During the 2020 protests against police brutality and amid a global pandemic, local businesses across the city shut their doors down and put up boards to cover their storefronts. The uncertain times gave light to many local artists who decided to use their time and talents to transform boarded-up storefronts with murals. Located on Rainier Avenue, Paradice Avenue Souf, a burgeoning youth-centered Black and Brown artist collective, chose to create a mural to show the importance of multiracial solidarity during times of social unrest. Through a collaboration with the Wing Luke Museum (WLM), their Black and Brown Solidarity mural alongside other art pieces and installations are showcased in their exhibit called “BACK HOME.”
On Monday afternoon, Oct. 24, KUOW’s unionized staff held an informational picket outside the KUOW studios, emphasizing the importance of livable wages for all KUOW positions in a new contract. The action received a large response via social media from KUOW listeners vocally expressing their own support. The KUOW union is represented by SAG-AFTRA, which represents approximately 160,000 media and entertainment professionals.
Pongo Poetry Project’s mission is to engage youth in writing poetry to inspire healing and growth. For over 20 years, Pongo has mentored poetry with youth at the Clark Children & Family Justice Center (CCFJC), King County’s juvenile detention facility.
Many CCFJC residents are Youth of Color who have endured traumatic experiences in the form of abuse, neglect, and exposure to violence. These incidents have been caused and exacerbated by community disinvestment, systemic racism, and other forms of institutional oppression. In collaboration with CCFJC staff, Pongo poetry writing offers CCFJC youth a vehicle for self-discovery and creative expression that inspires recovery and healing.
Through this special bimonthly column in partnership with the South Seattle Emerald, Pongo invites readers to bear witness to the pain, resilience, and creative capacity of youth whose voices and perspectives are too often relegated to the periphery. To learn more about Pongo’s work, join its GiveBig campaign today.
Red Black Orange Teal
by a young person, age 18
My first mask is red red, my favorite color I always liked it when I was a kid Red is like anger like my attitude most of the time on the outside at least On the inside is everything else how smart I am I guess… ʼcause I don’t go to school anymore not since COVID started but it was easy
Two plays from Black, queer playwrights are as relevant now as ever before
by Victor Simoes
The Williams Project, a Beacon Hill-based theater company that challenges the classic economic model of theater, prepares to open the 2022–2023 season centered around Black, queer writers with the first-ever production of James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner in Seattle.
Growing up in a rural area, as I did, one learns that a regular rite of summer is bugs getting smashed on your car windshield. There’s the odd one here and there, and then occasionally when driving by a field a swarm will cross the road and … well, it’s pretty disgusting. But over the past couple of decades, many people have started to notice that there don’t seem to be nearly as many flying insects as there used to be. At the same time, scientists have been gathering data that seems to confirm the phenomenon: Insect populations are in decline in many parts of the world.
Seattle Restaurant Week (SRW) is the city’s largest biannual dining promotion celebrating our local restaurant industry and diverse culinary communities. Taking place in the spring and fall, SRW typically features over 200 restaurants, pop-ups, food trucks, caterers, and other small food vendors, all with special curated menus, often at varying price points (from $20 all the way up to $65). Menus feature some of their most popular dishes or some best-kept secrets.
The 2023 Seattle Solidarity Budget’s focus this year is a “Budget to Live, Budget to Thrive.”Self-described as “a collective call toward a city budget that centers the needs of the most marginalized and vulnerable Seattle residents,” the Solidarity Budget coalition formed after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Their proposed budget for 2023 was intentionally released in September 2022, one week prior to Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed budget for the City of Seattle.
