or that time we owned a house and the bank foreclosed on it. I learned many lessons while constantly acclimating myself to new spaces. The most valuable of them is that nothing lasts forever. The transient nature of my upbringing gave me terrific respect for the miracle of each day and a faith that has allowed me to unapologetically hold on to a hope for a better tomorrow.
Continue reading OPINION: The World We Need Must be Built by Community Not Courtroomsby Kevin Schofield
In this column, I’ll be giving you pointers to some of the most interesting articles and studies I’ve recently come across. I’ll be aiming for things that are “less than a book, but more than a newspaper article” — readings that are a bit of a mental workout to take in but that expand our perspectives and make us better informed in our daily lives. I’ll also try to pick items that share the joy of reading outside your area of expertise: articles not so technical and arcane that they are incomprehensible but that still give us a glimpse of how experts think about work in their own field.
Continue reading Weekend Long Reads: Remdesivir Is No Wonder Drug
