(April, May, June)
for Jay Ruby's Oak Park Research Project
The Taylor's house on Taylor Avenue in Oak Park
The Taylor's Family Portrait
Until the
first of June, I did not make much progress on this project as I was distracted
with health problems. However, this past month things really picked up and
I am finally back on track. And I arrived in Oak Park in late June ready for
two month's of non-stop work. I was able to hire Randal Birkey of Birkey.Com
to design a template for the Taylor family portraits and the other two family
portraits. We will use Dreamweaver with the work in html format. The plan
is to have the template complete this summer and to have the Taylor portrait
ready to circulate among potential publishers by the fall. I will begin with
the University of Chicago press as they have a history of publishing ethnographic
work relating to the Chicago area and my last book was published by them.
I am still plagued with a "compression" program with the videos.
There are about two hours of video clips. The standard compression system,
MPEG2, causes the clips to be too large to fit on one DVD. Using Sorenson3,
a standard "codec," produces "artifacts" - that is, degraded
images. I found a videomaker, Scott Brewer of Media Circus in Chicago, who
will attempt to find a solution to this problem. I also asked John Bishop,
an ethnographic videomaker, to see what he can do. As this problem is far
beyond my technical competence, I must rely on others to solve it. The written
modules that constitute a General Introduction that will be used with each
of the portraits is nearly complete. I plan to spend July writing the modules
that pertain solely to the Taylor family such as a brief history of African
Americans in Chicago and in Oak Park. It feels good to be finally finishing
this portrait. At times, I thought I would never complete it.
Rebecca and Sophie's Family
I continue to transcribe the interviews relevant to the next family portrait that of the family of Rebecca, Sophie, Ben and Ari. The plan is to begin editing the video in the fall. When I started this research in 1998, the gay and lesbian community was a "hot" topic of conversation. The opposition to the Same Sex Couples' Registry, the addition of sexual orientation to the discrimination policies of the village and high school, the inclusion of same sex partners in the health benefits of village employees and an official registry for same sex partners had been much on the minds of many Oak Parkers. Chartering the Boy scouts when they had a policy of discrimination against gays was also hotly debated. The local newspapers were filled with articles and letters to the editor from both sides of these issues. The local MCC church, one devoted to serving the gay and lesbian community, even received death threats. The politically and religiously conservative opposition to the gay community was a force to be dealt with. Rev. Pritchard of Calvary Memorial Church was an unofficial leader of this opposition. Over the past five years things have markedly changed. A lesbian was elected as village president. A gay men was elected to the school board and had as one of his active supporters a men who was equally active in the campaign against the registry. When Rep. Rick Santorium of Pennsylvania stated that legalizing gay rights was the same as legalizing bestiality and other "degenerate" activities, Pritchard wrote a statement in support of Santorium's position but he placed it on his web site and not in a letter to a local newspaper. It seems to me that the public opposition to the presence of gays and lesbians has disappeared. Homophobia is now a private and latent matter. Should a new issue arise such as an attempt to get the school district to include materials about gay and lesbian families in courses that deal with family life, I am certain those opposed to giving gays and lesbians the right to be represented in educational materials will again surface. And the battle will begin anew.