Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

Masking is a Diversity Issue: A Letter to the Dance Community

I am 75 and it has been nearly three years since I’ve been able to dance my beloved West Coast Swing regularly and freely. All of us have lost time and great dances, but when you are 35 or 45, you have time to catch up.

Allow me to establish two points:

1. Covid is out to kill older people:
Out of more than 1,000,000 US Covid deaths between January 2020 and January 2023, over 90% were people over 50. If you just look at people over 65, it is about 75%
2. Vaccinations and boosters help you protect yourself. Masks help protect others.

And it is not just old people who are vulnerable. People with compromised health may also be excluded from maskless dance. Then there are the younger or healthier people who are caretakers for the vulnerable. They don’t want to take risks either.

Why are instructors and event organizers happy to exclude us? Masking should be part of everyone’s diversity toolkit. If your goal is to make West Coast Swing as available as possible to as wide a range of dancers as possible, require masking, at least for the early part of the evening. You may not have noticed, but you’ve lost the income and the company of many vulnerable dancers who are not attending dances. I know this horse has left the barn, but I feel devastated that I have to follow.

I’ve made every effort to keep myself well, but the reality of the statistics hovers over me. I’ve been doing partner dance since the 1960s. I cannot imagine life without dance, but first there has to be life.

Vancouver West Coast Swing Celebrates Pride

Even though my legs are still injured from the ebike assault I suffered a few days ago (see previous blog), there was no way I was going to miss the Vancouver Pride West Coast Swing dance which the organizer, Dalynne Roberts (at left), had invited me to weeks ago. We have been Facebook friends for some time and were looking forward to meeting in real time when it turned out that my vacation overlapped with her event.

The studio belongs to well-known professionals Tessa Cunningham Munroe (at left below) and Myles Munroe. I’ve met these champions pre-Covid at Summer Hummer, a weekend dance event that used to be organized by my former teachers.

I arrived at their gorgeous air-conditioned studio (although it involved a difficult staircase to the second floor) in time to see the end of the special Pride workshop for beginners. What a crowd! The many dozen students totally jammed the beautiful studio with its sprung wooden floor as Dalynne and Tessa taught basic figures.

When social dancing began, I popped a couple of acetaminophens, put my cane aside, and started to dance. There were many contrasts with my home dance base in Boston, but three things stuck out:
1. Myles was the evening’s DJ and he played real swing music – every song had an actual beat.
2. Not a single other dancer questioned why/how/if I was a leader.
3. And finally, and most amazingly, the upper-level dancers danced with everyone. No one seemed to sit out a single dance. It was astonishing to watch the seamless integration of beginners, intermediates, and high-ranking dancers, the mix and match, the enjoyment the better dancers got from encouraging the newbies. Almost all the top dancers asked me to dance. Likewise, many beginners, even people after their first lesson, asked me to dance.

West Coast Swing gives a lot of lip service to the principle of mixed level dancing, but I see very little of it in practice. I have danced in the same room for years without a single dance with those (mostly young) dancers who are coming up the competitive ranks. They don’t even say hello to me, unless they’re at the door taking money, let alone consider dancing with me. Some have even turned down repeated invitations. It’s not personal – although yes, I’m an elder dyke – because every other non-competing but committed dancer I know tells the same story. The exceptions are young, beautiful newcomers – often welcomed warmly by their hetero advanced counterparts. These ambitious dancers colonize the front of the dance floor and dance exclusively with each other. Three-quarters of the floor is left to us plebeians – an area these top dancers never deign to traverse or visit.

Another Boston venue has instituted a fresh, new tradition in which some advanced dancers volunteer to spend the first period of the social dance asking newbies to dance. Alli Reese deserves congratulations for attempting to change the culture and foster cross-level introductions. But many of the advanced dancers have a corner of that space where they congregate all night to emphasize their exclusivity.

Congratulations to Tessa, Myles, and Dalynne for creating such a democratic dance culture, for living up to the principle of cross-level dancing, and for having such a grand Pride dance just when I am visiting Vancouver for the first time! As I have seen throughout my time here, people are simply nice. Especially to strangers.

A Nuclear Family Takes Me Down in Stanley Park, Vancouver

I was taken down and injured by a nuclear family in Stanley Park (Vancouver) this week. Let me set the scene. There is a good reason why, in 2014, “Stanley Park was named ‘top park in the entire world’ by Tripadvisor, based on reviews submitted” (Wiki). It is a magnificent mix of six miles of accessible bike and walking trails, fabulous landscapes, and resources galore. At 20% bigger (1,000+ acres) than NYC’s Central Park. Although it is a peninsula, it also borders on a bunch of Vancouver’s neighborhoods. Rather than being designed by a landscape architect, it evolved organically in response to the natural geography and the peoples’ usage.

Together with Barry and David, I rent an ebike to explore. I had already done a test drive in Boston thanks to the bike shop Wheelworks, and fell totally in love with ebiking and with the thin, small, swift model they provided. However, the rental shops near Stanley Park offer “one-size-fits-all” (and we know whose size that is) step-through ebikes, with handlebars wider than twice my comfortable arm span. As the bike shop person on the phone said, “Our bikes are made for 6’ German men.” Luckily David was able to adjust my seat so that I could be reasonably comfy.

I speed ahead of the two men, who prefer a leisurely pace. It is tourist season so the trail is packed with bikers and ebikers of varied abilities and attitudes. As people pass each other, they say, “On your left” – a seemingly universal method of giving a heads up.

I am about half-way around the trail which follows the waters of Burrard Inlet and English Bay when I sense someone coming up on my right. It is a youngish woman passing me against the rules, and I move slightly to the left to give her room for this rude maneuver. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, her husband has slipped past me on the left, tangling my front wheel and taking me down with the bike on top of me. When I look up, I see that the man has an infant in a little seat on his ebike and all I can feel is grateful that the baby is ok. “You drifted to the left,” hubby says accusatorily. His wife says nothing. Neither of them had made any indication of passing.

Barry and David pull up. They right the ebike and then help me stand. Each of them has a story about being incorrectly passed by this same family before I was. The adrenaline keeps me going for the rest of the 6 miles, but my left knee is sliced and bleeding, I have the start of what will be a half dozen large, ugly bruises on both legs, and both knees are swollen. I am 75 and have opposed the institution of the nuclear family since the late 1960s. I have successfully avoided being part of any nuclear family since I was 17. I did not foresee, in my dotage, that I would be ambushed by one in such enchanting surroundings on such an agreeable trip.

I am dealing with the injuries using a combination of Epsom salt baths (thanks Barry), Arnica cream (thanks Vicki), frozen moist washcloths for icing (thanks former days in Tae Kwon Do), and a cane for walking. I will elaborate on the attractions of Stanley Park when I publish my Vancouver travelogue.

The 10th Anniversary of Boston's LGBTQ Elders of Color

 

My piece in the revived Z Magazine that I wrote for many times in the past. Now revisioned as ZNetwork and online.

 

Read it HERE.

 

 

 

 

AAMARP (African American Master Artists in Residency Program): Incredible talent!

Housed in a large warehouse building, AAMARP is a collective of photographers, artists, and writers who are devoted to representing “the world as seen through the eyes of African-Americans.” A remarkable photographer I follow, Hakim Raquib, had posted about the collective’s latest show, and I went last week to see it.

This working space is full of studios in which artists are actively creating. I met the brilliant photographer Gloretta Baynes Cook, AAMARP Chair Emeritus and both an inspiration to and a pillar of the collective. She was kind to spend over an hour taking my friend and me around the two floors, introducing us to the breathtaking work of multiple artists, including the impressive photographic work of Hakim Raquib. The work of individuals in the group has been widely exhibited. For example, Gloretta and another AAMARP artist, Susan Thompson, have a joint show at JP Licks (Jamaica Plain) right now.

As a very special treat, Gloretta generously took us into her own studio to explain some of the processes she uses in her powerful, hard-hitting photographic creations.

Gloretta also described some of the background to the long-running campaign to hold onto the space, which is owned by Northeastern University. It is a shame that instead of basking in the pride of housing so many insightful and commanding artists of color, Northeastern seems to be more concerned about grabbing back this building.

This outstanding resource is located at 76 Atherton Street in Jamaica Plain, just a block from the Stony Brook T-stop.

Below are two images by Hakim Raquib on display.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Review: “American Sirens” by Kevin Hazzard

American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America's First Paramedics (2022) by Kevin Hazzard is the inspirational story of the invention of street medicine, of medically-equipped ambulances, and of the profession of EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians). What made this history especially resonant for me is that this medicine-changing first initiative took place in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, home of playwright August Wilson, the jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams, the Negro League’s Pittsburgh Crawfords baseball team, and me in my early years.

The idea of creating an ambulance service in an area of town where the police and fire departments’ makeshift “ambulances” wouldn’t go to because of racism, was the brain-child of an acclaimed white Austrian immigrant, a Holocaust survivor, Dr. Peter Safar, an anesthesiologist. He was opposed by the other first responders, who had at most six hours of first-aid training and basically just gave a rough ride but no life-saving care to those in need, and by the local Pittsburgh government, particularly the white mayor Peter Flaherty, a nasty, racist piece of work.

Dr. Safar connected with the local activist non-profit Freedom House and they scraped together a way forward, recruited often uneducated, unemployed, sometimes unmotivated, but ultimately brilliant Black men from the community, and put them through the most rigorous medical and social training imaginable. Twenty-four men graduated. From their first calls during the uprising after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the Freedom House service was a huge success from every point of view – except financially.

Their initial funding came from President Johnson’s job creation funds, but once Nixon came into office, that all dried up. A young white doctor, Nancy Caroline, took over the training of the medics and the running of the service with a fierce determination that kept them afloat until their betrayal by Pittsburgh’s politicians and police. She ended up writing the EMT textbook that would be used for many generations of students.

The author, a former paramedic himself, has researched this slice of progress and its roadblocks with remarkable detail, following certain of the players from start to end. It reads more like an action script, with valiant medics performing beyond their own expectations and the imaginations of all who were offended that Black people were spearheading an amazing new service.

For those with a connection to Pittsburgh, most especially the Hill District, you may feel, as I did, a special thrill to read of the familiar streets and institutions, to learn of yet another amazing moment in Pittsburgh’s hidden – or repressed - history. This non-fiction book has it all: challenges overcome, fascinating characters, heroes and villains, and adrenaline-fueled action from start to finish.

Postscript: In researching photographs, I discovered this 2023 Pittsburgh PBS program on the Freedom House ambulance service.

Photographer Hakim Raquib: YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW

If you are anywhere near Boston before January 30, bust your ass getting to the Midway Gallery (15 Channel Center Street, Boston MA 02210, everyday 8AM-8PM) to see the exhibition of Hakim Raquib. Titled YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW, it includes selected works of this sensational photographer, spanning 50 years. Luckily it’s run has been extended until January 30, so you have time to rush there. You can thank me later.

Hakim Raquib’s sublime Egyptian landscapes blew me away. I once spent two weeks on a camel tour of the Sinai desert and viewing his desert work was like returning there in emotional technicolor. His compelling manipulated images flashing back to the Civil Rights Freedom Riders, to the Black Panthers, to Spike Lee, moved me, reviving my own memories of that period. Click here to view his project on Winter.

As Michael Thierry, a senior art Director, said on Raquib’s Linked-In page, “Hakim is an amazing photographer of a scale beyond imagining. His work transcends and transforms the viewer.” I fully agree.

 

P.S. I took these photos myself, so they don't do the work justice!

BOOK REVIEW: Never Be Afraid: A Belgian Jew in the French Resistance

Never Be Afraid: A Belgian Jew in the French Resistance recounts Bernard Mednicki’s intricate memories of his courageous life history. Ken Wachsberger - author/editor/book coach extraordinaire - brings us this man’s unique narrative. “It’s his story, but I wrote it,” Wachsberger explains, clearly a feat of close listening and empathetic understanding.

From Mednicki's childhood, when his father moves the family to Belgium to escape the Russian pogroms through his marriage, his decision to pass as Christian after Hitler’s invasion of Belgium, his work with the French Resistance, and his arrival in 1947 to America (with its dramatic twist), Mednicki shares his emotion, describes the painful roadblocks, and discloses every clever survival scheme.

In Volvic, France, the description of the rats in the stable where Mednicki had to house his family caused me a sleepless night. The efforts he made to protect his sick son tore at my heart. But the tale of turning a porcupine into a rabbit and that into a rooster was a riot.

Fundamentally, this is a story of resistance which serves as a negation of the myth that Jews went to their death like lambs to the slaughter. Mednicki joined the French Resistance, spending his first night as a fighter with a group of men and women, hidden from the Nazis on top of a mountain. He managed to balance his two constant struggles: to keep his family and himself fed and to fight against the Nazis.

This is the Third Edition of this volume, a book that wants to continue to live, much like its hero Bernard Mednicki. Wachsberger is the respected writer/editor who brought it into life and who continues to nurture it, knowing that within these pages is an unusually textured picture of one Jew’s experience of facing down the fascism that defined the 20th Century. In a time when Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism are sky-rocketing, this is a reminder of why we need to start now to fight the good fight.

The Kennedy Assassination Changed Us and Changed TV

I must have been 16 on Friday, November 22, 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated. At school we were brought into the auditorium for the announcement and students and teachers alike sobbed. I cannot imagine a political figure today who could engender such a national tender reaction to their violent death (except perhaps Obama?).

Parents left work; we were sent home from school; and everyone was glued to their tvs. The Kennedys were so young and exciting compared to their predecessors Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower. They brought color and hope and style into the White House for the first time in living memory. There are parallels with the Obamas. Barack brought Blackness to the Presidency; Jack brought Catholicism, which at the time was a major breakthrough. As I made my way home from school, I saw children and adults alike crying. It was intense.

At home my parents set up the card table in the living room where we had quick meals - like hot dogs - that didn't require much time away from the television. A dazed and blood-splattered Jackie stood beside Lyndon Johnson, at his insistence, when he was sworn in as President a few hours later aboard Air Force One.

On Sunday, as Lee Harvey Oswald was being transferred from the city jail to the county jail, I saw Jack Ruby kill Lee Harvey Oswald live on tv. For all those who watched January 6th unfold live, you probably have a sense of the shock it provoked. But Ruby’s attack may have been the first act of fatal violence ever broadcast on television. It changed the way news was delivered. As a Pew Research report noted:

The nation collectively tuned in to non-stop coverage that pioneered a new form of wall-to-wall television news delivery. Veteran CBS newsman Bob Schieffer told Reuters, “The Kennedy assassination became the template for coverage,” while Newseum official Patty Rhule called it the moment when “America became a TV nation.”

It would be the start of a series of high-profile assassinations that would rock my world in the 1960s: Chaney, Goodman, & Schwerner (Freedom Summer) in 1964; Malcolm X in 1965; Che Guevara in 1967; Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy in 1968; Fred Hampton in 1969.

Here you can see what we saw when Ruby shot Oswald.

 

Duh, MIT. You just discovered that it’s a man’s world

As I was getting out of my morning shower, NPR radio announced that MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology – one of the most prestigious universities in the country) had discovered, after exhausting research, that: “overall, the [surgical] masks fit women’s faces much less closely than they fit men’s faces.”

Instead of just asking any woman whosoever, they have developed a “sensor, which measures physical contact between the mask and the wearer’s face,” and have concluded “that the masks that we use in daily life are not very suitable for female participants.” This is headline news? I remember the happy moment that my best friend found a KN94 mask that came in small, medium, and large. I now have a stock of many dozens of mediums and they keep me safe. Up until then, fully aware that other masks did not properly fit, I double masked.

Very little that we use in daily life is suitable to women. It took me two years to find a swivel chair small enough that my feet touched the ground when my own back was touching the back of the chair. There are few upper cabinets in my apartment that I can reach without climbing a step stool, not really the smartest move for elders. I once stayed at an Airbnb in which the entire bathroom mirror was higher than my head. Those kitchen islands with the high bar stools? I can’t reach the foot bar where others rest their feet – mine remain dangling. American packaging is impossible to open without major muscle. Perhaps most annoying of all is that women’s clothing rarely has meaningful pockets.

One of the scariest results of design built around the male body is the disaster known as air bags, which seem to injure as many women as they save.

You can probably add a thousand additional examples, and feel free to do so in the comments. And yes, I know that some women are taller than most men and some men are shorter than most women. Yeah, yeah. But let’s get real.

Without hiring women designers, men will not get it right. It’s like that facial recognition software that doesn’t work on Black people. How many people of color do you think were hired for that development team? As long as all of us are not included on the ground floor, we’re going to have situations like this. How many women died of Covid because they couldn’t locate a properly fitting mask in the first years of the pandemic? I would call this violence against women by design.

100 words on my 75th birthday & a nude photo

No, I don’t look back. I look forward, a bit frantically, squinting as the light at the end of the tunnel grows brighter. Based on my parents’ deaths, I give myself until 85. I have so much to do: books to finish and write, wrongs to right, asses to kick, capitalism to defeat, dances to lead, and health to hold steady -- all hard to do as mortality closes in on me. Plus, I need hugs with friends in far countries. You tell me: Have I changed much since I was 22, sitting in a window frame, tripping on acid?