Dancing in the Streets of New York

More than 300 people showed up early in January for a dance lesson in the Trinity Church chapel in lower Manhattan. Reverend Emily Bloemker welcomed the twenty and thirty-something visitors, some in loose dance attire, others high-heeled and in tight jeans. Most of them probably hadn’t set foot in a church in years. These unlikely visitors were here to watch Girl Walk/All Day, a dance film directed by Jacob Krupnick. Bloemker saw the film, loved it and invited the cast and crew to screen the film in the church’s chapel. As music blasted across the church pews, all the way in the back, a second reverend, in jeans and clerical collar, tried to keep up with teacher John Doyle’s instructions. When he noticed an onlooker readying her camera to take a picture, he stopped, seemingly self-conscious, or afraid perhaps the picture would make its way to Facebook.

Girl Walk/All Day takes three dancers and a slew of guest visitors from Staten Island to Yankee Stadium via Central Park and other quintessential New York locations. There is nothing overtly religious about the film, but Bloemker like many others felt touched by it. An early trailer for the film released last January quickly became an online hit, accumulating 60,000 views on Vimeo after being picked up by the Gothamist and the Huffington Post. Funds to the realize the movie were subsequently raised through Kickstarter. Backed by the word of mouth and excitement around the trailer, the project grossed $12,000 in just six days. The film premiered in the Brooklyn Masonic Temple last December and Krupnick is now doing a cross-country tour traveling to Seattle, Portland, Oregon, L.A. and other places, where enthusiastic viewers like Bloemker have invited him for screenings.

The film has received stellar reviews withs several critics praising it for its urban joie de vivre. CBS and the Daily News, for instance, praised the film as a love letter to the city. But Girl Walk/ All Day does more than that; it also holds up a mirror that shows New Yorkers in an unflattering light. Ninety percent of the faceless New Yorkers in the movie are too engrossed in their mobile communication devices, too rushed to reach their destinations to even notice main dancer Anne Marsen cartwheeling, jumping and pirouetting in front of them. Some shoot her an annoyed look as she literally gets in their way, others raise their eyebrows and shrug their shoulders in a“only in New York”gesture. But the majority could care less.

Krupnick shot the movie over the summer in 15 days. One day, one of their very first scenes was to film dancer Dai Omiya tapping on top of a phone booth in Bowling Green Park, just off an MTA exit in the heat of morning rush. It would serve as a test: just what would Krupnick be able to get away with and how long before people would respond? This was it: Omiya, tapping away, making a hell of a noise, the boombox blasting, he would cause a scene, pulling the crowd of commuters out of their lost morning gaze. But the only person heeding the crew any attention at all was the free newspaper distributor at the subway exit, who gave them a slightly bewildered look. That was the height of the stir they caused that day. That and the police officer who walked toward them, asked them what kind of shit they thought they were doing and instructed them to go do that not on federal property.

That’s where the lightbulb went off. “Waw, the  story as I’ve written it in the script has just become completely divorced from reality,” Krupnick remembers thinking, as we walk around the Greenpoint neighborhood where he lives in Brooklyn.“That was the first moment of realizing we’d have to recalibrate a lot of ideas that involved crowd participation,”he says. Krupnick was surprised by the overwhelming lack of reaction, but also accepting of it. “ I think we all have a sense of how lost in their own world people in New York are walking around. Maybe it’s headphone culture, maybe it’s fatigue from seeing so many oddities and seeing so many things tug at your attention span,” he says.

The connection he had hoped for between his dancers and random New Yorkers in the film eventually happened behind the scenes, in all the different legs of realizing the project and the post-production process. With the people who volunteered to dance, to bring Girl Walk/ All Day to another part of the country, and with the 600 people who contributed money to fund the film and all felt like they and no-one else made this film happen, Krupnick says.

It is hard to keep from smiling watching Marsen and the other dancers on their parkour across the city.

So maybe it is a love letter to New York. Maybe that’s the magic of this city, that a girl can do whatever the hell she wants with no-one stopping her. Only in this city could Marsen be dancing in the streets like she just doesn’t care, and only here other people wouldn’t either.

Retailers increasingly blur difference between natural and organic

Consumers’ appetite for natural and organic food keeps growing. Whole Foods Market, the leading natural and organic food retailer in the U.S., clocked off 2011 with $10 billion in annual sales for the first time in the company’s history. United Natural Foods, the largest wholesaler in natural and organic products, reported a 20 percent sales gain in the same year. Meanwhile the Nutrition Business Journal projects that almost a quarter of beverage and food items sold in 2017 will be natural and organic.

But as more and more consumers scan for “natural” or “organic” on product labels, retailers and supermarkets increasingly blur the difference between the two. Geoffrey Brookshire, 24 years old, who shops at Trader Joe’s once a month, is one of many who can no longer see the forest for the trees. “This sort of idea of ‘natural’ has really turned into a confusing buzzword where it’s hard to figure out exactly what it means,” he said in a phone-interview.

For many shoppers, “natural” has become synonymous with “healthy” when in fact the term is not  recognized by the federal Food and Drug Administration – unlike “organic” which is a nutrition label officially defined and overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture since 1993. A food item can only be certified “organic” if it meets certain rigorous standards. For instance, a raw or processed product labeled as a “100 percent organic” must contain a 100 percent organically produced ingredients to earn the trademark green and white organic seal. Food items sold as “made with organic ingredients” must contain at least 70 percent organically produced ingredients for the department’s stamp of approval. Producers tempted to bend the rules are discouraged with civil penalties of up to $11,000 for selling or labeling products as organic when they haven’t been certified as such.

No such scarecrow-effect applies to the unregulated world of natural food items. The Food and Drug Administration merely notes that it does not object to use of the term “natural” if “the food does not contain added color, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances.” The agency adds on its website that, from a food science view, it is “difficult to define a food product that is ‘natural’ because the food has probably been processed and is no longer the product of the earth.”

That hasn’t deterred retailers from labeling all sorts of processed foods “natural”. In the absence of  clear rules, retailers could label a fried and unhealthy snack like chips natural if they wanted to. In fact, Lay’s does. Just last year, Lay’s’ mother company Frito-Lay broadcast its aim to make half of its product line with “all natural ingredients” by the end of the year. Lay’s fans can now indulge in tastes like Sweet Southern Heat Barbecue and Cheddar & Sour Cream without feeling guilty. A stamp prominently displayed on the chips bag reassures them these products are “made with ALL NATURAL ingredients.”

Marketers have vested interests in blurring the difference between “natural” and “organic”. In 1997, the Washington-based research firm the Hartman Group conducted a survey among a representative sample of 1,000 Americans to see how consumers understand “organic”. When interviewers asked participants for the characteristics of an organic product, 36 percent of respondents said that organic meant “natural” rather than artificial. 29 percent understood organic products as being natural, close to nature or containing natural ingredients.

Fast forward 13 years and not much seems to have changed. In a report released in 2010, the Hartman Group writes: “the vast sea of products regularly launched and marketed under the mantle of ‘natural’ seems to ebb and flow uninterrupted despite the fact that consumers often perceive the term ‘natural’ simply as a marketing ploy. And yet, what seems to keep the term ‘natural’ alive, is that it fulfills certain symbolic ideals.”

Part of it is common sense, says Elliott Prag, an instructor at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Food and Health, which offers classes to health-conscious foodies with titillating titles like “Conquering Inflammation, Your Pantry to the Rescue”, “Wholesome Grain Salads That Deliver” and “The Art of Baking & Decorating Vegan Gluten-Free, and Soy-Free Mini Cakes.” “As intelligent consumers, we have to read between the lines,” Prag said in a phone-interview. “I mean, come on, fruit loops are not ‘natural’; they look like rubber.” Who really buys such nutrition claims? According to Prag, this must be wishful thinking from health-conscious consumers who aren’t ready to give up their unhealthy snacks and cereals. “We want to believe those things are natural,” he said.

The Natural Gourmet Institute where Prag teaches was founded by Annemarie Colbin in 1977. In a way, it is the natural real deal. “People are just coming to this,” Prag says. “We were pioneers.” The institute has both embraced and tried to tame the term natural since then. Food items are only considered “natural” when they meet ten different standards. The food item must be seasonal,  unprocessed, whole (meaning with all edible parts intact), fresh (not canned or frozen), local (no overseas shipping allowed). A “natural” food product is also real (so like the Food and Drug Administration recommends no artificial colors or flavors). It is also in harmony with tradition –  eaten the way our ancestors did and using their preparation techniques. Finally, a natural food item is free of genetically modified organisms and hasn’t been irradiated or sprayed with chemicals to kill bacteria.

Needless to say, most products at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Market wouldn’t pass these high standards. Whole Foods is nonetheless surprisingly forthcoming on its website: “ ‘Natural’ often is misrepresented in product labeling to imply ‘healthful,’” it writes. Adding that ”natural” does not necessarily say something about growing methods or preservatives use, the company notes, “ ‘natural’ only means that the product has undergone minimal processing.”

Dan Glickberg, president of Fairway Market, adds anything can be branded “natural”. “ ‘Natural’ doesn’t really mean anything,” he says. The labels health-conscious consumers ought to be on the lookout for aren’t captured by the catchall term “natural”. Meat, he explains, should be labeled antibiotic and hormone-free. When it comes to fresh produce consumers should look for the USDA organic label.

But neither of these two supermarkets practice what they preach. Fairway and Whole Foods Market, use “natural” interchangeably with “organic” in their communication to customers. Tellingly, Whole Foods company has an “Organic and Natural Foods Department”. Both Whole Foods Market and Fairway tout many of their products as “natural” but steer clear of ever explaining what that epithet actually means. Trader Joe’s in contrast gives a clear description of what it means by “natural”: no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives, monosodium glutamate, no genetically modified ingredients, and no added trans-fats.

Surprisingly, in the European Union, which generally imposes more stringent food regulation than the U.S., a similar haze surrounds the label “natural”. Food may only be advertised as “rich in natural” fibers, sugars or other substances when the food item naturally contains that nutrient. When it comes to labeling an entire product like chips or cereal bars as “natural” there is no hard and fast rule. The European Commission prohibits “labeling/presentation/advertising of foods which could mislead the consumer as to the characteristics of the food in question, in particular as to its nature, composition, properties method of production etc.” But whether or not a “natural” claim is misleading is decided on a case-by-case basis and is left up to the individual food agencies of the EU member countries.

Tamara Ward, press officer of the Food and Drug Administration’s nutrition department, says the agency has made no attempts to define “natural” and has no plans to do so in the near or distant future. It’s difficult to establish a comprehensive definition, she said. “What you mean by ‘natural’ depends when you are dealing with cosmetics or food supplements.”

Food instructor Prag understands the FDA is reluctant to embark on the Herculean task of defining such a vague term or that there may be fears that a definition of “natural” would be too rigid. But he can’t see how the the current lack of regulation could be good for consumers. Right now, when it comes to food claims and labeling, it’s a free-for-all Wild Wild West. “Every designation of food can be given,” he says.

SlutWars over Race Continue in New York

By LINDA THOMPSON

The mood had been subdued, friendly even – nothing like the intensity of past meetings. But at 8:15, as the meeting crept toward its end, everything fell apart. Three women stood up, made brief, separate announcements and gathered their things. They were joined by five others as they walked out, threatening to dismantle the work SlutWalk NYC had accomplished since the feminist, grassroots coalition was first born in June.

The idea of a “SlutWalk” formed in Toronto in April after a police officer told a group of female students they “should stop dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” In response, Toronto women took to the streets in what they called a “SlutWalk” rally for women’s right to dress how they want – without being blamed for rape. Within months, similar marches spread to over 150 cities across six continents.

By the summer, sympathizers in New York City were meeting to organize a SlutWalk of their own, their passion matched only by their aspirations. The two dozen members wanted to reclaim women’s right to dress however they wanted to, the right to walk at street at night without fearing street harassment. Because “no matter who you are,” the mission statement said, “no matter what you wear, no matter whom you choose to love, no matter what you said before: NO ONE has the right to touch you without your consent.”

But here they were, divided by personal grievances and ideological differences. After the walk-out crew literally closed the door on SlutWalk NYC, one man in the abandoned group started shouting. The people who had walked out were being irresponsible just walking away like that, he screamed. Some started talking over each other. Others sat still, confused. The thin thread that had been holding SlutWalk NYC together had just snapped.

The shift in three short months had been dramatic. Back in August, when they worked toward the march against street harrassment, SlutWalk NYC was a dynamic collective with fundraising, logistics and media working groups. The New York group was never just about women in miniskirts taking to the streets. Its members staged protests at the city courthouse to demand Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, be tried after he was accused of raping a hotel maid. And after the wave of sexual assaults in Brooklyn, the group spoke at a rally organized by residents.

Tensions had emerged, though, after Black Women’s Blueprint critized SlutWalk in an open letter for not being attentive to the particular needs of women of color. “As Black women and girls we find no space in SlutWalk, no space for participation and to unequivocally denounce rape and sexual assault as we have experienced it,” the black feminist group wrote. And after a protester carried a racist sign at SlutWalk NYC’s October rally, the feminist blogosphere issued scathing criticisms. SlutWalk NYC members disagreed on how to respond to the charges of racism and a full week went by with no official response. The walk-out was the final blow to a group that had already been cracking at the edges.

The accusations over what caused the split are hard to tease apart. Some say they wanted a fresh start; others say they felt burnt out. And still others say they were frustrated with the group’s narrow focus on gender, without sufficient sensitivity to race. Members also disagreed over whether the group’s commitment to equality was worth the cost in efficiency. What is clear is that the split in New York is not unique. Of the 150 groups formed around the world in the last nine months, more than ten have already splintered, says Heather Jarvis, co-founder of SlutWalk Toronto.

The shakeup left the New York group in an existential crisis. What was black and white before the march is now varying shades of grey. Should the group get rid of the name “SlutWalk,” as some had wanted from the beginning? Should they give up their non-hierarchical model for some form of leadership? Should they continue meeting at NYU, in the heart of Manhattan, which walk-out members had denounced as the epicenter of “white privilege”? And how does a group committed to non-hierarchy decide on these things when no one agrees?

Back in June, at the first meeting, everyone had been equally eager to participate, so giving everyone an equal chance to talk seemed only natural. From then on, at meetings people spoke in the order in which they had raised their hands; a chairperson (a different person each week) kept track of those whose turn it was to talk. “When someone said something offensive, you couldn’t just call them out,” says Alison Turkos, a white founding member of the new group. “Sometimes 15 people would speak before you could say: ‘Hey, that is not OK.’ ”

After the walk-out, SlutWalk organizer Scott Weeden-Moody penned his thoughts on what had happened the night before on the group’s listserv. Referring to the group’s “overwhelming organizational bureaucracy”, he wrote: “The speed at which a flat, democratic organization moves is much slower compared to the fast-paced work that was done prior to the march where there was a hard deadline for logistical needs, which has left many feeling that the organization is losing momentum.”

Few other SlutWalks have been so committed to an anti-hierarchical structure, says Jarvis. Most SlutWalks have adopted the Toronto model, with a small group of core organizers in charge of the group’s committees. Jarvis applauds SlutWalk NYC dedication to work in a democratic manner but also points to inherent limitations.“Once you get to a certain amount of people it doesn’t work anymore,” she says. “It’s not realistic to say we’re gonna have a meeting for an hour, and every single one of these 30 to 40 people can have as much time as they want to say exactly what they want.”

Even so, the New York group isn’t the only SlutWalk that has collapsed in the months after the high-profile marches. Of the 150 SlutWalk groups formed around the world in the last nine months, more than then have already splintered, says Jarvis.

SlutWalk NYC’s identity crisis comes as no surprise, says Neal Caren, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Grassroots movements like Occupy Wall Street and SlutWalk have a good chance of success when working toward a concrete, short-term goal like a rally, he says. “But what do you once the media attention is gone? There is pretty much no denying that sitting around discussing oppression is less fun than having a SlutWalk.”

But talking about oppression was essential to those who walked out. The handful of members of the new, still unnamed group say they wanted SlutWalk NYC to do more to address the ways that class, race, sexual orientation and disabilities affect one’s choices. And they felt frustrated that many in the group refused to recognize that being white, straight, well-off and able-bodied amounts to a form of privilege.

Their patience ran out, says Anoushka Ratnarajah, a walk-out member of Tamil descent. “Since the march, to this day we have not done a single anti-oppressive workshop.” She resented that, as one of the most active organizers of color, it fell to her to explain to others why the sign at the rally was inexcusable, why the open letter from the black feminist group shouldn’t be brushed aside – why, in short, race mattered in this and all groups.

So far, the new group members’ plan is to raise their own consciousness by attending anti-oppressive workshops and reading feminist literature. “We want to bring marginalized voices, voices that are made invisible, to the center of the discussion about rape culture,” says Nicole Kubon, a white social worker and founding member of the new group.

Sammy Lifson, a white SlutWalk NYC member, admits that the group struggled to respond to charges of racism, both when they came from the outside and from within. But, says Lifson, “I never felt like those issues took a backseat.”

There is nothing new about feminist organizations struggling with issues of race, says Keisha Lindsay, a women’s studies professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: “You could read the split as symptomatic of a broader trend of racism in predominantly white feminist movements.”

But SlutWalk members dispute that the split was motivated by race only, pointing out that many SlutWalk members of color did not join the walk-out group. “I want to be an anti-oppressive ally,” says Lifson, “but this made me feel like I’m part of a racist institution and I can’t even see it.”

Natalia Tylim, another white woman in SlutWalk NYC, says the group was committed to addressing not only gender, but also privilege and oppression within the group. “Everyone wants to do anti-oppressive work,” she says.

Many in SlutWalk NYC feel confused about what the split was really about. Those who left gave no real explanations, they say.

“The fact of the matter is that people have been leaving for months because they felt so unsafe in that space,” Ratnarajah responds. “We did those people the courtesy of saying goodbye.”

But what if the continuing infighting and the split overshadow the original goal: to rally against rape and street harassment? In October already, writer and feminist Shira Tarrant called for “the end of the SlutWars”, as she warned for the real danger of the stream of self-critiques ultimately dividing the SlutWalk movement. Isn’t that exactly what has happened? Both the new group and SlutWalk NYC organizers shrug off the question. “As a feminist community we need to be able to criticize each other,” says walk-out member and social worker Nicole Kubon. “It’s not like we hate each other. These are growing pains.”

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