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Cincinnati can be a lonely place for liberals. That's why Herbert and Judith Shapiro decided to form a Nation discussion group in their North Avondale home.
"We've been long-time Nation readers and we were kind of lamenting finding people with our opinion about things," Judith Shapiro says. "The first couple of weeks nobody called and we said, 'Oh boy! Cincinnati, conservative city.' "
Then the calls started, about 20 in all. The Shapiros now host nine to 12 people in weekly discussions of articles ranging from the Middle East to the privatization of prisons.
The Nation, published weekly, has been around since 1865.
"The Nation will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body," its founding prospectus declared 137 years ago. "It will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to bring to the discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred."
Cincinnati still racist after all these years
Carol Rainey, an adjunct English professor at several schools, enjoys sharing her views with the group.
"In particular, I was feeling the need to become more politically active," Rainey says.
The readers' group gives her a chance to meet people whose political leanings are more to the left and to get a perspective different from the mainstream media.
"The media now is so right-wing," Rainey says. "I feel much more isolated now than I used to. The group was a way of getting to know other liberals in the city."
The group corresponds through e-mail between meetings, picking an article to discuss when they gather.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Rainey heard her students and others say they felt more connected to each other and the rest of the nation. She, however, had never felt so alone.
"I had never felt so isolated, because I was not going along with the military response," she says.
Social and political activism in Cincinnati tends to go unnoticed, according to Herbert Shapiro, who has lived here 35 years.
"Over a period of time there have been a number of activist movements," he says. "There is another side of Cincinnati, except it doesn't ordinarily get the kind of exposure that others do."
David Sterling, professor emeritus at the University of Cincinnati and a member of the discussion group, has witnessed the ups and downs of living here.
"I've lived in this town over 30 years and I'm still surprised at the complacency of its citizenry," Sterling says. "The idea that Cincinnati is a great city is pure hype. The people who run this city are not willing to even entertain any need for change."
When Sterling, who is white, was shopping for a home in Cincinnati in the 1960s, he had a thick New York accent. The realtor he spoke to on the phone thought he might be African-American.
"She said, 'This house is not for Negroes,' " Sterling says. "I said, 'In that case, I don't want to see it.' "
Racist attitudes still persist, according to Sterling. Several years ago a student at UC's College-Conservatory of Music was evicted from her Clifton apartment for allowing an African-American friend to spend the night, he says.
The Shapiros, who are Jewish, experienced some of the same issues when they lived in Clifton. Neighbors would ask why the family wasn't in church.
"People made comments about it when we were in the yard on Sunday," Judith Shapiro says.
Such attitudes disturb group member Denise McCoskey, who recently moved to Cincinnati from North Carolina. Originally from the Northeast, she was appalled by some of the things happening in Cincinnati.
"I was so glad to see the advertisement (for the Nation discussion group), because I was so upset by the events of last spring," she says.
The Cincinnati Police Department's selective enforcement of the curfew in April, turning a blind eye to violations in Mount Adams, illustrated the class divisions in the city, according to McCoskey.
"You just walk around the city and it just feels tense and you feel like there are people who belong and those who don't belong," she says.
If you're waiting for things to change in Cincinnati, you might be in line for a while, Herbert Shapiro says.
"In the intervening months, in any major way it has not moved," he says. "What the potential is for future explosiveness remains to be seen. One of the real questions in Cincinnati also is the extent of corporate control here. It affects the politics and social atmosphere of the city as a whole."
Corporate power made itself felt in Cincinnati during protests against the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue in November 2000, Shapiro says (see The 12-Second Warning issue of Nov. 23-29, 2000). The police presence was deliberately intimidating, he says.
"I had never seen a presence in such a militant form," Shapiro says.
War without end
The Nation discussion group studies national as well as local events. Herbert Shapiro is concerned about possible military actions against Iraq, North Korea and Iran.
"What would be the outcome of wars of that kind?" he asks.
Rainey says fear keeps most Americans from even asking such a question.
"You cannot criticize the president during wartime, but it's always going to be wartime," she says.
Peter Fifield, manager of The Nation Associates, a group that supports the magazine, says there are 28 Nation discussion groups across the country.
"The magazine doesn't tell them what to discuss or when to meet," he says.
According to Fifield, many of the groups have been meeting for years, while some fold after a time.
"They're people who believe in progressive politics," he says. "There's a wide variety of Nation readers. People have their favorite columnists and they disagree with other columnists that are published in the magazine."
The Nation discussion group meets from 4-6 p.m. the third Sunday of the month. For more information, call Herbert and Judith Shapiro at 513-861-4641.
