A new Washington state report highlights the stark reality that black and indigenous people, and people of color (BIPOC) would need to buy more than 140,000 houses in the state to achieve parity with white homeownership on a percentage basis. The housing gap is even more significant today than in the 1960s, when housing discrimination and redlining were legal.
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To the WA state legislature, Governor Inslee, WSDOT, Thurston county local leaders, stakeholders and members of the community: We the undersigned strongly oppose creation of a new major commercial airport in Thurston County.
Indigenous peoples have been among the most vocal proponents of solutions to climate change effects, but their advocacy has often been marginalized. A recent conference titled Evergreen Tribes and Climate Change Conference at the Squaxin Island Tribe’s Little Creek Hotel (November 8-9) made that advocacy more visible. One hundred faculty…
Another Co-Opportunity! Blue Heron Bakery, which has successfully served the South Sound community and beyond for over 45 years, will become a community-owned cooperative in 2023. The bakery joins an increasing number of successful businesses operating as co-ops, to the benefit of both workers and consumers. “Our intention is to…
The Haki Farmers Collective was founded by Mercy Kakutani-McGee and her daughter Elisa as a continuation of the work started by elders who called the valleys of Kandara, Kenya home.
On October 7, several “Olympia Hidden Histories” self-guided walking tours were introduced to the public. The multimedia walking tours are a collaboration of student authors and faculty at The Evergreen State College, with the “Walls Tell Stories, Olympia” project of Art Forces and Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice.
Instead of seeing a legacy forest while driving north on Cooper Point Road in Olympia, you now see a devastated clearcut landscape and a large sign for OlyEcosystems, the new owner. They have already begun stabilization and restoration of the property with two community work parties that began planting trees…
Partnering with the Nisqually tribe, the North Thurston School District plans to develop a course in the traditional Lushootseed language with the goal of offering it at River Ridge High School starting in the 2023-2024 school year. Works in Progress correspondent Margaret Thomas met with Nisqually Tribal Chairman Willie Frank III in his office this fall to talk about Lushootseed in the schools. Excerpts from their 40-minute conversation appear below.
BOOK REVIEW: One of the pleasures of reading detective novels is getting to know the setting. Sara Paretsky’s detective series, which features V.I. Warshawski, exposes new sides of Chicago. The same is true with Cara Black‘s series, featuring Aimee Leduc, which is set in Paris...
Renowned sociologist Francis Fox Piven shared a somber analysis with The Guardian on Nov. 25, 2022: “I don’t think the fight over elemental democracy is over, by any means. The United States was well on the road to becoming a fascist country—and it still can become a fascist country.” Large-scale…
The new economy shows up in proposals to expand airports, or build new ones, as cargo planes crowd out passenger flights. It has also created a seemingly insatiable demand for more and more rural and agricultural land to be rezoned for industry and warehousing. This race for space looms over the whole country and Thurston County is no exception.
The day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating a constitutional right that had stood for nearly 50 years, much of Washington revolted. Thousands of pro–choice protestors took to the streets of Olympia and Seattle in response to the Court’s June 24 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization.
In June, Rhode Island passed a $10 million pilot program that will use COVID-19 stimulus money to build mixed-income public housing.
For years, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources has treated its responsibility to manage state forests as requiring them to maximize timber harvest and revenue generation for public services including, especially, school construction.
Many stories in this issue say that our governments’ priorities don’t reflect the priorities of the governed but instead serve the demands of profit. Their decisions direct public resources—and even the modest resources of workers and other members of the public—into the hands of investors for their private gain. Illustrating…
Maybe they’ll drive electric cars?...Maybe we didn’t need new taxes....Maybe it’s worth fighting....Maybe Washington could address the wage end of the “affordable housing” crisis....Maybe ensuring everyone has access to basic needs is scary.
What the hell is “ordered liberty”? Most people in the United States are not familiar with this archaic legal term, but it reveals the direction that the current attacks on our freedoms and civil rights are headed.
In 2020, the same year Ed Troyer ran for Sheriff of Pierce County, Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier commissioned a study of use–of–force incidents committed by the Sheriff’s Department. Published in November 2021, the report of the Pierce County Criminal Justice Work Group noted that black residents of Pierce County…
The Rape of Orithyia, mountain gale nymph, by Boreas, god of the north wind, a mytho–poetic interpretation of the wrath of the Goddess and her hand in the devastating Marshall Fire, Colorado 2021.
In The Armies of the Night, Norman Mailer writes about going to a big demonstration against the Vietnam War. He isn’t planning to go at all, but a friend calls him up about it. He feels as if he ought to go, though he doesn’t want to. Finally he goes.
In Who Owns the Sun, Environmental activists Berman and O’Connor offer a scathing explanation of why solar technology has played such an insignificant role in meeting America’s energy needs. Politicians, utility companies and even many mainstream environmental groups come under attack for either their lack of leadership on this issue…
CENTER PAGE: We live in an age when ignorance is praised. Ignorance and division are being manufactured on a mass scale. There is essentially an industry teaching us to doubt what we know...
It turns out that if you’re a refugee trying to escape horror and death by coming to the United States via the Mexican border—make sure that you are Ukrainian!
Most Olympia residents would welcome a coffee shop or small grocery store into their neighborhood, yet plans for such Neighborhood Centers have been in talks for years with little to show for it.
As Starbucks reports quarterly profits of $40 billion, they try to quash organizing efforts of baristas and other staff who are voting to unionize for better working conditions. Recently Matt Crichton talked with one of the baristas at the Cooper Point Village Starbucks about the employees’ experience trying to form a union.
Heat, smoke and climate assault have become “new normal” conditions that daily threaten workers, especially in agriculture.
Late in July 2021, the head of Olympia’s Office of Community Vitality requested $200,000 as a new “enhancement” to the City’s operating budget. It would pay for the City to hold a special election in the spring, to put a .1% sales tax increase before voters....