SEPTEMBER
Last May, over 100 area youths participated in a roundtable discussion about race and created a list of things they wanted adults to consider when they discuss the subject at today’s intergenerational Racism Explained conference. A video of that roundtable will be shown at the conference, which includes a panel discussion, small group sessions, a poetry reading, and a resource fair. The panelists include author and law professor Patricia Williams, In These Times senior editor Salim Muwakkil, author David Mura, poet Martin Espada, and school reform activist and UIC professor of education Bill Ayers. Registration starts at 8:30 AM and the conference begins at 9 (and runs until 2) at the Field Museum, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. It’s $20, which includes a copy of Tahar Ben Jelloun’s book Racism Explained to My Daughter, which features essays by Ayers, Mura, and Williams, among others. Admission to just the poetry reading (at noon, with Espada and Mura) is $10. Call 312-665-7400 for more information.
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When a Native American burial ground in New Lenox was dug up in 1994 to build a golf course, some people vowed “never again.” They formed SOARRING, a Naperville-based organization that protects sacred sites and works for the return of ancestral remains appropriated by museums, government agencies, and private collectors. SOARRING’s annual Harvest Powwow, it’s primary fund-raiser, features the Chicago-based Aztec dance group Nahui Ollin, along with storytelling and craft demonstrations. The powwow runs from 11 to 10 today (Nahui Ollin performs at 5) and 11:30 to 5 Sunday at the picnic grounds of the Immanuel Lutheran Church, 10731 W. La Porte Road in Mokena. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for children over six and seniors. Weekend passes are $8 for adults, $5 for seniors and kids. Bring your own lawn chairs and tepees. Call 630-961-9323 for information and directions.
Homework doesn’t give students an academic advantage, say Etta Kralovec and John Buell in their new book The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning. Rather, they say, it takes away from playtime (when children develop social skills), prepares students to become corporate stooges, and deepens class divisions. “Homework takes time, space, study aids, and very particular academic skills, resources that are by no means equally distributed across American communities,” they write. Kralovec will discuss the book tonight at 5 at Women & Children First Bookstore, 5233 N. Clark, Chicago (773-769-9299). It’s free.
Authors such as Oscar Wilde and E.M. Forster never directly addressed homosexuality in their writing. “Gertrude Stein even veiled her stuff. If you were in any way astute you’d pick it up, but not if you didn’t know what to look for,” says Angel Ysaguirre, director of community programs at the Illinois Humanities Council and instructor of the seminar From Wilde to Winterson: Gay-Themed Literature of the Twentieth Century. These days, says Ysaguirre, “writers are certainly more open about writing about what I call the gay event–whether it means falling in love or it means sex.” His reading list also includes work by James Baldwin, Alice Walker, William Faulkner, and Sherman Alexie. The first class is tonight from 5:45 to 7:45, and the seminar continues each Tuesday through November 7 at the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton, Chicago. Tuition is $130; to register call 312-255-3700.
