mnemosyne

b. medusa 14 March 2008 11:15:49 pm

taking a brief pause in my hiatus to let folx know about the ivaw winter soldier proceedings which began mar. 13th & are going on thru the weekend. visit the how to watch page for information on watching the proceedings online (both live & on-demand), via satellite (fstv), or public access. it goes w/o saying this is being ignored by mainstream media & organizations, including most of the so-called progressive left-wing.

for those who don’t know, this is the second winter soldier gathering, the first was held by vvaw during the vietnam war.

• counter-recruitment , fta , militarism , organizing , war is a racket
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b. medusa 10 December 2007 8:07:35 am

today is International Human Rights day. so let’s begin shall we…

EDIT: just found this after completing the post:

Seven Year Old Alexis Goggins Shot Six Times Protecting Her Mother

A 7-year-old-girl is being hailed as an “angel from heaven” and a hero for jumping in front of an enraged gunman, who pumped six bullets into the child as she used her body as a shield to save her mother’s life.

Alexis Goggins, a first-grader at Campbell Elementary School, is in stable condition at Children’s Hospital in Detroit recovering from gunshot wounds to the eye, left temple, chin, cheek, chest and right arm.

“She is an angel from heaven,” said Aisha Ford, a family friend for 15 years who also was caught up in the evening of terror.

The girl’s mother, Selietha Parker, 30, was shot in the left side of her head and her bicep by a former boyfriend, who police said was trying to kill Parker. The gunman was disarmed by police and arrested at the scene of the shooting, a Detroit gas station. Police identified him as Calvin Tillie, 29, a four-time convicted felon whom Parker had dated for six months.
[...]
Ford said she dialed 911 on her cell phone as she walked into the station.“The first operator clicked off and I dialed again and told that operator a guy with a gun was holding me hostage with a mother and baby and threatening to kill us. I told her the name of the gas station and then she said they didn’t have a unit to send.”Ford said she paid for $5 of gas and slowly returned to the vehicle, stalling for time as she handed Tillie the change. She said she kept stopping and starting the pump, hoping the police would show up.“I told him I needed more gas and took money out of my purse and went back into the station,” she said. The attendant, Mohammad Alghazali, 30, said he noticed Ford was crying and she told him what was happening. He called 911 as he heard shots coming from the vehicle.
[…]
Alghazali said a police car on a street nearby arrived in less than a minute after his call.

an update on her condition can be read here. a fund has been set up for Alexis, checks should be made out to the Alexis Goggins Hero Fund & sent to the following address:

Campbell Elementary School
c/o Alexis Goggins Hero Fund
2301 E Alexandrine St
Detroit, MI 48207

for information, call (313) 494-2052

ADDITIONAL INFO (courtesy of all about race): Alexis is a special needs child, due to a massive stroke she suffered as an infant. she walks with a limp & has a weak left eye. her right eye was just removed.

Alexis, who walks with a limp, slipped momentarily on the icy sidewalk and as she helped the girl up, she saw the man and recognized him as Tillie. He was holding a gun.
[...]
Before Tillie could fire again, Alexis jumped over the seat between her mother and the gunman and begged him not to shoot her mother.

The police report said Tillie “without hesitation” pumped six shots into the child.

G*TD*MN M*THAF*CKIN SORRY *SS PIECE OF SH*T!!!!!

(i don’t usually bleep myself here, but i don’t want to be excessively disrespectful to my readers. all 2 of them.)

also contact the msm & ask them why they’ve ignored this story.

CNN
Phone: 404-827-1500

Fox News Channel
Phone: 212-301-3000

ABC News
Phone: 212-456-7777

CBS News
Phone: 212-975-4321

NBC
Phone: 212-664-4444

MSNBC
Phone: 201-583-5000

Newsweek
Phone: 212-445-4000

Associated Press
Phone: 212-621-1500

Reuters
Phone: 646-223-4000

United Press International
Phone: 202 -898-8000

i don’t have to tell you why this is a human rights (as well as police brutality) issue do i?

i can’t believe i missed this story until now. much respect & gratitude to Sylvia, Nez, Carmen D., Ann & all other bloggers covering this.

• activism , assholes , capitalism run amok , community , disability , domestic abuse , feminism , gender , history , imperialism , infrastructure , networking , oppression , organizing , police brutality , politricks , poverty , privilege , racism , rape , sexism , violence , war , war is a racket
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b. medusa 20 September 2007 4:45:23 pm

like every other site i have visited online regarding this story, i am disgusted, sickened, horrified. paralyzed into silence even for more than a few days by the horror of it (but sadly not shocked or surprised). since first encountering the initial story via Black Amazon & Vox ex Machina, the Anxious Black Woman has also weighed in on the DV aspect & the release of the victim’s name w/ some extremely thoughtful commentary . Black & Missing provides comprehensive coverage of the case. Elle, phd & Prof Black Woman bring us the news of the latest outrage of this case.

Vox ex Machina has several posts documenting hate crimes:

• the College Racism Roundup
• Hate Crimes on the Rise
• Hate Crime, Sex Crime

thanks to Tom @ Automatic Preference, i found the very comprehensive & detailed summary of the Jena 6 case over @ Black & Missing. She details what has been going on, who has documented the case up to this point, what strategies have been employed, who’s doing what, what folx can do to help, & provides links. all this in addition to her usual mission of documenting missing poc & making sure the missing receive the attention they deserve.

if you aren’t in Jena today (20 Sep), hopefully you have signed up & are participating in the Virtual March, wearing black, sporting an armband or @ the very least passing the word on. hat tip to Yobachi @ Blackperspectives.net for the word that Mychal Bell is still sitting in jail & heads up on the virtual march.

for those who’ve been shocked by what happened in Jena, here are a couple of perspectives on why some of us aren’t:

• Do You Understand Where You Are? (hat tip to BA)
• The Jena Six: An American Tragedy and a Shameful Reality

two very informative posts on hate crime in general (XP’s), and from up close & personal (Zuky). both posts are cited in Vox ex Machina’s post on Hate Crimes on the Rise (linked above)

finally, getting away from hate crime for a moment (or am i?), i’m sure you heard about the unnecessary use of force @ u of fl (student tasered @ event where john kerry was present). less known about is the beat down Lennox Yearwood got @ the capitol (the man will be on crutches for weeks), & like Cindy Sheehan i’d like to know why so many “fellow activists” silently stood by & watched while it was happening. i think i know, but i’d like to hear someone try to explain it w/o sounding totally fuckin’ lame. especially those who’ve wondered why the antiwar movement is so “white”.

• activism , hate crime , jena 6 , networking , oppression , organizing , rape , violence
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b. medusa 6 September 2007 2:41:04 am

i already posted this on my event calendar, but i just saw an article about their 3 year struggle on dissident voice:

The UWA, a human rights group founded by homeless day laborers in Baltimore, represents 800 low-wage workers who make up the pool of the 100-120 people who keep Camden Yards clean. Stadium workers — the people who clean out the bathroom stalls, sweep up the small mountains of cigarette butts and make the Camden Yards experience as pristine as promised — make poverty wages, just $7 an hour.

Work schedules for stadium workers can vary as well. Some workweeks can be well over forty hours; in other weeks, if the Orioles are on the road, the laborers don’t work at all. Take-home pay varies accordingly, depending on the number of home games in a week and how long the games last. The windfall earned from a game that goes into extra innings can make a real difference in the way a family eats in a given week.

Because they are doing “day labor,” members of the UWA who show up to work are sent home if they’re not needed. The wages are so low, and the job so “flexible,” that some workers live in homeless shelters. One worker was kicked out of public housing because her pay that month couldn’t match the monthly rent.

[...]

Also of note is that the UWA is largely composed of African-American and Latino workers. In an era when communities of color are often pitched against one another, their solidarity inspires hope.

excerpted from Cleaning Up After the Orioles by Dave Zirin.

read the full article. more info also @ http://unitedworkers.org/

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!! TOMORROW’S CONCERT NOW A VICTORY CELEBRATION!!!
visit the United Workers link above for more info. see also:
Stadium crews get raise|Maryland agency approves $11.30 ‘living wage’ next year
Hannah Cho, Baltimore Sun

Md. Workers Cancel Hunger Strike
Ben Nuckols, AP/Forbes.com

• activism , art , community , music , organizing , poetry , poverty , privilege
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b. medusa 30 August 2007 12:45:10 am

what an honor it is to share a birthday with this beautiful brother, so young, so wise, & taken from us much too soon.

EDIT: i set this post up to appear today a little over a week ago so that i could get away from the computer on my birthday. since then i was designated a Blogger for Justice, so i’ve edited this post to ask that you pick up a banner similar to the one on the far right sidebar (graphics may differ, but links provided beneath the banner are the same). i also invite you to visit (or revisit) this post. also visit BlackPerspective.net for a list of other Bloggers for Justice.

EDIT: in my haste to update this post, i forgot to include this important piece of information (which was the main point of the day of blogging for justice): please contact news organizations on this media list and ask them to cover the story. its not too late; email, call, or write the organizations on the list so we can get better coverage of this story.

• activism , birthday , black panther , information , media , networking , oppression , organizing , white supremacy
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b. medusa 29 August 2007 10:45:51 pm

on this day between blogger birthdays, i want to point out a couple of offerings from the internetz.

first, from this post by babywhisperingloudly:

My immediate and visceral reaction is one of acute awareness that standing together is key to demonstrating just how pervasive and insidious and bound up our collective realities are. Before we can move to the next step we need to grab hold of this reality and do something with it. Not seeing how we are all interrelated is the only thing that keeps us down. Not reaching out to others to learn more deeply about their pain and anguish, keeps us sheltered. We need each other for confidence building and love-giving and voice lending. We can’t do it alone. Because alone, we are just an anomaly or freaks or victims.

And Saul Alinsky reaffirmed this radical concept of the power lying with the people, when he wrote:”Through a process of combining hope and resentment, the organizer tries to create a ‘mass army’ that brings in as many recruits as possible from local organizations, churches, services groups, labor unions, corner gangs, and individuals.” A true revolution really takes a cross section of the prevailing ills in our society before it can become an awesome and powerful force that must be reckoned with because it will never go away. That is, once we are aware of each others existence, the game begins.

and from the freeslave this:

Your self-hate is programmed, synthesized and output as religious piety, political reverie or pseudo-nationalistic fanaticism. Your dividing yourselves into different classes and sub-classes as human beings is a classic symptom of ‘divide and conquer strategy’ and the ruling class’ wet dream: “dreaming negroes vs. real black folks,” “assimilationists versus the pro-black clergy,” “liberal stooges vs. conservative cadavers.”

This is a mind divided against itself. A mind that gives thinking a bad name. An educated fool. You will know them by the contradictory nature of everything they say; ultimately, they will siphon discourse into a well-meaning cesspool of negativity, a cesspool educated and trained into them. Scientifically.

Check.

and this:

But what do we do? Where’s the plan? How many of us still have the illusion that this monstrosity can be tweaked? That the Democrats are an alternative? Or that they can be moved to really take on OUR concerns?!

We ain’t going anywhere until we put the baby bottle down. The baby bottle is our belief that ANYTHING presented to us as the proper channel for our activism is real or designed to give us what we want. The baby bottle is our naivete, our religious faith in the Constitution, the Supreme Court, Reverend Al, Al Gore, Amy Goodman, Jesse Jackson or Cindy Sheehan.

You don’t get free with, or by proxies. You only get free when you absolutely, positively must be free and then snatch it for yourself. You have to become an outlaw, a runaway slave. And no slave gets truly free if they believe the master has created “some good” on his plantation that can be taken advantage.

these are the kind of thoughts that give me a reason to get up & go on each day, a reason to continue the struggle. please follow the links above & read the full posts.

i leave you with a piece of original art/poetry by my significant other, Jahhannibal:

(© 1995-2009 Jahhannibal Abba-Ra. All rights reserved.)

—————-
Now playing: Gil Scott-Heron – Winter In America (solo version)
via FoxyTunes

• activism , discussion , information , internet , organizing
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b. medusa 25 August 2007 10:07:55 am

afrospear blogger D. Yobachi Boswell @ BlackPerspective.net has devoted a page or two to brainstorming new strategies for dealing with the Jena 6 case. currently plans are developing for a “Blogging for Justice” day in the very (very) near future. make sure you head over there to stay updated.

meanwhile, i’ve created a banner distributor download, modeled on the one i got from Tom @ Automatic Preference. please consider becoming a banner distributor, so we can spread the word (and the bandwidth drain ) around. you can download the distributor here.

EDIT: an example of the banner distribution page can be found on the Jena 6 banners page & each choice generates a banner similar to the one found in the far right sidebar. apologies for not making that clear.
—————-
Now playing: Buddy Miles – Down By The River
via FoxyTunes

• activism , community , jena 6 , networking , oppression , organizing
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b. medusa 24 August 2007 12:00:27 am

Join workers from Camden Yards in the fight for human rights and freedom from poverty.

• 16 performers
• plenty of speakers and special guests

Concert is free and outdoors. Call 410-522-1052 to volunteer or visit the united workers web site for more info.

• activism , class , community , event , music , organizing , poetry
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b. medusa 24 August 2007 12:00:13 am

After three years of broken promises, the cleaners at Camden Yards are fed up. That’s why we’ve set Sept 1st as the deadline for this publicly-owned stadium to end subpoverty wages.

On Sept. 3rd we will begin a living wages hunger strike at the stadium. It will continue until living wages are secured from the Maryland Stadium Authority.

More info at the unitedworkers.org web site

• activism , community , event , oppression , organizing , poverty
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b. medusa 15 August 2007 4:04:49 am

The 2007 Mid-Atlantic Radical Bookfair, bringing together radical and independent publishers, distributors, bookstores, and authors for a weekend of workshops, panel discussions, and performances, all free and open to the public, will take place on October 20th and 21st. As an added bonus this year, we’re also organizing a Radical Film Festival on October 19th to kick things off.

The bookfair will be taking place in Baltimore at 2640, the new cooperative events venue and social center launched this year by Red Emma’s, which also serves as one of the organizations behind the Bookfair. More info…

• author , bookfair , books , community , discussion , event , film , information , networking , organizing , workshops
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