Friday, July 5, 7pm; Saturday, July 6, 3pm and 7pm; Sunday, July 7, 4pm; Columbus Performing Arts Center [Van Fleet Theater], 549 Franklin Ave.

Mine 4 God Productions is proud to present the 12th Columbus Black Theatre Festival taking place at the Columbus Performing Arts Van Fleet Theatre on July 5, July 6, and July 7. Our theme this year is “Peace Within the Storm”; the eight short one-act plays have been selected.

Twinship by Samara Siskind (Fort Lauderdale FL). Twin siblings, Tess and Sondra, reunite after a period of estrangement at their childhood home on Thanksgiving Day. Old wounds resurface in this exploration of sisterhood, family roles, and the notion that it is never too late to make amends.

Superhero by Mark Harvey Levine (Indianapolis, IN). Have you been ignored, insulted, discarded all your life? You may be a Superhero.

Israel never learns from its mistakes. 

 What Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to implement in Gaza is but a poor copy of previous strategies that were used in the past by other Israeli leaders. If these strategies had succeeded, Israel would not be in this position in the first place. 

 The main reason behind Netanyahu's lack of clarity about his real objectives in Gaza is that neither he nor his generals can determine the outcomes of their futile war on the Strip, a war that has killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians. 

 And, no matter how hard he tries, Netanyahu will not be able to reproduce the past. 

. . . Your soul comes out of hiding.
I understand
that you are blessing me.. . .

I find myself — still — groping in wonder. What a coincidence this was. About a week ago my friend Mike emailed me, telling me he and his wife had been going through boxes and drawers and files in their house, and one of the items they came upon was an old poem I had written — twenty-plus years ago, while I was still grieving my wife Barbara’s death.

I had reclaimed poetry at that point in my life because, as I put it at the time, the narrative of my life had been shattered. I was a writer and I needed to write. I needed to put my feelings into words in order to keep on with my life — and poetry allowed me to do so: to reach deeply into the unknown that is grief, to connect with the unknown without “understanding” it.

Governments are hijacking the “anti-trafficking” narrative to legitimize their anti-migration policies.

As global displacement due to conflict, persecution, and climate change rises, whilst opportunities for safe, regular migration routes close down, people are pushed to increasingly perilous journeys in search of a better, safer life.

People on the move affected by this, largely marginalized peoples and victims of discrimination, are being made more vulnerable to exploitation and human trafficking as they take greater risks to navigate complex immigration policies.

Claiming they’re fighting this issue, the E.U., U.K., and U.S. governments have turned to harsh and punitive anti-migration policies to stop migration altogether. This “logic of deterrence” only creates a market for traffickers and normalizes inhumanity towards people on the move.