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What's happening this week.
Law And Order Party
June 8 – June 14
George Floyd mural by Kendal Joseph at AS220 Project Space

It's about 1pm on Monday, June 8, and even though it's only been a week since the last newsletter I feel like six years have gone by.

There are many, many people who are more qualified than I am to talk about race and activism, so I won't take your time beyond to convey what should be obvious (that Black Lives Matter) and to express rage and despair at the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Aubery, and Tony McDade, a trans man who was killed twelve days ago in Tallahassee by a police officer that has still not even been named.

This is an arts newsletter and I am a lone white guy so I don't want to veer too far out of my lane here, particularly when other people's words are more useful right now. If you have money to spare, there are lots of organizations doing anti-racist work that could use it. The FANG Collective is one organization you can give to locally. They're also a founding partner of AMOR, a larger network that could also use some funds.

As for myself, on Friday I attended a virtual workshop about making FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests, and tomorrow I'm attending a virtual town hall called LGBTQ+ Community Dismantling White Supremacy: White People Engaging White People. That's being offered by GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD).

A few more resources:

Local Bookshop Twenty Stories has compiled an Anti-Racist Reading List.

The most recent newsletter from the Providence Athenaeum also features a reading list, as well as a pretty hefty list of useful links ranging from info about Black Birders Week to a self-guided walking tour of the early Black history of Providence.

Eat Drink RI has compiled a list of Black-owned restaurants and food businesses in the state (including farms and a distillery), which you may want to consider if you're comfortable eating out right now. Providence Monthly has a similar list.

Here's pop culture site Vulture with a look at why TV cops are always the protagonists, and not just in the Law and Order franchise.

Finally, to end on a positive note, some unrelated local-ish news that didn't get as much attention last week as it normally might have: a judge ruled last week in favor of the Mashpee Wampanoag, whose land in the Taunton/Mashpee area has been in legal limbo since 2018, when the Department of the Interior disestablished the land trust. It's not the end of the legal fight, but it's a big step in the right direction.

6 Other Things To Do This Week

Monday – Music
Genre-hopping artist Shamir is doing a live concert through La Blogotheque Instagram Live. Sorry for the short notice on this one. I hadn't heard about Shamir since the Muppety video for his bouncy 2015 single "Call It Off", but the crunching guitars on his new album Cataclysm are about a million years away from that. (Instagram; 1pm)

Monday – Theatre
Mixed Magic Theatre is hosting an online event called Talk Back: The Art of Social Change: "Tune in Monday, June 8th at 7:30pm on Mixed Magic’s FB Live for a discussion with artists from across the country as they grapple with this question of social change and artistic responsibility in light of the historical and current protests gripping the nation." Panelists are from Rhode Island, Boston, Detroit, LA, and Washington, DC. You don't need a Facebook account to watch. (Facebook; 7:30pm)

Friday – Performance
Covid-19 put the kibosh on PVDFest this year, but  the festival (originally scheduled for this weekend lives on virtually with Requiem for the Living, In Color, a performance from Carlos Andres Toro and Daniel Bernard Roumain.
It's presented by FirstWorks and PVDFest:
"Combining bold, dramatic imagery with a string and beat-based score, Requiem for the Living, In Color addresses the realities of living in modern-day America, where the inherent worth of black and brown bodies and souls requires impassioned pleas for their humanity to be recognized." (Facebook Live; 7pm)

Saturday – Jazz
New York's Village Vanguard kicks off a summer of online programming with celebrated jazz drummer Billy Hart. (Village Vanguard; 7pm)

Any Time – Film
The Criterion Channel is my favorite $11.99 to spend each month, but the streaming service recently released a whole bunch of timely films for free, including classics of Black cinema like Julie Dash's Daughters in the Dust, Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman, and Oscar Micheaux's 1925 silent Body and Soul, as well as Agnes Varda's Black Panthers documentary and the only film directed by Maya Angelou. (CriterionChannel.com; free)

Any Time – Art
Buildings in downtown Providence were boarded up last Tuesday morning, and artists quickly got to work covering the plywood with murals and memorials to victims of police killings. I've been posting some highlights on the @lawandorderparty Instagram and will continue to document the changes as they happen (and as I learn the names of the artists). To see them in person, begin at the corner of Westminster and Eddy Streets and venture out from there.

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