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Activism: It’s What’s for Dinner
by Matt Edens
Apathy—it’s the curse of activists everywhere. And it’s the primary quandary confronting the folks who espouse more “Public Participation” as a panacea for so many of the things that plague us around these parts. How, exactly, do you get the public to participate?
Don’t ask me. I am, or at least I used to be, one of those people who goes to meetings. For a time, it seemed like I spent half my week in some sort of meeting or another: my neighborhood association, the Empowerment Zone, Nine Counties One Vision and half a dozen things, both ad-hoc and official, related to housing and historic preservation. Heck, I even went to a few meetings of something called “Knox Voices” where the public was invited to participate in meetings about how to improve public participation—which wasn’t quite as existential as it sounds.
And, at damn near all of these meetings, the question of how to get more people “involved” always came up, partly because, no matter what the meeting was ostensibly about, it was often the same couple dozen folks sitting in the stackable chairs, drinking the watered-down punch and nibbling the same assortment of semi-stale cookies—which is one of the dangers of public participation. If the same people are always participating, it’s tempting to start thinking of the public as uninformed, unenlightened or just too damned ignorant to care.
Well, I haven’t been to quite so many meetings of late, partly because I’ve given up a free-lance career for a full-time gig, but mostly because I’m a proud new parent. And among the daily doses of sobering reality that experience has revealed is this one: It’s damned hard to save the world when it’s all you can do to keep your little corner of it from falling apart. Most people would probably like to get involved one way or another. The challenge is finding the time.
Luckily, if you’re a supporter of historic preservation, Knox Heritage has found a way to combine civic activism with something you’d do anyway: dinner. In July, the organization launches its “Summer Supper” series. Designed to introduce people to historic neighborhoods and homes throughout Knoxville, while providing financial support for the work of Knox Heritage, every Saturday night from mid-July to mid-September the preservation group presents a different dinner party in a different historic home. Kicking off the series is a classic homestyle meal of fried chicken, fresh tomato pie, corn pudding and fruit cobbler served on the porch of Fort Sanders’ historic Helm House. Built in 1910, the house is next door to the new James Agee Park and was used as an interior set for All the Way Home, the 1963 film adaptation of Agee’s A Death in the Family. Later installments include English High Tea in Concord, a French Country Soiree in Sequoyah Hills, wine tasting in Old North Knoxville, and a progressive dinner through the lofts of downtown’s Phoenix Building.
Heck, for plenty of food and drink without having to put up with endless public forums and power-point presentations, I might even participate.
July 1, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 27
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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