It’s officially Holiday Season 2009.

Before you go out and contribute more crap to your household, and before you’re swayed by catalogs and commercials to spend your hard-earned cash, check out this video.

You just might rethink the stuff you want, and even better–stop believing the hype.

The Story of Stuff

The Bush Administration had just denied 17 states the right to set strict emission standards for the automobile industry. Floored by the divide between the people and the power, Joseph knew it was his time to take a stand.

“It became clear to me at that point that the Administration was so deeply in the pocket of big oil that they neglected the stewardship of the planet, which is all of our collective responsibility,” Joseph says. “That was my true Ah-Ha moment.”

Bamuthi Joseph, a renowned performer and the artistic director of The Living Word Project and Youth Speaks, began combing the environmental community for allies of color, but after colliding with the green movement’s alarming segregation, decided to shift his focus from green to brown. One year later, he founded Life is Living, a one day festival that uses performance installations to encourage people of color to engage in the green movement by investing in life.

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“Life is Living is a national campaign to remind people that life is worth living and living is green,” says Rolando “Grow” Brown, chief cultivator of Parallel MVMT.  “It’s an opportunity for us to change the dominant narrative around what it means for people from urban communities and people of color to be involved both powerfully and purposely in a green economy.”

Born in West Oakland yet cultivated across the country, Life is Living creates an energetic outdoor experience to introduce movement, visual arts, and eco-engagement to communities often excluded from the conversation. From a graffiti battle between 16 artists painting the word ALIVE, to a local church selling seedlings for $1, the organization is developing creative ways to grow urban communities.

“West Oakland is a neighborhood not unlike Harlem, with mostly black and brown folks who are disenfranchised and underdeveloped, so we wanted to do something that would mean a lot to the community,” says Chinaka Hodge, associate artistic director of the Living Word Project.  “We’re identifying things that people of color are already engaged in that are friendly to the environment, from the skating, dancing, the music, and bikes. We also want to message it in an appropriate way, so we have the [graffiti] writers write things that are significant. Last year, we had them write “LIFE.”

Life is what came to Harlem’s Riverside Park on May 9, 2009, the second city on the festival’s route. Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Brooklyn are scheduled to get schooled by the Life is Living crew at up-coming festivals, and a performance piece documenting these events called “red black and GREEN: a blues” is currently in the works.

“What I thought was feasible was using hip hop culture as a way to de-corporatize green by focusing on sustainable survival practices through the things we do in our everyday life that are celebrations of self and community,” Joseph says. “The idea is that by focusing on life and the lives that we live, we create a living or organic bridge to green living and green culture.”

Words from the Reporter: Does the green movement speak to you? How do you find ways to connect to your environment? It blows my mind that “going green” isn’t universally accepted, when taking certain steps could actually save our lives. I LOVE what Life is Living is doing for the community, yet we need more people like Marc Bamuthi Joseph to make a difference. What do you think it will take?

New York City educator Aiesha Turman is doing her part to soothe the struggles of young black girls. Turman is currently filming The Black Girl Project, a full-length documentary that finds young girls sounding off about who they really are. This project is one of many initiatives stemming from Turman’s Super Hussy Media, an outlet that she developed to explore the many facets of black womanhood using workshops geared to empowering young women, resources promoting healthy self-esteem, and now films to spark dialogue among teens, parents, and teachers.

“I have students who are homeless. I have students who are getting beat up by boyfriends.”

Growing up in western New York as one of few of her school’s black students, Turman experienced her own struggles with identity. Although exposed to culture and history at an early age, the absence of constant discussion about the roles of women proved particularly challenging during her upbringing.

“Thinking back to the friends that I had growing up, I know a lot of us were having so many issues,” Turman says, “but we came from this community where you don’t tell your business, and you don’t talk to other people regardless if it’s a trained therapist. You will not go and speak to someone and tell anyone else. There are so many shameful family secrets.”

After a difficult stint in college, Turman eventually found her calling through an internship at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City, where she once again found herself as the token black, but this time celebrated the opportunity to flourish in a foreign setting. This internship brought Turman to predominately black schools, teaching Jewish history through the eyes of an African American woman.

Courtney James is entering her junior year at City College of NY. She's currently working as a residential adviser for a summer program at Yale.

“I would go to the schools, speak to them, and then we would do a tour,” said Turman. “I had a different perspective than some of the folks who would do the tours. We would then go back to the schools and workshop on social justice and what they can do in their communities based on what they did at the museum. That’s really what started for me.”

She went on to serve as a coordinator at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, bringing literature, arts, and history to high school students. It was here that she began her work with teenage girls, serving as a confidante to a host of young women forced to sort through difficult experiences on their own.

“As the coordinator of the program it’s like running a mini high school. I’m having girls who are having irresponsible sex. I have students who were sexually abused. I have students who are homeless. I have students who are getting beat up by boyfriends, and these are all that you would see on paper, as good girls and good kids. They look healthy, but a lot of things were going on. That’s where my whole idea for Super Hussy and the Black Girl Project came from—working with these girls and really getting to know them on an intimate level.”

The young women featured in the film are candid about their experiences, giving viewers access to a voice that’s rarely heard. Set to be released this fall, The Black Girl Project will blend interviews, images, and historical footage to tell a compelling story told by girls ages 10 to 20-years old. Turman is also developing a curriculum to accompany the film to encourage an ongoing discussion about the weighty topics that the young women address, and to encourage mothers, aunties, and sisters to foster a healthy development and a strong sense of self.

“These conversations need to constantly take place. You have to show them alternatives because the television is not going to show them, and neither is the internet. It’s up to us.”

the black girl project {i am} from Super Hussy on Vimeo.

Ella Baker Center's Books Not Bars Rally

These days, activism and public service are essential to the country’s rebuilding process. Books Not Bars, an organization founded by the Oakland-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, is dedicated to the alternative rehabilitation of California’s youth, and to the concept of community service.

Looking to remedy the state’s inhumane juvenile justice system (where troubled kids are often locked up in 21-hour solitary confinement, leading to the deaths of six young people), they aim to educate rather than suppress and abuse. Since its creation in 2004, the organization has amassed some impressive milestones and racked up key victories, including reducing the prison youth population by 60 percent, and garnering critical and increasing support from community leaders and families of incarcerated children.

This year, Books Not Bars aims to shut down two California youth prisons, Preston and Stark, where just five years ago two young inmates hung themselves after a grueling 23 hours of confinement. You can help fight California’s Division of Juvenile Justice by visiting ellabakercenter.org/bnb to spread the word.