Chris Woodhull

Knoxville News Sentinel: New Energy Panel Urged to "Aim Big"

2007-08-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

Haslam appointees will first focus on audit of buildings
By Hayes Hickman
Thursday, August 9, 2007

The Sunsphere was built as the centerpiece of Knoxville’s energy-themed World’s Fair in 1982, and City Councilman Chris Woodhull says he’d like to see that symbolism become relevant again.

Woodhull, one of 16 appointees to Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam’s new Energy and Sustainability Task Force, said he hopes the panel will aim for the sort of “big goal” that could establish the city as a leader in energy efficiency.

“I’d like to try to do everything we possibly can to get back to 1982,” he said. “Maybe like a net-zero Knoxville kind of brand. You have to create a big idea.”

The task force, scheduled for its first meeting Aug. 30, will initially focus on an energy-usage audit of all buildings owned and operated by the city, as well as the City County Building, said Madeleine Weil, the city’s deputy director of policy development and the task force’s chairwoman.

A request for proposals is being drafted now for a consultant to conduct the audit and, in turn, offer recommendations for improving efficiency among all city facilities.

“But it’s not going to be limited to that,” said Weil, who coordinated the energy and air quality programs for the city of New Haven, Conn., before joining Haslam’s staff in January.

She also plans to focus the task force’s search for efficiencies in other areas, including the city’s vehicle fleet and its garbage.

Other members of the committee represent a wealth of local expertise on the subject, Weil said, including representatives of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Knoxville Utilities Board, the University of Tennessee’s Science Alliance, the local chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

“These are some of the best experts on energy efficiency in the country,” Weil said.

Such work can make improvements in a variety of areas, such as global climate change and local air quality, “but at the same time, save money,” she said.

“And I agree with (Woodhull), and the mayor’s on board,” Weil said. “We want to aim big.”

Knoxville News Sentinel

2007-06-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

Vines: Woodhull uses chairs in campaign
By GEORGIANA VINES
June 16, 2007

An upright chair has come to symbolize Knoxville City Councilman Chris Woodhull as an inner-city youth worker, elected official and candidate.
He's using the chair symbol in his campaign for re-election as councilman at large, Seat B, just as he did four years ago. And now he has a collection of about two dozen miniature chairs people have given him since 2003.

The chairs were on display at the table where pizza was served for the kickoff of his campaign at the Tomato Head on Monday. They're different shapes and sizes - and a conversation piece.

"The chairs tie in with my work at Tribe One (a ministry program). I believe people have the answers and wisdom to solve their own problems. I use those skills in the work in Tribe One. The chair is technology in getting people together and talking with them. They don't want to stand and talk but want to sit and discuss and work through issues," he said.

Because of the chair symbol in his previous campaign, "everybody has started giving me chairs," Woodhull said. He keeps them in the kitchen of his home in the Mechanicsville area.

So far, Woodhull has not drawn an opponent. The deadline for candidates to file for mayor, four council positions and city judge is noon Wednesday.

Knoxville News-Sentinel

2007-03-05T19:18:00.000-08:00

Transit headed in right direction

by Chris Woodhull
March 4, 2007

Every week, Knoxville families make hundreds of decisions, big and small. In the big ones -- such as balancing the needs of family members with paychecks -- parents struggle to make wise decisions that will increase the impact of their resources, getting more of what they want for less of what they have. This is one of the crucial roles of government: balancing the needs of its citizens in the face of limited resources and competing demands.

One of the key objectives for the current administration and City Council in our upcoming budget cycle is making wise decisions about limited resources while building a safer, healthier, more competitive city. A new downtown transit center clearly heads us in this direction. Vivid issues recently promoted in the media, however, disrupt our primary responsibility of making a wise decision.

It is worth noting that the discussion regarding the transit center has touched on many important issues ranging from the value of property to the difficulties of moving a business to the impact on nearby residents and workers. I am satisfied that Mayor Bill Haslam is doing everything he can to fairly and respectfully work with the displaced business owner.

Yet, to date, the public dialogue has not touched on the critical importance of the transit center for the future of Knoxville and the thousands of Knoxvillians who rely on public transportation to get to work, school, shopping and medical services every day.

A transit center near the heart of downtown will assist in providing a critical economic opportunity to those in the core of our community. With downtown booming, more and more jobs are being created. Reliable, safe public transportation provides an opportunity to further support the momentum of our growing city while reducing traffic congestion and the need for more parking spaces.

Many of the 3.5 million people who ride the bus each year are deserving of the safety and dignity that a transit center provides. They deserve to be protected from the rain, wind, heat, and cold when they transfer, just as those of us who more often travel in our cars. Direct access to our central business district, public buildings and trolleys will benefit not only those who ride the bus because of need but also those who ride the bus by choice.

The proposed transit center will replace the "temporary" site in front of the City County Building, where people have to brave the elements when transferring to their next bus. There is no bathroom, no ticket office -- only the most rudimentary seating area. Buses have to pull into traffic, and pedestrians are at risk.

While finding a site in the small downtown footprint has been challenging, the city has chosen an efficient location for the transit center with its plan to expand the Church Avenue Bridge, literally creating new real estate downtown. This location helps undo some of the damage done decades ago when East Knoxville was separated from downtown. It does not use any of the limited amounts of land in the downtown area at a time when downtown is booming. It is the least expensive of the available sites to build, and it puts the least burden on taxpayers to operate. It is close to downtown without taking a part of downtown. It negatively affects the fewest people.

It is critical that we all work together to place the final remaining pieces into the puzzle of our growing downtown and to do so without delay. Let's make a wise decision that is future-oriented and serves the greater good of people today and tomorrow. The downtown transit center at the Church Avenue site is a wise and responsible decision.

Metro Pulse Tough Love: Let's make pandhandling obsolete in Knoxville

2006-09-28T19:17:00.000-07:00

Anti-panhandling ordinances are all the rage among municipalities where aggressive, in-your-face begging has become a problem in some sectors of their urban centers.

So it has with Knoxville, where restaurant patrons eating within the rails around sidewalk tables downtown are being confronted, right over their soup, by people seeking spare change for a sandwich, a cup of coffee, a bus ride, whatever.

It’s a shame to hear of a 15-year-old schoolgirl being chased down the street by an insistent panhandler, using derogatory language at her refusal to contribute to his cause, but it has happened right here and right recently.

Despite the availability of services to the homeless or jobless or stranded in Knoxville, the incidence of panhandling downtown and the aggressiveness of some of its practitioners has been on the rise in this mild-weather season.

There are people—a relative lot of people in Knoxville—who are willing to lend a hand, or a dollar, to the needy. But even they are put off by the tactics pursued by the most persistent of the panhandlers.

The pages of Metro Pulse have been virtually laden lately with accounts of the plight of the homeless and pleas, such as that issued by Volunteer Ministry Center’s director, Ginny Weatherstone, who advocates “tough love” for those homeless persons who ask for money. Say no, she says, and direct them to a legitimate shelter where help is offered.

And, it is in that sentiment that Bill Lyons, the city’s senior director for policy development, and City Councilman Chris Woodhull have asked the city Law Department to draw up an anti-panhandling ordinance for Knoxville.

We support that effort, and we realize it won’t be easy to come up with an ordinance that will pass muster in both the Council and the courts, despite what Lyons refers to as his “strong” advocacy of a measure to control panhandling.

Other cities that have adopted anti-panhandling laws have had their ordinances challenged in court. Some have been struck down by courts, ruling that the measures violated free-speech rights of the homeless and the poor and that begging is actually expressive conduct protected by the U.S. Constitution. Pleas for help are free expression under those rulings.

Therefore,the wording of the ordinance and its intended effects are everything when such measures are being drafted and considered.

Woodhull, who works with inner-city youth, and who has a special personal interest in the downtown and an abiding sensitivity to the plight of the poor and homeless, says the Memphis ordinance is promising as a model, since it must comply with the laws of this state as well as the Constitution. It’s an odd duck of sorts among such ordinances, in that it requires panhandlers to obtain a city permit that puts the applicant’s identification information, a photo, and the duration of the permit—up to a year but as short as a single day for transients—on file. Panhandling without a permit is a misdemeanor there, but it is a crime that is difficult to enforce. Fining a person who has no money for seeking money from others has a ring of futility to it, as does putting a person who has no home or money in jail for the night.

Of course, the police can hassle a panhandler if that activity is a crime, just as they once hassled street performers who accepted, but did not actively solicit, donations. Passive panhandling, that is leaning against a wall along a sidewalk, not obstructing anyone’s passage, with an open hat or an empty jar on the ground, would not be prohibited under any ordinance that could pass constitutional review by a court.

Woodhull says the key to limiting panhandling and discouraging its more aggressive forms is not passing and enforcing an ordinance, per se, but in lending the legislation creating it a positive aspect. “We want some kind of an educational strategy to be included, not only educating the homeless and the penniless, but also the downtown business community, about alternative assistance programs, telling them where aid can be obtained and helping them to get there, if possible.”

Woodhull says the resurgence of the downtown and the numbers of people who are on its sidewalks these days is one thing that encourages panhandlers. Another, he says, is giving them money, which many people do, at least for the first few times they are hit up. He believes that situation is complicated by the fact that many of the downtown’s newest residents and the visitors who are attracted to new retail, restaurant and entertainment options there are from “a suburban culture.” They may be used to seeing “will work for food” posters in the hands of the needy at interstate exits, but they see those from their cars, where they feel protected. That’s not the case when confronted as pedestrians, as they are on downtown sidewalks, Woodhull says.

It’s along those sidewalks, he says, where “We want a safe, comfortable environment.” We couldn’t agree more. So it’s a very encouraging sign that the city is looking into an ordinance that may effectively reduce the element of panhandling that has become so threatening to downtown Knoxville’s ambience.

We hope that the city fathers come up with something that is both constitutional and palatable to those people who are committed to ameliorating the plight of the poor and homeless. And we hope they do it soon.

Tyson Skate Park: Behind Schedule, but finally legit

2006-06-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

Construction on the long-anticipated public skate park, originally announced to begin this week, has been delayed at least four months. The skate park is still planned to go into the space at the northeast corner of Tyson Park the UT women’s softball team has been leasing from the city for years, but the softballers are now moving to UT’s athletic complex on former ag-campus land across the river. The UT women’s softball team, until Sunday a contender for the national title, decided they needed to return to the Tyson softball field for practice in the early fall.

Mayor Bill Haslam’s spokesperson Amy Nolan says they expect work, to be done by well-known park designer and builder Wally Hallyday of California Skate Park, to commence in October, to be completed, depending on weather, in early ‘07.

The project signals a sea change in the city’s attitude toward what some claim is America’s fastest-growing sport. About a decade ago, a prominent civic leaderupon retirement offered a grim warning to his assembled peers about the danger of tolerating skateboarders, who he said were destructive of downtown buildings and a hazard to the elderly. Around the same time, city council voted to ban skateboarding from Market Square. Later, some noted ruefully that before the massively refurbished World’s Fair Park was properly open, its marble features were already showing the wear of skateboarding.

To non-skateboarders, the idea of the city paying to build a skate park might have had the feel of paying ransom. Or, at least, a way to keep kids off the street and out of bigger trouble.

City Councilman Chris Woodhull, leader of the inner-city youth group Tribe One, sees it more as a positive amenity for the city.

“It’s important symbolically, where we’re going as a community,” he says. “To me, Knoxville building a skate park is one of the signs that we are growing up as a city.” Woodhull, a middle-aged guy who has learned to skateboard seemingly to understand the phenomenon, is convinced of the civic value of a skate park.

“It’s one of the safest sports,” he says. That may seem counterintuitive to those who’ve seen skateboarders sailing through the air high above hard concrete surfaces. Woodhull insists, “Risk-management assessments say it’s safer than baseball and football.”

“But right now there’s no legal place to skate.” Larger cities like Nashville and Louisville have public skate parks; smaller cities like Chattanooga and Asheville do, too. Knoxville doesn’t.

He has heard estimates that there may be as many as 20,000 skateboarders in Knox County. That may be high, but they certainly number in the thousands. “What I find is all this enthusiasm from people, rich, poor, masters in planning and guys who want to work on refrigerators for the rest of their lives, all interested in building this skate park.”

Some have raised concerns about the location chosen by a city-sponsored task force co-chaired by Woodhull. The well-kept diamond at Tyson Park works well as a softball field. Woodhull says they mulled over other sites, especially a ruined industrial area along the banks of Second Creek below the interstates known to downtown artists as the Spaghetti Bowl and to illegal skateboarders as “the Spot.” The existing concrete there, Woodhull says, is “silky smooth.” It also offers a certain amount of urban/subversive credibility.

But Woodhull says the railroad that owns most of that area wouldn’t sell. “We wanted a site already owned by the city—and known to people in Knoxville.” The softball field about to be abandoned by the Lady Vols at Tyson Park seemed to fit the bill.

Providing local skaters with a place to practice their sport is an urban amenity, but the economic benefit to the city may come from the skaters it draws from outside of the region.

The fact that it’s near an interstate exit was also important, Woodhull says. “People think of Knoxville as the city you go through,” he says. Nashville’s skate park currently draws about 2,000 visitors a week. (Such a skate park in Knoxville would outperform the convention center much of the time, and might seem a relative bargain.)

So far, the city and county have each chipped in $200,000; Lamar Outdoor Advertising has contributed another $100,000. Woodhull says with about $400,000 more, the skate park could be one of the biggest skating draws in the Southeast. The task force is working on raising that amount from private sources.

“We’re learning from their mistakes,” says Woodhull. “Ours will be better than Chattanooga, Nashville, Asheville. It will be a very well-designed skate park.

“Every community needs a bow tie,” Woodhull says, an extra that completes the picture. “This skate park can be our bow tie.”
—Jack Neely

The Street Poets: Tribe One gives disadvantaged kids a voice, a choice

2006-04-06T09:49:00.000-07:00

This is a boy from K-town that’s real/ I grew up around killers that’ll split your grill/ Rattle your crib/ Put a dent in your dome/ Runnin’ your home/ The streets is a mess/ And everybody’s a test/ I keep the nine on me/ For any nigga want a beef in the streets/ ’Cause I don’t mess with these phonies/ This block’s hard and the street’s tough/ And everybody ain’t a bluff/ Might get your face cuffed/I grew up in A-homes with the gunshots/ Get y’ass gun blocked/ Niggas run a gun spot/ I been on the streets/ I killed the block/ I’m 17/ What you heard about? I held a Glock/ I been in the game/ I sold the ’caine/ I seen the life of a thug and nigga get his brains sprayed/ Dead on the curve/ You don’t hear my word/ I’m 17, but you don’t hear my words
—Freestyle rap recorded by Tribe One youth at Magnolia Sound Studio, 2006

For teenage kids growing up in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods like Lonsdale or Mechanicsville or College Hills, freestyle rap—extemporaneous lyrics improvised to pre-recorded hip-hop beats—is at once therapy, avocation, and means of (very) personal expression. They’re also more revealing of this particular human condition—of just what kind of pain, rancid confusion and dead-end ugliness runs through these kids’ heads—than any focus group or high school counseling session could ever hope to be.

“For the most part, the lyrics you hear from these kids are pretty much how it is for them,” says Gene Bailey, aka G-wizz, local Christian rap artist and enterprise director for the Tribe One organization’s Magnolia Sound Studio. A 31-year-old native of Mechanicsville, Bailey is one of the strong ones—a kid who grew up in a neighborhood where toting a pistol and slinging dope didn’t seem like such bad ideas, yet who came through the other side, soul intact.

“When it comes to freestyling, telling your story is the most popular thing to do,” he continues. “You tell people who you are, what you’ve done, what you represent. It lets people know that, ‘hey, this dude is pretty real, and he’s been through some stuff.’”

Today, Bailey is coaching a handful of boys from the nearby Emerald Youth Group through another day of studio bootcamp, a program whereby neighborhood kids can come into Magnolia Sound twice a week and learn the rudiments of songwriting and recording.

A former basketball player at Austin-East High School, Bailey is so tall and angular and preternaturally thin that he resembles nothing so much as a Praying Mantis with corn rows, the braids of which form neat, spare, intertwining patterns on the top of his skull.

“Whatever’s in y’all’s head, man, lay it down,” he says, flitting between the studio’s 24-track console and a Korg Triton Pro-X keyboard, which two of the boys are using to lay down backing beats for their impending raps.

The raps the Emerald boys have improvised so far today have all been defiant and darkly confessional, filled with allusions to gun violence and hustling. Some of it is probably youthful braggadocio, to be sure, but much of it—revelations of twisted family relations and friends who didn’t live to see 18—is painfully and obviously real.

But between beats, the kids are a cheerful, enthusiastic lot. Jordon Brunson, a sweet, awkward, bespectacled A-E freshman with a spiral notebook full of his own lyrics, confesses that the aunt and uncle who comprise his immediate family have some reservations about his hip-hop aspirations.

“My aunt and uncle say there’s more to life than rapping,” he says with a goofy grin that’s every bit as endearing as it is broad. “I just don’t listen to them.”

And then there’s the pairing of Courtney Burchett and DeAngelo Mattress, a couple of high school juniors—Mattress is a rising football star at Austin-East—who seem more inclined to talk playful smack with each other and their fellow bootcampers than throw down some serious rhymes. (At one point, when another kid goes overboard with the introductory lead-ins over the beat—“Yeah, yeah, yeah, check it, check it, check it…”—before beginning his rap, Mattress barks out that, “We’ve checked it already, meat-loaf head…. The record company just called on the phone; your contract has been cut off!”)

That is, until they get in the claustrophobic little soundroom themselves, and Mattress breaks out with 24 bars of jarring, dark observations of life in a housing project, punctuating longer, more flowing lines with terse, hard rhymes. His delivery, in a gruff voice that comes off as at once confident, menacing, and plaintive, hits home with all the impact of a slug from a 9mm Glock.

Then someone fumbles a line, the recording stops, and silliness again prevails.

“What you mess up for? You’re a meatwad, dude.”

“Meatwad? You the one got that dip-dog head goin’, dude…. You so ugly, you have to wear makeup on the radio.”

It can be plausibly argued that the Tribe One organization does a better job of connecting with the kids who visit the rambling old former mortuary house at 2112 Magnolia Avenue than the vast majority of community outreach programs with similar mission statements. That’s because in large part, T-1 not only tolerates, but embraces the cultural elements, frowned on elsewhere, that are meaningful to inner city youth. Gold teeth, urban fashions and rap music are not only permissible here; they may be subject to peer evaluation.

Chris Woodhull (center of left photo). Pictured with Woodhull are Reuben Figueroa, Dexter Murphy and Nicie Murphy.

That attitude of as-is acceptance owes to the progressive vision of Tribe One co-founders Chris Woodhull and the late Danny Mayfield, the young African-American city councilman who died of cancer in 2001.

“The young guys we saw on the street corner hustling—that’s who Danny and I both felt like we connected with,” says Woodhull, who now holds a Council seat himself. “We didn’t necessarily see them as a problem, but as an asset. Some of these kids have tremendous leadership skills; they’ve just latched onto some screwed-up mission statements.”

In Tribe One, the two men forged an organization that is recalibrating some of those mission statements 180 degrees, by recognizing the virtues that already inhere in the young men and women it serves, rather than trying to reconfigure them according to someone else’s cultural template. One current T-1 board member describes their approach as “flipping the hustle over to something positive.”

A youthful, ever-smiling 46-year-old, Woodhull is a former army brat who grew up in an Episcopal household—a household that changed venues from Brazil to Puerto Rico to Indiana to Alabama and parts beyond as his father moved from base to base. His parents exposed him to poetry, painting, and Hemingway, and his early ambition was to become a writer when he went away to Sewanee to study English literature as a young man.

He says his early adult years weren’t easy, though he doesn’t care to get into specifics. “I’m a seeker, and I’ve struggled sometimes,” he says. “There were some dark times in my life. For a while I was a nomad, wandering around, not connected to any place, until I found my roots in Knoxville.”

That happened around age 21, when he came here to visit a favorite uncle, seeking advice, and was invited to throw his duffel in a corner and stay for a while. Woodhull says he recovered his bearings, got back in church, and worked a series of decent jobs that included a five-year stint as an editorial researcher at the former 1330 (which later became Whittle Communications).

Then he co-founded the Urban Community Vision Ministry, a more traditional church-and-Bible study-oriented ministry in Mechanicsville, where he met Danny Mayfield in 1990. “Danny came over with his cousin Anthony one day,” Woodhull remembers. “They’re both from New Jersey, and had that Jersey pushiness about them. My father was from Jersey, so I have it too.

“We started talking about white people, racism, cities…. We both kind of had this combination of a Jesus and a Huey Newtonthing going on, this mixture of prayer and activism. And we both saw the enormous amount of potential housed in a lot of the young people on the streets.”

And on the streets is where their efforts began, informally at first; basketball games, field trips and pizza outings gradually led to regular meetings, rap sessions and workshops. “It really started just hanging out with kids, just showing up and listening.”

They started calling their fledgling organization Tribe One, and chartered in 1993. “The name was an attempt to create something hip, a brand name,” says Woodhull. “We explained it as a ‘street’ way of saying ‘Kingdom of God.’”

Tribe One had a simple mission statement: to help at-risk youth to become leaders in their community. Where it differed from other, like-minded ministries was in its approach, which recognized the importance of economics and politics as vital components in the spiritual revitalization of disadvantaged neighborhoods.

New Tribe One program director Dexter Murphy perhaps says it best when he notes that, “When you have decent job skills, it helps keep the spiritual side in line. They go hand in hand. You can preach all day, but the bottom line is people do what they do because of lack job skills, lack of employment, just as much as lack of spirituality.”

The program’s early years, however, were a period of constant evolution. In addition to three regular weekly meetings at a rundown shack on University Avenue, Tribe One programs included a host of diverse, sometimes futile stabs at new enterprise.

“We had a garden project for a little while, and that was annoying as hell,” Woodhull laughs. “Danny and I ended up doing all the work. I’ve never heard so much whining about gardening in my life.”

In addition to facilitating new programs, art classes and retreats, Woodhull says he and Mayfield also became advocates for several local youth, de facto social workers with ever-expanding caseloads.

Their efforts weren’t always well-received; some members of the Knoxville Police Department referred to Tribe One disparagingly as “Hug-a-Thug.” And even within the community it served, there was resistance to Tribe One’s unconventional methodology.

“We had a focus group, kind of a retreat for young people at a local church once, at the pastor’s behest,” Woodhull remembers. “He said he wanted to find out what they were thinking about. So we asked them, and they expressed what they felt. And the pastor got mad. He didn’t really want to hear what they really had to say.

“That’s one thing I’ve learned through working with Tribe One. When young people get started thinking, they’re going to have an opinion. And you’re probably not going to like it when you hear it.”

Because they ask me/ How you know so much at 17?/ What you mean?/ You’ve never seen a dysfunctional teen?/ Mama cared for me/ My dad wasn’t there for me/ Times got hard, I had to get harder/ Let me take that back/ I had to get smarter/ At 16 my mom had my youngest brother/ Hold on——, let’s get stuff in order/ I can’t turn around now/ Sold dope around town/ ’Cept for staying way down/ Jason brought me up/ He made me tougher/ My mama put me in the system, she locked me up/ I don’t know some of my family/ Except for the immediate ones/ They say that’s why I run to the streets/ And the G. handguns
—Recorded at Magnolia Sound, 2006

Pressing Matters: This press is the heart of Tribe One’s Boom Boom Industries.

Tribe One has come a long way since those days of impromptu rap sessions in back rooms of churches. Today, in addition to the youth gatherings, church services (now held in their own in-house sanctuary), and activities that have always been part of its core curriculum, T-1 boasts three enterprises that strive to give participants currency in the form of self-esteem and marketable job skills, and maybe even a little cold, hard cash.

Located on the first floor of the Tribe One building, Magnolia Sound was founded in part because of the T-1 mentors’ own appreciation for hip hop. “Danny was really fond of Method Man,” Woodhull laughs. “He and I listened to a lot of rap, as part of our investigative research, and because we also liked some of it.

“What’s beautiful about rap is that people tell you what’s going on inside them, so having a studio like this made perfect sense on a lot of levels.”

Magnolia Sound became a reality in 2000, when a Tribe One proposal to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation netted $60,000 to fund it. Bailey, whom Chris had counseled and mentored during the early days of his Knoxville ministries, was brought on only last year, despite his lack of technical studio experience, both for his rap skills and for his ability to connect with kids who grew up in the same neighborhoods he did.

“Chris was looking for somebody that could run the studio and be a positive influence,” says Bailey, who, with a little help from local studio whizzes like Christian rock producer Travis Wyrick, has learned the ropes of recording with remarkable speed. “He wanted someone with a passion for God. He was looking for the whole profile, so he took a chance on me.”

Bailey notes that hip-hop aspirations play a big part in the experience of disadvantaged youth—“It’s amazing how rap attracts so many kids, and not just black kids; a lot of young people feel they have to have their music to get through school or work”—much the same way professional sports do for kids who join Little League or pee-wee football. “We want to reach the kids who want to do this who might otherwise be hustling on the streets,” Bailey says. “Maybe we can get them in here before they make that wrong decision. We have the equipment and the opportunity, so there aren’t any more excuses.”

While Magnolia Sound gets a lot of kids in the doors at Tribe One, the organization’s Bounce Internet studio gives them skills that all of them will eventually need, should they stay the course and avoid the nastier pitfalls of urban living. Woodhull says Bounce’s concept was inspired by Robert Moses, an African American writer who posits that the young and poor who fail to learn computer skills will become “the next generation of sharecroppers.”

Woodhull brought on Doug McDaniel—a local e-business entrepreneur with a self-professed activist streak—two years ago, and now McDaniel divides his time between working with an intern on Bounce e-business projects, including web design for local companies, and mentoring local youth who come in seeking ways to further their ambitions via computers and the Internet.

“A lot of it is easy, simple stuff,” says McDaniel. “We had one girl who came in angry because she didn’t have access to a newspaper, and she needed job listings to find work. She didn’t realize you could go and look up the want ads online.

“A lot of programs, especially in our schools, think that by just dropping in some computers and some Internet access the kids will learn. But then the teachers are on their own to find curriculum, and they aren’t always the people best suited for that job.”

Some of McDaniel’s informal “students” include Liygia Simmons, a local urban clothing designer who now markets her fashions online, and Sevaughn Green, a.k.a. Screw Loose, a 24-year-old Mechanicsville native who has his own Knoxville-based hip-hop record label, Just 2 Tight Records.

Green first came to Tribe One to explore the Magnolia Sound facilities, but kept coming back when Doug began teaching him how to design his own album covers and press kits. A former resident of Austin Homes in Mechanicsville, he notes that Tribe One’s greatest gift is simply its presence as an alternative for restless kids who, lacking the extracurricular options of their counterparts in suburban areas, might otherwise spend time in the streets.

“Growing up in Austin Homes was difficult, because there weren’t too many activities for youth other than the boys club and the YMCA,” says Green, who attributes his own solid sense of purpose to his musical endeavors and to the firm guidance of the grandmother who raised him. “Because of the financial issues in the community, no one’s willing to set aside time to make things happen.”

Boom Boom prints T-shirts for a host of local businesses and charitable organizations.

The third enterprise in Tribe One’s triumvirate of empowerment programs is Boom Boom Industries, a screen-printing operation through which T-1 produces and sells T-shirts for local businesses and other church-related or charitable organizations. Like Bounce, Boom Boom employs quarterly interns and pays them a $140 weekly stipend to learn and run the operation, from putting initial computer images on an emulsified screen in a dark room to placing the final, printed items on a conveyor oven to set the ink. But enterprise director Angel Romero notes that Boom Boom’s internships go well beyond simply learning screen-printing techniques.

“It’s like Bounce, in that it’s not necessarily about going into screen printing or web design,” she says. “You learn things like upkeep, inventory, supplies. You learn how to get up in the morning, discipline yourself, and make good decisions.”

Romero should know, because there is perhaps no better exemplar than herself of how Tribe One has changed for the better some of the lives in the communities it serves. Now 29, Romero grew up in the College Homes area, the daughter of alcoholic, drug-addicted parents. She was drug dealer at 14, a dropout at 15, and was arrested for selling drugs at 18.

“There weren’t many examples of success in my community other than drug dealers,” says Romero, seated in her office on the second floor of Tribe One, a full-figured, jovial woman with a pleasantly husky voice that belies her 29 years.

“So you think, ‘Why not embrace it?’ I knew that statistics said that everybody who grew up in my community with the kind of parents I had would probably be in jail by 21. So that’s the way I was living.”

She still remembers the happy surprise of happening by her first Tribe One group meeting in 1999, as a young single mom with felony charges on her record, probation, and no high school diploma. “The people who facilitated the meetings looked just like me; it was like nothing I’d ever seen in my life,” she says. “They said I could keep my gold teeth and my baggy clothes.

“It wasn’t like some 4-H club or something. With some of these other groups, you can’t go in and say, ‘My mama was getting high last night and she got mad and hit me.’ They’d freak out. And they helped me realize that the same skills I used to sell drugs on the streets, I could use to uplift my community instead of tearing it down.’”
At the encouragement of her discussion group facilitators, she met with Woodhull, who took her in hand and encouraged her to earn her GED. As she became more active with Tribe One, he eventually asked her to work for the organization, first as a street soldier, co-facilitator and recruiter, and later as enterprise director of Boom Boom Industries. She earned her GED one month before coming on staff full-time in 2000.

Her sister, Amber, another T-1 success story who went straight from a CAP (Community Alternative to Prison) program to become the first Boom Boom intern, says unequivocally that, “If it wasn’t for Tribe One, my sister would be dead or in jail right now.”

Angel says a turning point was her first meeting Woodhull: “I thought I was supposed to meet a black guy named Chris, because there can’t be any way a white person gives a damn about me. Then he finally walks up and says, ‘Are you Angel?’ and it blew me away.

“The facilitators told me all about how I needed to meet Chris, how cool and down he was, how he talked about MLK and Ghandi and about how we should embrace our culture. So I knew this had to be a good-hearted black man, because to white people, we’re just another penny off their tax dollar. But what they said about Chris was true.”

I can’t stop/ I won’t stop/ Givin’ up?—Nope/ I won’t drop/ Every cell in me/ Every spell in me/ Every nigga that’s around me feelin’ me/ I ain’t never gave a f’ about life/ I ain’t never gave a f’ about sh’ that was nice/ But still and yet I’m a man off in these streets/ If you want war, then there’s beef/ But I don’t talk about no gunplay/ I stay in school, do my work/ So I ain’t gotta worry ‘bout no gunplay/ And f’ these niggas, they ain’t gotta understand my swag/ And I ain’t gotta walk around toting mags/ Nope/ They ask me how the boy can cope/ ‘Cause I ain’t out there like them other niggas/ I ain’t selling dope—recorded at Magnolia Sound, 2006

Tribe One staff and interns mug for a group photo.

For Woodhull, it’s never been easy holding the center at Tribe One, having to answer at once to the youth inside the program, to adult members of the immediate community, and to those outside the community who may question his methods or his motives. Says one associate, “It’s been a struggle for him emotionally and financially, but give him credit. He walks the talk.”

Tribe One board member and former Knoxville Police officer Kevin Downs notes that many in the local police community viewed Woodhull as an adversary rather than an ally, though he says that’s changed under the more progressive leadership of KPD chief Sterling Owen, who came on under Mayor Bill Haslam in 2004.

“I think some officers under the former chief saw Chris as aiding the enemy,” says Downs, an East Knoxville native himself. “A superior of mine took me aside once and told me that he was sure Chris was dirty, which I assured him wasn’t true. They were coming out of a Fred Flintstone way of policing at that time, where if someone does something wrong, you go bust them in the head and drag ‘em down the street.”

Within East Knoxville, one female community leader (who preferred not to be identified) notes that there were times when Woodhull’s status as a white man from a middle-class background may have been viewed as problematic, especially when Mayfield passed on and T-1 no longer had bi-racial leadership.

“I think the combination of him being white and Tribe One having a Christian-based philosophy, it can be perceived in a missionary kind of way, as paternalistic,” she says. “That perception isn’t necessarily correct, but it’s there.”

But worst of all, perhaps, is simply the inevitable frustration when Tribe One and Woodhull fail to push the right buttons in some of the young men and women they reach out to. Even among youth who have benefited from extensive mentoring and counseling at Tribe One, there are those who, as McDaniel puts it, “still have some struggles lying ahead of them.”

“With any kind of program like this, there is going to be recidivism,” says Downs. “One thing Chris has had to learn is that, hey, there are some he just can’t save.”

Woodhull acknowledges that Tribe One doesn’t help as many people as he would like, and that sometimes raising money (the organization’s 2006 budget of $384,000 consists of about $60,000 in enterprise-earned revenue, with the remainder collected through donations from individuals, churches and foundations) for a charity that helps inner-city kids print T-shirts and make rap music is a tough sell.

But he says the program is at an important and very exciting crossroads—among other things, Tribe One could have its own performing arts center in the next two to three yeas—a potential launching point that could enable T-1 to increase by severalfold both the number of people it serves with its internships, and the amount of revenue it raises through its own enterprise.

“We’re just now getting to the point where we can do the things we really want to do,” Woodhull says, “where there’s a clear social return-on-investment that we can take and show to the groups we raise money from.

“We’re not a big-group activity, where we can say we helped 200 people last month. But of the people we have helped, a lot of them were people who were headed directly to jail, and now they have a job, or they’re working on a business plan. Consider the alternative: it costs over $50,000 to keep someone incarcerated for one year. That’s a lot of money to spend on making someone meaner and more desperate.”

I don’t talk much/ So everyone want to fight me/ Every school that I went to/ Nobody like me/ Never could it be right/ I try sometimes/ So I chill by myself and I cry sometimes/ And all I ask from God/ Is to buy some time/ Would I bring His name into it if I was lying?—recorded at Magnolia Sound, 2006

Tribe One has been based out of this former mortuary on Magnolia for about two years now.

On a Thursday afternoon at studio bootcamp, Bailey stands next to the foosball table in the first-floor living room at Tribe One, pointing at a pair of display-sized charts to explain the rudiments of music theory and songwriting—bars and measures, verses and choruses, tempos and beats. Also part of today’s curriculum is the use of figurative language in hip-hop, specifically similes and metaphors. “Rappers call metaphors ‘punchlines,’” he tells the group. “It’s like when you talk about money, and you call it ‘paper’, or ‘cheese.’”

In their ever-present spiral notebooks, the kids copy Bailey’s examples, including a couple of exercises, one calling for a metaphor (“I’m so cold that…”), and one for a simile (“If you challenge me to a race, I’ll smoke you like…”). By turns, Bailey calls on each boy to fill in the blanks. “Make ‘em good,” he says. “Be creative. This is stuff you can use in your rhymes.”

The results vary in level of invention and complexity, but the range of response seems to fall on a scale defined on one end by Weston Wyatt, a talkative Carter High School senior with an awkward grin, and on the other by Timothy Anderson, a more taciturn youth in an A-E letterman’s jacket. Wyatt, for his part, though chatty, hasn’t quite grasped the concept of figurative speech.

“’I’m so cold, if you come near me you’ll freeze to death,’” he says, reading his list of metaphors to Bailey. “Or how ‘bout, ‘I’m so cold, you’ll turn to mold.’”

“Uh, yeah, good,” Bailey says, rolling his eyes a little sheepishly. “But why don’t you see what else you can come up with.”

Then there’s Anderson, who when he is called on reads off a complicated run-on line that winds sinuously, then ends with a clever coupling of “sonic” and “chronic.” Anderson later admits that rapping is “a big hobby of mine”, that he has his own keyboard, pages of lyrics, and a few of his own songs recorded on disc back at home. Clearly, this is a boy with skillz.

He reaffirms that half an hour or so later, when the boys move from the living room into the studio and start laying down beats on the Korg Triton Pro-X under Bailey’s careful supervision. While two of the other kids noodle out some simple snare-drum patterns, someone convinces Anderson to break out a spontaneous free-style rap; with a nearly astounding verbal and rhythmic dexterity, he spools out rhymes as easily as he might unwind a ball of string, wrapping the lines all through and around the beat.

But then something even more surprising happens when Wyatt finally gets his chance behind the Korg. He starts by hammering out a rapid-fire snare beat, his fingers working the board with metronomic precision. Then he seeks out more traditional keyboard sounds, reaching for an ominous descending chord progression with one hand while the other improvises an eerie, sinuous melody.

It seems that Wyatt, the less-than-stellar wordsmith, has had a few piano lessons, and they took, better than anyone realized. The loop he creates sounds not unlike a classic Bernie Worrell organ riff, the kind of beat that big-time West Coast rappers were fond of sampling circa 1994. Everyone is impressed, including Bailey. “We’re gonna have to copyright that,” he says with no small admiration.

Chris Woodhull often speaks at length about the potential locked inside kids like Weston Wyatt, the talents hidden away because no one knew they existed, or gave a damn to ask. He speaks of that moment of joyous clarity, when the kids themselves realize they have ability, and value, and they smile, like Weston is smiling right now. It’s a knowing smile, the kind of broad luminescent grin people only get when they realize the things they want aren’t quite so far out of reach anymore.

All That Jazz

2006-02-02T16:54:00.000-08:00

Knoxville has its first (in a long time) jazz festival.

Though it’s somewhat under the radar, Knoxville has a thriving jazz scene. In the coming week, the city’s leading musician in the genre, Donald Brown, plus various community organizations are joining forces to shine a spotlight on that scene, in hopes of turning on more of the community to the sultry, unpredictable medium of jazz.

It’s being hailed as the inaugural Jazz Festival, though Brown recalls more informal events being held up until about 10 years ago in Knoxville. The idea to reinstate the festival was first hatched when Brown played at the McGhee Tyson Library in November of 2003 and had an overwhelming reception. About 200 people showed up, according to Nelda Hill, who works in the Sights and Sounds Department of the library. Since then, the idea has been brewing to not only get him to play in conjunction with the public library again, but to find a way to get even more people turned on to jazz. “He’s such a treasure, and I think a lot of Knoxvillians have yet to discover him,” says Hill about Brown. “The library has been expanding its focus especially in the music programs. It’s really gotten more people using the collection…. This is just another way that the library is educating people.”

Tribe One, the blossoming community organization focused on keeping at-risk youngsters out of trouble, is also heavily involved in the Jazz Fest. Its leaders partnered with the library to engineer the sound for the various performances and are also printing the T-shirts and other merchandise at their in-house printing shop, Boom Boom Industries. “It’s something that we’ve always wanted to do, and we think it will be a good tool for us to get involved in the music community because we’re planning on starting a jazz program this year that’s going to be geared toward young people,” says Dexter Murphy, local musician formerly of Gran Torino and program director at Tribe One. Murphy is working alongside City Councilman Chris Woodhull and young people from Magnolia Sound, Tribe One’s new recording studio, in the festival. “It focuses on our motto of empowering the youth by getting them involved in making music—cutting albums, producing, marketing,” says Murphy. “This is all part of Chris Woodhull’s brainchild. We want to have an internship program with at-risk youth getting real life experiences.” (Woodhull was out of town and could not be reached for comment.)

As far as planning the event, Brown says he recruited mostly musicians he’s played or recorded with before. “We wanted to get some young people too, so we got Austin East High School Jazz Band to open up the show for us on Feb. 11,” he says.

Though he says Knoxville’s jazz scene is healthy, especially for a small city, Brown would like to see more diverse crowds coming out to the shows. Asked what appeals to people about jazz, he gives a long but eloquent answer in his smoky voice: “The rhythm, the versatility of the music itself, because jazz encompasses so many different things—blues, classical, rhythm and blues, rock and roll. And, of course, there’s the emphasis on improvisation, which makes it the most spontaneous style of music.”

The festival’s events begin on Thursday, Feb. 9, at 8 p.m. at 4620, with Brown leading a band of Rusty Holloway, Keith Brown and special guest Bill Mobley. Then on Friday, Feb. 10, at 6 p.m., Brown will give a seminar on the history and style of jazz at the East Tennessee Historical Center. Brown and other festival musicians will teach a master class on improvisation on Saturday, Feb. 11 at 1 p.m. at the East Tennessee History Center. The final event will also be on Saturday at 8 p.m. in the James R. Cox Auditorium in UT’s Alumni Building, with Brown and Stephane Belmondo on trumpet, John Ricci on saxophone, Essiet Essiet on bass and Chris Dave on drums. Afterward, a reception will be held at Cha Cha, where Hill predicts, “We’re hoping it ends in a good old-fashioned jazz jam.”—Molly Kincaid

2006-01-23T19:17:00.000-08:00

"In every child who is born under no matter what circumstances and of nomatter what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again, and in him, too, once more, and each of us, our terrific responsibility towardhuman life: toward the utmost idea of goodness, of the horror of terrorism,and of God." - James Agee

Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?

2006-01-23T16:58:00.000-08:00

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as if as soon as one problem was solved a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen.The mother filled three pots with water.

In the first, she placed carrots.In the second she placed eggs.And the last she placed ground coffee beans.

She let them sit and boil without saying a word. About twenty minutes later, she turned off the burners.

She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

Turning to her daughter, she said, "Tell me what you see."

"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.

She brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did, and noted that they felt soft.She then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg inside.Finally, she asked her to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.

The daughter then asked, "So, what's the point, mother?"

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity - boiling water - but each reacted differently.The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid center. But, after sitting through the boiling water, its insides had become hardened.The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water...they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her daughter.

"When adversity knocks on yourdoor, how do you respond? Are you a carrot , an egg, or a coffee bean?"Think of this: Which am I?Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity, do I wiltand become soft and lose my strength?Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat?
Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financialhardship, or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my outer shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and a hardened heart?Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water - the very circumstances that bring the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor of the bean. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you instead of letting it change you.When the hours are the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate to another level?How do you handle Adversity?

Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

The Left-handed Layup

2005-12-08T04:41:00.000-08:00

The other night fifty to sixty people gathered at the Emporium to discuss the challenges in the 100 block of Gay Street. Overall it was a great meeting.

The meeting was facilitated by city officials Jill Van Beke and Bill Lyons. Those in attendance ranged from business owners, residents, city council, TDOT, KPD, Volunteer Ministry Center and concerned citizens. I appreciate Jill and Bill taking the initiative to respond to the citizens needs for such a conversation.

As the meeting started people outlined frustrations with safety, parking, accessibility, and the homeless. People argued from their point of view, of course, offering comments that do not include the interests of the rest of the room. That is the nature of a person's point of view: it is their point of view.

This is the problem with "problems." If your car will not start, the problem is not with the key. When it comes to our car this is obvious but when it comes to our community challenges it is not.

Most people enter a conversation or discussion with a clearly formed picture in their heads about “the problem,” and articulate their point of view from where they touch, feel or experience “the problem.” Thus the key analogy. Others listen and then object because what they are hearing does not feel the same as the problem they have experienced. Everybody sits in the room with a different experience about “the problem.” And the discussion bounces around the room with everybody growing uneasy and dissatisfied with what they are hearing because each presentation of the problem contains only the interests of the person speaking.

The only place for people to go with this situation is that everybody else must be stupid, stubborn or at best ignorant to what the real deal is.

At one moment a great idea drifted through the room. It was like watching a single plume of smoke entering a house. Will the smoke alarm (the people) detect the idea I wondered. The suggestion was to form a neighborhood association and convene a meeting with all the stakeholders.

I say this is a great idea because the “challenges” being discussed in the room are adaptive, not technical. Problems that will not be solved by running them all down one at a time but rather by strengthening the relationships between the KPD and the residents and the business owners and the operators of the homeless shelter and even with those people called homeless. This is not a romantic idea. This is a very practical idea.

When your car fails to start your auto mechanic ignores the key. He (or she I suppose) will look at the entire system and how it is working or not working together and from their determine the problem.

In the end some of the people took to the idea of a neighborhood association and others not. I think people intuitively understood that it would take work and with all of our busy schedules…well we need to do something now was their thinking.

Part of building downtown will be to learn how to live downtown with each other and for each other. I am confident we will in the end learn to do it. To use yet another analogy It is a like a basketball player who is very competent shooting a right handed lay-up shot who now must learn to shoot with the left hand.

Living in the suburbs is different than living in a denser, mixed use environment and we will have to learn to live in this new way together and not by asking others to solve our problems. If we don’t we will have to pay for more police and more government. I know we don’t want to do that. Right?

Metro Pulse: Ear to the Ground

2005-12-06T11:06:00.000-08:00

Nickels and Dimes

Knox Area Transit system fares are going up, but only after a touchy public forum last Tuesday.

The plan presented by the Knoxville Transportation Authority’s Board of Commissioners to compensate for spiking oil prices sounded reasonable enough: $1 base fares would rise a quarter, with monthly and UT student semester passes rising $10. Elderly, disabled and student riders would see a 10 cent increase in base fares and a $5 increase for monthly passes.
But the small, angry group of KAT patrons who showed up for the forum made a case for the increases’ financial impact on low-income riders whose sole transportation to and from minimum-wage jobs is the city’s bus system. Representing the KTA Citizen Advisory Board, Hubert Smith asked, “Who can afford it the most? Who can afford it the least? I’m here advocating for those who cannot be here to speak for themselves. Let’s not put this on the backs of people who can afford it the least.”

Commissioners John Sibley, David Booker and Chris Woodhull echoed the concerns, suggesting that action not be taken until an additional plan was on the table to account for low-income riders. They noted that the possibility of additional resources, such as County funding, had not been fully explored. Ultimately, however, other Board members’ eagerness to begin the budget-mending process prevailed. The final vote was unanimous, if reluctant.

Can't we 'all' just get along?

2005-11-27T13:56:00.000-08:00

By JACK MCELROY, editor@knews.com November 27, 2005

The parsing of political speech is a fascinating, if sometimes dispiriting, endeavor.
The most noted instance in recent history might be Bill Clinton's prevarication: "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

But we had a great example last week within our own Knoxville City Council.
The debate centered on the question of who-all is "all."

Councilors Bob Becker and Chris Woodhull started the fun by lobbing a carefully crafted verbal grenade into the chambers, taking delight, one suspects, as their colleagues either charged from the trenches or dove for cover.

The bomb was a seemingly innocuous resolution affirming that "all people within the corporate limits of the City of Knoxville are deserving of respect and dignity" and, therefore, the city "recognizes the humanity" and "expresses its intent to promote the well-being" of all people.

The zinger was a clause that spelled out just who might be included among "all people."

Woodhull and Becker's resolution said "all" meant everybody "regardless of race, creed, color, disability, national origin, gender, sexual orientation or citizenship status."

Nowadays, at least two groups on that list ain't part of "all" in the minds of some Knoxvillians.

If missives to this newspaper are any indication, some folks believe immigration status and sexual orientation are variables that raise questions about whether other folks deserve much promotion of well-being.

The astute politicians at City Hall are well aware of this sentiment and adroitly dodged the issue. On a 5-4 vote, they struck the words that enumerated who was included in "all.'

Then they unanimously passed the measure, which has no actual impact on city policies.

So to recap:

Two councilors wanted City Hall to affirm Knoxville's growing acceptance of diversity and hoped to set the stage for more discussion of inclusiveness.

Council responded with a 5-4 disagreement that shut off discussion.

Joe Hultquist, who offered the amendment, said he wanted to avoid "divisive issues." Marilyn Roddy, Steve Hall, Barbara Pelot and Joe Bailey agreed.

So now Knoxville can boast that it has declared its support for dignity and respect for all people, just so long as there's no mention of who all those respected people are.

"Hopefully all means all," concluded vice mayor Mark Brown.

Hopefully. But the incident calls to mind another famous example of political parsing, this one courtesy of George Orwell in "Animal Farm":

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Jack McElroy is editor of the News Sentinel. He may be reached at 342-6300 or editor@knews.com.

Council considers diversity measure

2005-11-22T09:37:00.000-08:00

By HAYES HICKMAN, hickman@knews.com November 22, 2005

While it wouldn't impose any formal change in city policy, a seemingly benign resolution supporting dignity and respect for all people is on Knoxville City Council's agenda tonight.
It is hoped to have much farther-reaching effects.

"It's a very broad affirmation that we live in a very diverse community," said Councilman Chris Woodhull, who's co-sponsoring the measure. "I don't think we've said that in quite some time, if ever at all."

And by saying as much, Woodhull said he hopes the public might recognize Knoxville's gains toward inclusion that have been made in recent years and continue to try harder.

The resolution goes beyond the current nondiscrimination clauses included in city ordinances to recognize people regardless of sexual orientation or citizenship status, as well as race, creed, color, disability, national origin or gender. Woodhull said he would like to see the city somehow formalize such added protections in future.

"But I don't think you can deal with a lot of those complex issues until you say, 'Welcome, we recognize you," he said. "It seems like a real benign sort of thing, but I think it's important, and I hope it'll set the stage for a larger discussion. I'm not as interested in making in-roads with people who already agree."

And for now, a simple resolution may do more to continue that progress than any new law on the books, added Councilman Bob Becker, the item's other co-sponsor.

"The more significant thing isn't what an ordinance would say, but how the real world works," Becker said. "You can't legislate people's behavior. But talking about respect and dignity moves us down that road some."

Becker cited the recently established Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Race Relations Center of East Tennessee as examples of the sort of growing awareness in the community.

He also highlighted the fact that all Knoxville police officers can speak some Spanish. "You treat people with dignity and respect by learning how to communicate with them," Becker said.
Hayes Hickman may be reached at 865-342-6323.

From the streets to the starting block: Tribe One ventures teach job skills to at-risk youths

2005-10-31T09:29:00.000-08:00

JOE HOWELL NEWS SENTINEL Carlos Penn, left, a Web designer, works on the soon-to-be-launched Web page for James Agee Park, as Doug McDaniel, Bounce enterprise director, makes suggestions at the Tribe One building in East Knoxville on Monday.

By CYNTHIA YELDELL, yeldellc@knews.com October 30, 2005

An interest in rap music and a clever ploy from a nonprofit group lured Carlos Penn into a business for which he designs Web sites for companies throughout Knoxville.

Penn, now 23, was in trouble at school when he was younger and ended up "on the streets doing the average things a person that doesn't know any better does."

Now he's one of several former "at-risk" youths who are running two businesses that boast clients such as Yee Haw Industries, Whirlpool and the University of Tennessee's Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Tribe One, a nonprofit organization founded 10 years ago to help Knoxville youths by providing spiritual growth and development, has added a business arm to its program that teaches job skills and financial empowerment.

The group's screen-printing business, Boom Boom Industries, started small with the support of other local businesses and now stands alone with a printing shop at the Tribe One offices on Magnolia Avenue.

Bounce, Tribe One's "nerve center" where young people learn computer skills, now has moved into the Web design business, creating sites for several local companies. It also recently began operating online sales of birdhouses for Dalen Products, a West Knoxville manufacturer of lawn and garden products.

Tribe One's goal is to teach young people business skills and help them learn to be entrepreneurs, said Angel Romero, enterprise director of Boom Boom.

Penn is one of two paid interns at Tribe One, for which he has designed about 15 Web sites, including one for the Marco Institute.

He got involved with Tribe One when he met a man making music at Tribe One's Magnolia Sound Studio.

In exchange for learning computer skills, Penn got free time in the music studio. Tribe One often uses the studio as a draw to get youth interested in other activities.

"I thought I was just going to be doing this to get access to free studio time," Penn said. "I started doing it, and I didn't know the advantages of it."

Romero, another former "at-risk" youth, oversees Tribe One's screen-printing business. She said she has turned her life around and hopes Tribe One's business programs will help others do the same.

"Young people need to find ways to make money where they don't end up in jail or dead," said Romero, a former gang member. "Coming from the streets straight to a job, they would get fired. We take them from an unordered environment to a life that has order and discipline."

Boom Boom's growth The screen-printing business started in 2001 with the help of Bob Riehl, who has owned a screen- printing operation, American Sportswear, in Maynardville for the past 30 years.

Riehl brought Romero and others affiliated with Tribe One to his shop and taught them how to print shirts. He also sat down with Romero and mapped out target markets such as churches and school groups and mentored her in answering customer questions.

Boom Boom's shirts were printed at Riehl's shop until last year, when Tribe One purchased its own equipment.

Riehl says he is proud he helped Boom Boom get off the ground and doesn't consider it competition because his focus is selling souvenir shirts in Gatlinburg.

"There is enough business for everybody," Riehl said, adding that seeing the group on its own and gaining repeat business is a "dream come true."

His role now is as an adviser to check on the business regularly and put out fires if any problems develop.

Boom Boom gets about four or five new orders each week and has created shirts for groups such as the Society of Women Engineers at the University of Tennessee and Yee Haw Industries, a Knoxville printer.

The company is printing Yee Haw's "Knoxville Girl" and "Tennessee Stud" shirts, which are sold at the Knoxville Visitor's Center, at Yee Haw, Magpies Bakery and Disc Exchange.

Julie Belcher, co-owner of Yee Haw Industrial Letterpress, said Boom Boom has printed 150 dozen of the two shirt designs in the past six months.

Within the next year, Boom Boom plans to continue its growth by developing a brand and selling its own line of shirts.

Boom Boom operates with one intern, one production manager and one administrative assistant. Romero said Tribe One has three "at-risk" youths on staff.

She said the group doesn't think everyone involved on the business side of the organization will go into screen-printing or computer jobs but that they will learn business skills.

Designing with Bounce In June, Tribe One's second business, Bounce, started a partnership with Dalen Products, marketing and selling Dalen's birdhouses through the Bounce-created Web site classicbirdhouse.com.

In the past, Dalen has sold its products only to large retailers such as Wal-Mart and hadn't done any direct-to-consumer sales.

John Case, Dalen's director of operations, said the partnership with Bounce allows the company to sell items that have been slow sellers at the retail stores and gather information on the market.

"What's attractive about it is we can venture into a market we haven't explored before without a lot of capital expenditure," Case said.

When an order comes into the Web site, people at Bounce check with Dalen to make sure the item is in stock. Dalen sends the product to Bounce, which handles all customer interactions, such as issuing receipts, and ships items to customers.

Bounce also markets the products through online publications.

Since the partnership began this summer, birdhouses have been sold to customers in more than 20 states, according to Doug McDaniel, who oversees Bounce.

Case said birdhouses haven't sold well to retail customers but that the products could be something consumers want without the stores realizing it.

Case said the venture isn't meant to compete with those retailers selling Dalen's products, but it gives the company a chance to learn about customers.

"The big thing we are trying to do is gather information," Case said. "It helps confirm or deny if there is a specific market for our products to the Web consumer."

Chris Woodhull, who founded Tribe One with the late Danny Mayfield in 1993, said that in the future, Tribe One is looking to further develop the music side of its business by selling studio time and also has plans to increase its number of interns from two to 12.

Woodhull said he has been able to get companies interested in Tribe One because business leaders want to lend their expertise to help young people. Likewise, he said, young people are interested in learning about business.

"So many of the young people are fascinated by running a business," Woodhull said. "They run businesses off the street that have not been successful, and there is an entrepreneurial spirit."

Business writer Cynthia Yeldell may be reached at 865-342-6320.

Thoughts on a candidate forum

2005-10-21T21:41:00.000-07:00

The other night I attended a candidate forum for those aspiring to serve on Knoxville City Council. All five contested district seats have incumbents who are eligible to run again and each have challengers. The evening was organized and facilitated by the League of Women Voters, an organization dedicated to civic engagement and meaningful dialogue.

Few people attended. It was more like a dance recital with parents viewing their children, supporting them and wondering what talent they might possess. Who knew? In this case the “parents” were supporters and friends.

I admit I found the evening lackluster and low-minded. Not sure why. Perhaps I was projecting my own sad mood onto the occasion. I did find it hard to hear in the room and the format felt wooden. The candidates were seated in a long row and it was tough to keep straight who was running against whom and from which district.

The questions were not particularly imaginative and the responses were bland.

I remember being in similar circumstances and feeling constrained by the format. I remember wanting to break out of the confines of the structure and speak openly and more freely about my thoughts on a particular matter.

Everybody in the room was cautious or apprehensive about sounding foolish. Whenever I am tempted by this kind of restraint I sound foolish.

I longed for somebody to step forward and speak encouragingly of the future and paint a picture of hope and clarity. Describe a place we would all like to live in. Step out and sound genuine and different.

But it’s hard to think in front of people. It’s hard to sound smart when people are gazing skeptically at you. Your brain blinks off and on like an old light bulb.

What about me. What have I been doing? How different am I from the people speaking that night. Not much. In a way I lapse into thinking the same drivel. There is a kind of vortex that exists in politics that keep the conversations from breaking into anything resembling wisdom or vision.

But things can change. We simply choose to speak differently.

from Metro Pulse

2005-07-06T19:03:00.000-07:00

Scavenging for a Skate Park
Ear to the Ground

On his way out the door, we caught up with Brian Beauchene, owner of Pluto Sports and instigator of our forthcoming public skate park. Beauchene was en route to check out the Nashville skate park with City Councilman Chris Woodhull, County Director of Parks and Recreation Doug Bataille, and City Director of Parks and Recreation Joe Walsh. As Beauchene’ll be the only one of the four men, who are going to glean ideas for our own park, who is actually skating, he says he plans to pack some deodorant for the trip back. Though the city and county donated a combined $450,000 towards construction of the park, expected to be skate-worthy by next summer, they’re still seeking donations for lighting, picnic tables, water fountains and the like. Also, in the works are two committees: one for design of the park, and the other for parents, kids and community members to voice hopes, concerns and ideas. Beauchene envisions the park as a place where “black kids will skate next to rich white kids, next to Hispanic kids. When kids can grow up together, then they’ll understand each other,” he says.

All Souls Conversation #3-4: The Winds of Change

2005-07-03T19:04:00.000-07:00

(If you are a new reader, please read All Souls Conversation #1 for context)

I am sorry for not posting anything last week. It was a combination of laziness, writer’s block and general weariness from work.

If you will remember Doug talked about God’s strategy for the city. God’s end is shalom; His means (or strategy) is a parallel community of believers.

I remember having problems with this idea of parallelism. I experience the word somewhat narrowly. It connotes to me a kind of separation, an exclusivity that I am sure Doug did not intend.

Is salt seperate from the meal? It enhances the flavor of the food. Is leaven worth anything by itself? Actually salt and leaven bring the entire meal or loaf into completion. I think of God's community as an activating, catalytic agency much like salt and leaven.

That is why I struggled with a paralled community? I certainly understand the idea. He took the phrase from Vaclav Havel’s essay, “The Power of the Powerless,” where Havel, from prison I might add, encouraged people, living in oppressive communist Czechoslovakia, to live out a free and open life in small clandestine groups. It was a kind of dress rehearsal for liberation. These meetings allowed people to join together and share their kindness and brilliance with each other as well as their truth. The trappist monk Thomas Merton once commented that, "we make ourselves real by telling the truth." I think that that is what is going on in these groups. Nobody can accept the good news if there is no place to hear the bad news. The slaves did it in small group meetings on plantations in the United States. Liberation movements have practiced the same strategy worldwide. There is something about convincing your “insides” that is integral to making the outside world different.

Tonight Doug focused on “the Community of the Spirit.” This is the parallel community. The only difference is that this “liberation group” also practices presence, presence of the Holy Spirit. Huh? We are the conduit for God’s presence. Now before the “I can’t-stand-Christian-talk” crowd who may also be reading this blog go ballistic I would point them to the music of jazz. Jazz is music of discipline and receptivity. Much the same way that prayer is.

Presence in the Christian world is another word for prayer and prayer is a kind of artistry. That is to say that it requires an agile imagination, alertness and sense of what is to be found.

Some Christians talk about prayer and presence as if it were a matter of hooking up to cable television, consuming it as a right. These people should be completely ignored or dismissed as quacks. (I am being a bit funny here) Prayer takes sensitivity, courage and humility. Prayer is like the great billowing sail of a sailboat moving out into the deep ferocity of the ocean. It is openness to a greater reality, a greater consciousness, a greater love than we can possess individually. It can be dangerous.

And so Christians are a parallel community of people open to the spirit, not for their own gain and edification, but for the wellbeing of the whole city. So the Church is not placed in the city to be an “example” or “model community” but rather as a kind of spiritual infrastructure for the Spirit to reach and move in the city. If we belive that God is our wind of change then there has to be something, someone in place to catch it, hold it and share it.

I may have this all wrong. That’s why I am writing all this out in living color. Tell me what you think. Quit holding back!

All Souls Conversation #2: How can Shalom defeat the powers?

2005-06-21T05:01:00.000-07:00

(If you are a new reader, please read All Souls Conversation #1 for context)

Last week Doug opened with a list of all that we could be excited about downtown Knoxville. He mentioned Sundown in the City, the renovation of the Tennessee Theatre, the announcement of Mast General Store coming to Gay Street and many others.

This week Doug opened with another list of things in our city that won’t seem to change, that won’t heal: the racial divide, homelessness and even the unwillingness of Churches to work side by side.

Why?

Why is it that as much as things change and improve, they stay the same or get worse? Why is it that if God desires shalom with all His being that it always alludes us or so it seems.

One answer that is from the Bible: the powers.

Walter Wink in his book “Engaging the Powers” states,

“The powers, unfortunately, have long since been identified as an order of angelic beings in heaven, or as demons flapping about in the sky. Most people have simply consigned them to the dustbin of superstition. Others, sensing the tremendous potential in the concept of the powers for interpreting social reality, have identified them without remainder as institutions, structures, and systems. The powers certainly are the latter, but they are more, and it is that “more” that holds the clue to their profundity. In the biblical view they are both visible and invisible, earthly and heavenly, spiritual and institutional. The powers possess an outer, physical manifestation (building, portfolios, personnel, trucks, fax machines) and an inner spirituality, or corporate culture, or collective personality. The powers are the simultaneity of an outer, visible structure and an inner spiritual reality. The powers, properly speaking, are not just the spirituality of institutions, but their outer manifestations as well. The New Testament uses the language of power to refer now to the outer aspect, now to the inner aspect, now to both together. It is the spiritual aspect, however, that is so hard for people inured to materialism to grasp.”

If the powers are both inside and outside at once, only an inside/outside opponent is worthy of engaging the powers.

Shalom? What do you think?

All Souls Conversation #1: Shalom and Sidewalks

2005-06-14T20:48:00.000-07:00

These are random thoughts provoked by Doug Banister’s sermon “God’s Vision for the City” delivered at All Souls Church in Knoxville. They may make sense. They may not. I invite you, in the spirit of open dialogue, to react, contribute, add to, build upon these thoughts and musings and hopefully somewhere at the center of this discussion we will find something that rings true.

During my campaign for city council I spent a lot of time thinking about issues that people were talking about, but thinking about “problems” always frustrated me and felt shortsighted and always led my mind toward pondering a more fundamental and positive inquiry: what is the purpose or goal of a city? I decided, somewhat tentatively that the goal of a city is to support, protect and promote the life, wellbeing, happiness and potential of its citizens in a way that encourages active participation and responsibility.

Cities are not ideas. They are physical settlements. For example a campground is a settlement. It has a very transient and temporary use. People live together in many ways for many reasons. I am not sure why Knoxville was established. A look back at its history would give us clues about why the roads and buildings are arranged in their own particular form.

The form of a human settlement reveals the customs, habits and social ideas of the people living there. It tells us by its size, shape and arrangement which human actions are encouraged and which are not. The shape of our surroundings physically obstructs, encourages, and directs our actions.

So what does this have to do with Doug’s idea that God is restoring shalom in the city, that God is restoring peace, wholeness, completion and delight? What does it mean, as Isaiah suggests, that God is moving the city from tears, death, poverty, idolatry and violence to laughter, healing, prosperity, worship and love?

The idea I have is that shalom is not just an idea but also a practice that is enacted by God’s people in their actions, way they live together and even the form of their settlement. Remember Doug mentioning the importance of sidewalks.

Shalom is more conducive to a city because the built environment is more cascading and overlapping. The relationships are rich with interdependence. Of course the opposite is true: when the relationships break down, the problems are more toxic.

The suburbs lack the intertwining closeness that shalom requires as a kind of precondition.

I hope this gets us thinking. Peace.

Two hundred people I admire

2005-06-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday over two hundred people received recognition for their successful completion of GED requirements amidst choruses of raucous applause and adulation. This was clearly more than a graduation. This was a rite of passage.

These graduates, coming from all over the Knoxville area, attended programs at Knox County Schools Adult Education, Workforce Connection Ross Learning Center, Pellissippi State Technical Community College Adult Education, Knox County Schools GED Option and the UT WAVE Program.

The event took place at the Central United Methodist Church on Saturday and included three emotional presentations by student speakers detailing the amazing struggle to get their education.

I was the guest speaker; it really should have just ended there.

I have to admit that I have a very special admiration for people who get their high school diploma this way. Life caused these young people (and some older) to wait and then turn around and choose to go back to school and learn. Many people simply get overwhelmed with their own negative thinking about the possibility of really making it happen. These people persevered. They made it happen.

I announced to them that now they know what is inside themselves: the strength, the courage, the tenacity. Now they know the meaning of education: a tool for progress, not status. And now they know the power of purpose and direction. Now they can accomplish whatever comes next. And next. And next. And next.

They now possess the most important ingredient. To pursue education while contending with daily life gives wisdom. And wisdom gives life.

At the end, all these amazing people, bathed in the love and affection of friends and family, filed to the front to receive their public acknowledgement. One by one, I told congratulations, you did it.

This is how real people are made. I applaud them for their hope. I applaud them for their struggle. God bless each one.

from Metro Pulse

2005-05-05T19:34:00.000-07:00

Candy Factory meeting went a little wild
by Ellen Mallernee

In response to recent controversy about the redevelopment of the Candy Factory, an icon during the 1982 World’s Fair , a public meeting was held on the building’s 7th floor on April 28. Though the meeting began in a calm climate, moods soon elevated to what some likened to a ’60s protest riot.

About 75 people were in attendance to voice grievances and thoughts about a plan that would keep only some of the gallery and studio space used by arts and non-profit groups. Because the city incurs a net loss of $178,000 a year on the Candy Factory, the Haslam administration recently issued a request for proposals to renovate the structure, as well as the nearby Victorian houses and other World’s Fair Park features.

Chattanooga-based Kinsey Probasco Hays & Associates responded with the favored plan, setting up negotiations to convert much of the Candy Factory into high-end condos. The plan also calls for renovations to the Sunsphere, the Tennessee Amphitheater and the Victorian Houses. Metro Pulse owner Brian Conley is a partner with the redevelopment group.
City Council members were attending the meeting included Joe Hultquist, Chris Woodhull and Rob Frost, as well as Bill Lyons, the city’s senior director of policy development.

“I thought [the meeting] was good,” says Woodhull, “and good, meaning that it was good that people were able to come together and see each other and voice their concerns in the presence of one another and not just one on one, but collectively, and it’s good that the City Council was there to hear it, and it’s good that Bill Lyons was there to hear it.”

Representatives from 14 of the groups that meet in the Candy Factory, and one concerned citizen, stepped forward to the open mike.

Reps spoke for the Tennessee Stage Company, Circle Modern Dance, the Youth Advisory Board, Knoxville Swing Dance, Knoxville Songwriter’s Association, InterAct Children’s Theatre for the Deaf, Pouncy Partners, Scottish Country Dancing, East Tennessee Discovery Center, 1010 Gallery and Mountain Laurel Gallery, among other organizations and businesses. Concerned about being displaced from the building, many tried in earnest to communicate what the structure’s value is to their respective organizations. Kimberly Matibag of Circle Modern Dance, said, “I’d like everyone to know how useful this space is to us and our community.” Cynthia Atkins with Scottish Country Dancing added, “It’s hard to find a dance studio in this area. We need wood floors, because linoleum flooring is physically taxing. We’ve already contacted other studios in town, and they’re booked.” Atkins said the other studios in town had only linoleum flooring anyway, and many were without needed mirrors.

Margaret Maddox of the East Tennessee Discovery Center, said that the center has $1.2 million worth of equipment on the 4th floor of the Candy Factory and no place to relocate it.
Though some have suggested that the groups relocate to Knoxville museums or parks, the consensus had it that such locations wouldn’t be feasible because of weather and space concerns.
A suggestion to use the space in the old convention center was better received, and Lyons promised to look into that possibility.

Councilman Hultquist said that there are some “really, really important policy decisions” to be made, and that the city isn’t just concerned about “the status of the facility, but also its serious fiscal issues.”

When Woodhull spoke, he echoed what he’d gotten from the evening’s fervent speakers. “Art is important,” he said. “This is not just about a scheduling problem; you’re lamenting the loss of a vibrant community.”

Though Sherby Jones of Mountain Laurel Gallery said the evening had “an empowering, happy, good feeling for a meeting,” things got heated as Lyons stepped behind the mike.
Lyons addressed the building’s financial issues; besides the rent loss each year, he said the building needs $2.5 to $3 million in renovations. “It’s unfair to characterize the city of Knoxville as not caring or investing in the arts,” he said.

Local architect Michael Kaplan, who described himself as a concerned citizen, suggested that the building be sold to a non-profit group or that local citizens be given the opportunity to collect money for purchase of the building.

When Lyons said it was “too late” for such a proposal, members of the crowd guffawed or hooted in outrage. One fellow in the back of the room cupped his hands over his mouth and ranted, clapping wildly as if at a football game.

Kaplan suggested that the meeting be the beginning of a new mayoral campaign, though he didn’t specify anyone he had in mind. That resulted in verbal sparring with Lyons. “The city has a commitment towards a broad-based support of the arts,” Lyons said. “I know the mayor shares this passion.”

The meeting ended inconclusively, but Councilman Woodhull said, “I think there are a lot of options that have been left on the table. [Though] it was sort of unclear what the next step was, and it’s unclear whether there’s a possibility of the next step.”

Woodhull doesn’t feel bothered by the somewhat chaotic nature of the meeting. “Democracy’s a little bit messy; it’s not like a powerpoint, and a public meeting shouldn’t be concise. It needs to get a little bit agitated.”

2005-04-10T00:37:00.000-07:00

MetroPulse has noticed this blog.

Meditation on Politics
Knoxville City Councilman Chris Woodhull has joined the blogging fraternity offering his views on politics and governing. The spiritual Woodhull leans more toward meditation than bare-knuckles politics, offering his vision of city priorities. In a post after a recent City Council meeting, he suggested that the city’s next focus should be on reclaiming Park City as a natural progression from downtown redevelopment.
Woodhull jokes that he might as well give any potential opponents all the ammunition they need by sharing his thoughts with constituents. The blog is chriswoodhull.blogspot.com.

A series of unfiltered thoughts

2005-04-08T14:17:00.000-07:00

I was recently invited to speak at a Sertoma Club meeting at the University Club. After being introduced, I gave the group a choice between speech A (a conventional presentation of city affairs) or speech B (a series of unfiltered thoughts I listed out the night before).

I warned them that first off, speech B is not really a speech but a random sampling of thoughts and they may not make sense and could anger them. It may well please them. Who knew? I was simply letting them into the world of my thought process since being on council. I was sharing direct observations. Something very dangerous for a politician I suppose. They all wanted B.

So I read them the following:

· The instinct to care for each other (neighborliness) has been challenged or worn thin by a general misunderstanding or privatized understanding of the idea of property rights and its place in the ethos of community health. Generations before us thought of themselves as citizens, not so much taxpayers. The shift in how we see ourselves changes how we behave toward each other. A citizen thinks more in terms of responsibility, knowing that while private property is a right or privilege that allows for personal sanctuary and expression, he is mindful that he is a neighbor to others and therefore must account for that in his stewardship and private dealings. A taxpayer thinks more in terms of value and self interest.

· In light of being responsible for an entire city of people, both socially and economically, I am not sure what it means to be either pro business or pro neighborhood.

· We spend more time at city council discussing bureaucratic procedure than systemic city problems.

· We tend to focus on problems rather than strength. This obsession fixates our mind on what is wrong, and not on what is right. You can only build off of what is right.

· The public often uses city council proceedings to “get back” at each other rather than seriously dealing with each other. In other words we are used in a way that legitimizes individual people’s immaturity or unresolved anger.

· A politician is tempted to concern himself with people’s reactions, in what he thinks and says, rather than what he believes to be true. This is what is referred to as “politics.”

· We do not understand tradeoffs. We get more if we are able to accept small losses. And conversely if we never are willing to lose a thing, we sacrifice big gains.

· We have a bias toward the present at the expense of the future.

· We do not talk about issues of poverty and homelessness and yet it is one of our primary expenses.

· Politicians can be insulated from “reality” because they generally receive information from reports or people who are seeking something or from people who are angry about something. The reality is not expressed in its natural complexity and the goal in dealing with the problem drifts toward resolving the “dramatic” elements of the situation and not the fundamental conflict which requires insight from both sides. In other words we usually deal with what appears to be so and not what is and we tend not to ever get to the bottom of things because the “opponents” won’t speak to each other.

· When contemplating a change people tend to focus on the risk of the change rather than the risk of not changing.

· In the area of race relations we are still very backward – white people persist in negligence and lack of awareness of the climate and circumstance both economically and socially that people of color live in. On the other hand people of color are held back by their own anger at this situation and often refuse to accept or see real opportunities.

Now which of these would you like to talk about? (Everybody jumped in.)

Politics as Shalom Making (an excerpt from a new book)

2005-03-28T18:04:00.000-08:00

”Politics is building community with strangers.”

Chris Woodhull, a respected community leader in his early forties, is running for a seat on the Knoxville City Council. When he’s not campaigning, Chris is the executive director of TRIBE ONE, a faith-based nonprofit organization that works with teenagers affiliated with gangs. I’m interested in listening to Chris’s views on the church’s role in politics because I know he shares my ambivalence toward much of what has passed for church-based political action.

Just prior to our conversation, I pulled a book off the shelf, and a letter form a conservative Christian political group falls out. The letter is written in red, white and blue ink with whole paragraphs set in boldface type. It features lines such as “the stakes are incredibly high” and “we must fight.” The boldface words are underlined just to make sure I don’t miss them. The letter ends with an appeal for a “victory gift” to support voter guides that will tell the faithful who the approved Christian candidates are. None of the “approved” candidates is a Democrat, by the way. How did the gospel become connected with the Republican Party?

The posturing of the political left is just as annoying. The great sucking sound that so many church watchers heard in the last quarter of the past century was the sound of millions of spiritually famished Christians exiting their churches because they didn’t hear another sermon on global warming or nuclear disarmament.

At least liberals and conservatives have tried to relate their faith to their politics. Other Christians have opted out of the political process, retreating to Christian ghettos while they await the setting of the moral sun. That strikes me as gutless.

So what am I left with? I don’t want to be liberal, conservative, or gutless. I’ve been reading a book that calls for a “third way” that arises “out of a deepening hunger among many to find a…’spiritual politics’ beyond the old polarized options of Left and Right, liberal and conservative.” I share this hunger for a third way. I sense Chris does too.

“What has the campaign been like?” I ask Chris.

“Frightening,” he answers. “Running for office is a spectacle. But it is a gift, too.”

“A gift?”

“It has opened up rooms inside of me that have been locked. When we go through things like this, we see what’s inside us.” The grueling political campaign has become a means of spiritual formation for Chris – a crucible that refines him. I had never before thought of the refining process as a reason for the church to enter the public square, but it’s a good one: We grow spiritually when we bring faith to bear on issues that are crucial to the well-being of society.

Chris and I talk about his calling into politics. He recalls a father who loved JFK, a year spent in Washington working for a think tank, an African American friend named Danny, now deceased, who ran for office as an act of worship. Chris senses that I am hoping for something a little more dramatic, but he doesn’t go there.

“Modern Christianity is too utopian,” he says. “The Christian life is really about the ordinary, not the ideal. Place is important. The land is important. Politics is putting morality into practice. It’s a pragmatic dealing with life in a particular place, a community, our community.”

“What is a community?”

“A community is a place that supports our growth and wholeness. A community holds us, helps us feel alive.”

“And the goal of Christian politics, then, is…?”

“To build a place that works for everybody, a real place, a community with social equity, a community where everyone has economic access, a community that is economically sound and livable.”

The Hebrew prophets, when they dreamed of healthy communities, described their vision with the ancient word shalom. Shalom means “harmony, wholeness, completion, things as they should be.” Sometimes our bibles translate shalom as “peace,” but it is a much fuller word than that. In fact, a vast project to restore shalom to the world unfolds across the pages of scripture. God creates the world. Initially it enjoys shalom. Then sin destroys shalom and introduces alienation. The Old Testament is the story of God’s attempt to restore the shalom of Eden. The angels at Christ’s birth sing that he has come to bring shalom. The apostle Paul tells us that Christ’s death recovered shalom. John’s Apocalypse foresees the restoration of shalom on all the earth as the goal of history.

Shalom is a real place that works for everybody. “Seek the peace and prosperity (shalom) of the city,” the prophet Jeremiah said. This is the purpose of politics. This is why Chris is running for a seat on the city council. This is why the church must be involved in politics. Politics is a tool for shalom making.

I find myself puzzling over the ramifications of what Chris has said. I hope he wins the election, partly because I can’t wait to see how reporters handle him and partly because I think we need people like him in office. I tell him this before we part.

Our conversation ends with glimpses of insight and invitations to hope, but no coherent theory of Christian political involvement. I am both moved and mildly frustrated. Perhaps politicians who are poets are uniquely qualified to serve as guides along the political road less traveled.

An hour later my phone rings. Chris wants to say one more thing. Perhaps now I’ll get a real sound bite to wrap this essay around.

“I’ve been reading a speech Vaclav Havel gave on politics at New York University. Listen to this,” he begins. Quoting the Czech poet and president, Chris continues: “Politics should be principally the domain of people with a heightened sense of responsibility and a heightened sense of the mysterious complexity of being.”

I write frantically on my notepad.

“Isn’t that beautiful?” he asks.

Yes, I tell him. It is.

- an excerpt from "God On Earth: the Church - a hard look at the real life of faith" by Doug Banister, 2005.

Politics as Morality in Practice

2005-03-20T18:26:00.000-08:00

The main task of the present generation of politicians is not, I think, to ingratiate themselves with the public through their decisions or their smiles on television. It is not to go on winning elections and ensuring themselves a place in the sun till the end of their days. Their role is something quite different: to assume their share of responsibility for the long-range prospects of our world and thus to set an example for the public in whose sight they work. their responsibility is to think ahead boldly, not to fear the disfavor of the crowd; to imbue their actions with a spiritual dimension (which of course is not the same things as ostentatious attendance at religious services); to explain again and again – both to the public and to their colleagues – that politics must do far more than reflect the interests of particular groups or lobbies. After all, politics is a matter of serving the community, which means that it is morality in practice. And how better to serve the community and practice morality than by seeking in the midst of the global (and globally threatened) civilization their own global political responsibility: that is, their responsibility for eh very survival of the human race.
(From a speech by Vaclav Havel at Harvard University)