Editor: Michael McDermott
Contributing Editors: Richard Cambridge, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Jacqueline Johnson, Marjory Wentworth
Open for submissions on June 1, 2024
All submissions are due by August 1, 2024
The election is upon us. We have been watching how rights have been taken away and how so many things that meant progress are being attacked and reversed. The inequitable economy is looming, evidenced by daily suffering from food and housing insecurity.
Many issues improved over the last 80 years, but are now in danger. Civil and reproductive rights, an awareness of colonialism, the development of gender-positive norms all came into existence, only to be attacked. More recently, the college campuses have erupted in support of Palestinians and against the genocide in Gaza. The support for Palestine is a sharp break from the past and will continue in spite of intense repression.
This election will have consequences. Sharp divisions in society could get worse with feared consequences arising. The threat of authoritarianism is very real and creates a world of reaction, which promises to drag society back before the days of the civil rights movement and the counterculture, and to result in even more widespread incarceration of both immigrants and others. Any efforts to address climate change and protect the non-human will likely disappear.
Now, before the election, we are called upon to expose the attacks and show ways that we remain strong. There is no doubt that things would get much worse under another Trump presidency. Biden also makes it harder with the support for Israel and other disappointments. How these play out is rich ground for your insights about how we can get through the next months. We expect that the submissions will reflect such tension.
After the election there will be work, however the election goes. The fight to regain lost rights is a powerful voice, as we see in moves to reverse limits on and criminalize reproductive freedom in critical states. The campus encampments will not vanish, police violence will continue to see local and national exposure and resistance. Immigration and concomitant conflicts will continue. Indigenous people still cry out for freedom and sovereignty. The land needs protection and love, as do all its creatures, of which humans are only a small part. Art is a force for all this.
Black Earth Institute is committed to a worldview that integrates social justice with a commitment to protecting the environment and engaging with these issues through spiritual practice and creative art. We encourage contributors to explore how matters of the spirit and environmental thinking influence their observations about the coming election.
Shaping Destiny is looking for your work reflecting the pre-election, election, and post-election periods. We are looking for poetry, prose (creative nonfiction, fiction, and flash essays), graphic art and images, wall murals, songs and music videos, and interviews (to be approved before).
Submit your work here.
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