Police Brutality

Just as I am researching the movement for the abolition of prison (please look it up), I find that in march a man from my hometown was beaten to death by police after a car accident!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A car accident! Interestingly enough, the example I was given for reducing the dependency on police was from a woman who fought her instinct to call the police after a car accident. Rodney Wilson is dead, and I hadn't even heard about it. I researched it and most of the news came from a blog. This system is a mess. It's time to be done with it.
Research people research..... Critical Resistance 10, Rodney Wilson, 3 men beat by cops n Pennsylvania...
Now that our media is failing us, we have to educate ourselves. Thank god for the word of mouth. Rodney Wilson,you have made up my mind, I dedicate what I do for this movement from now on to you!!!!!

Kristin Butler's Suma Cum Loony

http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2008/05/15/Columns/Summa.Cum.Loony-3371900.shtml
I have tried to blast this article on the Chronicle's comment page, but that wasn't enough. And as a poster said, the writer is deteriorating strides made to connect the two schools. Any disdain students at NCCC and residents of Durham held for us before, has just been increased. Though I am sure that the writer and most of her supporters could care less. Here are JUST A FEW of the issues I see bursting in between the lines
1. Can you say hypocrite? As if our students hold perfect behavior everyday outside of class. With the massive consumption of alcohol by under age drinkers, the drug use, the unreported, on-campus rapes, the racism that's bubbling beneath several surfaces... The cheating!!!!!!!! Come on
2. I am still amazed at how many people gloss over the wrongs admitted to: the racial slurs, that hateful email...(Not to mention I am curious why this mostly white party ordered up two black strippers)
3. These issues mentioned are not that simplistic. I wasn't planning on going there but as one poster added in response to the semen, how likely is it that there were only team members at that party? Is it possible that she just confused who was on the team? The evidence found, the main one I remember, the broken nail (what did she break it taking her clothes off)
4. Generalizations. Not trying to separate the two individuals from the rest of the school (because I don't think they are bad people at all and do feel that they have earned their degrees), but if you feel that you must, this is a good example of a small group having to represent an entire institution- including all of the people who work there, attend there, and hold degrees. And now you have added to our generalization. Sad enough I have heard rumors that your editors only publish articles that fit their dominant opinions (I hope that isn't true). This article wouldn't make me so angry if I had at least once seen one from the other side of the fence. The views of Kristin and students who share them are ever present. Where are my views? Here on this blog I guess.

To some members of the gangs at home

Sweet brown baby probably played in the streets the day before
Made her mom a mother's day card
Looked hopefully toward the summer
When school would be out and her days would belong to her
Probably knew to duck when bullets flew
Or maybe her mother kept her indoors most of the time
Like my mother did
Safe in the refuge of home
On walnut ave where I used to skip track practice
Around the corner where my cousins lived
Lil Qua'Daisha, ten years old asleep in her bed
Didn't wake up when the smoke covered her head
Mother passed out before she could save her love
The product of her womb
On mother's day, a mother lost her motherhood

Second time you burned a house, complete with children, to prove a point...
I am not talking to all of you, just the ones responsible. No one loves you more than I. I always give you the benefit of the doubt. I don't stereotype you. But what the fuck did she do to you?
Part of the reason why I didn't come home is because I feel helpless. When I told one of you that, all he said was I would be safe, no one would bother me. It's not about fear. It's the fact that I do not want to pick up another news paper and hear about another child who's face was blown halfway off by a stray bullet, or another execution, another father hit with a bat, another classmate murdered, another high school valedictorian who can't deliver his speech because there is a target on his head... I am running from the feeling of responsibility. I do not know what else to do yet. Thank you for bringing out my cowardice.

Sean Bell

I tried. I tried so hard to read several newspaper articles in order to pin down the truth. That way I could remain unbiased. I dont know if the testimony summaries I read confirmed what I believed or if my vision was too clouded still. I remembered the morning that his face was on the cover of the newspaper. I remember why I cried. It was just as my conciousness was waking up. I cried for his fiance, who lost the love of her life before one of the biggest days of her life. For the rest of the family. I tried to decide what really mattered. I tried to put myself in the place of the officers, to decide what I would have done. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. But then I wondered, what was it that made two officers feel so much more threatened than the others that they had to pull the trigger so many more times than everyone else. I wondered if I had a gun, would I remember whether or not I pulled the trigger, emptied bullets into a human being. I wondered if I was afraid and was anouncing to a "dangerous man", how loud would I scream to make sure he knew I was an officer. My answer, loud as hell. Everyone on the block would know I was legit. No eyewitness would have a doubt. If someone was "chasing" me with a car my ass would be too busy running to shoot. And I wouldn't turn my body on autopilot, I would know what was goin on. More questions, how many crime scenes are messed over, was this one taken care of so sloppily because of its nature or is that the routine procedure. How could they not find any sort of recklessness in this case? Why aren't reasons, detailed explanations, given in cases like this? Why aren't we rioting? Why aren't I rioting? What do I do know? My heart will break the day my little brothers are pulled over by the police. Don't they see that its things like this that make us streotype, hate, and fear them. I hate them for the way the treated me once. They make me nervous with their presence. What am I to do?

Poor Girl from China

Since when do college students rise up to silence a fellow student who is protesting? That's a dumb question, one I won't even explore. I will explore the fat that China is dead wrong, for still investing in Sudan's government and for violating human rights in Tibet. To all who asked those who do not know much about the issues to shut up, I would ask them to never express an opinion nor vote unless fully educated on every issue. I am proud that people are beginning to protest again. No more self-policing. no more nationalism that manifests itself as blind compliance. Since when do games out weigh lives. I wish I had more of an affect in boycotting the Olympics, but I never watched the Olympics, it would not matter any way. Maybe I should by a shirt, and bitch slapp the first person to through something at me. Now that would be funny. I would tell them, "I just overstepped your human rights!"

"The shoes don't make the man, the child in the sweat shop makes the shoes." -Do you know what you are funding?

This phrase is a remix of something that people say, you know “the clothes don’t make the man, the man makes the clothes”, but truthfully, "the man" doesn't make the clothes "the man" outsources and pay oversea factories who uses abuse such as rape to prevent protesting and use horrible working conditions to keep costs low. These companies, such as Nike, claims that the conditions of the factories are not their responsibility, yet at the first sign of protests for higher wages or better working conditions, they pack up and find a new area where they can exploit new people for the same low price. If you’re gonna wear it, at least know where it comes from.