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For what to give thanks Thursday? If you're white you have Pilgrim privilege and probably won't get shot speeding in your car to buy an extra can of Cranberry sauce. I you are black, especially if you are male, you can give thanks IF you are not in jail, on probation, under a warrant or jammed up with unpaid court fees - unless of course your dad or Son is. If you are a violent cop who murders unarmed teenagers you can give thanks that the "Prosecutors" in your jurisdiction have your back. Me I'm thankful for Michelle Alexander, who has written extensively about aggressive policing, mass incarceration, and the school to prison pipeline. I hope people will read her Op-Ed in today's NY Times, as well as her book "The New Jim Crow" if they have not done so already. And while you're at it, thank the people of Ferguson and their allies across the country for their outrage. Please rage a little yourselves before the food coma or football game comes on tomorrow.
Click Here for her Op-ED titled "Telling My Son about Ferguson". Now this is my home town so I'm particularly sensitive here, but really PLEASE - we are cavity searching children now? Fourth Amendment? Child Abuse at the hands of the State as official policy! Where does this end - these kids are prey.
Please read Alice Goffman;s "On The Run" - Now. Click here now & read about Philadelphia abuse. Interesting article on the proliferation of abusive interrogation techniques. Reminds me of what lots of school disciplinarians do to k-12 students come to think of it.
Click here to read the NYT article. Ursula K. Le Guin was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the National Book Awards last night. It seems a fitting time to reassign her very short story "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" - a powerful parable which was required reading in every course I taught at Temple University years ago. First published in 1973, a pdf version is available following the link below:
Click here for link to pdf He words at the ceremony last night included the following: "I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality. Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings. … Power can be resisted and changed by human beings; resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words. I’ve had a long career and a good one, in good company, and here, at the end of it, I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. … The name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom. So multiple news sources have reported that Patti Smith is booked to play the Vatican Xmas bash, audience W/Pope. Premier Punk Poet who grew up in my home town before decamping to NJ to hang with BRUCE THEN NOT YET THE BOSS and soon writing the lyric "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine", Smith surfaces here as a postmodern prophet rising through the clearing muck of an institution centuries in need of a savior. Francis has, it seems, name-checked a new Mary. If Lou Reed were still with us he could stand in for the man with the message from the Mount. That would be a great double bill in Rome. I'd pay to see them walk on water. Comments?
So thanks again to Dave Kairys, who years ago protected my ass from FBI initiated Federal prosecution, for stating the straight dope about Pennsylvania's stupid and dangerous gag law that must be repealed by appeal. Dave knows as well as I do that Mumia is guilty, but we all should know that freezing anyone's speech ends up hurting the innocent and perverting truth. Just watch as the Mumidiots start clamoring now that the censoring of their martyr mascot is proof that he is a political prisoner blah, blah..... Lame duck Corbett and his Harrisburg Henchmen are playing right into the hands of the ignorant here. Link below to full article - enjoy
Click here. Guided Discretion has gotten us where since 1976? Please read the article linked here and respond, react, reject or regurgitate - rebel?
Click here for Article. |
AuthorJon Amsterdam is a Lawyer, Educator, Community Organizer and National Service Innovator who directs Communities Without Borders, a non profit organization he founded in 1996. Archives
January 2021
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