“Sexual abuse, gore, racism, bullying rampant on Australian school Facebook pages”

Taken from: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sexual-abuse-gore-racism-bullying-rampant-on-australian-school-facebook-pages/story-e6frg6n6-1226514669372

November 12, 2012

STUDENTS at almost 500 schools are running Facebook sites dedicated to humiliating their peers as more and more children are forced to carry the incessant burden of cyber-bullying outside the school gates.

A News Ltd investigation of more than 4800 Australian primary and high schools has revealed more than 10 per cent have a Facebook page on which students are taunting each other and teachers with abusive language and offensive pictures.

Many of the posts are too offensive to reprint, but include graphic sexual discussion of students and teachers, shocking gore photos of suicide and accident victims, underage girls labelled “sluts”, male teachers named as pedophiles and references to Nazism. The majority of pages – many which carry the school’s full name and logo – contain homophobic, racist and misogynist jokes and drug references. Some of the most insidious pages, typically called “burn books” or “goss pages”, name and tag students in vicious rumours, which are then “liked” and shared around other students’ social networks.

One of the most shocking pages, from a school in Queensland, features gory photos of suicide and accident victims and a horrific picture of a battered child with an accompanying “joke” about domestic violence, all alongside references to the school and photos of the campus. Also on the page, which has accrued more than 760 fans since being launched in late August, is a photograph of a baby with a gun to its head with the caption “one like = one baby shot”, and a cartoon advocating methamphetamine use.

Another school page, from NSW, names a teacher as a “child molester” and calls another a “c***”, while students who have posted complaints have been abused with homophobic slurs.

A page from WA featured a photograph of a male teacher and female students overlaid with the logo of a pornography website, accompanied by snide comments joking that he was a pedophile.

The page, which accrued more than 600 fans since its launch in mid September, also featured photographs of students fighting, jokes about female Year 7s being “sluts” and arguments between students using extremely offensive language, all underneath the school’s official logo.

That page has since been deleted, but two others using the school’s name still exist.

One principal admitted his school had little control over what students did on the internet outside of school hours. ”You can block all these things on our intranet and they can’t do it at school but they have their own ways from home,” he said. But another principal added: “If students make threats over Facebook we are going to deal with them … as if it were an incident in the schoolyard.”

Cyber-bullying expert Dr Barbara Spears, from the University of South Australia, said “liking” nasty Facebook posts was the new face of schoolyard bullying. ”Clearly, `liking’ such pages contributes to the ongoing humiliation of others, and bystanders – those who contribute to bullying by not doing anything about it – are actively supporting it,” she said. Studies suggest 15 to 30 per cent of children are bullied at school, and around 10 per cent have been cyber bullied. Dr Spears said bullying was not shifting from the schoolyard to the screen, but “expanding” there. Constant access to technology meant “there is no escape”, she said.

Child psychologist and National Centre Against Bullying founder Michael Carr-Gregg said traditional playground bullies were taking their warfare online. ”What we’re finding now is that a lot of these kids are using the technology to literally make other people’s lives hell and the burn books are a really good example of this because so many people see it,” he said. Dr Carr-Gregg said vulnerable children could not brush off that kind of humiliation. ”For them, they’ve already got depression or they’ve already got anxiety so the gun is already loaded and the cyberbullying, the burn book, simply pulls the trigger,” he said.

The most serious forms of cyber bullying can attract stalking, harrassment or defamation charges. And it is illegal to use a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence under federal law, but a Federal Police spokeswoman said no minor had ever been charged. She said parents should try to deal with cyber-bullying through schools and only go to police as a last resort.Dr Carr-Gregg said too few people were charged over their heinous online behaviour. ”Some of these burn books can result in young people harming themselves so I don’t think the law is up to scratch,” he said. ”I think we need a social norm that says this type of behaviour is unacceptable and it needs to be enforced.”

WORST OF THE WORST

Examples of depravity on Australian schools’ Facebook pages

• Photo of a baby with a gun to its head, a photo of a battered child, gory pictures of suicide and accident victims, graphic pornography (QLD)
• Photo of a male teacher with female students captioned that he is a pedophile (WA)
  
• Male teachers pictured and captioned as “child molester” and “raper” (NSW)
  
• Messages telling students to kill themselves (NSW)
  
• Students threatening to rape other students (NSW)
  
• Female student named as having an affair with a teacher (NSW)
  
• Female student named as having AIDS (QLD)
  
• School classrooms pictured and captioned as “rape dungeons” (WA)
  
• Male student named as having had sex with goats (SA)
  
• Graphic sexual discussions about a female teacher (SA)
  
• Female teacher called “slut” and “hooker” (WA)
  
• Student with a speech impediment pictured and teased (SA)
  
• Black male student pictured and called a “n****r” (WA)
  
• Page with a profile picture that reads “kill yourselves” (QLD)
  
• Pictures of Hitler and references to Nazism (NSW)
  
• Praise for students who egged a teacher’s car (VIC)
  
• Message to students about a particular teacher: “spit on her shoes and s*** on her face” (VIC)

“Six ‘Racist’ Funeral Staff Sacked After Secret TV Filming”

Taken from: http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/six-racist-funeral-staff-sacked-after-secret-tv-filming

November 12, 2012

SIX PEOPLE have been sacked and one has resigned from two branches of a funeral services company following secret recordings showing staff making racist comments and disrespecting the dead.

The funeral services workers, from Gillman Funeral Service branch in Tooting southwest London and another branch in Slough, lost their jobs after an inquiry carried out by parent company Funeral Partners Limited (FPL).

They were investigated after racist and disrespectful behaviour was captured by undercover journalists and shown on ITV’s Exposure programme, The British Way of Death. The show was aired on September 26, causing huge public outcry.

In a statement, Funeral Partners Ltd (FPL) said five staff members from Gillman’s Tooting branch were sacked. FPL added: ‘One other person has also been dismissed and a second has resigned at an FPL branch in Slough after making racist comments.’

Among the incidents seen on ITV’s Exposure were:
• Family members being called ‘animals’ at an African Caribbean man’s funeral after his widow complained about an “awful” smell at her own husband’s funeral. The body had been left unrefrigerated for six days, according to the programme description on ITV news.
• Funeral staff chanting ‘Chelsea scum’ at a corpse before sealing his coffin
• Staff failing to dress the deceased in clothes their loved ones had provided for them and
• Staff watching pornography on a mobile phone while driving a hearse

FPL’s chief executive Phillip Greenfield said: “Their comments and actions disgusted not only myself and their fellow colleagues but rightly incurred the wrath of the whole community. I want to reiterate my heartfelt apology to everyone who has been affected by this, especially families of the deceased in our care. We are extremely sorry for any distress and hurt that has been caused. Having followed due legal process, we have dismissed six people and one has resigned. We have also commissioned an independent inquiry to look into this.” Greenfield added: ‘We want to work with all our local community organisations to build bridges. We know it will take time but we will do everything we can to rebuild trust in our staff and in the services we offer.”

FPL, which said it acquired Gillman’s six branches two years ago, said the sacked staff was not following FPL’s policies and procedures. The company said was putting in additional procedures including a new training programme. Greenfield said: “It has become clear to us that these staff were not following our very clear policies and procedures about respecting the deceased. We will be introducing a new training programme throughout our business and improved HR procedures along with additional investment to ensure this never happens again.”

Veteran anti-racism campaigner, Lee Jasper, who co-chairs BARAC UK, has called for legislation to be strengthened to tackle bigotry in the funeral services sector following the programme. He told the Voice in September that what he saw was “profoundly disturbing. The desecration of the dead, the most toxic racism and sexism against a backdrop of extortionate pricing will case deep and profound distress.”

“Greece Racist Attacks Increase Amid Financial Crisis”

Taken from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/12/greece-racist-attacks_n_2116302.html?utm_hp_ref=world

November 12, 2012

The attack came seemingly out of nowhere. As the 28-year-old Bangladeshi man dug around trash bins one recent afternoon for scrap metal, two women and a man set upon him with a knife. He screamed as he fell. Rushed to the hospital, he was treated for a gash to the back of his thigh.

Police are investigating the assault as yet another in a rising wave of extreme-right rage against foreigners as Greece sinks further into economic misery. The details vary, but the cold brutality of each attack is the same: Dark-skinned migrants confronted by thugs, attacked with knives and broken bottles, wooden bats and iron rods.

Rights groups warn of an explosion in racist violence over the past year, with a notable surge since national elections in May and June that saw dramatic gains by the far-right Golden Dawn party. The severity of the attacks has increased too, they say. What started as simple fist beatings has now escalated to assaults with metal bars, bats and knives. Another new element: ferocious dogs used to terrorize the victims.

“Violence is getting wilder and wilder and we still have the same pattern of attacks … committed by groups of people in quite an organized way,” said Kostis Papaioannou, former head of the Greek National Commission for Human Rights.

As Greece’s financial crisis drags on for a third year, living standards for the average Greek have plummeted. A quarter of the labor force is out of work, with more than 50 percent of young people unemployed. An increasing number of Greeks can’t afford basic necessities and healthcare. Robberies and burglaries are never out of the news for long.

With Greece a major entry point for hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants seeking a better life in the European Union, foreigners have become a convenient scapegoat. Some victims turn up at clinics run by charities, recounting experiences of near lynching. Others are afraid to give doctors the details of what happened – and even more afraid of going to the police. The more seriously hurt end up in hospitals, white bandages around their heads or plaster casts around broken limbs. ”Every day we see someone who complained of (some form) of racist violence,” said Nikitas Kanakis, president of the Greek section of Doctors of the World, which runs a drop-in clinic and pharmacy in central Athens that treats the uninsured.

Racist attacks are not officially recorded, so statistics are hard to come by. In an effort to plug that gap and sensitize a population numbed by three years of financial crisis, a group of rights groups and charities banded together to document the violence. They registered 87 cases of racist attacks between January and September, but say the true number runs into the hundreds. ”Most of the time the victims, they don’t want to talk about this, they don’t feel safe,” Kanakis said. “The fear is present and this is the bigger problem.”

Frances William, who heads the tiny Tanzanian community of about 250 people, knows the feeling well. ”People are very, very much afraid,” he said, adding that even going next door to buy bread, “I’m not sure I’ll be safe to come back home.” The community’s cultural center was attacked several weeks ago, with amateur video shot from across the street showing a group of muscled men in black T-shirts smashing the entrance. Earlier that day, children standing outside during a birthday party were threatened by a man brandishing a pistol, William said.

The recent elections showed a meteoric rise in popularity of the formerly marginalized Golden Dawn, which went from less than half a percent in 2009 elections to nearly 7 percent of the vote and 18 seats in the country’s 300-member parliament in June. Campaigning on a promise to “clean up the stench” in Greece, the party whose slogan is “blood, honor, Golden Dawn” has made no secret of its views on migrants: All are in the country illegally and must be deported. Greece’s borders must be sealed with landmines and military patrols, and any Greeks employing or renting property to migrants should face punishment.

The party vehemently denies it is involved in racist attacks. ”The only racist attacks that exist in Greece for the last years are the attacks that illegal immigrants are doing against Greeks,” said Ilias Panagiotaros, a burly Golden Dawn lawmaker who divides his working time between Parliament and his sports shop, which also sells military and police paraphernalia. His party is carrying out a “very legitimate, political fight . through parliament and through the neighborhoods of Athens and of Greece,” he said. The party’s tactics – handing out food to poor Greeks, pledging to protect those who feel unprotected by the police – are working. Recent opinion polls have shown Golden Dawn’s support rising to between 9 and 12 percent.

In late August, the conservative-led coalition government began addressing the issue of illegal immigration by rounding up migrants. By early November, they had detained more than 48,480 people, arresting 3,672 of them for being in the country illegally. Rights groups also warn that what started as xenophobic attacks is now spreading to include anyone who might disagree with the hard-right view. Greek society must understand that the far-right rise doesn’t just concern migrants, said Kanakis. ”It has to do with all of us,” he said. “It’s a problem of everyday democracy.”

“We’re a Culture, Not a Costume”

Halloween has come and gone, but the discussion about stereotypes and stereotypical costumes is a topic that must constantly be addressed. 

Taken from: http://www.inquisitr.com/378153/were-a-culture-not-a-costume-ohio-students-seek-to-end-racist-halloween-garb/

October 27, 2012

Ohio University student group Students Teaching About Racism in Society (STARS) is reviving their 2011 social awareness campaign “We’re a Culture, Not a Costume” in an effort to combat racially stereotypical costumes this Halloween season. Featuring the tagline “You wear the costume for one night, I wear the stigma for life” the images have incited a discussion across the web about the appropriateness of some costume choices.

The campaign features a series of ads showing people of different races and ethnicities posing alongside some of the insensitive costumes many of us are used to seeing this time of year. The images range from rappers and gang bangers, suicide bombers, Asian “mathletes” to even depicting African tribal women and an African American woman pregnant and smoking a cigarette.

After receiving criticism last year for failing to include Caucasian stereotypes this year’s campaign also includes a white man posing next to an “Appalachian” or “Redneck” costume.

STARS President Keith Hawkins, an Ohio University senior, spoke with CNN about the group’s decision to resurrect their “We’re a Culture, Not a Costume” campaign to increase social awareness of the dangers of racial stereotyping:

“[We] decided to continue with the posters because we agreed that they were not only successful last year but actually made a difference on campus and in the global community … We were told by many professors that students wanted to talk about it, and this is exactly what we were looking to do. So we hoped we could put out another strong campaign this year that will continue the message of racial awareness and inclusiveness.”

So what exactly makes an offensive costume? Where is the line between homage and insult? Hawkins believes a costume falls into a questionable area when it portrays negative cultural stereotypes meant to poke fun at an already ostracized culture.

“When the costume portrays a hero or legend in general, I would say it is not offensive … It is the act of either using the hero or legend that over-exaggerates negative stereotypes that often stigmatize marginalized cultures that makes the costume offensive.”

Link to last year’s post: http://agentsofsocialchange.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/stars-were-not-a-costume-campaign/

“Dolce & Gabbana offers racist earrings for spring 2013

Taken from: http://thegloss.com/fashion/dolce-and-gabbana-racist-earrings-392/#ixzz27ibkiiRD

September 26, 2012

Every time the fashion industry does something racist (and it happens pretty much all the time), we cover it and are inevitably shouted down by a chorus of smarter people who 1) all agree what racism is and 2) believe that [whatever X is] is, in fact, not racist. Moreover, every time we critisize someone or some brand for racism, we are called any number of names–usually along the lines of PC, stupid, or unfamiliar with words (“No, the Klan is racist,” which means that… that other stuff can’t be, we guess?). But our absolute favorite pseudo-argument is, “You’re racist for seeing it that way.” So, we’re cutting that off at the pass.

Because we are huge racists, we wanted to point out Dolce & Gabbana‘s new Spring 2013 earrings: busts of black women with exaggerated red lips, wearing bright turbans embellished with fruit (in the style of traditional blackamoors). We’ll let fellow racists Refinery29 take it away, “The luxury brand debuted a spring ’13 collection that rested heavily on the laurels of a long-lost colonial era, complete with all the cartoonish, debasing, subaltern imagery that would make even your politically incorrect Grandpa think twice.”

Though some of you will squabble about the difference between racism and tastelessness, we are of the opinion that fostering (and profiting off) negative ethnic stereotypes is racist. Especially in the context of a luxury brand owned by white men who’ve created a collection shown exclusively on white models, set against a nebulously “island” backdrop. But we could just be reading into it.

“Monument to Civil War general, Ku Klux Klan leader triggers controversy

Taken from: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/22/13415785-monument-to-civil-war-general-ku-klux-klan-leader-triggers-controversy?lite

August 22, 2012

The renovation of a monument honoring a Civil War Confederate general, who was the first “Grand Wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan, is once more creating controversy in Selma, Ala., 11 years after protesters got it moved off of public property.

The memorial is being repaired after the bust of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest was stolen in March from the 7-foot-tall granite monument it rested upon at a cemetery in Selma, reported The Birmingham News. A group known as the Friends of Forrest are replacing it, according to local media; and the United Daughters of the Confederacy are adding a pedestal and fencing to make it harder to steal, Selma City Council President Dr. Cecil Williamson told NBC News.

“I would recommend this man (Forrest) for any young people to model his life after,” Todd Kiscaden, of Friends of Forrest, told local NBC affiliate WSFA 12 News. “The man always led from the front. He did what he said he was going to do. He took care of his people, and his people included both races.”

Not everyone remembers the general that way.

Though Forrest was one of the Confederacy’s better generals and their best cavalry leader, he was an “extreme racist,” Mark Pitcavage, an expert of military history and right-wing extremism at the Anti-Defamation League, told NBC News.

Renovations on an Alabama monument honoring the Ku Klux Klan’s founder has sparked outrage from critics who are pushing to stop the expansion. WSFA’s Samuel King reports.

Men under his command killed “in cold blood” 250 black soldiers fighting for the Union who were captured at Fort Pillow in Tennessee, Pitcavage said. “No one has ever proven conclusively that Forrest himself ordered it, but at the very least this was the sort of thing he was letting his men do,” he added. A federal congressional committee investigating the April 12, 1864, killings received testimony that as many as 200 black soldiers were slain after they surrendered at Fort Pillow.

“Here’s a man who killed African-Americans who had surrendered, who were not a threat to anybody,” Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, told WSFA. “And yet we are talking about a monument to him.”

Forrest, a slave owner and a slave trader, was tapped to be the Ku Klux Klan’s first Grand Wizard – or supreme leader, the KKK’s highest position — at a meeting in April 1867, according to Pitcavage and the Anti-Defamation League. “Although he was the titular head of the entire Ku Klux Klan, in practice he didn’t have much influence beyond Tennessee. It’s not like the Internet was there and he could give guidance to all of his followers across the country,” Pitcavage said.

The Klan was “unbelievably violent,” killing many people and burning down schools and churches, leading Forrest to disband it in 1868 because the Grant administration decided to send federal troops to the South to maintain public order, Pitcavage said.

“All he (Forrest) did was issue a formal order for appearance’s sake, knowing that the Klan was not going to disappear and the Klan did not disappear. It continued full force for a number of years, but he was no longer officially its head after that point,” he said.

The first monument to Forrest was put up on city property in October 2000 under the permission of the local government administration in power at the time. People dumped trashed on it and held a mock lynching, tying rope around it in protest, Williamson said. With a new mayor in office and “such a public outcry from parts of the community about it being on public property,” the city council voted to move it in 2001, he added.

The new site is on an acre of land donated to the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1877, said Williamson, adding that he believed the group was in control of the lot. NBC News’ efforts to reach the group for comment were not successful.

“Once it was moved it had just basically been sitting out there for the past 11 years undisturbed until the bust was stolen,” Williamson said. “It was like most people in town did not know or did not care that it was even out in the cemetery.”

But, Malika Sanders-Fortier, who described herself as a community leader in Selma, has started apetition calling for the city council to remove the monument. ”Monuments celebrating violent racism and intolerance have no place in this country, let alone in a city like Selma, where the families of those attacked by the Klan still live,” she wrote in her petition, which had collected more than 15,000 signatures as of Wednesday.

But Williamson said it wasn’t a city matter, noting the monument didn’t belong to the local government, and that, as far as he knew, it was not on city property.

“Meet The First Asian American Gold Medalist, 91-Year-Old Sammy Lee”

Taken from: http://www.racialicious.com/2012/08/02/meet-the-first-asian-american-gold-medalist-91-year-old-sammy-lee/#more-24231

August 2, 2012

The last time the Olympics were in London in 1948 was also the first time an Asian American won a gold medal in the Games. That distinction belongs to 91 year-old Dr. Samuel “Sammy” Lee, who was born in Fresno, CA, and is of Korean descent.

 From Time Lightbox via Wired:

Dr. Samuel “Sammy” Lee, 91, was the first Asian-American to win an Olympic gold medal for the U.S. at the 1948 London games, and the first man to win back-to-back gold medals in Olympic platform diving.

From Wikipedia:

As a twelve-year-old in 1932, Lee dreamed of becoming a diver, but at the time Latinos, Asians, and African-Americans were only allowed to use Fresno’s Brookside Pool on Wednesdays, on what was called “international day”: the day before the pool was scheduled to be drained and refilled with clean water. Because Lee needed a place to practice and could not regularly use the public pool, his coach dug a pit in his backyard and filled it with sand. Lee practiced by jumping into the pit.

Diving coach Ron O’Brien, Greg Louganis, and Lee circa 1978.

Lee went on to become an ear, nose, and throat doc, serve in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during the Korean War–wonder what that was like for a Korean American–and, later, coach diving legend Greg Louganis to a silver medal in the 1976 Olympics. He’s a member of the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame, has a square named after him in LA’s K-town, and is now retired and living in Huntington Beach, CA.

What a life.

“Fists of Freedom: An Olympic Story Not Taught in Schools”

Taken from: http://www.good.is/post/fists-of-freedom-an-olympic-story-not-taught-in-schools/

July 23, 2012

It’s been almost 44 years since Tommie Smith and John Carlos took the medal stand following the 200-meter dash at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City and created what must be considered the most enduring, riveting image in the history of either sports or protest. But while the image has stood the test of time, the struggle that led to that moment has been cast aside.

When mentioned at all in U.S. history textbooks, the famous photo appears with almost no context. For example, Pearson/Prentice Hall’s United States History places the photo opposite a short three-paragraph section, “Young Leaders Call for Black Power.” The photo’s caption says simply that “…U.S. athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised gloved fists in protest against discrimination.”

The media—and school curricula—fail to address the context that produced Smith and Carlos’ famous gesture of resistance: It was the product of what was called “The Revolt of the Black Athlete.” Amateur black athletes formed OPHR, the Olympic Project for Human Rights, to organize a black boycott of the 1968 Olympic Games. OPHR, its lead organizer, Dr. Harry Edwards, and its primary athletic spokespeople, Smith and the 400-meter sprinter Lee Evans, were deeply influenced by the black freedom struggle. Their goal was nothing less than to expose how the United States used black athletes to project a lie about race relations both at home and internationally.

OPHR had four central demands: restore Muhammad Ali’s heavyweight boxing title, remove Avery Brundage as head of the International Olympic Committee, hire more black coaches, and disinvite South Africa and Rhodesia from the Olympics. Ali’s belt had been taken by boxing’s powers-that-be earlier in the year for his resistance to the Vietnam draft. By standing with Ali, OPHR was expressing its opposition to the war.

By calling for the hiring of more black coaches as well as the ouster of Brundage, they were dragging out of the shadows a part of Olympic history those in power wanted to bury: Brundage was an anti-Semite and a white supremacist, best remembered today for sealing the deal on Hitler’s hosting the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. By demanding the exclusion of South Africa and Rhodesia, they aimed to convey their internationalism and solidarity with the black freedom struggles against apartheid in Africa.

The wind went out of the sails of a broader boycott for many reasons, partly because the IOC re-committed to banning apartheid countries from the Games. The more pressing reason the boycott failed was that athletes who had spent their whole lives preparing for their Olympic moment simply couldn’t bring themselves to give it up. tetThere also emerged accusations of a campaign of harassment and intimidation orchestrated by people supportive of Brundage. Despite all of these pressures, a handful of Olympians was still determined to make a stand. In communities across the globe, they were hardly alone.

The lead-up to the Olympics in Mexico City was electric with struggle. Already in 1968, the world had seen the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, demonstrating that the United States was nowhere near “winning the war”; the Prague Spring, during which Czech students challenged tanks from the Stalinist Soviet Union, demonstrating that dissent was crackling on both sides of the Iron Curtain; and the April 4 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the urban uprisings that followed—along with the exponential growth of the Black Panther Party in the United States—that revealed a black freedom struggle unassuaged by the civil rights reforms that had transformed the Jim Crow South. Then, on October 2, 10 days before the opening ceremonies of the 1968 Olympic Games, Mexican security forces massacred hundreds of students and workers in Mexico City’s Tlatelolco Square.

Although the harassment and intimidation of the OPHR athletes cannot be compared to this slaughter, the intention was the same—to stifle protest and make sure that the Olympics were “suitable” for visiting dignitaries, heads of state, and an international audience. It was not successful.

On the second day of the Games, Smith and Carlos took their stand. Smith set a world record, winning the 200-meter gold, and Carlos captured the bronze. Smith then took out the black gloves. The silver medalist, a runner from Australia named Peter Norman, attached an Olympic Project for Human Rights patch onto his chest to show his solidarity on the medal stand.

As the stars and stripes ran up the flagpole and the national anthem played, Smith and Carlos bowed their heads and raised their fists in what was described across the globe as a “Black Power salute,” creating a moment that would define the rest of their lives. But there was far more to their actions on the medal stand than just the gloves. The two men wore no shoes to protest black poverty, as well as beads and scarves to protest lynching.

Within hours, the IOC planted a rumor that Smith and Carlos had been stripped of their medals—although this was not in fact true—and expelled from the Olympic Village. Brundage wanted to send a message to every athlete that there would be punishment for any political demonstrations on the field of play.

But Brundage was not alone in his furious reaction. The Los Angeles Times accused Smith and Carlos of a “Nazi-like salute”. Time had a distorted version of the Olympic logo on its cover but instead of the motto “Faster, Higher, Stronger,” it blared “Angrier, Nastier, Uglier.” The Chicago Tribune called the act “an embarrassment visited upon the country,” an “act contemptuous of the United States,” and “an insult to their countrymen.” Smith and Carlos were “renegades” who would come home to be “greeted as heroes by fellow extremists,” lamented the paper. But the coup de grâce was by a young reporter for the Chicago American named Brent Musburger who called them “a pair of black-skinned storm troopers.”

But if Smith and Carlos were attacked from a multitude of directions, they also received many expressions of support, including from some unlikely sources. For example, the U.S. Olympic crew team, all white and entirely from Harvard, issued the following statement:

“We—as individuals—have been concerned about the place of the black man in American society in their struggle for equal rights. As members of the U.S. Olympic team, each of us has come to feel a moral commitment to support our black teammates in their efforts to dramatize the injustices and inequities which permeate our society.”

Smith and Carlos sacrificed privilege and glory, fame and fortune, for a larger cause—civil rights. As Carlos says, “A lot of the [black] athletes thought that winning [Olympic] medals would supersede or protect them from racism. But even if you won a medal, it ain’t going to save your momma. It ain’t going to save your sister or children. It might give you 15 minutes of fame, but what about the rest of your life?”

The story of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics deserves more than a visual sound bite in a quickie textbook section on “Black Power.” As the Zinn Education Project points out in its “If We Knew Our History” series, this is one of many examples of the missing and distorted history in school, which turns the curriculum into a checklist of famous names and dates. When we introduce students to the story of Smith and Carlos’ defiant gesture, we can offer a rich context of activism, courage, and solidarity that breathes life into the study of history—and the long struggle for racial equality.

“Native American Blind Man Mutilated By Staff At Rapid City Hospital”

Taken from: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/04/28/native-american-blind-man-mutilated-by-staff-at-rapid-city-hospital/

April 28, 2012

As a country we have been mesmerized, sickened and disgusted by the shooting of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. All eyes have been on this hate crime and emotions on both sides of the issue have run high.

But there are other stories out there, not so well publicized by the mainstream media. The most recent to come to light is the shocking mutilation of a 68-year-old blind man. His crime, it seems, is being a Native American living in South Dakota.

Vernon Traversie, a Lakota elder, suffered a heart attack last August and was taken to Rapid City Regional Hospital for emergency surgery. Upon his return home after a two-week stay, he found that three Ks had been carved or burned into his abdomen.

In a statement to Last Real Indians, Traversie said: “I was supposed to have emergency surgery on my heart, but they (the hospital) had scheduling problems. Every night they would prep me for surgery, which went on for four or five days. Every night they would shave my chest and stomach and wouldn’t feed me.”

It wasn’t until a hospital employee came to his room and told him to take pictures of his abdomen and chest immediately upon getting home that Traversie realized that something had been done to him. The woman who gave him the advice told him she couldn’t testify on his behalf but her conscience dictated that she had to let him know.

Joyce Anderson, a retired surgical nurse who worked for nine years on the heart team at Baptist Hospital in Little Rock Arkansas, viewed the photographs of Traversie’s injuries and said, “It appears the area under the incision was done with a scalpel for drainage of the incision. The other wounds seem to be necrotic, meaning the tissue is dead. This could indicate the wounds were burned into his skin.”

According to Traversie, local law enforcement has done nothing about the matter and a doctor at a nearby medical facility said she could not make any statements regarding his injuries. After seven months of non-action by his Rapid City attorney, Traversie posted this video Vern Traversie’s Video to gain attention for the crime committed against him.

This is just the latest in a long and ugly history of hate crimes against Native Americans in Rapid City. In May of 2010, 22-year-old Christopher Capps, was shot multiple times by Pennington County Sheriff’s Deputy David Olson. Capps was allegedly reaching into his pocket for his cell phone at the time. He was unarmed.

There is a huge divide between Indians and whites in Rapid City. This latest incident involving Mr. Traversie may have been the result of a backlash to the shooting of three police officers by a young Native American man, Daniel Tiger, last August 5. Tiger was stopped for a traffic violation and inexplicably opened fire on the officers, shooting them in the head. One of the officers died at the scene. Native Americans in the community all agree that there is no excuse for Tiger’s actions, which ultimately resulted in his death. But one must ask: if Mr. Traversie’s injuries were some kind of statement, then what does it say about the doctors and nurses who were charged to care for a man who had just suffered a heart attack? What does it say about a city where no one does anything about it? What does it say about a society that doesn’t bother to report it, except in the Indian press?

“Once Again, Vanity Fair Keeps Black People Off the Cover”

With all the backlash from their previous issues, you’d think Vanity Fair would learn its lesson by now. Maybe magazine sales are just too lucrative for them to care. Yay for Sofia Vergara landing the cover though :)

***

Taken from: http://jezebel.com/5898753/once-again-vanity-fair-kicks-black-people-off-the-cover

April 3, 2012

As Two And A Half Men creator Lee Aronsohn noted, “We are approaching peak vagina on television, the point of labia saturation.” So it makes sense that Vanity Fair‘s Special TV issue would feature a bunch of ladies lying in bed together, as ladies are wont to do. And surely, if the editors had chosen male TV stars, they would also be lying naked (except for diamond necklaces) between silky sheets, right? Anyway. Although the beautiful and talented Colombian-born Sofia Vergara is on the cover — whether it be a small nod to diversity or mere recognition of the fact that Modern Family is a hit TV show — once again, if you’re looking for black people, they’re not here.

Kerry Washington joins fellow minorities Grace Park and Archie Panjabi on the inside spread of the story. The ladies pose in foundation garments — again, surely, if they were men, they would be lounging around in their jock straps — for a “Girls’ Night In” portrait. Because apparently “girls” are always just hanging out together in their underwear. As a woman, I spy a significant lack of yoga pants and Pajama Jeans, but what do I know.

Of course it’s supposed to be a fun, light-hearted, stylish photo shoot, not to be taken seriously. But as we saw in January with Vanity Fair‘s Hollywood Issue, it would seem that the magazine takes great pains to insure that a black person does not end up on the cover. It’s true that all of the ladies on this cover are on established programs, and Shonda Rimes’ new show, Scandal, in which Kerry Washington stars, hasn’t even aired yet. But given the magazine’s very real history with this issue, we can’t help but feel a certain sense of déja vu.

“Chief: No conclusions in Iraqi-American death case”

Taken from: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jul4uHTXjACxofrv2O15UYT86yeQ?docId=b5864a0754cf432399ed0e2fe585cbb8

March 24, 2012

Police are investigating the beating death of a 32-year-old Iraqi-American woman in suburban San Diego as a possible hate crime but stressed that they are also looking at other possible scenarios.

El Cajon Police Chief James Redman said Monday that investigators have evidence that includes a threatening note found near Shaima Alawadi’s body. Her daughter told a television station that it says: “Go back to your country, you terrorist.”

Redman declined to discuss the note’s contents, though he said that it has led police to regard the killing as a possible hate crime. The family has mentioned that there was a similar note from earlier, but police do not have a copy of it.

The chief said the victim died of severe head trauma but did not confirm the type of weapon. Redman said he was confident it was an isolated incident but would not say why. ”I want to stress there is other evidence in this case that we are looking at and the possibility this is a hate crime is just one aspect,” Redman said, adding that they have not drawn any conclusions. ”We don’t have tunnel vision on this case,” he said. “We’re looking at the big picture.”

Alawadi was taken off life support Saturday, three days after her teenage daughter found her unconscious in the dining room of the family’s El Cajon home in suburban San Diego.

On Monday, Iraq’s foreign minister said Alawadi’s body will be flown to Baghdad as lawmakers in her native country demanded a thorough investigation. The official declined further comment.

Alawadi’s father is Sayed Nabeel Alawadi, a Shiite cleric in Iraq, a Muslim leader in Michigan told the Detroit Free Press on Sunday. “Everybody is outraged,” Imam Husham Al-Husainy of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn said. “This is too evil, too criminal.”

Reaction in Baghdad was muted, though some lawmakers pressed for answers. Government offices were closed, and newspapers were not printing this week for the diplomatic summit. ”We deplore this hideous crime that took place in a country calls itself the land of democracy, freedoms and freedom of religious. The parliament will take a serious position on this. Iraqi Foreign Affairs Ministry must now officially ask the U.S. Embassy and the Department of State for more details on this hideous crime,” said Aliyah Nisayef, an Iraqi female lawmaker.

Lawmaker Haider al-Mulla, a Shiite from the Sunni-dominated Iraqiya political party, also asked that the U.S. government step into the investigation. ”If the investigation reveals that the attack was a hatred crime, then U.S. authorities should take measures to protect all Iraqi refugees on American soil,” al-Mulla said.

The victim’s daughter, Fatima Al Himidi, told KUSI-TV in San Diego that her mother had been beaten on the head repeatedly with a tire iron, and the note was next to her. Police said the family had found a similar, threatening note earlier this month but did not report it to authorities. Hanif Mohebi, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ San Diego chapter, said family members told him they dismissed the initial note as a prank.

Family members told Mohebi they arrived in the San Diego area in 1995, lived in Dearborn, Mich., from 2005 to 2008 and returned to San Diego. ”What I got from the family members was: ‘We came (to the United States) for a better life, for safety, to get away from violence, to be free,’” Mohebi said.

Hayder Al-Zayadi, a family friend, told the Free Press that Alawadi moved to the United States in 1993 with her family and was part of a wave of Shiite Muslim refugees who fled to Michigan after Saddam Hussein cracked down on an uprising in 1991. After living in Dearborn for a few years, she moved to the San Diego area in 1996, graduated from high school and became a housewife raising five children, Al-Zayadi said.

Al-Zayadi said Alawadi’s brothers worked for the U.S. Army, serving as cultural advisers to train soldiers who were going to be deployed to the Middle East. Another family friend told U-T San Diego that Alawadi’s husband had a similar job.

Flowers were set on the doorstep of the home Monday. One of the glass panels on a sliding back patio door was boarded up with wood. The backyard overlooks a middle school.

Neighbors said the family had moved in about two months ago. Friends and neighbors said Alawadi wore a hijab, the Islamic head scarf. Alvin Luckenbach, who lives next door, exchanged pleasantries with Alawadi and her husband. She recently apologized for her kids making noise playing basketball on Alawadi’s back patio. ”They were always nice,” Luckenbach said.

Dawud Walid, executive director of CAIR’s Michigan chapter, said Alawadi’s death was a primary topic of conversation among speakers and attendees Sunday evening at the organization’s annual banquet in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn. He and others compared her slaying to that of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Florida teen shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer and whose case has ignited racial tensions.

“Treyvon was black wearing a hoodie. Shaima was wearing a hijab,” Walid said. “It’s the same racist principle at play that killed both of these individuals.”

Others were more guarded. ”We don’t want to jump to any conclusions and say it’s a hate crime when there is still is a lot of investigation to be done,” said Edgar Hopida, spokesman for CAIR in San Diego.

El Cajon, east of San Diego, is home to one of the largest Iraqi communities in the United States, including Muslims and Chaldean Christians.

“‘Don’t Re-Nig in 2012′: Maker of Racist Anti-Obama Sticker Shuts Down Site”

Taken from: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/dont-re-nig-in-2012-maker-of-racist-anti-obama-sticker-shuts-down-site/

March 16, 2012

A photograph of a bumper sticker that features a racist play on words lit up Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere Thursday, adding to what is already shaping up to be one of the most vicious and negative presidential races in history.

The sticker reads “Don’t Re-Nig In 2012″ and sits above a smaller text that reads: “Stop repeat offenders. Don’t re-elect Obama!”

The design seems to have originated from a site called Stumpy’s Stickers, which has since been dismantled. The site featured similar stickers for sale, including a picture of an ape that reads, “Obama 2012″; a drawing of the Confederate flag with the message “If this flag has offended you, then it made my day!”; and another that features members of the Ku Klux Klan and reads, “The Original Boys In The Hood.”

ABC tried to access the website Friday morning, but the email address has been suspended, and the person(s) responsible for the website has not been identified.

The photograph went viral when it was posted to Facebook on Thursday afternoon.

“Trayvon Martin’s Girlfriend Recalls Final Call, Justice Dept Steps In”

Taken from: http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/03/trayvon_martins_girlfriend_was_on_phone_with_him_she_recalls_his_final_moments.html

March 20, 2012

On Monday morning ABC News published an interview with a 16-year old girl who is believed to have been on the phone with Trayvon Martin moments before neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman shot him dead.

“He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man,” Martin’s friend said told ABC News, in an interview with lawyers asking the questions because the girl is underage. “I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run but he said he was not going to run.”

ABC News verified phone records and the girl’s statements are believed to be accurate.

“Trayvon said, ‘What, are you following me for,’ and the man said, ‘What are you doing here.’ Next thing I hear is somebody pushing, and somebody pushed Trayvon because the head set just fell. I called him again and he didn’t answer the phone,” the girl went on to say.

But at the moment Martin’s call ended, several 911 call recordings pickup right as someone is heard screaming for help in the background. And this is where some say local police have shielded Zimmerman.

The Miami Herald provides more details:

Several witnesses said they heard cries that sounded like a boy wailing — howling silenced by the crack of gunfire — and were shocked to hear police later portray the cries as Zimmerman’s. One witness said police ignored her repeated phone calls.

The police chief was accused of telling lies big and small in ways that shielded Zimmerman. The family hired attorneys who helped devise a national campaign to demand a federal investigation.

According to a statement by the Justice Department, “The department will conduct a thorough and independent review of all of the evidence and take appropriate action and the conclusion of the investigation. … The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person acted intentionally and with the specific intent to do something which the law forbids. Negligence, recklessness, mistakes and accidents are not prosecutable under the federal criminal civil rights laws.”

Close to 550,000 people have signed an online petition on Change.org urging law enforcement officials to step in and arrest Zimmerman. ColorOfChange.org has also launched a petition that calls for the local police department be made accountable for mishandling Martin’s case.

A grand jury will also look into the shooting death of Martin, Brevard County State Attorney Norm Wolfinger announced on Tuesday.

“Gunman Kills 4 at a Jewish School in France”

Taken from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/world/europe/gunman-kills-3-at-a-jewish-school-in-france.html?_r=1&hp

March 19, 2012

A man opened fire outside a Jewish school in southwest France on Monday morning, killing four people, three of them children, and wounding another, officials said. It was the third killing of unarmed people in the region in little over a week, and the police said the same gun was used in all three attacks.

Witnesses said that a man fled the scene in Toulouse on a motorbike. Last week, a man on a motorbike killed three French paratroopers and critically wounded another in two separate shootings, police officials said. The soldiers were all Arab or black, but were paratroopers from a unit that fought in Afghanistan. According to the police, the gunman initially used a 9-millimeter weapon, but it jammed, so he switched to a .45-caliber gun as he went into the school. The .45-caliber weapon was the one the police said was used to shoot the paratroopers last week.

There has been no claim of responsibility for any of the murders, which the French police are treating as acts of terrorism.

Michel Valet, the local prosecutor, said a rabbi, his two children and another child were killed in the attack and a 17-year-old boy was seriously wounded. The killer “shot at everything he could see, children and adults, and some children were chased into the school,” Mr. Valet said.

The attack is the worst on Jews in France since 1982, when the Chez Jo Goldenberg restaurant in Paris was bombed at lunchtime, killing six people and wounding 22. In 1980, a terrorist group threw a bomb at a Jewish synagogue on Rue Copernic in Paris, killing four people and wounding about 40.

Monday’s shooting brought a climate of fear to the region, with the French state ordering increased surveillance of all religious schools. It also brought immediate condemnations from President Nicolas Sarkozy and from his main rival for the French presidency, François Hollande, both of whom broke off their political campaigns to rush to the scene.

Uniformed police officers were seen leading away stunned survivors after the early morning attack. Other officers set up barricades and sealed off the entrance to the school, located behind high white walls with security cameras at the entrance.

Mr. Sarkozy arrived in Toulouse late Monday morning with officials and Jewish leaders. He called the shooting a “national tragedy” and ordered a minute’s silence to be observed across France on Tuesday at 11 a.m.

The Israeli press identified Monday’s victims as Rabbi Jonathan Sandler and two of his sons, Arye, 6, and Gabriel, 3. The fourth person killed was Miriam Monsonego, 8, who is the daughter of the school principal, Yaacov Monsonego. Rabbi Sandler came to Toulouse from Jerusalem with his family last September to teach religious studies at the school. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the rabbi was a French citizen but that his wife was Israeli and that their children had dual nationality.

Another student, 17, a boy, was said to be wounded and in critical condition at a local hospital.

The French minister of the interior, Claude Guéant, said he was “submerged with emotion” over this “act of anti-Semitism” and ordered the police to intensify security around Jewish schools, according to a press spokesman. France has some 300 Jewish schools, news reports said.

Later, Prime Minister François Fillon was quoted as saying the enhanced security measures would be broadened to include all schools and religious buildings.

The Interior Ministry spokesman, Pierre-Henry Brandet, said the shootings occurred outside the Jewish school Ozar Hatorah. Ozar Hatorah is a Jewish society promoting religious education among young people, especially in the Middle East, northern Africa and among the Sephardic Jewish community in France, which has the largest number of Jews in Europe, estimated to be at least 550,000. A promotional video posted in 2010 showed students engaged in academic and religious studies.

The authorities have been hunting for the gunman who killed the soldiers since last week, and the military has told soldiers not to wear their uniforms in public.

The wave of killings has stunned France, prompting tense speculation about its cause. Even before the shooting on Monday, there was discussion about a possible racial or ethnic component to the attacks. “There is a common point to all the victims of this dark series of cold-blooded murders: they are all related to communities,” including both Muslims and Jews, wrote Pierre Haski in a posting Monday on the Rue89 news Web site. “Whether they wore the uniform of the French Army or were children, their ‘difference’ made them targets.”

Speculation over the motives for the killings ranged from anger at Muslims fighting in Afghanistan and anti-Semitism to a hatred of immigrants.

Condemnation of the killings was general. In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel condemned the “despicable murder of Jews, including small children,” as “a savage crime.” Speaking to his Likud party, he said: “It is too early to determine exactly what the background to the murderous act was, but we certainly cannot rule out the option that it was motivated by violent and murderous anti-Semitism.”

“San Antonio prep hoops fans accused of racism over ‘USA, USA’ chant”

Taken from: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/highschool-prep-rally/san-antonio-prep-hoops-fans-accused-racismabover-usa-123930890.html

March 8, 2012

A high-profile high school in one of the wealthiest districts of the San Antonio region finds itself under fire after its fans chanted “USA, USA, USA” following its boys basketball team’s regional final victory against a team made up predominantly of Hispanic players.

As reported by KENS5.com, the Alamo Heights (Texas) High boys basketball team’s regional title celebrations were marred by the aforementioned “USA” chants, which came from the school’s fan section in the school’s Littleton Gym.

While San Antonio Independent School District athletics director Gil Garza insisted that Alamo Heights boys basketball coach Andrew Brewer acted quickly to quash the inflammatory chants, the school at which they were directed — San Antonio (Texas) Edison High – filed an official complaint about the incident with the University Interscholastic League, the governing body which oversees Texas public high school extracurricular activities. ”I appreciate coach Brewer taking the action he took to stop it,” Garza told KENS5. “Our kids try real hard and work extra hard to get to the regional tournament, and then we have to worry about them being subjected to this kind of insensitivity. To be attacked about your ethnicity and being made to feel that you don’t belong in this country is terrible. Why can’t people just applaud our kids? It just gets old and I’m sick of it. Once again, we’re on pins and needles wondering what’s going to happen.”

The chants — which can be heard in the video from San Antonio TV station KSAT below — and subsequent brouhaha overshadowed Alamo Heights’ first berth in the state basketball tournament in 21 years, earned by virtue of a 50-39 victory against Edison.

The Alamo Heights School District will now have 10 days to officially respond to the complaint from SAISD, but the district’s superintendent wasted no time in offering up his apologies for the fan section’s actions, which you can hear in this video from San Antonio TV station KSAT. ”Obviously, we were disappointed that this happened,” Alamo Heights superintendent Kevin Brown, who reportedly apologized to SAISD officials personally, told KENS5. “That’s not who we are as a community and that’s not who we are as a school. It’s not something that’s acceptable for us. Our kids are very respectable. We have to remember that they’re teenagers, and kids make mistakes. Still, there are consequences. We have tried to use this as a teachable moment for them. We have talked to our students. We’ve taken responsibility for it, although what happened is not representative of everybody who was there.”

Meanwhile, at least one report noted that Edison students may have inflamed the situation by chanting “Alamo whites” either before or after the “USA, USA” chant began. Still, while that claim was reported by one San Antonio Express-News columnist it has not been substantiated by other sources (though it has also been perpetuated by Alamo Heights supporters online, which doesn’t necessarily speak to its veracity or lack thereof).

While it may still be some time before all the consequences connected with the chanting incident are sorted out, the fans whom Brewer and other Alamo Heights officials identified as being involved in the chanting incident have already been banned from attending the team’s state semifinal against Dallas (Texas) Kimball High in Austin on Thursday.