It can be easy to get discouraged these days. Everywhere we look, there are signs of a struggling planet and, often, it’s difficult to see a clear path to an effectual response. 2022 may well eclipse recent years as the hottest on record. Rainfall has alternated between being absent or violent in Pennsylvania, one of
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If you can keep your cynicism in check, corporate displays of support for Black Lives Matter can seem admirable, sometimes even moving. When done authentically, companies are holding a mirror to themselves, deciding that they are not doing enough to address racial injustice, and committing to make change. Some of these vows are genuine and
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Photograph courtesy of Unspalsh.com Meat your Maker By: Siobhan Gleason JBS meatpacking worker Carmen Dominguez is concerned about her co-workers’ health during COVID-19. Her colleagues Wilbert Rivera and Enock Benjamin died from COVID-19 this April after 19 workers at the Souderton, Pennsylvania plant tested positive for the virus. Dominguez felt it was important to speak
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I don’t think i would have noticed that the patch of forest off Livesey Lane had been restored if Steve Jones, president of Wissahickon Restoration Volunteers (WRV), hadn’t told me. I visited the area on a humid morning in late May. The canopy was complete, shading out the sun completely. I heard the usual forest
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Photograph courtesy of Netflix By Francesca Furey If you’ve been binging Netflix shows while social distancing at home, you might’ve come across Queer Eye’s 5th season — based right here in Philadelphia. The Fab Five spruced up the lives of 10 inspiring Philadelphians, including 19-year-old Abby Leedy, a staff organizer at the Sunrise Movement. The
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Photography by Milton Lindsay Grant Blvd set to open first storefront this month By Gabrielle Houck When you walk into Grant Blvd’s new storefront in West Philadelphia, owner Kimberly McGlonn wants you to feel like you’re at home. She says the sustainable clothing company’s new retail space is essentially a manifestation of the brand’s identity
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Photography courtesy Lora Snyder Troubled Waters By Siobhan Gleason On February 12, 2018, Delaware County residents along the Mariner East 2 pipeline route received a letter from Sunoco Pipeline LP, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Operating LP, about a groundwater problem. Sunoco had punctured a local aquifer that residents of Edgmont Township relied on for
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Author Ashley Gripper (right) with fellow farmers Errol Chichester (left) and Tahirah Chichester (center). Photograph By Khaliah D. Pitts The Blacker The Berry By Ashley Gripper For more than 150 years, from the rural South to northern cities, Black people have used farming to build self-determined communities and resist oppressive structures that tear them down.
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Illustration by Sean Rynkewicz A City Divided By Randy Lobasso For many peaceful protesters in Philadelphia, June 2020 started off with a bang. Specifically, the bangs of flash grenades and tear gas canisters exploding below their feet as they attempted to escape from riot gear-clad police officers on Interstate 676. The murder of George Floyd
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Photograph Courtesy of Nic Esposito By Nic Esposito A lot has changed since last month’s issue of Grid was released. Most importantly, the long-overdue national reckoning of how laws are enforced and how they disproportionately affect communities of color is finally taking hold. Also notably, I am no longer a part of the Kenney Administration.
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In a rapidly changing world, the work of the home has been revealed for how challenging it is. Gender inequality in housework has also been exposed more than ever. Does it make any sense to say, through action or words: “Dear woman, you have been living under the global threat of the patriarchy from before
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