From: "Andrew Phelps" <starfish@northcoast.com>
To: <s-acc@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2011 09:25:39 -0800
Subject: [s-acc] urchinville
Hi
Yesterday we had the first meeting of the year for the Coalition for Justice and Accountability (CJA). We're planning meeting with the City Manager of San Jose, set for Jan. 13. Two long-time CJA activists, Jose Rangel and Phil Winn, [each] former Vice-Chairs of the Santa Clara County Mental Health Board and both members of the Accountability Caucus, participated, as did three of us representing the Mental Health Client Association (MHCA) of San Jose City College.
Later myself and two other officers of the MHCA, President Allison Torres and Vice-President Faline Ginghofer (both S-ACC members) went to the low tide and "visited the starfishes." We visited the home of the purple sea urchins who chew their holes in the rock there. Which brings to mind the "lived experience" of client/survivors who must "chew out" their life spaces after facing the "social death sentence" (see Debi Reidy's 1993 study HERE) of forced psychiatric treatment and the "attitude management" consequences thereto.
After that we went to the inauguration party for Mayor Quan at Oakland City Hall. We got a photo ABOVE of the three of us, all officers of the MHCA, hugging with Jean Quan. For me, she initiated the discipline of Asian-American studies at U.C. Berkeley, and my career as a labor activist advocating for client/survivors began with the 1969 Third World Strike there.
Andrew Phelps