anti-racist – Confluence:

Beyond Repair & Eastlake Craft Brewery are collaborating towards an on-going platform to democratically fund neighbor devised and implemented projects for the 9th Ward that energize creative strategies supporting well-being and personal freedom against racism, xenophobia, misogyny and all that other pile of crap that seems to be, increasingly, a-okay nowadays.

Join us on Jan. 13th at the brewery. Tell your friends. Drink some delicious beer. Propose a project. Win some money. Do some good with it. Come back next time and tell us what’s what.

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Get Brewing! : A Micro Funding/Brewing Platform Supporting Neighborhood Creative Engagement for Defense and Wellness in South Minneapolis
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Beyond Repair and Eastlake Craft Brewing have devised a micro-grant presentation platform – Get Brewing! – established to promote and support creative social engagement around defense and wellness in the 9th Ward neighborhoods of Powderhorn, Central, and Phillips. Modeled after FEAST (“a recurring public dinner designed to use community-driven financial support to democratically” fund project proposals) Get Brewing! invites 9th Ward neighbors to individually or collaboratively propose projects that imaginatively address how we, as neighbors, can care for, assist, and protect one another within this moment of unease.

Every other Friday at 7pm, starting January 13th, drop by Eastlake for a beer. Propose a project, or simply listen in on the great ideas of your fellow neighbors. Proposals will be voted on by all in attendance. With $2 from every full-size beer sold to participants that evening going into the Get Brewing! fund, the winner walks away with that night’s profits to help support the realization of their idea. Winners return at the next gathering of Get Brewing! to share what they’ve done.

Within a moment where distrust and fear, hate crimes, and general unease are at a fever pitch, models and actions that address how we care for one another, as well as ourselves, are not simply a good idea, but vital social tools for mental health and personal freedom in advance of crisis. Get Brewing! creates a social space to critically address these concerns and highlight methods of support for one another from the ground up. With communal intent we, as neighbors, can energize ideas that benefit us all, starting with our neighbors most at risk within a climate of heightened aggression and intolerance.

Have a beer!
Come up with an idea!
Commit to one another!
Repeat as necessary!!

I’m really impressed with the clarity amidst the complexity of Marlon‘s argument here. While cutting and to the point, its logic opens up a door for each encounter, each action, we take through a precise lens. In regard to so many aspects of power and acquiescence which we encounter daily, it’s exactly the type of question we should be asking of ourselves.

Marlon lives in the building above Beyond Repair, so considering I know he’s watching… MPLS folks, what do you have in mind? How can an expanded view of publication (as in The Act of Public-Making) strengthen anti-racist action and consciousness in the 9th Ward and further? Give it some thought. Have some ideas? Come down to the shop and let’s figure out what we can do to implement it.