two feet in.

I am wearing green today.

Please read this information about the Jena Six especially if you are not familiar with this case of modern-day lynching.  Today is the National Day of Action:

Last fall in Jena, Louisiana, the day after two Black high school students sat beneath the "white tree" on their campus, nooses were hung from the tree. When the superintendent dismissed the nooses as a "prank," more Black students sat under the tree in protest. The District Attorney then came to the school accompanied by the town's police and demanded that the students end their protest, telling them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy... I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen."¹
   
A series of white-on-black incidents of violence followed, and the DA did nothing. But when a white student was beaten up in a schoolyard fight, the DA responded by charging six black students with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

It's a story that reads like one from the Jim Crow era, when judges, lawyers and all-white juries used the justice system to keep blacks in "their place"--but it's happening today. The families of these young men are fighting back, but the odds are stacked against them. Together, we can make sure their story is told, that this becomes an issue for the Governor of Louisiana, and that justice is provided for the Jena 6. It starts now. Please add your voice Here.

Some more info:

The noose-hanging incident and the DA's visit to the school set the stage for everything that followed. Racial tension escalated over the next couple of months, and on November 30, the main academic building of Jena High School was burned down in an unsolved fire. Later the same weekend, a black student was beaten up by white students at a party. The next day, black students at a convenience store were threatened by a young white man with a shotgun. They wrestled the gun from him and ran away. While no charges were filed against the white man, the students were arrested for the theft of the gun.²

That Monday at school, a white student, who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses, taunted the black student who was beaten up at the off-campus party and allegedly called several black students "nigger." After lunch, he was knocked down, punched and kicked by black students. He was taken to the hospital but was released and was well enough to go to a social event that evening.³

Six Black Jena High students, Robert Bailey (17), Theo Shaw (17), Carwin Jones (18), Bryant Purvis (17), Mychal Bell (16) and an unidentified minor, were expelled from school, arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder. Bail was set so high -- between $70,000 and $138,000 -- that the boys were left in prison for months as families went deep into debt to release them.⁴

The first trial ended last month, and Mychal Bell, who has been in prison since December, was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery (both felonies) by an all-white jury in a trial where his public defender called no witnesses. During his trial, Mychal's parents were ordered not to speak to the media and the court prohibited protests from taking place near the courtroom or where the judge could see them.

Wearing Green today:
ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2007 MYCHAEL BELL WILL BE SENTENCED. RAW TALENT IS ASKING YOU TO JOIN US AS WE WEAR THE COLOR GREEN THIS DAY TO PROTEST THE INJUSTICE OF THIS DECISION. WE BELIEVE THROUGH WEARING THE COLOR GREEN WE AS A PEOPLE ARE SYMBOLIZING GROWTH AND THE SURPASSING OF HATE.

GREEN= GROWTH & SURPASSING HATE!!!!!

And it is all well and good that I'm sitting in my comfy office wearing green.  The symbol is important, but I also recognize that working to understand and change the oppressive mechanisms of individual and institutional racism is more so, and a hell of a lot harder than digging my green shirt out of the dresser this morning.

You can download an excellent teaching guide about the Jena 6 and its historical context of American racism here.  Well worth your time even if you aren't a teacher.

...and this concludes this test of...?

Here's a great way to get your message out quickly, but not necessarily legally, the day before elections:

In an apparent violation of FCC rules, conservative talk radio station KFBK 1530 AM in Sacramento [Clearchannel owned] transmitted a paid political advertisement to an unknown number of other stations in the area, using the Federal Emergency Alert System (EAS), thus automatically forcing the ad onto the stations' airwaves. This is according to a press release issued today by KDVS-FM, a non-commercial community station in Davis that received and inadvertently aired the transmission. [link]

They say this "error" was due to a "training snafu."

There has been some coverage of this incident, but most has focused purely on the fact that this happened, with no comment about the actual content and possible resulting reactions that could come from the juxtaposition of these two messages.

To give you an idea what I mean, here's the relevant segue-way transcribed.  You can also listen to the segment HERE .

(annoying beeping)…this concludes this test of the emergency alert system.  It’s estimated that 4-10 million illegal immigrants cross into the United States every year.  And they’re not just coming for jobs.  It’s hard to believe, but since 9/11 (siren in background) more Americans have died at the hands of illegal aliens than died in the terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq combined.  4700 Americans are killed each year by illegal immigrant drunk drivers.  4300 are killed by violent crime at the hands of illegal aliens.  …And there are nearly 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders living in the United States…Secure our border, protect our families, Dick Mountjoy for US Senate…

So, let's say that the so-called accidental pairing of the emergency alert system with the highly questionable and undoubtedly racist content of the election ad was indeed a training snafu.  Hard to believe, but let's say this was the case.  Even as snafu, I find the particular combination of messages, both verbal and otherwise (emergency beeping, sirens, etc.), to be so indicative of our times.  Link everything in some way or another to 9/11, raise fear, increase police state, protect "our" precious families.  Maybe the Texas Border Watch Site that I wrote about yesterday could also install a red button to immediately send out emergency broadcasts every time some guy in his den in Minnesota thinks he sees "suspicious" activity on the Texas border web cams...  Somehow I think that we need to change course if we ever hope to protect all of OUR families, not just "our" families.

It's Even Better Than Being Able to Shop in your Underwear

Yes, you too can "secure the border for the people of Texas" from the comfort of your own home!  That's right, the Texas Border Watch Test Site is now up and running -- live, streaming, night-vision, web-cams that enable "anyone with Internet access to keep watch on the state's border with Mexico."

A yellow button on the site reads "Report Suspicious Activity." Clicking the button sends an e-mail to the Texas Department of Public Safety.  How simple it is to catch those pesky illegal aliens.

Those who might be a bit skeptical of this new security tactic might ask, but, "What should I be looking for to report suspicious activity?" 

As the cameras are located at various sites activities represented by individuals may vary greatly. Generally anything out of the norm represented in the context of each camera view would be something you may want to report.

I love that -- "activities represented by individuals may vary greatly."   But,  you are to report anything  "out of the norm."  While you're busy figuring out the norm from the vastly varying activities of individuals in the cameras, you might as well also watch out for unattended packages.  You can't be safe enough.

Oh Say Can You Sing in as Many Languages as Possible

In honor of Bush's recent announcement that we must "maintain our national soul" by not singing the national anthem in Spanish, and in my own commemoration of the May Day Walk-Out in support of immigrant rights, I thought I might provide Two Feet In readers with the lyrics for the Star Spangled Banner in multiple languages.  The Spanish was indeed easy to find.  Beyond that, both my own linguistic limitations and my less than stellar internet searching skills yielded almost nothing -- no French, no Arabic, no Farsi... 

The best I could do was Portuguese.  Happy singing!

Oh, diga se você pode ver a luz leve do amanhecer
O crepúsculo cintilante que nós orgulhosamente anunciamos
Cujas faixas largas e estrelas brilhantes, pela briga perigosa,
Nós assistimos as muralhas caírem fluentemente e corajosamente.
E o clarão vermelho dos foguetes, as bombas que estouram em arejar
Deu prova pela noite que nossa bandeira estava ainda lá.
Pelo vale da liverdade e a casa da coragem.

As Good a Reason as Any to Get My Kid Potty-Trained

As if there weren't enough reasons to not buy from this company already!  --

One person that will not be getting Hispanic votes in Wisconsin is Rep. James Sensenbrenner. The entire planet knows Sensenbrenner is the author/sponsor of HR 4437 which would turn 11 million undocumented immigrants into felons, punish anyone guilty of providing them assistance, and construct an iron wall between the US and Mexico. What most Hispanics do not know is Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin is heir to the family fortune of Kimberly Clark. All Hispanics who purchase some of world's most recognized brands - Little Swimmers, Kleenex, Scott, Huggies, Pull-Ups, Kotex, Poise, Viva, Cottonelle and Depend are putting money in Sensenbrenner’s bank account.

Here's a bit of info from the Kimberly Clark website:

A quarter of the world's population puts money into Sensenbrenner's pocket!  Including, me.  Yes, in spite of my best intentions, my daughter is quite the devotee of Disney (!) Princess Pull-Ups for her nighttime wetness protection.  And I won't even get started on my son and his Lion King Huggies.  Ah, the contradictions with which we live...

The Kimberly Clark/Sensenbrenner boycott starts today. 

Military Recruitment and Affluent Changemakers

In the comments section Ben noticed something about the image of the concerned educator from yesterday's posting:

I like how the educator is just enough darker than her student so that she might read as Latina or African American, perhaps to encourage identification from educators from those communities while still allowing whites to see the interaction as being between two whites. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. But maybe not...

This had been on my mind as well, so I went back to the Today's Military website and did some more exploration.  The site has three main sections:  one for educators, one for parents, and one for students.  Here are the banners for each:

Educator:

Parent:


Student:

I have no doubt that each of these images was carefully designed to appeal to a specific target audience.  The advertising company that created the website, Mullen Advertising, has been hired by the DOD to create a variety of "public-facing, influencer-focused joint offline and online advertising campaigns." 

Last summer, Nick Turse had a piece in Tomdispatch.com that gave an overview of these different Internet recruiting efforts.  Here's what he wrote about Today's Military:

Another Mullen Advertising-created site is aimed at a different population. Like MyFuture, Today'sMilitary.com is a polished-looking site that lacks a ".mil" in its web address, but instead of targeting teens, the website announces that it "seeks to educate parents and other adults about the opportunities and benefits available to young people in the Military today." In JAMRS-speak that means it's a "public site targeted at influencers."

Today'sMilitary.com is filled with information on financial incentives available to those who join the military and webpages devoted to "what it's like" to be in the armed forces and how the military can "turn young diamonds in the rough into the finest force on the face of the earth." We learn that Army basic training is "[m]ore than just pushups and mess halls." In fact, quite the opposite of a torture test, it's actually a "nine-week-long journey of self-discovery." The Marines' boot camp comes across as an even more routine, though less introspective, affair with nary a mention of its rigors aside from "a final endurance test of teamwork." Scanning through the pages, we even learn that life in the military is not just "exciting, challenging and hugely rewarding," but that in their off-time, military folk "go for walks… and they even shop for antiques."

Today's Military now has full-page ads in magazines like Real Simple (a "leader in the category of women's lifestyle publications").  A look at the magazine's media kit shows that they describe their audience as "affluent change makers":

median age 43.7
25-34 22%
35-54 53%

median HHI $95,916
HHI $50K+ 82%
HHI $75K+ 64%

college-educated 89%
employed 74%
working full-time 60%
professional/managerial 48%
married 69%
with kids 44%

No surprise that a site targeted at readers of Real Simple would describe basic training as "a nine-week-long journey of self-discovery," and perhaps that, as illustrated by the pictures above, skin-color darkens as you move further away from the influencer-affluent-changemaker readers of womens lifestyle publications. 

Academics and Poverty Researchers Have Much to Celebrate!

Yesterday I got into a rather animated discussion with someone about Leslie Kaufman's piece in Sunday's NYT.  In case you missed it, the gist is captured in the first two paragraphs:

UNEXPECTEDLY, the country is embarking on a broad experiment: Will moving the poor out of New Orleans help them rise?

For years, academics and poverty researchers have debated whether the poorest Americans would improve their situation if they were simply relocated from the worst neighborhoods and housing projects - where many live in concentrated numbers - and dispersed among middle-class neighborhoods to absorb a different set of cultural norms.

The piece goes on to say...

The discussion was largely theoretical, because an extensive resettling of the poor would have been expensive, intrusive and racially charged - in short, politically impossible.

Then, New Orleans was devastated. Now the very poor make up a sizable portion of the nearly half a million evacuees spread across hundreds of towns and cities, ready to be recipients of a large, focused package of federal and state aid.

For social scientists, the recovery effort is a chance to collect important evidence on whether relocating the poor is effective policy.

Yeah, and wouldn't it be convenient too -- to have those who have been displaced from New Orleans, largely African American and poor, permanently relocated in middle class communities where "no more than 30 percent of the population is African American." 

Why, so many problems could be solved at once! 

The poor could "absorb a different set of cultural norms," wouldn't need to return to the city that has been home to generations of families, wouldn't need to form groups like Community Labor United (an organization that "demands local, grassroots leadership in the relief, return and reconstruction process in New Orleans.").  The New Orleans Business Council could fulfill its wish list for "low wages, low taxes, more luxury condos and hotels..." (without the interference of those bothersome community groups).  And, social scientists could collect their all-important data on how to fix the poor!

My relative, after reading the piece, and even after my bitingly sarcastic rejoinder, still thought it was "such an interesting idea."  Disperse, dispense some different cultural norms, make everyone just like us white folks, and get a few journal publications cranked out to boot.  Problem solved.

Minutemen Come to California

On September 16th, Mexican Independence Day, California got its own official version of the Arizona anti-immigration vigilantes, the Minutemen:

An anti-illegal-immigration group calling itself Friends of the Border Patrol has officially kicked off what it says will be an indefinite series of patrols along the California border, although its organizer said yesterday that between 30 and 40 participants have been secretly monitoring the area since June as part of their training.

Now that roughly 125 people have been trained, Ramirez, a Chino resident and onetime political aspirant, said they are ready to start. After a training session today, participants in the latest border-watch event to hit the San Diego area will begin watching for illegal border crossers. They will stage their operations on private property along a roughly 100-mile stretch of the border in San Diego and Imperial counties.

Just like the Minutemen, this group claims not to be driven by racism:  "Some groups have accused the volunteers of being racists -- a charge Mr. Ramirez denied. "  A charge denied in nearly the same breath as talking about protecting us all from the "illegal aliens and drug smugglers."

However, the following image greets you when you visit the Friends of the Border Patrol site:

For those not familiar with these neighborhood watch signs, they are often posted around (usually white) neighborhoods directing you to watch for "suspicious activities."

Then, after entering the website, you can take part in the following non-biased online survey:

FBP Online Poll        

Do you support the smugglers of humans and drugs?
Yes
No

In case you are interested, go here for the unbiased results.

The neighborhood watch image, the language ("illegal aliens"), the implication that all who cross the border are smugglers of humans and drugs...  Build up a suspician and fear of the Other in the name of "protection," of "homeland security,"-- that, to me, is racism. 

Ningún ser humano es ilegal.

Grassroots/Low-income/People of Color-led Katrina Relief

Go to this webpage for extensive infomation about organziations who are:       

• Organizing at the grassroots level in New Orleans, Biloxi, Houston and other affected areas
• Providing immediate disaster relief to poor people and people of color
• Directed by, or accountable to, poor people and people of color
• Fostering the democratic inclusion of poor people and people of color in the rebuilding process.                 

Please consider the groups listed there as you plan your own actions and donations to support victims in the Gulf region.

"Shoot to Kill" Comes Home

Woke up today to this:

Iraq-tested US troops with shoot-to-kill orders were deployed in New Orleans to restore law and order after days of chaos and looting in the hurricane-devastated city.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said the 300 troopers from the Arkansas National Guard had been authorized to open fire on "hoodlums" who have been terrorizing the flooded city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Their deployment came amid intense criticism of the government for a tardy response to the disaster, which is feared to have killed thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands more stranded and homeless.

"These troops are fresh back from Iraq, well trained, experienced, battle tested and under my orders to restore order in the streets," Blanco said.

"They have M-16s and they are locked and loaded.

"These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will," said Blanco.

Shoot to kill, now paired with the "zero tolerance" policy for "looters" -- even when those so-called "hoodlums" are seeking food and water to save themselves and their families. 

"These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will..."   
Just like in London...  Just like in Falluja and Baghdad...

And as usual, the suspected hoodlums/looters/terrorists are not going to be the white people who happened to find some bread on their way home through the flood.

"Flushing Out" the "Looters" Who "Chose to Stay Behind"

This is all over the internet, but nonetheless here as well, via HungryBlues:

In New Orleans White People "Find," Black People "Loot"

AP - Tue Aug 30,11:31 AM ET
(via Yahoo! News)

 
AP caption:
A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Flood waters continue to rise in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina did extensive damage when it made landfall on Monday. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

AFP/Getty Images - Tue Aug 30, 3:47 AM ET
(via Yahoo! News)

AFP/Getty Images caption:
Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane Katrina came through the area in New Orleans, Louisiana.(AFP/Getty Images/Chris Graythen)

And at Salon:

...it's irrefutable that this administration's backward policies and politics made this disaster worse than it had to be, and its belated response will do nothing to address the problems that have suddenly been flushed out into the open. The death toll from Katrina is likely to be higher than 9/11, but most of its victims will be black and poor, and I doubt we'll wage a war on poverty and neglect to match the war on terror launched after al-Qaida struck -- and if we did, I doubt it would be any more effective.

As right on as this last quote is, I also have to wonder if "flushed out in the open" would be the descriptor used if most of the New Orleans victims were not low-income Blacks. 

But, as Chris Floyd wrote, the rest of us can take comfort since, after all, those so-called looters chose to stay behind:

The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many of the most pernicious trends in American politics and culture: poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse, public corruption and the decay of democracy at every level.

Much of this is embodied in the odd phrasing that even the most circumspect mainstream media sources have been using to describe the hardest-hit victims of the storm and its devastating aftermath: "those who chose to stay behind." Instantly, the situation has been framed with language to flatter the prejudices of the comfortable and deny the reality of the most vulnerable.

Floyd's piece is a must read -- do it here.

"The salvation of the world lies in the hands of the maladjusted."

How quickly one falls to the ground after lofty aspirations of daily blog writing.  With the first week of the semester here already, an incomplete syllabus, and students already knocking at my door... 

Until I get back up to speed, here is someone who is writing pieces that are well worth your time --  Benjamin at HungryBlues:

MLK, Communist Training Schools, Cindy Sheehan, and Rosa Parks (I)

and

MLK, Communist Training Schools, Cindy Sheehan, and Rosa Parks (II)

Go there and read.

"We Believe that Diversity is about All of Us" and Other Corporate Bunk

If only it were not bunk when a major corporation writes something like this on their "Diversity" webpage:

• Diversity matters at JPMorgan Chase
• Responsibility for creating a diverse and inclusive organization begins at the top.
• We believe that diversity is about all of us - and all of us are responsible for making JPMorgan Chase the kind of place where every person is valued...

As if you didn't already know it was bunk when coming from the mouth of "a leading global financial        services firm with assets of $1.2 trillion," then all you have to do is see and read this:
                                                                                                     

Officials at JP Morgan Chase have apologized and promised to improve their screening policies, after a credit card solicitation letter sent to a 54-year-old naturalized American citizen came addressed to "Palestinian Bomber."

The form letter for a Visa Platinum card arrived earlier this month at the home of Sami Habbas, a grocery store manager from Corona, Calif. The words "Palestinian Bomber" appear above his address and the salutation reads, "Dear Palestinian Bomber." The document included the signature of Carter Franke, chief marketing officer for Chase Card Services.

Habbas is a naturalized U.S. citizen of Palestinian heritage. He told ABC News he is "extremely upset" at receiving the letter, pointing out that he has lived in the United States for 51 years and also served in the U.S. Army, receiving an honorable discharge in 1969.

"It's upsetting, derogatory and slanderous," Habbas told ABC News.  "I have no idea how this sort of thing happened."

Habbas was even more shocked when, on several occasions, he said he called an 800-number for JP Morgan Chase and spoke to operators in an effort to complain. Each time, he says the operators called up his information on a computer but apparently didn't catch on. According to Habbas, "The operators always said, 'Yes, Mr. Palestinian Bomber, how can we help you?' "

That this "derogatory and slanderous" event happened at all is bad enough.  However, that the operators again and again unquestioningly recited the 'Yes, Mr. Palestinian Bomber, how can we help you?' script shows just how dehumanized we all are becoming.  We're going to need much more than an apology from JP Morgan Chase in order to change that, and we are all responsible for making that kind of change happen.

We Strive to... Make as Much Money as we Can!

                                                

In the following case it is not a waiting room, but a bathroom, and the year is 2005:

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accused Tyson Foods Inc. of punishing two black employees when they complained about a "Whites Only" sign hanging on a restroom in its Ashland, Alabama, chicken processing plant in federal discrimination lawsuit. The EEOC said the Springdale, Arkansas, poultry giant violated the Civil Rights Act when it discriminated against Henry Adams, Leon Walker and other black employees "by establishing and maintaining a locked bathroom facility, which on occasion had signs posted on it stating "Out of Order" and "Whites Only."

Keys to the bathroom were given only to white workers, the EEOC said, and when Adams and Walker complained about the segregated bathroom, "management subjected them to adverse employment actions, including suspensions and disciplinary write-ups."

A quick visit to Tyson's website brought forth the following Core Values:

We are a company of people engaged in the production of food, seeking to pursue truth and integrity, and committed to creating value for our shareholders, our customers, and our people in the process.  

Who we are:

• We strive to be a company of diverse people working together to produce food.
• We strive to be honorable people.
• We strive to be a faith-friendly company.

What we do:

• We feed our families, the nation, and the world with trusted food products.    
• We serve as stewards of the animals, land, and environment entrusted to us.                         
  
• We strive to provide a safe work environment for our Team Members.

How we do it:

• We strive to earn consistent and satisfactory profits for our shareholders and to invest in our people, products, and processes.
• We strive to operate with integrity and trust in all we do.
• We strive to honor God and be respectful of each other, our customers, and other stakeholders.

Don't even get me started on the concept of Tyson Foods being stewards of the animals, land, and  environment.  But...  Integrity, trust, safe work environment, striving to be honorable people, respectful of each other, and... Whites Only?  Tyson is probably succeeding in "creating value" for their shareholders, but in all other respects their efforts to meet their core values looks like piffle to me.

 

They Have Their Orders: Shoot to Kill

By now you've probably heard about the supposed "terrorist" killed in the London Tube a few days ago:

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has said the shooting of the man at Stockwell Tube station was "directly linked" to anti-terror operations.

Sir Ian said his officers hunting the bombers were now facing "previously unknown threats and great danger".    

Scotland Yard said: "A man was challenged by officers and subsequently shot. London Ambulance Service attended the scene. He was pronounced dead at the scene."

Witnesses said the man was shot five times at close range after he had jumped on a train.    
Passenger Mark Whitby said: "As the man got on the train I looked at his face. He looked from left to right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, like a cornered fox. He looked absolutely petrified
...

"He half-tripped, was half-pushed to the floor. The policeman nearest to me had the black automatic pistol in his left hand, he held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him."

And so, today, we find out more about that supposed "direct link" to terrorism:

A young Brazilian man, living and working in London as an electrician, emerged last night as the innocent victim shot dead by police in their hunt for the suicide bombers targeting the capital.

The dead man, killed at Stockwell tube station on Friday after fleeing from armed police, was named as 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes. His body was identified by Alex Pereira, a cousin who lives in London and who afterwards told The Observer: 'I can't believe they shot him, because he was not a terrorist. He was an honest man.

'We [the family] are still too shocked to talk about it. But I am sure [that] he didn't do anything wrong. It was not right for the police to do that.'

Pereira said that the most upsetting part of identifying his cousin was 'to see bullet wounds in his back and his neck when I went to the mortuary in Greenwich.'

Now, I have not seen any pictures of Jean Charles de Menezes.  However, I would venture to guess that he would not have been shot, five times, even after being cornered and falling to the ground, had he looked like a white man in a business suit. 

Just a hunch. 

Let's please be honest about just who faces "previously unknown threats and great danger" in this new world order.

Southern Freedom Movement = Operation Iraqi Freedom??

If you have not been following the trial of Edgar Ray Killan in Philadelphia, Mississippi, I recommend HungryBlues as an excellent source of day-to-day information.  Benjamin also links to other bloggers who are documenting developments in the case. 

Today, he provided some rather illuminating quotes from the Mississippi Attorney General:

In his closing statements yesterday, Mississippi AG Jim Hood revealed his overt insensitivity to the Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman families.

Some of you have asked why I am here. . . Because this is where justice is done.

I wish some of my predecessors had done their duty. I wouldn't have to be here, to have missed my daughter’s second birthday.

It would be extremely unprofessional for Jim Hood to complain about missing his daughter's second birthday during his closing statements in any court case. But does he hear himself?! There's been 41 missed birthdays for the families of the victims.

Jim Hood also went so far as to desecrate what Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman stood for, by comparing the Southern Freedom Movement to Bush's war in Iraq:

They came down here doing God's work. They were here in peace. They weren’t troublemakers. They were doing the same things that we are doing in Iraq — fighting for people's freedoms. They showed a lot of courage. They were heroes for being here to grant people the freedom to vote.

And, the verdict is in:  manslaughter, not murder.  The victims families have called the verdict important in that someone is being held responsible for the murders.  As is so often the case, however, the penalty is more like a slap on the wrist.  And, as James Chaney's brother Ben stated:  "'I really feel that there is more to be done.'' He said there were still no black businesses downtown."

Yes, much much more to be done.

Break a Rule? Go to Jail.

Many apologies for extended absence.  I'm back for a bit, with yet another report about the criminalization of black students in our public schools.  This time, Chicago is in the news:

Accusing an elementary school in Lawndale of "criminalizing" black students by having large numbers arrested for routine discipline infractions, a community coalition brought its protest to a heated meeting of Mason Elementary's local school council Wednesday.

In the meeting's wake, two people were arrested for disorderly conduct.

The North Lawndale Accountability Commission has been picketing Mason, at 1830 S. Keeler, since last week, citing information the coalition says it received from the local police district. That data purports more than 250 children were arrested at the school in the past few years. Chicago Public Schools officials dispute that figure.

The coalition claims Mason is representative of a larger problem identified in a national study released in March that accuses Chicago schools of funneling alarming numbers of black students into the Cook County Juvenile Court system through a zero tolerance policy that criminalizes minor misbehavior.

They're literally prosecuting these children, fingerprinting and mugshotting them and locking them up before even calling parents. What they've done is taken away parents' constitutional rights," said the Rev. M.G. Hunter, whose 12-year-old niece, an honor roll student, was arrested at Mason last month after arguing with a substitute teacher...

Their information is incorrect," an angry Mason Principal Vivian Hudson-Davis said of the coalition's claim. "The Uniform Discipline Code tells us when to call police and when not to. If a child is disruptive, if a child pushes a teacher, I have to act. I don't think CPS is criminalizing children. Until discipline is under control, learning cannot take place."

That's 250 students allegedly arrested in an elementary school -- these are children under 12 years old.  If you need an idea of what the arrest of a young child might look like, see here. 

Could it be that the problem lies not with the students, but with their schooling?  Of course not -- we never leave any children behind, at least as long as they are "under control."

Humans as Placeholders, and Other Adventures in Yearbook Publishing

Many of you may remember the news story from awhile back of the school board that banned the publication of the senior class photo of a female student who chose to be pictured in a tuxedo, rather than the gender-expected "gown-like drape and pearls". 

Now we have further adventures in yearbook publishing.  First, in Texas:

A North Texas school district is having four pages of its high school yearbook reprinted to correct a photo caption that identified a student as "Black Girl."

All white students are identified by name in the photograph of Waxahachie High School's chapter of the National Honor Society. The teen identified as "Black Girl" is the only black student in the photo.

The district apologized for the mistake after the yearbooks were distributed. The label apparently was meant to be a placeholder until the yearbook staff could track down the student's name, district spokeswoman Candace Ahlfinger said. (link)

And, in Florida:

The mother of a high school senior elected “Most Whipped” by his classmates has asked for a recall of Boynton Beach High’s 2005 yearbooks over a photograph of her son wearing a collar and leash.

Robert Richards, 19, was photographed with then-girlfriend Melissa Finley, who is holding the leash. Richards is black and Finley is white.

In Florida, there are to be "serious disciplinary consequences" for the yearbook adviser.  In Texas, students can bring in their yearbooks so the old pages can be torn out and new ones glued in.   Here's what the  Texas school official said:

"We will never be able to minimize this damage, but this will change it so that it is not a constant reminder, so it won't be a forever," Ahlfinger told the Waxahachie Daily Light.

No talk of educating each other, of trying to gain a deeper understanding of how and why these supposedly simple mistakes are reflective of much more profound work that we all need to do. 

Also, not surprisingly, no connection made between the yearbook leash photo and this:

Tear out the old pages, a slap on the wrist, and move on -- nothing more to be learned here.

UPDATE:  I received an email from someone who stumbled upon this site, saying that I read too much into the high school leash incident.  Maybe true.  However, my point is not to equate what happened there with torture.  Rather, to highlight the extent to which the deeper conversations that we, as a society, need to have are not happening, and don't seem likely to begin soon.

And It Happens Again, and Again, and Again, and Again...

Benjamin, of HungryBlues (which is now added to sidebar as blog read more often than not), has a series of excellent posts about this kindergartner -- that's right, she's five years old -- handcuffed by police at her school.  The images were taken from the widely available video clip of the incident. 

Where is the outrage about this incident?  Or this one?  Or this one?  Or this one?   

Yes, for each there have been localized protests and blogging anger, but does anyone else seem to care?  Will we see nightly news analysis of the personal and institutionalized racism and violence directed at poor, children of color in our country?

As Benjamin asks:

Why is there such a rush to blame a vulnerable African American girl, who is ONLY FIVE YEARS OLD and "by reason of . . . physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care" (UNICEF Convention on the Rights of the Child)?

Why are there so few questions being asked about the role of the responsible adults who were present at the time of the incident?

Why is there so little acknowledgment of the age- and race-related power imbalances?

Why is it so little acknowledged that the only person who was ever in any genuine physical danger was Ja'eisha Scott?

Why have none of the reporters in the mainstream press bothered to seek expert opinions on the traumatic effects of such police behavior on small children?

Why have none of the news reports discussed what prevention resources are, in fact, available for children in Pinellas County, Florida?

Why have none of the news reports acknowledged the lack of funding for mental health treatment for children in Florida?

Not likely that there will be substantive examination of any of these questions, or of how we are all part of the problem, of how we are all responsible.  Rather, we'll just hear more about those "at risk" children, and what must be done to fix them. 

Race, Privilege, and "Young, White, Female Activists"

I've had many responses to the Marla Ruzicka/Rachel Corrie piece that I wrote last week.  Two of the letters, however, have been particularly on my mind.  The first, from someone who identified herself as  a "fair complected"  young female voiced her discomfort with the following sentence:

"I must note that my sadness does not only get called out by the deaths of young, white, female activists, but there is a certain sense of identification that I feel with these women."

She wrote that she was disturbed by my underlying identification with the young, white female -- that I ought to be identifying with the enduring humanity that a person brings to the earth, and not just their packaging.  My initial reaction to her response was that, of course, I was identifying with Marla and Rachel's enduring humanity -- as I wrote, with the spirit, courage, love, etc. that they took out into the world.  That is what I meant to convey in the piece, and I was sorry that it seemed like I was simply saying that my identification was based on race.

However, race is a real construct in our society.  And, for too many white people in this country, it is an unexamined and unearned privilege that shapes the opportunities that they have and the actions that they take or don't take. 

I received another thoughtful, and very beautiful, note from Bishara Costandi, a Palestinian father who lives here in California.  He wrote:

Having lived in this country long enough, and having been active as long, I never cease to be bewildered at the mindset leading the actions of "progressives" with whom I work and those I hear of. Why, I wonder, is there not a class movement yet? Why is it always "anti-war", or "peace", when the "hood" and the school are burning, the prisons are getting fatter, "health care" is a passport to illness and death? Tragically, all are issues merely uttered as sub text?

 

Why is the "movement" (nothing is moving!) middle class and white in its general persona? How come "leaders" (short of naming names) are more concerned about sending food baskets to the Iraqis (they are not asking for charity), continue to care-less for the Palestinians, and call for the election of a person like Kerry, but fail to take actions as simple as surrounding the federal buildings to demand honesty in "elections"?

 

Why is there no will to sacrifice?

He also sent me a piece he had written in memorial to Rachel Corrie, where he expands on these thoughts of sacrifice, humanity, freedom, that I think I was trying to get at (rather unsuccessfully) in my own essay:

The struggle for freedom, however, is at once the pursuit of unanimous liberty and of self emancipation. It cannot be otherwise. It is a mission that revolutionaries take, not alone, but in communion with fellow humans, trespassing all boundaries of geography, race, gender and religion. A mission, moreover, that treks a protracted, torturous path; one that is bleak, dangerous and … deadly.

Significantly, the struggle for freedom is a decision containing a contradiction: those of us, who decide to meet the challenge, do so voluntarily, at will, exactly when we also understand that morally we have no other choice!!

These two responses have been much on my mind as I think about Rachel and Marla and how I place at least some of my identification with them and their actions.  I've realized that, yes, I am identifying with their underlying humanity as I hoped to communicate in the essay I wrote.  However, as a white woman it is also true that I do identify with them as white women, and to say otherwise might not be honest. 

But, let me be more specific.  I identify with them not just because their skin is white, but rather in my admiration and respect for their efforts to transcend the race and class privilege that would have easily allowed them to stay out of harm's way, to not get involved, to not come into communion with fellow human beings.  Face it --  most white, middle class women in our society will never do this, will never make anywhere near the kinds of sacrifices that these two women made, will never even recognize the problems.  I wonder about the extent to which I will be able to transcend my own privilege,  though I work in that direction every day. 

In this sense, I do hope that these two white women will be guides for my children.  However, ultimately, I hope that Rachel and Marla's examples will shine alongside the voices and actions of many others who actively work to create change for the better in our world. 

Minuteman Militias and Nonviolence

Minuteman Project

"People have this impression we [are] a paramilitary group coming here to stir up trouble.  It's so hard to convince them that ... we're peaceful," Joel Segal, a young member of the Minutemen told the Arizona Republic. "Obviously, we're armed, but that's just a part of us being out here. That doesn't mean that we're aggressive.  That doesn't mean that we're violent."

Minuteman Patrols with Cameras:

Three volunteers patrolling the border for illegal immigrants were being investigated after a man told authorities he was held against his will and forced to pose for a picture holding a T-shirt with a mocking slogan.

...the 26-year-old Mexican man told agents he was physically restrained and forced to hold a shirt while his picture was taken and he was videotaped.

The shirt read: "Bryan Barton caught an illegal alien and all I got was this T-shirt."

That doesn't mean that we're violent.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit.  You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him. 

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

White Supremicist, European American Separatist... And the Difference Is?

There was a piece today in the SF Chronicle about Arizona's Proposition 200, the latest anti-immigration initiative to be passed by voters -- it essentially denies public services to undocumented immigrants, though the extent of the public services which will actually fall under the law is still very questionable. 

We've been through this here in California (in some version or another, it seems like many times now), with the now outlawed Proposition 187, 209 and 227.  Unlike 187 the Arizona initiative does not try to deny emergency healthcare and K-12 education to undocumented immigrants, but as the Chronicle piece points out, the fear factor has already set in, and many families are foregoing medical attention and school attendance for their children.

As is typical, supporters of the measure say that it is "not about racism."  Instead, they use kinder, gentler, more PC terms to describe themselves:

[Virginia] Abernethy, an emeritus professor of psychiatry and anthropology at Vanderbilt University [and advisor to the Prop. 200 campaign], is affiliated with the Occidental Quarterly, a publication described by Max Blumenthal in the American Prospect as the "premier voice of the white-nationalist movement." Abernethy rejects the term white supremacist, with which she has been labeled, preferring to call herself a "European American separatist."

Abernethy is affiliated not only with the Occidental Quarterly, but also with several other groups that have the following points in their statements of principle:

The Occidental Quarterly’s statement of principles includes:

• The West is a cultural compound of our Classical, Christian, and Germanic past.

• The European identity of the United States and its people should be maintained. Immigration into the United States should be restricted to selected people of European ancestry.

• The perfectibility, let alone the equality, of man is not possible and is not a legitimate political aspiration.

• The political and personal freedoms of the American order — including our rights of free _expression and association — are in jeopardy from ethnic and ideological enemies and must be preserved.

• The intervention of foreign states (Israel and Mexico, as well as others) in the internal politics and decision-making of the American people must be rejected.

Some tenets of the Council on Conservative Citizens

• "There is no superior replacement for the civilization that has evolved through the Greeks, Romans, Celts and Anglo Saxons."

• "The C of CC also stands against the tide of nonwhite, Third world immigrants swamping this country."

• Its founder once wrote that "Western civilization with all its might and glory would never have achieved its greatness without the directing hand of God and the creative genius of the white race. Any effort to destroy the race by a mixture of black blood is an effort to destroy Western civilization itself."

• Its Web site at www.cofcc.org shows gruesome photos of slaughtered white South Africans and then warns that "today South Africa is less than 10 percent white. Some day American whites will be a minority. It can happen here."

Now how could any of this ever be interpreted as white supremacy, as racism?  That's just ridiculous. 

The Color of Fear

My current work involves an effort to confront racism on both an interpersonal and institutional level.  So, last week, I participated in a viewing and discussion of the film, The Color of Fear.  The film presents a dialogue between eight North American men of various racial and ethnic identities in which they deal head-on and honestly with racism. 

One of the participants, David, is probably closest to your typical middle-class, white American male in that he had never before considered issues of race, of white privilege, of oppression.  Here is a bit of an exchange between David, Victor, and Loren (Victor and Loren are both African American):

David:  Victor... you have no comprehension that the world is open to you.  You think that the white man is a block and a dam to your progress.  It is not.  I think you put up that dam and that block yourself, in your regard to the white man.

Loren:  You see, I think that's one of the major problems with racism.... As a white man, [David] doesn't have to think about his position in life, his place in the world.  The history books tell him as they are written that this world is his.  He doesn't have to think about where he goes, what he does.  He doesn't have to think like a white person; the way the world has been set up, America in particular, white is human...

Victor:  [to David]  I need to respond to your saying that I create my own racial predicament by my thinking and my attitudes. 

David:  You block your own progress...

Victor:  I block my own progress.

David:  By allowing your attitude toward the white man to limit you.

Victor:  I think that the police limit me.  I think that white supremacy has placed limitations on where I can go and what I can do...  most of the lethal, toxic, deadly racism that African American people experience and that most other people of color in this country experience in this country... comes from moral, fair-minded people who believe that they are lovers of justice, church-goers, people who experience themselves as decent, and actually are very nice folk, and that is where I find my fear...

I've seen The Color of Fear several times before.  Each time I see scenes like the one above, especially those between Victor and David, I gain new insight into my own understanding of race and racism.  This time was no different, and I left the film able to see that I have come far in this work, but again aware of areas where, as a white person in American society, I continue to be blind.  And, much more troublesome to me -- in areas where I am not blind, I still fail to meet my responsibilities to engage in conversations about difficult issues like race.  That is, I still exercise my own brand of white privilege by choosing when to confront racism, and when to ignore it.

Some of my relatives and their friends could easily be David in the above comments.  Sometimes they are worse in their subtle or no-so-subtle racist statements.  In the past I've tried, unsuccessfully, to engage in discussions with them about their beliefs.  At one point a few years ago, I basically gave up -- feeling like our worldviews were simply too far apart, and that they would never change, so why bother to continue trying?  Why waste my breath?

Watching the film last week, I realized that by giving up on them, I am also giving in to the structures of white supremacy and domination that limit all of us in achieving a measure of humanity that values each of us.  It was ironic to me that I can work through these issues in a variety of rather public forums, but that when faced with people that are closer to home, I had failed.  I had chosen not to push their thinking and beliefs in any way, even though these particular people, in their love or caring for me, might be the ones most open to hearing what I am saying. 

I realized that the breath that I have been wasting, has been that which I have expended in silence.

"I'm not prejudiced." Oh no, not you.

A little NCLB meets racism tale from today's SF Chronicle. 

The setting:  Oak Grove Middle School in the Bay Area suburbs.   Oak Grove "was honored as a California Distinguished School and has classes for gifted and talented students, a state-of-the-art technology program and even a psychologist on campus to support the kids."

Oak Grove also has increasingly diverse demographics, and a much higher percentage of kids who don't speak English as their first language than in the past.  Because English Language Learners are expected to "perform" at the same level on the same test as everyone else, the school does not meet "adequate yearly progress."  Test scores, those all-important test scores, go down.  The school is labeled... underperforming. 

So, "more educated" parents freak out and pull their kids -- because of course, underperforming means danger, danger, danger:

"I'm not prejudiced, (but) the school became English-as-a-second-language, " [a parent] said. "You would be taking my kids from a great environment to a ghetto environment where they're struggling with other needs ... The test scores at Oak Grove are terrible."

[The principal] has asked parents who are concerned about Oak Grove to visit and sit in on classes.

"I say, 'Come on down. Make a decision based on knowledge you have firsthand rather than what you heard at the supermarket,' " she said. "They very rarely take me up on it."
...
Besides the low scores, persistent rumors circulate that Oak Grove has a problem with fights. Some parents have warned others not to go on campus alone. But teachers insist it's no different from any other school and that the demographic changes, test-score labels and rumors have unfairly conspired against the school.

Call me cynical, but in this case, those "more educated" parents sound pretty darn white to me.

I believe that there are many reasons why parents might choose to send their child to one school over another.  But, to base this decision on a dubiously earned and meaningless label, as well as on the color of the children who walk through the school doors -- without even visiting -- is ignorance.  More educated?  I don't think so.

little green aliens: america's newest culture!

It has been a big week for cartoon characters.  First, the SpongeBob controversy, in which Mr. Squarepants is attacked by conservative Christian groups for being part of a "pro-homosexual" video (along with many other cartoon favorites, including Barney and Jimmy Neutron). 

Now, we have Postcards from Buster.  Apparently Buster goes to visit a farm in Vermont where there are lesbians, and according to Margaret Spellings, we can't have the youth of America seeing such things:

The nation's new education secretary denounced PBS on Tuesday for spending public money on a cartoon with lesbian characters, saying many parents would not want children exposed to such lifestyles.

The not-yet-aired episode of Postcards From Buster shows the title character, an animated bunny named Buster, on a trip to Vermont -- a state known for recognizing same-sex civil unions. The episode features two lesbian couples, although the focus is on farm life and maple sugaring.

A PBS spokesman said late Tuesday that the nonprofit network has decided not to distribute the episode, called "Sugartime!," to its 349 stations. She said the Education Department's objections were not a factor in that decision.

So, I decided to check out the Travels with Buster website.  Seems that PBS now wants nothing to do with Sugartime!, since when I went to the link for the "Hinesburg, VT" episode, this is what I found.  Gone.  Apparently PBS doesn't want us to be exposed to lesbians through cyberspace either.

The site did tell me that the program's intent is "to build awareness and appreciation of the many cultures in America."  But, according to Spellings:

... the "Sugartime!" episode does not fulfill the intent Congress had in mind for programming. By law, she said, any funded shows must give top attention to "research-based educational objectives, content and materials."

After reading about some of Buster's other travels, here is the big question I am left with.  Since when does the following qualify as a "culture" in America? And, is it a research-based educational objective? ---

So, I guess that as long as those little green aliens are not also lesbian, our government deems them safe for America's impressionable children.

race, zero tolerance and scissors

The story of the Philadelphia fourth grader who was handcuffed, arrested, and hauled off to the police station for having scissors in her backpack has been on my mind all week.  I've been meaning to write about how the story reflects on racism and intolerance as it is played out in our schools. 

Counterpunch beat me to it:

A four-letter word has been strangely  missing from the coverage of the scandal involving the arrest  and handcuffing of a 10-year-old fourth-grade elementary schoolgirl  in Philadelphia who had been found to have a pair of sharp scissors  in her schoolbag.
That word is race.
None of the articles in the  city's news coverage of this story mentioned the fact that while  little Porsche Brown, like 54 percent of her Philadelphia public  school classmates, is African-American, the teacher, who rifled  through her knapsack looking for some "good job" stickers  missing from her desk and found and then reported the scissors,  and the principal, who then authorized her arrest and incarceration  by city police-before giving her mother a chance to intervene--are  both white. (No stolen stickers were found in the girl's bag.)
(...)
"The fact that police were called in the first place, the  fact that the principal allowed her to be handcuffed and placed  into a paddy wagon, and the fact that her mother wasn't called  right away, all suggest she was being treated like a criminal..."

We can all predict what the outcome would have been had the scissors been found in the backpack of a white girl.  I'm so glad that our differentially-enforced zero tolerance policies are getting (some) of the scissor-wielding ten year olds off the street.  I feel so much safer.

Update: 
Luckily, with all those 10 year olds off the street, we can now concentrate on the young ones:

<