In Eugene, art and politics have numerous venues to intermingle with ease. And while blending the two is nothing new, once in a great while a certain event imbues this fusion with new flavor. This Friday, Portland hip-hop impresarios Womb Dialectic return to Eugene to headline a free show.
The event is centered around a decidedly political cause — countering the targeted recruitment of minorities by the U.S. military. The two-member group performed on campus during the Jan. 24 MLK Poetry Celebration. This time around, they will appear at Cozmic Pizza’s new venue on the corner of Charnelton Street and West Eighth Avenue. Eugene resident Lafa Taylor will serve as the show’s master of ceremonies and will also perform.
Turiya Autry, one half of Womb Dialectic, said she feels bonded to the politics of the show.
“Right now, in the heat of the moment with all this patriotism, it’s easy to buy in,” she said. “People have to realize it’s really just a military sting.”
The show will also feature AWOL Magazine founder Mario Africa — who spoke at the Peace and Justice Conference in Eugene last November — in addition to the local artists performing with spoken word and music.
Committee for Countering Military Recruitment co-founder Phil Weaver is sponsoring the show and said he sees it as an outreach tool for a notoriously hard-to-reach demographic — teenage minorities.
“Rather than throwing facts at students, we want to make them engaged and aware through art and music,” he said, referring to a story in The New York Times noting the high proportion of minorities in the armed services, as well mentioning the military’s targeting of young minorities.
Autry said these practices have personally affected her.
“I know people who have made that choice (to enlist) for financial reasons, and I just don’t agree with that,” Autry said. “It’s clear that these (recruitment) tactics have a negative impact on people of color and poor folks.”
“Recruiters are essentially salespeople and students don’t realize this,” Weaver said. “They sell the military as this exciting experience, they offer students money for college, exotic locations, excitement, but the information is very one-sided. They don’t discuss contracts or the downside to (enlisting). They’re not providing information that paints a true picture.”
University student Alison Kirby volunteered to help organize the concert. She affirmed the show’s intention to raise awareness about United States military recruitment. This includes little-known student privacy issues and the military’s use of previously classified student records now made legal through a provision within the No Child Left Behind education reform act.
“The point of the concert is to make these people targeted by the military aware but more importantly to empower them to make their own decisions,” Kirby said.