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Analysis Steve Peraza Analysis Steve Peraza

NYS Child Care and Governor Hochul at the Democratic National Convention

On August 19, 2024, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul delivered a spirited speech in support of the presidential hopeful Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. Quite surprisingly, Governor Hochul raised the specter of runaway child care costs as a common issue facing middle class Americans, which, in turn, raised questions about what the governor of New York will do to lower these costs here in the Empire State.

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Analysis Steve Peraza Analysis Steve Peraza

Flowers of Buffalo: A Postscript

It’s August now, and all the flower fans who visited Buffalo’s 30th annual Garden Walk Buffalo festivities are somewhere enjoying the hundreds of pictures they undoubtedly took walking in neighborhoods like mine. I live in the Bryant neighborhood, where the founders of Garden Walk live on the appropriately named “Garden Walk Way.”

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News Steve Peraza News Steve Peraza

Bookstore Block Party Advances Progressive Politics in Buffalo, NY

On Sunday, July 28, 2024, Burning Books bookstore hosted their third annual community block party at 420 Connecticut Street on the West Side of Buffalo, NY, raising awareness for local social justice campaigns and providing family recreation for West Side residents. Over 100 Buffalo residents braved the scorching 90-degree late July heat to enjoy the various attractions, including a giant bouncy house obstacle course, dunk tank, and community tables and booths hosted by progressive community organizations like PUSH-Buffalo, Democratic Socialists of America, and Urban Roots.

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Voices Steve Peraza Voices Steve Peraza

Interweaving with Song Lee: Child Care as Public Good and “Radical Joy”

One of the great joys of being an academic is watching people go from beginner to trailblazer in a field of study. As a writer for Weave News, not only do I get to watch emerging rock stars like Ms. Song Lee ‘do their thing’, but I get to share their voices with the world. In this Interweaving conversation, I am pleased to introduce you to Ms. Song Lee, High Road Fellow and Child Care Community Advocate.

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News Steve Peraza News Steve Peraza

Third Annual Child Care Community Celebration Rocks the Boat in Buffalo

At 6pm on July 18, 2024, Western New York Child Care Action Team (WNYCCAT) hosted a community celebration for the child care industry’s rank and file. WYNCCAT is an activist organization whose mission is “to educate, investigate, plan, strategize, advocate and provide swift actions that lead to productive, long term, results and solutions that positively impact the child care community across all modalities.”

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Voices Steve Peraza Voices Steve Peraza

Massacre of the Soul

It’s been more than a month since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. In that month, I carried on with my day-to-day activities albeit with a heavy heart for the victims of the war. The officials and military combatants are not at the center of my thoughts and worries – the civilians are. Before the attacks, they bore the brunt of the war and terror in the region, and for decades after they will, too.

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Voices Steve Peraza Voices Steve Peraza

Flowers of Buffalo: Abra Lee and Gardeners in Black History

On Thursday, July 20, 2023, Abra Lee, ornamental horticulturalist and Black historian, presented research from her forthcoming monograph, “Conquer the Soil.” This public lecture inaugurated the 2023 Garden Walk series of events, coordinated by Gardens Buffalo Niagara, which includes the East Side Garden Walk, on July 22-23, 2023, and the Buffalo Garden Walk, on July 29-30, 2023. In other words, Buffalo has a two-week flower festival – and Abra Lee got us started.

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Voices Steve Peraza Voices Steve Peraza

Interweaving With Gail Wells

Ms. Gail Wells is Founder of Buffalo Freedom Gardens and a Project Consultant for Grassroots Gardens of Buffalo. Founded in 2020, Buffalo Freedom Gardens has two aims, first, to help residents create sustainable food sources on the East Side of Buffalo through urban farming and, second, to bring the vibrancy of horticulture to urban spaces. Between 2020 and 2021, Ms. Wells and Buffalo Freedom Gardens helped more than 80 residents start gardening – front-yard, backyard, raised bed, and container gardens – to feed their households and beautify their homes.

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Voices Steve Peraza Voices Steve Peraza

Interweaving With Sara E. Jablonski

Sara E. Jablonski is a 4-H Team Educator in the Cornell Cooperative Extension Erie County. She develops 4-H Youth Development clubs in the Buffalo, NY, and Amherst, NY, areas. She helps young people find their spark! She is one of my colleagues at Cornell in Buffalo, and she was kind enough to share with Weave News the work she does in the community and the flowers that she admires in Buffalo.

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Voices Steve Peraza Voices Steve Peraza

Flowers of Buffalo: Flowers in the City

I’ve lived in a city most of my life. Save 5 years in Canton, NY, as a St. Lawrence student, I have lived in either New York City (21 years) or City of Buffalo (16 years). I’m a city creature, ranging through one or another major city. Flowers and gardens have not always been of interest to me. In New York City, I lived close enough to Central Park to enjoy some of nature’s bloom. Three blocks from my railroad apartment in El Barrio was the 97th street entrance to the park. As a teen, it wasn’t the park’s green spaces that attracted me, but the hilly walkways that outlined the grassy field. I blazed those roads with my bike, catching enough speed to soar off short ramps made of broken sidewalk…

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Voices Steve Peraza Voices Steve Peraza

Flowers of Buffalo: Videos Are Flowers

I’m a recovering college professor. Teaching is my drug – it gets me high. But these “highs'' never last long, and my addiction was costing years off my life. The problem isn’t teaching; it’s learning – learning is the purpose of teaching, and I cannot tell when, how, or why people learn in college classrooms. So to summarize, since 2007, I have been getting high off teaching, leading history classes at two different universities, and sharing my expertise with more than 1500 students until I resigned in 2023. In that period, I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression, I’ve fought off rashes and infections, and I’ve been hospitalized for stress-related conditions afflicting my heart, arms, and brain. Getting high on the job was killing me.

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Voices Steve Peraza Voices Steve Peraza

Flowers of Buffalo: In Search of Eden

On Friday, June 23, I joined the Fellows on two tours, one of the People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH-Buffalo) Green Economic Development Zone and another of an urban farm administered by Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP). On both tours, I was chasing flowers with my phone – I’m obsessed. But I found much more than flower pictures. I found myself on the grassroots, too, a drop of dew shimmering in sight of Eden.

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Voices Steve Peraza Voices Steve Peraza

Flowers of Buffalo: Roses, Peonies, and Blooms

One April morning in 2021, I snapped a cell phone picture of a peony that was growing outside my mom’s house in Amherst, New York, a suburb of Buffalo. It was toward the end of the COVID pandemic. The term “new normal” was all the rage. I didn’t know it, then, but I was searching for love, and I had found it. This morning, the sun was beaming; the flowers were stretching for sunlight; and I was falling head over heels for the flowers of Buffalo.

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Stories, Analysis Kali Villarosa Stories, Analysis Kali Villarosa

Covering the Margins, Part III: Racial Normalization in Buffalo

By Kali Villarosa

In the third installment of her Covering the Margins project, supported by a fellowship from the NY6 Upstate-Global Collective, Kali Villarosa takes a close look at news coverage of problems affecting African American communities on Buffalo's East Side. She finds a significant difference between the coverage provided by the city's two most influential news outlets (WBFO and The Buffalo News, respectively), on the one hand, and the city's African American newspaper (The Challenger Community News), on the other. The latter outlet, she argues, "stands as the guide for what should be incorporated into the more mainstream outlets and also points us toward the realization that individuals themselves must question their news sources, their content, and the impact of these coverage patterns on their city."

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Stories, Analysis Kali Villarosa Stories, Analysis Kali Villarosa

Covering the Margins, Part II: Promoting Buffalo Through Piecemeal Portrayals of Refugee/Immigrant Populations

By Kali Villarosa

In a period of increasing political contention and global displacement, the conversation around refugees, immigration status and documentation/legality has become more prominent within the news media. In the second installment of her Covering the Margins series exploring news coverage of marginalized populations in Buffalo, NY and Ahmedabad, India, Kali Villarosa examines how three news outlets in Buffalo have framed the story of refugee/immigrant populations in order to tell an especially celebratory story about the city itself.

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Stories, Analysis, Voices Steve Peraza Stories, Analysis, Voices Steve Peraza

Interweaving: Gene Grabiner on Police Reform in Buffalo and Beyond

By Steve Peraza

In the latest installment of our ongoing Interweaving series of in-depth conversations, Weave News reporter Steve Peraza speaks with Dr. Gene Grabiner, a SUNY distinguished service professor emeritus whose work addresses issues of social justice and social class. Their discussion focused on policing and the possibilities for meaningful police reform, particularly in Buffalo, NY.

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Stories, News, Analysis Gene Grabiner Stories, News, Analysis Gene Grabiner

Buffalo PBA VP Blog Post Threatens Cop Violence Against Civilians

By Gene Grabiner

In a July 2016 blog post that he refused to take down, Buffalo Police Benevolent Association (PBA) vice president John Evans said of civilian demonstrators: “Comply with our orders and you won't get yourself killed. Enough!!!” It’s not enough that demonstrators’ First Amendment rights have already been eroded and circumscribed with the creation of ‘Free Speech Zones.’ Now, exercise of First Amendment rights may be met with police deadly force. Is this a terroristic threat?

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