The President, the Professor and the Police Officer

According to Yahoo News, yesterday's meeting between the President, Professor Henry Louis Gates and Police Sgt. Josheph Crowly ended in the men agreeing to move forward and focus on the future. The public has been shocked by the President's original response to the situation. Others were hoping for more discussion on race relations. Vesla Weaver, UVA professor and former intern of the Southern Poverty Law Center located in Montgomery, AL, comments that she does not blame the President for not pushing the "race" issue forward. What do you think?

See more about the meeting http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_harvard_scholar.

Birmingham's Southside

I have been hanging out on Birmingham's Southside since I was 11. I attended Ramsay High School which is a few blocks from Five Points South. I also attended John Carroll High School which was on Highland Avenue. When I returned home from UVA, I worked at UAB. So most of my academic and professional life were spent on the Southside.

There weren't any national coffee chains back then. There was a convenience store where Ruby Tuesday's sits. There was a different fountain in front of the Greek Orthodox Church. If we were heading downtown, it meant that we had crossed from south to north.

So when did the Southside become part of downtown? Was it always part of the downtown area? Several organizations will ask, "Would you like our "south of town" or "downtown" location?" When I look at the address of the "downtown" location, it is on the Southside.

When I volunteered for ONB, I recall hearing the term "City Center" to describe the Civic Center to Vulcan as the northern and southern borders. So am I alone in wondering when the Southside became part of downtown Birmingham?

Searching for Tea in Birmingham

A friend shared a post about Taiwan's tea industry. I LOVE tea. I am always looking for local places with diverse tea selections. Safari Cup is the top spot for me to find tea. Tea selections represent the far corners of the earth. One of my friends and I even attended "High Tea" which consists of a variety of teas and pastries.

Where is your favorite spot for tea in Birmingham?

Also see, Heavnly Tea in Chinatown.

A Taste of Germany in Downtown Birmingham

Looking for something to do on Friday? Join the Alabama-Germany Partnership for Stammtisch on Friday, July 31, 2009 at the FDSK - German Club 2318 2nd Avenue North 5:30 p.m. According to the AGP website, the Birmingham Stammtisch is an opportunity for networking with friends.

For more information visit the AGP website at http://www.alabamagermany.org.

Southern Winery

In a previous post, I wrote about attending a Japanese festival at Morgan Creek Winery in Harpersville. If you are a Birminghamian, you may have passed through Harpersville on the way to Rickwood Caverns, Still Waters Resort or to an Auburn game. I have been to a friend’s stable and to a wedding in Harpersville. I even saw a rainbow once.

So, is anyone still thinking to themselves, “A vineyard in Alabama? The Grapes of Wrath did not include Alabama to my knowledge. Nothing surprises me ever since I escaped from Buggy Top Cave in Tennessee and ended up in the only winery in Tennessee in the ‘90’s, but I digress. Perhaps I will share that story on another blog.

Anyway, what is southern about winemaking? I was accompanied by a friend from Minnesota by way of Chicago. As we were tasting wine, she asked, “What are muscadines?” Almost every wine was made from muscadines. I shared that they are grapes grown in the southeastern region of the country. The southern experience wasn’t soley based upon muscadine based wines or the use of familiar central Alabama images such as Vulcan and Red Mountain. The finale included a peach wine made from peaches harvested right here in Alabama.

Birmingham Sister City Trip to Senegal

Did you know that Birmingham has a Sister City in Senegal? Our Sister City, Guediawaye, is located outside of Dakar.

I was reminded of our trip to the slave castle on Goree Island when I saw the Obama family in Ghana. Birmingham residents traveled to Senegal with the intent to make connections between cultural, educational, political, and corporate institutions.

Attached are a few of our pics.

Harpersville Winery Host to Japanese Festival

As we drove to Morgan Creek Winery for Natsu Matsuri, I was thinking of my childhood in Northern California. If you visited us, you had to go to the wine country. When friends visit me in Alabama, the southern experience doesn't usually include wine tasting or sake. However, the drive to Harpersville got us out of the hustle and bustle of the city. As we approached the winery, I immediately began to feel relaxed.

I also began to think about my parents. They were young Alabamians on a mission per the U.S. Army to Japan in the ‘60’s. They immersed themselves into Japanese culture. I was thinking of all the Japanese families that have immersed themselves into U.S. American—Alabama culture.

The festival, which was sponsored by the Japan-America Society of Alabama, featured traditional and contemporary Japanese entertainment. Foods were a blend of traditional U.S. carnival foods such as popcorn, cotton candy, snow cones and Japanese food. One could choose between sake and/or wine tasting. The festival organizers also arranged for Bento boxes ala Sekisui restaurant in Vestavia.

Japanese Language House

After watching "Black in America" on CNN last night, I thought about a local hero by the name of Tracie Todd who is teaching Birmingham children Japanese. She spends EVERY Saturday with them. With the help of New Pilgrim Baptist Church and the Birmingham Sister City Commission, she started the "Japanese Language House."

She was so moved by the response from kids and parents that she ended up taking on more than 30 kids. She needs volunteers and funds. Contact Tracie at ttodd3@law.ua.edu.

Soul Food in Japan, India, and the Middle East?

I may have mentioned in a previous post that the president of the UAB International Student Association and the graduate student association president converged upon my office in October 1990. They were both from India. They had read that I had a background in international relations. My position at UAB did not have direct responsibilities regarding international students, but any student who paid student service fees was a constituent.

We quickly developed a friendship. I hung out at the international house and frequented ISA (now the ISSA) events. One day some of the international students asked, "Bettina, when are you going to take us to a soul food restaurant?"

I had to think about it. My grandparents, mother and five great aunts lived in Alabama. Between their homes and my friends' mothers, I had NEVER eaten soul food at a restaurant. Plus, I lived my first 11 years out of the south so I was accustomed to eating soul food on special occassions and holidays. Sure. There were places that cooked southern food, but not what I call "hardcore" soul food dishes like chitterlings (pronounced chitllins) and other pork scraps, ox tails...My secretary told me to take the students to Family Reunion in West End.

Well, I get lost in Mountain Brook and West End. Birmingham and many surrounding communities are based upon a grid pattern. Those two communities are more complex. I had to get a navigator, my husband, to make sure I did not get lost.

When we got to Family Reunion, I ordered several dishes for the students including: chittlins, ox tails, neck bones, greens, candied yams, okra and I can't remember the rest. My husband and I ordered fish. We started off with a conversation about hot sauce and pepper sauce. One of the students had put pepper sauce on his chitllins and hot sauce on his greens. I would remember this incident when I traveled to Japan and my polite Japanese host family screamed, "no" as I covered my rice with soy sauce. Anyway, we shared that hot sauce was for the meat and pepper sauce for the greens.

Eventually, the students noticed that my husband and I were eating fish. They asked why we weren't eating the items we had ordered for them. I shared that I wasn't sure if they would like soul food so I didn't want to ask my relatives to cook for us due to the fact that most of the foods are labor intensive. However, both my husband and I were raised not to eat certain foods out unless we knew the cook and the condition of the kitchen. However, I didn't want to disappoint them and I had gotten really good references on this particular restaurant.

It didn't seem to matter to my Indian, Japanese, Middle Eastern and Western European students. They were excited to be in a predominately African American city and actually learning about African American culture. They also found commonalities. The Indian students taught me about bhindi masala (an okra based dish) and a Japanese student taught me about fried pig intestines. From that point on, the students made regular trips to Family Reunion.

Anytown, Anytown

Last night I had an unexpected encounter. Almost everyone in the room had an association with Anytown Alabama. Anytown is a prejudice reduction camp for high school students that was sponsored by the National Conference for Community and Justice. Most states had an Anytown, Metrotown or some version of the camp. Now that the NCCJ national office in New York is defunct and a number of other factors, the Birmingham office had to close its doors.

I have had an instant connection with people that were associated with Anytown. Anytown organizers were intentional in putting classes together of people from different races, faiths, ethnic groups, socioeconomic backgrounds and different parts of the state. It involved an intense week of delving into their souls and developing a lifelong bond with people who started as strangers.

So how can I spot an Anytowner? Usually, Anytowners have no problem stretching beyond boundaries of most of their peers. Their experience at camp made them face their prejudices in an open setting. The residual effect of this intense searching of the soul includes a new human being with a perspective on life that most people will never have.

So what am I talking about? Many people say, "I don't have any prejudices. I don't see color..." These statements are rarely tested. This attitude is self-reported. We never get to ask people who interact with them whether they behave in a manner contrary to their opinion about themselves. If Anytowners were in denial at the beginning of the week, they faced their prejudices and learned to overcome them. They were put through the test and passed it with flying colors.

In my world of training, we are doing well to get more than two hours with a group. In that amount of time, appealing to the affect is very difficult. Anytown offered 24 hour, round the clock, facilitated activities.

Next to my family and classmates, I would say Anytowners make up my close friends. The picture above is from my baby shower which was given by several Anytown Alumni, high school and college classmates and one military brat.

Back to the encounter on last night. When we found out that we were all involved in Anytown, we began to sing the theme song, Anytown, Anytown yellow, white, black, red or brown or something like that. We also did an energy check which was a series of claps that you have to hear to understand what I am saying. I was amazed that I could somewhat remember a song I learned in 1992. We went on to reminisce about our experiences. We will miss you Anytown, AL

Poetry and Music Festival at Malcolm's Meeting Room

Are you living under a rock and unaware of Birmingham's diverse culture? If I were still teaching African American Studies, this would be a required event. Birmingham's Civil Rights District is ALIVE!

Per a Facebook invitation from Sharrif Simmons: Enjoy a mix of music and poetry July 10 -12 at Malcolm's Reading Room featuring Def Jam Poet/Apollo Winner/Author Jessica Care Moore, The Sharrif Simmons Experiment, The Common Ground Collective, Sparlha Swa, S.Fly of Red Light District...Weekend/Daily Passes available at malcolmsreadingroom.com, Malcolm's Reading Room, Charlemagne Records, Greencup Books, Dreams Salon, and Matthew's Bar & Grill