PublicSource | News for a better Pittsburgh (https://www.publicsource.org/author/jourdan-hicks/)
Previous to PublicSource, Jourdan was engaged as a community-based educator in the Hazelwood section of the city. A lifelong Pittsburgh resident, she’s received formal training and degrees from both Penn State and Duquesne University (B.A Communications Arts & Sciences, M.S.Ed Educational Studies). In addition to her community correspondent work with PublicSource, Jourdan cultivates ideas as a freelance media-communications and education adviser. In her leisure, Jourdan enjoys traveling, discovering new music and watching (mostly critiquing) contemporary film. Preferred pronouns: She/Her/Herself.
PublicSource community correspondent Jourdan Hicks reached out to each of the winners to talk about their creative process and what angelic troublemakers can do to protect human rights.
Listen and learn how this business owner is helping clients find their perfect fit and style after trauma, illness and injury.
Are discussions about the non-human natural world relevant to folks outside of climate change and environmentalist circles? After listening to Pittsburgh urban ecologist Marijke Hecht, you’ll understand how everyone plays a role in creating the environment. For episode 6, we’re reviewing a Science Magazine article on how design patterns influenced by systemic racism affect green space and the plant and pest variety in your neighborhood. Do you see more weeds or butterflies where you live? Hecht discusses her work as an urban ecologist and how community design, race and mental health are all related in Pittsburgh’s environmental ecosystem.
It’s not every day you meet someone who can say they’ve helped someone get their freedom back. I mean, not anytime after the 1860s, and not from someone who isn’t a lawyer or police officer. And not in 2021, because who still needs to be given their Constitutionally recognized freedom these days? For this episode, you’ll meet Etta Cetera, a colorful Pittsburgh artist, community organizer and prison abolitionist envisioning a world where punishment for violence and crime doesn’t involve prisons. We discuss what she sees as the day-to-day injustices that come with imprisonment and how she went from virtually having no political consciousness to adopting the mission of a prison abolitionist.
On this episode of From the Source, I speak with Tayshawn and his mother about his growing interest in the culinary arts and dishing up recipe videos for social media
For this episode we’re turning the microphone to my PublicSource colleagues. You’ll meet Jennie Liska, director of loyalty programs, Naomi Harris, our new higher education reporter, and Jay Manning, visual storyteller and producer.
Black women are not a monolith. So, building on the first part of the episode about Black women in Pittsburgh, I spoke with Jahqwhan “Jah” Watson. A native Ohioan by way of Cleveland — who came to Pittsburgh as a Pulse social service fellow last summer —Jah picks up where Naomi Ritter and Janel Young left off. We explore more of what gets left out of the conversation when discussing Black women in Pittsburgh and the unique experiences that shapes and cages their identities.
Jah’s reflections are important because they’ve had a life not shaped by what we're used to as long-time residents of Pittsburgh. Their reflections come from trying to acclimate into a city with its own set of systems, rules for socialization and history. Jah’s reflections are intimate, authentic and a fresh take on how we talk about Pittsburgh nurturing and shaping Black women.
“Whatever my experience in Pittsburgh is has really sort of like beat me out of myself, and I'm really having to beat back.
Black women are not monolithic people. The experiences that sculpt our lives matter. How our stories show up in studies observing our quality of life deserves context.
Two words can be used to explain the predictions for the looming presidential election of 2020. Record. Breaking. It’s being predicted that in this election, 17 million more Americans than in 2016 will show up next week to cast their ballots in Biden v. Trump. If you’ve noticed, in our media, on TV, radio, social media there are targeted efforts to make sure that all eligible voters turn up and turn out on Election Day.
Pittsburgh resident Kim Neely was taking the pandemic in stride. It was a relief, to some degree. And it was because her family was home alongside her, and that makes a big difference for the Black mom of two Black boys and wife of a Black man. On this episode, she shares how she's been impacted by the movement against racism and police brutality and the experience of taking her son to his first protest.
