Fidel's speech from Urban Ag symposium. "Connecting community with Academic"

I‘m here to talk a little bit about my expertise of events and the purpose of some of these things. The Food Link Milwaukee and The Institute are very parallel to the Summer of Peace city wide youth rally, what we started twelve years ago. Very parallel because of the functionality, being able to take a lot of great minds and connect them with each other in ways in which they may have not worked with each other regularly. So we created an idea, if you will , which was more than an event which we do annually but it was also about creating a different conversation. So I’m gonna talk a little bit about "re-definition" within these events.
We started to create this conversation about promoting the positive things that were happening in the younger community or the youth culture in Milwaukee.

Bad news travels what? Faster than you all just said it. So good news and good things that are happening in the communities and neighborhoods that I grew up in, that I teach in, that I travel and navigate through; they don’t get a lot of promotion or attention. The young people and the youth leaders that are doing great work and are proud citizens and reflections of the great things in Milwaukee or Milwaukee Public Schools or different neighborhoods; they don’t get a lot of attention on the news, you don’t hear about that kind of thing in the newspapers a lot. So we created the Summer of Peace to have a platform for young people who were doing great things. Graduating through school, headed off to college, starting their own businesses as teenagers and things like that. We created a platform for them to be able to tell their stories. Because all of the other narratives get told and retold and replayed and re-ran and retold again then rehashed and then rumored and it just goes on...  So then it seems like there is nothing else happening necessarily..

Based on this idea and same sort of model and thinking I made some phone calls. I called some of my personal partners and friends. I’m an Artist so a lot of my friends are Artists, Performing Artists, Visual Artists, things like that. A lot of these friends who are also Artists happen to be Teachers, Mentors, Tutors. They work in the school systems, most of the Artists I know, nationwide and worldwide are in the schools, are in the community centers, they are in the community. These are Hip Hop Artists. Now that may not be the type of Hip Hop Artists that you might be familiar with. I called these people and said “hey we have this idea, we wanna do this thing , and we need ya help”. So we started very small. So small, um, yea, very small.

But let me tell you one of the things I learned which was a big wide awakening for me. We went to our first venue, where we would want to hold this event, where we wanted to celebrate youth arts, youth leaders, youth leadership and community unity and positive edutainment. Where is this happening at? I don’t know? So we decided to make this spot! We decided to look around at different areas, different neighborhoods, different outdoor park facilities and that wasn't an easy thing to secure we found out. Some of you all do events or productions and things like that so you may know. Or, it may be easy for you, I don't know. But we went and we knocked on the door and we said “hey we wanna do this thing”. We ran down a list of ideas and positive initiatives that we were already involved in and we brought all these great people to the table, and the first question they asked us….I won’t name the venue.

The first question they asked us was “ Is there going to be Hip Hop music there? “ - And I was pissed. I was done with the conversation. I didn't want to have anymore conversation with those people, at that moment, at that time. Because. Yeah there was going to be Hip Hop music there! That’s like me asking are there trees in the park. Is there grass in the park? Is there a water bubbler maybe? Bathrooms? You know like the obvious. Of course there is going to Hip Hop there. Furthermore, that was their first question. Not the date, not the time. Is there going to be Hip Hop there? So I said ok, this conversation has to be re-steered, redefined. So we have to think about this in connecting community to academic and a lot of other innovative sectors. We gotta think about redefining sometimes, the things we think we know or the things we think we know about. We have to really be open to challenge ourselves in that way. So when asked how do we make those connections between community and academics, part of this is a challenge because there is so much to learn from each other on both ends. Just like some community member are intimidated by the academic world and some from the academic world are intimidated by the streets and thats just the truth.

One of the things we did was we stepped back and said okay within the Hip Hop community in Milwaukee till this day still, it’s a great base of collective artistic creation going on. It’s a great base of economic circulation that happens organically between studios, performance venues, graphic designers, website designers, you name it. People buy, sell and trade their music and merchandise and this is not by anyone’s permission or any sort of academic access. It’s because this is just what people do with art. Now, we said this is an urgent conversation for us because in the community in Milwaukee where we create some of this music and the momentum behind the music there are a lot of issues and we look at Hip Hop as part of the solution to some of these issues

I will just give you a little bit more of a back of drop. Hip Hop, if you don’t know, the culture itself or the music genre itself was really created as a positive out of a negative. Out of a lot of gang violence and poverty. Youth disparities as well, all those fancy words. It was created out of that . Out of a need for survival really. Young people were tired of seeing their friends getting killed, killing each other, due to gang violence and territorial violence and things like that. And we know that’s just an effect of other things right? Then what happens is Hip Hop is created as a solution. So we always look at Hip Hop as a solutionary thing. This is something that can really help the community. This is something that can solve problems and save lives, it’s the truth. So the same solutions that Food Link Milwaukee and the Institute will approach has to be done with a certain amount of urgency.

The urgency behind these things, well two of them. I will just throw these two out there for you to work with. One of them is health, obviously right?. Because no matter what background or whatever your worldview, we all have an obligation our health. Or we would like to have or to teach or pass on an awareness of a certain health. Right? Then there is also an economic piece. So we are talking about these things and building on all of these things institutionally to create and to produce and to expand and to do more than what we are doing now. There are great works being done now but there is always really a bigger vision. So to think about health and economics because you can grab people’s attention with money and life or death. You can grab people’s attention, you can stop them on the streets and they will stop and listen to you. So the point is also looking at those two different ideas just like in Hip Hop with producing Hip Hop centered events or curriculums or whatever it may be that is using such a phenomenon of the day .The phenomenon of the day being Hip Hop. All around the world, not just in the hood. Everywhere and your mainstream TV included. So how do you then use that phenomenon to solve problems. Some people use it to perpetuate their own agenda in their own way. So if you have an agenda or want to present an idea how do you capture a phenomenon to solve problems?

Not using the same things you think you know though. Not those things. Really thinking outside of your comfort zone, outside of your normal conversation. Really it’s the perfect time. It’s time. I think really that the people who are on the ground and putting in the work realize that and do have a sense of urgency. So how do we connect a community that may not be as well informed and as well serviced? How do you connect that community to those conversations and to that urgency? I don’t necessarily have THAT answer for you all. You all are geniuses in your own world and in your own walk, so you have those answers already its just about being able to connect those answers.

So Hip Hop is a glue for a lot of different things. Summer of Peace became a glue for twenty to thirty organizations in the city from small ‘mom and pop’ nonprofits, the churches the day care centers, to the big Boys & Girls Clubs and national franchised ‘poverty pimps’ as they are called. You know that’s what they are called right? Okay. So you gotta think about how do you use all of this momentum and all these resources to solve problems. Starting at the ground level and then get the young people excited about it. The academics and adults can be excited about it, the academics and adults can come up with the blueprint plans and ideas and get real charged. Then you look around and everybody is 60, 70 and going on 80. Nothing against my elders, veterans and OG’s but let me tell you , when we are talking about Urban Agriculture we have to be talking about the young. The young, the youth, the ten years and younger. How do we get there? As educators, as parents, some of us are grandparents, as community members. We have to really start thinking about making that conversation happen little by little and bringing together the resources.

So back to the Hip Hop conversation, with that park system that basically didn't discourage us at all but gave us such a charge to define what we were doing. “Oh, you think thats Hip Hop ? Let us show you what this is for real!” Let us show you what it looks like , what it sounds like , what it feels like, what it functions like and then afterward, the impact that it makes. And that was our charge. So it doesn't matter necessarily if people are not on board or don’t get the language just yet. Even if they don’t get the passion behind the language. So many people are just getting reacclimated to the land again. Right?

So it’s based on that idea of stepping out of your comfort zone and making those redefinition's. I see a lot of those redefinition's if you pay attention to marketing or advertising. A lot of the ways these things are communicated is about redefinition for this new information age brain of young people who have an overload of everything all the time. Everything, all the time. How do you make something stick? Also, how do you connect it to the point where they realize the urgency of getting involved. So when you go into your breakout groups and you start having these conversations and the language starts to sound the same as the last thing you were at and the conversation seems to go in the same direction of the last thing you were at and even the words on the paper look the same as the last thing you were at, you have to ask yourself where is this conversation going. Are we really ready to create an urgency today because we are here in this time or is this just like, a cool conversation to have? Because this is a cool conversation, don’t get me wrong.

The work that it takes to really manifest and actualize some of these things, its the same with the Summer of Peace and The Peace Park and Garden. The words started to not matter any more. All of the talk and the words started not to matter anymore that only thing that mattered was the work and who ever was on board with the work. With those things in mind everybody just has to grab hold of it, get on board and start putting in some work. Getting out of your comfort zone, getting from behind your desk, coming from out of the universities. The same way the community has to come out of their comfort zone and come out of the community and out of a mind frame. It’s a conversation that needs to happen. Think about that as you go to your breakout groups.

I did have some notes up here but I don’t know what happened with that. I hope you all can stick around because I’m actually going to be sharing a lot more words and a lot more personal thoughts, ideas and inspirations a little later through some performance art. It’s going to be quiet the extravaganza , I brought a couple friends with me and I’m looking forward to sharing. Thank you.