Ballet Schools for Everyone!

January 20, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From readers:

On the evening of December 21—a date hyped as "the end of the world"—Revolution Books Atlanta sponsored a fundraising dinner party for the BA Everywhere...Imagine the Difference It Could Make! campaign. At an earlier Revolution Books discussion it was decided to host a potluck dinner to celebrate, raise money, and spread what BA Everywhere had achieved in 2012 and look forward to taking it higher in 2013. It began to take shape as we called as many people as we could who we met while taking out BA Everywhere during the year and talking with them about the campaign again, inviting them to the fundraiser, and asking them to bring food or contribute music or poetry. And for those who weren't able to make it to the dinner, we asked them for a financial contribution on the spot (we got a few donations this way)! As a part of a new approach, we invited people to step in and contribute their ideas to developing the program, and that helped shape the evening in some amazing and fresh ways.

The dinner was held in a classroom of a community center that was a former elementary school. In order to make the room more inviting and warm, we incorporated an idea from one of the fundraising reports on the Revolution website, and decorated the room with table cloths, flowers, and candles. Another idea someone thought of was to ask people as they entered the dinner to write their thoughts (we used the wall long chalkboard still in the room) and then during the course of the evening, we could use quotes from BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian to address some of them. One category was "What Keeps You Up at Night?" and among the comments were: CLIMATE CHANGE, INCREASING POVERTY, RAPE, THE VIEW THAT SOME ARE SUPERIOR TO OTHERS, YOUTH RAILROADED INTO PRISONS, TORTURE, DRONES, MASS APATHY, WOMEN AS SEX OBJECTS, and CHILDREN'S EDUCATION. The second category was titled "Vision of a New World" and the comments included: ART AND CULTURE FOR FUN NOT PROFIT; EDUCATION THAT TEACHES KIDS THE TRUTH!; NO WAR; LOVE, JUSTICE FOR ALL; ONE WORLD COMMUNITY; FREE BOOKS; WORLD OF COMMUNISM; WORLD PEACE; NO VIOLENCE; HELPER ROBOTS, and A TRULY INTERNATIONALIST WORLD WITHOUT BORDERS AND DIVISIONS OF ANY KIND. And an elementary school student wrote, BALLET SCHOOLS FOR EVERYONE. In response to the comment about education, BAsics 2:7 was read out loud: "Let's talk about education. Imagine kids who actually wanted to go to school! Imagine if they weren't degraded and insulted all the time and treated as if they couldn't possibly learn anything or have important ideas. Imagine if the educational system actually told them the truth and helped them to think critically, to challenge everything. Yes the teachers, and yes even the party and its leaders..."

Most of the 25 people who came had taken part in the BA Everywhere campaign in various ways throughout the year, from contributing funds, distributing BAsics quote of the month palm cards, contributing food or talent or ideas at other events and fundraisers during the year. We were fortunate to have a couple people who had been on the BAsics Bus Tour and several others who had met up with the Atlanta leg of the tour during its travels from Atlanta to Sanford, Florida. There were also some new people who came to check out the movement for revolution more deeply.

The evening began by playing the 1969, 1979 and 2003 excerpts from Bob Avakian's speeches (a request by many!), after the MC talked briefly about what was accomplished in pushing out with BA in 2012, and then people were invited to step forward with what they had prepared to contribute‑or to step up if they were inspired by others. A couple people read letters from prisoners about how the literature sent to them by the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund transformed their outlook and their lives while in prison. Another person performed two original poems, and a person from another country spoke movingly from his own experience about the desperation of people oppressed by imperialism and the difference BA's new synthesis of communism can make to everyone struggling for a real solution to this horror.

Someone who had gone on the BAsics Bus Tour but could not be at the dinner wrote a statement of support to the gathering, "Hello friends, I'm sorry I can't be with you all on this important night. The importance of Bob Avakian and the new synthesis of communism is the difference in changing the world to something radically different and a place that people actually want to live in. This world we live in with its repeated horrors does not have to continue. What kind of world do we have with the wars, torture, degradation of women and the total destruction of the planet with the constant threat of nuclear war hanging over our heads. This cannot be the pinnacle of human existence and the best possible world if you step back and look at the world as a whole. Quite simply getting Bob Avakian and this new synthesis of communism everywhere throughout society is our only hope of lifting the people to truly unheard of heights never before imagined in human history. If we don't succeed in making revolution imagine the planet 30 or 40 years from now. How many youth will be locked away and warehoused then, if not a total genocide. How many more police killings do we have to witness of our Black and Latino youth. The whole future of the planet is in our hands at this very moment. So we all have a huge responsibility let us all make the right choice." BAsics Bus Tour volunteer

Another statement was sent with a heartbreaking poem written by a woman whose mentally ill brother had been killed in prison. The essence of the poem was about how her brother would have been treated with more respect if he had been a dog!

A YouTube clip of a poem performed by the late Gil Scott-Heron was played—"A poem for Jose Campos Torres." This was introduced with a reference to a section of the interview with Bob Avakian by Cornel West where Avakian talked about the outrage of the police killing the youth and not wanting to be waging struggles against these same outrages 30 years from now ("How long...")—pointing out that the poem was written about a police murder of a Latino man in Houston, Texas over 30 years ago. "...And the dogs are in the mother-fucking street..."

There was an international flavor to the dinner with many people bringing dishes as well as a Jamaican and Middle Eastern restaurant donating food too. Someone made a great playlist of inspiring music that was played as we ate and talked with one another. Everyone contributed to making the evening a moving experience, a success in raising funds ($500 at the dinner party and $1000 total throughout the holiday season), deepening our appreciation of the vision and leadership of BA and what has been accomplished so far with BA Everywhere—and the need to kick this campaign into high gear in 2013...and the difference it could make.

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BAsics and Bake Sale for the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF)

In mid-December, we also raised money for the PRLF to send BAsics to prisoners with a bake sale. A small team set up very large displays of pictures from Revolution newspaper, the BA iconic image, and the cover and some quotes from BAsics outside a busy mall during the holiday season. We took homemade brownies and cookies that had been contributed, wrapped and sealed with a sticker that said "Thank you for contributing to the BA Everywhere campaign, revcom.us." to sell to holiday shoppers. We also had plenty of copies of BAsics, Revolution newspaper and palm cards with the quotes-of-the-month from BAsics. A lot of people rushed by, some took palm cards and some stopped to learn what it was about, taking small stacks of cards or buying the paper. We sold a few brownies and got some donations in our bucket, but it wasn't panning out like we had hoped, so we decided to try going to other areas of the city.  

We stopped off at a restaurant where the owner was familiar with Revolution newspaper and explained what we were raising money for and challenged him to get 10 brownies at $2 a piece which he did. From there, we went to the neighborhood and shopping area where Revolution Books Outlet is located, and we spread out talking to shoppers and store owners and clerks—selling the bulk of our baked goods and collecting donations, meeting some really interesting people and getting palm cards into many of their hands as well as into many of the stores. We sold a copy of BAsics and Revolution newspapers. We collected $112 and a Revolution Books staffer person told us that several people we'd met had come into the store to check it out after we'd talked with them. All and all we have had great success with bake sales and want to make this a part of an ongoing fundraising source.

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