nakedcrip:

firesandwords:

readnfight:

And if anyone wants to read about what’s going on in my neighborhood and what I’m starting to feel doomed about, here. I don’t like dogs to begin with, never have, but especially when a suburb with its own notorious drug problem (but it’s mostly white kids so we don’t talk about it) has sent a K-9 unit into my neighborhood and the dog is barking outside my window at 5 a.m. while people are being pulled out of bed and I don’t know who they’re going after or why.

The largest-ever federal criminal sweep in Connecticut history netted 35 more alleged crack-dealing New Haven gang members Tuesday, and at least one man was hauled out of bed in a case of mistaken identity.

The fast-paced day began with predawn busts in the Fair Haven and Dwight-Kensington neighborhoods as well as some suburban communities. It continued with dozens of assembly-line appearances in U.S. District Court on Church Street, featured a near-brawl on the courthouse steps, and concluded with the state’s top prosecutor joining federal and local police officials in declaring victory.

“This,” the prosecutor, U.S. Attorney David Fein, said at a 3 p.m press conference, “is the largest federal criminal case in state history.”

The operation is called “Operation Bloodline.” The federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) ran it along with New Haven’s cops. Police from Hamden, North Haven, Milford, Ansonia, North Branford, and Branford took part, too.

It began a little more than a year ago, targeting the group accused of dominating the New Haven crack trade and having a hand in much of the tit-for-tat deadly violence on the streets: the Dwight-Kensington-based Tre Bloods gang.

Building on intelligence gathered by New Haven cops and DEA agents, the investigators had a potent weapon in their arsenal: court-authorized wiretaps on 22 different telephones.

They gathered enough evidence to obtain 105 indictments on charges related to crack and powder cocaine dealing as well as marijuana and oxycodone peddling.

Last Thursday agents conducted a sweep that netted the 32 arrests. (Another 14 defendants were already in court on other charges.)

…

Most of those arrested were indicted on charges of taking part in a conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine. They face minimum sentences of 10 years in jail, up to life; and up to $10 million in fines. Some face heroin and powder cocaine charges as well as possession with intent to sell narcotics and possession of illegal firearms.

“We put a big dent in the gang violence in this city,” New Haven Assistant Police Chief Archie Generoso declared Tuesday. “We’re going to continue doing that. We’re not going to stop here.”

One of my friends who has been stressing about this with me pointed something out: a combination of New Haven police plus several other towns, plus the DEA, got most of these indictments based mostly on wiretaps over the course of a year—but the best they were able to get on the majority of the people was conspiracy. How guilty am I supposed to think anybody is, if the most you can catch over a year of spying is conspiracy?

well put. the neighborhood is one of the last few spots in the city that is close to yale & downtown and is relatively affordable. pike international has been buying up lots and houses left and right and all of their ad’s refer to blocks around here that aren’t even that close to downtown as ‘minutes from yale’, ‘minutes from downtown/shopping districts’, ‘looking for young professionals’. the school of architecture just dropped an incredibly unfitting house down the street thats being advertised as such in yuppie cafe’s and shortly after the house was put on the market, the house next-door was foreclosed on.

it’s pretty clear that land-grabbing, in a city where yale owns 1/4 of the (most expensive land) yet pays no taxes on it is one of the many incentives to the raids happening in this part of town..

The first steps towards “gentrification” are made in combat boots.

This is a pattern that is only becoming solid for me now. I’ve been living in this neighborhood for 5 years now, in 3 different buildings, and they’ve each had some amount of cops running through the place. At the first apartment, it was in the aftermath of immigration raids in town; a year or so after I’d moved out, the building was sold and all the tenants, almost all immigrants, were evicted illegally so the building could be rehabbed and rented exclusively to Yale students.

In my mind the drug raids now and the immigration raids we had a few years ago are pretty similar and connected. So far the difference is that immigrant communities and Latino communities mobilized really strongly and really quickly, and the NHPD passed a general order to not collaborate with ICE. Black communities here are more fractured than that (especially since it was a raid on just one gang). I’d really like to see us step up against raids like this instead of accepting it as what happens—and I think some of us are working on making that happen.

No patience anymore for people who say gentrification isn’t a big deal. This shit is violent. I wasn’t ever skittish in my neighborhood before the way I have been since the raids.

And if anyone wants to read about what’s going on in my neighborhood and what I’m starting to feel doomed about, here. I don’t like dogs to begin with, never have, but especially when a suburb with its own notorious drug problem (but it’s mostly white kids so we don’t talk about it) has sent a K-9 unit into my neighborhood and the dog is barking outside my window at 5 a.m. while people are being pulled out of bed and I don’t know who they’re going after or why.

The largest-ever federal criminal sweep in Connecticut history netted 35 more alleged crack-dealing New Haven gang members Tuesday, and at least one man was hauled out of bed in a case of mistaken identity.

The fast-paced day began with predawn busts in the Fair Haven and Dwight-Kensington neighborhoods as well as some suburban communities. It continued with dozens of assembly-line appearances in U.S. District Court on Church Street, featured a near-brawl on the courthouse steps, and concluded with the state’s top prosecutor joining federal and local police officials in declaring victory.

“This,” the prosecutor, U.S. Attorney David Fein, said at a 3 p.m press conference, “is the largest federal criminal case in state history.”

The operation is called “Operation Bloodline.” The federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) ran it along with New Haven’s cops. Police from Hamden, North Haven, Milford, Ansonia, North Branford, and Branford took part, too.

It began a little more than a year ago, targeting the group accused of dominating the New Haven crack trade and having a hand in much of the tit-for-tat deadly violence on the streets: the Dwight-Kensington-based Tre Bloods gang.

Building on intelligence gathered by New Haven cops and DEA agents, the investigators had a potent weapon in their arsenal: court-authorized wiretaps on 22 different telephones.

They gathered enough evidence to obtain 105 indictments on charges related to crack and powder cocaine dealing as well as marijuana and oxycodone peddling.

Last Thursday agents conducted a sweep that netted the 32 arrests. (Another 14 defendants were already in court on other charges.)

…

Most of those arrested were indicted on charges of taking part in a conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine. They face minimum sentences of 10 years in jail, up to life; and up to $10 million in fines. Some face heroin and powder cocaine charges as well as possession with intent to sell narcotics and possession of illegal firearms.

“We put a big dent in the gang violence in this city,” New Haven Assistant Police Chief Archie Generoso declared Tuesday. “We’re going to continue doing that. We’re not going to stop here.”

One of my friends who has been stressing about this with me pointed something out: a combination of New Haven police plus several other towns, plus the DEA, got most of these indictments based mostly on wiretaps over the course of a year—but the best they were able to get on the majority of the people was conspiracy. How guilty am I supposed to think anybody is, if the most you can catch over a year of spying is conspiracy?

So this just happened nearby, and I mistook it for a tasteless April Fool’s Joke:

A Saturday night rap showcase slated to feature eight New Haven and Yale rappers at the Afro-American Cultural Center was canceled after the Yale Police Department expressed security concerns.

The event was canceled Saturday morning after Rodney Cohen, assistant dean of Yale College and director of the Af-Am Center, emailed co-organizer Ifeanyi Awachie ‘14 that “by order of the Yale police, tonight’s WYBC Radio Rap event is canceled.” YPD Assistant Chief Michael Patten said his department was concerned about the venue’s ability to accommodate the showcase after it learned that the event was advertised, free and open to the public.

“We had no idea how many people might come and were concerned about overcrowding and people loitering outside in this predominantly residential area,” he said in a Sunday morning email to the News. “Coupled with tensions we’ve seen between various groups in the city and recent incidents occurring outside events, we recommended to Dean Cohen that the event be canceled.”

Cohen could not be reached for comment.

Wesley Dixon ‘15, a freshman ambassador for the Af-Am Center, expressed disappointment at the event’s cancellation. He said he did not think the move was a good idea since he believed there is already a “very clear tension” between New Haven residents and the Yale community.

“It seems like we’re afraid of New Haven infiltrating Yale and I don’t think that’s good for the relationship between both communities,” he said. “It kind of makes concrete the skepticism we both have of each other when [administrators] do things like cancelling the event.”

The solution: Yale Police shut down an event aimed at bringing the (huge) divides between Yale and New Haven once they found out that people outside of Yale were invited.

This was one of those little things, like not a huge deal and not overtly a problem, but just snubs on top of snubs on top of snubs.

I went to the library on my way home, not the branches I usually go to that have lots of people hanging out or good collections of POC books, but the one that’s a short detour from work. It’s in this almost all white, largely jewish, pretty wealthy neighborhood that has all this cutesy stuff, boutiques and fancy salons and bars and a tennis store (srsly). The one time I saw an apartment listed over there for real cheap, the old lady I called about it told me, “This is much more of an older, established area” and got off the phone quick even though I had on my white lady voice that I studied from my nice white mom.

So, that’s where I was hanging out today. This white lady came in, nose in the air, asking about how to get a library card. When the guy at the desk, a young black man, asked if she lived in New Haven, she said, “I live in Westville” like it was its own town, and not just a neighborhood that tries not to interact with anyone else.

On its own, that isn’t that big a deal, but I hate this attitude that because of how segregated the city is, and how dangerous the black and latino neighborhoods are thought to be, white people can keep themselves sequestered and pretend they’re in this whole other town, instead of sharing space with kids of color, my students. Some of my students don’t even know that the white neighborhoods exist, like they’ll describe where something is in terms of the POC streets it’s a mile away from instead of the white neighborhood it’s actually in.

And really, white people want to wall themselves off, fine, whatever; but it’s ridiculous to then come around pretending like we don’t live in the same city when we’re in the same space (Yale, that goes for y’all too).

This morning, immediately after I posted a live Max Roach video about black liberation and said it was one of 3 options I’d give my students to watch and write from today, I rushed to get out of the house to catch the early bus to work. But because I’d gotten caught up watching videos at home, so I’d have some good videos for us to talk about our communities and violence, I missed the bus I wanted and ended up waiting a long time for the next one.

So, I was on the street a block away from my house where I catch the bus, and which is kinda like a black Main Street through my side of town. I got a cup of coffee and was waiting at the corner nearby.

Very short story even shorter, while I was standing there, a drive-by happened no more than about 30 feet from where I was standing. There were about a dozen of us standing nearby for different reasons; there’s a cornerstore that I was in front of where a lot of older dudes hang out, and another spot across the street where people hang out.

It was scary because there was nowhere for me to go, standing pretty much out in the open, and it was so close to me. But mostly it was scary and depressing because it was the middle of the day, a little before noon, in an area that’s full of people. No one was hit, not even the targets, but there were still a lot of us standing around not knowing what to do besides shake our heads and say, “Damn, man.”

I got to school, we watched a video (“My Block” by Scarface), talked about what our neighborhoods are like (pretty diverse but a lot of them are rough), and I told them about the shooting which had happened about an hour before by that point. They thought it was funny I stayed at the same bus stop still waiting for the bus, but I was like, “Well what was I supposed to do? I still gotta come in here and work with you guys!” Also really ironic that I was standing there thinking about how to facilitate our discussion about our neighborhoods and violence, and then that went down in my neighborhood, and none of us who saw it were surprised.

Anyway, just…..depressing. Not shocking, just depressing.

A 13 year old kid was shot and killed last night in the next neighborhood over from ours. Not right near our house, but where I bike home from work if I take the scenic route. He went to a grade school across town where several of my students went. Nobody mentioned it at school today to me, but it’s pretty likely that some of my kids knew him; they might not have been friends since he’s younger, but probably some of them knew him.

This afternoon in my program, a couple of my kids were talking about violence and shootings in their neighborhoods. All of us live in neighborhoods with a lot of shootings and police presence, and where it seems like all that is escalating, so we were all talking about that. All of us were saying that we hear gunshots and don’t pay it that much attention anymore. Of course, then, one of the knuckleheads had to turn the conversation into totally ridiculous stuff; in hindsight, though, maybe it was getting too heavy for him and he needed comic relief.

I know I’m really lucky to have never had a friend killed by a gun. I’ve known people who were killed, but never someone I was friends with. To be black and make it to 25 years old and be able to say that is really fucking rare. Most of my kids can’t say that. I worry about them all the time, and sometimes when messed up things happen I get devastated to realize that I can’t protect them from everything, and I know I don’t entirely want to anyway. You learn by having shitty, messy things happen in your adolescence, I understand that; but as much as I can, I want to just shield them from all that, and I really can’t.

Does anyone know what might be the best course of action? I don’t know if I want to bring it up to kids who went to that school and live in that area, because I don’t want to open fresh wounds unnecessarily. If kids mention it, I will definitely do what I can to support them, but it won’t be from my own experience because of how lucky I’ve been. Anyone have experience supporting young people in these situations?

What I’ve been working on lately:

• Ali Reed

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) - Many New Haven residents joined a rally on the steps of the city’s court house, asking for justice against police brutality.

In the past, folks have filed lawsuits against the New Haven Police Department and won their case, now they are fighting to stop police from using over excessive force in the future.

Folks told News 8 they are sick and tired of the police brutality that occurs in the African-American and Latino communities.

Dozens of community members came out to support people who say they’ve been victimized by New Haven police officers.

“I refuse to shut up, there are too many people being victimized across the country, I got to speak up for them, no other choice but to stand on these steps and be vocal,” says Jewu Richardson of New Haven.

Another New Haven resident, Abel Sanchez said he was a victim of police brutality. He sued and earned a settlement of $50,000. He said he came to the rally at the court house to show support for other victims who are still seeking justice.

I’m not in the video (although I did make those cute “Justice for Jewu” posters!) because I was on the sidewalk handing out fliers and talking to people. It was kind of a fun role to take on first thing in the morning, before I’d eaten or had coffee, to walk up to strangers and start telling them what we’re doing and get them riled up about the police. A lot of people passing by were really supportive, and several joined us just off the sidewalk, even though it was drizzling. A couple people I talked to said they’d also been beaten up by the cops but didn’t think they could do anything about it, so I told them about where and when we meet and what we’re working on and what we’ve won so far. All in all it was a really good rally, and I usually am not too psyched about rallies (only because they are too often redundant and ineffective).

We held this rally today because my friend Jewu Richardson, who’s quoted above, had a court hearing this morning. He was shot in the chest by a New Haven cop last year and is now being charged with assaulting a police officer. We have a website up about his case here, and I am adding a donation link to my tumblr because we need to raise A LOT of money for legal fees.

The Occupation Movement: On Greed, Unity & Violence

The whole thing is an interesting read, although one that I’m not sure how to bring into action. I do want to talk about abolishing capitalism, and I don’t understand how a movement like this can make any sense without being highly critical of capitalism (that’s a stretch, even; I don’t really know how this could add up without being anti-capitalist). But given the state of things, and how daunting a task the abolition of capitalism is, what can our course of action be? Especially if this is a movement that refuses to make demands—how do you move to demand an end to the entire system that shapes  what we’re talking about?

I also like this critique of the “99%” slogan. I actually find it really alienating, especially when I say that we need a deeper class analysis or we need a race analysis, and am met with, “But we’re ALL the 99%.” Which translates to, I need to get over it and allow things to be middle-class-straight-cis-whitewashed. What is someone thinking, when I say we need an understanding of race, when I give specifics of work being done by generations of people of color in this city, when I give statistics of the economic crisis black people have been in since 1970, to then look me in my brown face and tell me we’re all the same 99%, and we just need unity?

How are folks going to say they want to include everyone (not center, not listen to, merely include), but then want to work with City Hall and the cops and always have spotless media coverage? Plenty of people are not going to feel safe like that. Some people might be able to believe the mayor, but a lot of people have been lied to over and over, had their houses taken by eminent domain, been beat up by cops and ignored, had nowhere to go when City Hall just doesn’t find money to open the winter homeless shelters.

So not to make this a situation where organizers need to pick us or them, but I’ve seen a whole lot more effort going in to gaining the favor of city government and the media than supporting and being relevant to people of color and homeless people already doing all this work. Where was this need for unity when Yale was tearing down people’s houses in the Hill? Where was this need for unity while the cops are targeting black men and immigrants, and putting people in the hospital? Where is this need for unity when people are freezing to death (this is not a figure of speech, I mean it literally) in the very spot that people will be “occupying”, because they can’t get in to shelters?

I will believe it when I see it. And in the mean time, I will be doing work nonstop, and I will be doing work when this dies out as well.

whaat:

whaat:

mytongueisforked:

troubledsigh:

So I went to the first organizational meeting of Occupy New Haven, in the attempt to join a friend (readnfight, on Tumblr) in what was to be a POC block - basically, to make sure that if this was going to happen, it was going to right up…

I didn’t mean to imply that your group of friends had to be there to educate anyone about race but that your experience working in the local communities was a valuable resource not everyone shares. I understand that at the end of the day all of these things are interconnected and it is each individual’s responsibility to educate themselves though. 

I was never supportive of occupying Whalley and I don’t understand the rationale behind it. But I won’t pretend my first thought was that the occupation would bring undue police presence there. It was just, to me, clearly the wrong target. Again, this is a shortcoming of myself though.

I think you’re absolutely right that the group is inexperienced with local history and the cultural environment of New Haven. I’m guilty of it myself. Its something I’ve committed to working on though. My intent of both of these posts, though it seems like I’m tripping all over myself to sound like an idiot, is that your message was not unsupported in the group. For what its worth many of us are aware of our flaws and short comings and are making the effort we can to ensure that Occupy New Haven is a local movement that reflects the needs of the people of this area, not just white middle class activists.

Cool. Overall, though, folks can say they’re supporting work by people of color, but I’ll believe it when I see and feel it. I can’t speak for any other POC (although white people try to get me to), but I sure wasn’t seeing that support, and several other people told me the same.

And again, anyone who actively wants to do their homework, I’ll help connect to work that’s already being done and will still be going on once this busts or fizzles out.

whaat:

mytongueisforked:

troubledsigh:

So I went to the first organizational meeting of Occupy New Haven, in the attempt to join a friend (readnfight, on Tumblr) in what was to be a POC block - basically, to make sure that if this was going to happen, it was going to right up front dispense with the “We Are All the 99%” rhetoric that erases the experiences of POC, trans and queer folk in movements and organizing everywhere.

So:

-a bunch of white dudes hogged the floor no joke, probably 3-4 taking up most of the time. (no surprises there)

-one white guy said “we are all people of color.” (I said “no, we’re not.” He got heated. He did come up to apologize to me later, weirdly enough. Seemed somewhat sincere, although I can’t tell how much actually sunk in.)

-a bit of xenophobic rhetoric about “American Jobs and products” was thrown around. Somebody did get up and address that point directly, thankfully.

-Folks tried to turn the subject to organizing before POC got the chance to speak in stack - it took a lot of agonizing points of process before the stack got re-established and some rad folks got the chance to speak to some of the rhetoric.

-The idea was passed around of beginning the occupation in a primarily POC neighborhood - totally ignoring the fact that that neighborhood is ALREADY occupied by the police, and that a movement like this beginning there would probably double or triple the police presence there. (eventually it was decided to happen on the City Green, and only after folks agreed to do some outreach to the homeless folks who are there as so not to bring a police presence that would basically evict them from their last resort.)

-One white dude who spoke an AWFUL lot had taken the liberty of contacting the parks and rec commisioner, the mayor’s office and the police chief to inquire about location options. The only positive consequence of this that I can see is there being portable toilets brought to the green.

-One white dude said something about “why are there no people of color here?” ignoring the many black and brown faces in the crowd. He then proceeded to say something I couldn’t hear (as I had broken off into the “outreach group” at that point.) I was later told it was “WE NEED TO GET THE PEOPLE OF COLOR OFF THE COUCH AND DOWN HERE TO OUR MEETINGS.”  pretty sure he got called out for that one, and I know that firesandwords went to tell him why that was fucked up afterward. 

-another white dude said we didn’t have to worry about the police being aggressive towards the homeless because they weren’t being aggro at Wall Steet. He then said something about how “I’ve never had a police encounter in New Haven, but we can assume…” etc.

As far as I can tell, the only things that got decided was when and where the occupation would begin. Some groundwork was laid for “outreach” which seemed positive, seemed as though some folks really understood that if this was going to be successful it absolutely had to cater to people of color, to be relevant to us, and to go out of downtown to let people know about it - not just putting up a facebook post and getting mad when “no people of color show up.” From what I saw when I arrived (which was maybe 30-40 minutes late), there was a lot of destructive, insensitive and erasing rhetoric being thrown around (just like in the larger movement and at Wall Street, go figure). And if there hadn’t been POC and some allies there to bring those points up, they would’ve gone on being forgotten and erased, or tabled til later because they were “dividing/overcomplicating” the message. I got that sinking ship feeling less than 20 minutes after arriving because there were SO many things going predictably wrong.

But yeah. readnfight has been making some good points in analysis of the Wall Street movement, and the fact that for fuck’s sake it HAS HAS HAS to be relevant and inclusive to people of color if you actually care about building a movement that doesn’t replicate the same racism and oppression as the system it is protesting. That it has to recognize some of the truly revolutionary acts that aren’t headline grabbing that work to make lasting change, and to build on those. Seriously. Scope her tumblr for some of the better commentary on this whole thing, no joke. But what I saw here tonight was a LOT more of the same and only got a tiny, tiny bit better since I had some folks to crack jokes about it with.

Ugh, this seems horrible but unfortunately, not surprising. 

I was at occupy New Haven meeting also. I agree with a lot of what you have to say but I still have some thoughts and questions about this.

In regards to the group of 4-5 people who took the time to use the meeting as their personal soapbox, I think they were the catalyst for the calls to move to organizing over rhetoric. I think it would be hard to find anyone in attendance who wasn’t, at some point, tired of hearing them speak. I don’t think it was an attempt to leave anyone’s voice unheard but to move the group away from the same “I am mad at rich people” mantra that was getting recycled over and over. I was definitely supportive of this at first, but in the end I am happy the stack’s order was reestablished because after those same few people stopped taking center stage a lot of good points were made that needed to be heard.I wonder though, what bad came from the guy who reached out to the police, mayor, rec office, etc.? It seemed sensible to me for someone to check the legal groundwork for any occupation. Had he discovered that, say, the green was not a place we’d be able to occupy that would’ve changed the entire conversation of the group. I think the information he brought back was valuable, even if it won’t amount to much more than portable bathrooms.

Your point about people not understanding the impact of occupying in areas like Whalley or Dixwell is something I had to spend some time thinking about it. I think most of the people in the group would never have considered the consequences of an additional police presence in those areas, be that a statement of their lack of understanding of the New Haven community or not, it highlights the importance of your presence at the meeting. I’ll be the first to say I am not a native of New Haven and that leaves me at a disadvantage of in the conversation. To me though, its incredibly important to make sure the insight of people who have that kind of knowledge are there and their voices are heard. Your criticisms of the group is spot on but my only hope is that it does not discourage you from continuing to attend as your voice is desperately needed in that conversation. This is only the first baby steps of this movement here and you have the opportunity to shape it so that it represents the distinct culture of New Haven and not just what middle class white activists think that is.

I’m gonna be kinda bitter about this, not directed at you specifically but at people’s overall resistance to ask necessary questions. I’m the one who brought up the police presence already going on on both Whalley & Dixwell and that we can’t afford any more shit going down over here, and that we need to be super careful about being on the Green because it needs to still be a decent backup place for folks to sleep (I mean, how deeply ironic is a bunch of nonhomeless people “reclaiming” public space that’s already been reclaimed by homeless people?).

I blocked consensus on that because it looked like people were just moving forward without thinking about the consequences that protestors could then walk away from when shit’s over. I don’t want to be rude or discourage people from getting involved in this work in New Haven or anywhere—I think any time folks decide to get started organizing, that’s great—but when there are that many people working on something with so little experience and so little knowledge of local history and work already being done, people need to do their homework. You can’t jump into things and think what you’re doing has never been done before (the Green’s been occupied many times before, as have many other areas downtown) or that no one’s already addressing all the issues.

So if people wanna get involved in something like this for the first time, they need to be asking questions, lots and lots of them. And they need to be listening. There needs to be self-reflection all along. There needs to be a serious attempt to get to know other people already doing this work (hint: in New Haven, that mostly means working with people of color) and the histories of the neighborhoods here and what those neighborhoods actually need. White people in tents is not something Whalley Ave. needs, for starters.

I guess what confused me about the Whalley Ave. suggestion is, what did people think Whalley Ave. is, if not a depressed, diverse but mostly POC neighborhood with a huge police presence? Why was that surprising? Why camp out somewhere that you know so little about that you don’t even know that much, let alone live there or do work based there?

Also, it’s not the duty of people of color to educate white people on these things. In fact, after implying it is, the person above me then posted the fact that it’s not our job, so… I guess rhetoric and action aren’t matching up. During the meeting there was lip-service being paid to people of color, at the same time that several of us were leaving feeling really really shitty. Me and troubledsigh and our other friends who were bringing this shit up don’t have to be there to get white people to understand that race is related to the economy, especially when it is so draining and leaves us feeling so disillusioned and unappreciated. People need to do research if they want to do serious work. I didn’t see much of any signs that that was going to happen, and I am no one’s encyclopedia of what black people want and need.

I’m totally cool with people being ignorant of things. I have no patience, however, for people being willfully ignorant. The clearly racist bullshit that’s quoted in the original post, I should add, was said in response to me and another black woman talking about the work already being done by people of color here—that’s some bad faith, knee-jerk shit. Neither me nor the original poster are natives of Connecticut, either, but as soon as I moved here 7 years ago I started asking questions about what was going on and what I could be doing here.

My measuring stick that I usually use to decide how I feel about work being done here is whether I would invite my students, mostly teenagers of color who live in POC neighborhoods in New Haven, to take part in it, whether I feel it would be a good, empowering environment for them, and something I would trust they would be respected. There are projects I have invited students to, and I have worked on related projects to some of my students’ work. Occupy New Haven, so far, is not something I would invite a single one of them to. I am willing to help people do their homework, but I will not do it for them.

Excerpts:

As students took their quest to lower the voting age to 16 to City Hall, they heard concerns about a slippery slope. What’s next: 15-year-old voters? asked an opponent from the Leauge of Women Voters.    

That questions came from Tina Doyle, president of the League of Women Voters of New Haven. She joined with Alderwoman Arlene DePino at a Wednesday night City Hall hearing to oppose an effort to lower the voting age to 16.

Thanks to the efforts of a group of students at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School, the Board of Aldermen’s Youth Services Committee Wednesday took up a proposal that would place a referendum on the November ballot urging the state to lower the voting age from 18 to 16. After listening to testimony from the students and others, the committee voted to pass the item along to the full Board of Alderman for a vote at its meeting next Tuesday. Of the 30 aldermen, 20 will have to support the measure for the referendum vote to take place.

…

Democracy being democracy, of course, not everyone supported the measure. Alderwoman Arlene DePino, who represents Morris Cove and is the only Republican on the board, voted against sending the issue to the full board.

“I don’t think 16-year-olds have the maturity level to vote,” she said. “You have got to go up the ladder one rung at a time.”

…

Seth Poole, program director of Boys and Girls Club of New Haven, who testified in favor of the initiative, said youth participation in voting was particularly important in New Haven because of the city resources devoted to education.

“Half of the city budget is allocated to young people in the form of education,” Poole said, “It’s only fitting to allow them to have some say.”

The students and their supporters also played defense.

Co-op senior Carvako took exception to the idea that 16- and 17-year-olds were not intelligent enough to vote.

“The last time there was an intelligence test used for voting it was used to discriminate against women and people of color,” Carvako said. She also pointed out that lots of adults, including some running for president this year, have misstated parts of the Constitution.

…

“How can you possibly make these decisions when have you three hours of homework?” Doyle asked. “Voting is for people a little further along in their maturity.”

..

Another supporter, Darryl Brackeen Jr., pictured, who is running for alderman in Westville’s Ward 26, noted that when he was a student at Hillhouse High School: “There were students who had to take care of children of their own. There were students who had to be heads of households because their parents were working or couldn’t take care of them or their siblings.”

The students’ demeanor also provided an indirect response to the charge that 16-year-old aren’t mature enough to vote. They had a seriousness and sense of purpose that impressed some committee members.

“You have a group of young people here who are completely dedicated to being part of the political process,” Paca said. “Their efforts are not going unnoticed. They’re doing a real service by getting discussion going on a state level.”

So check that: kids in New Haven are so smart and talented that they have organized a youth movement to be allowed to vote, learned about the law about voting age and how a state referendum works, and gotten aldermen and a state senator to sponsor legislation in their favor…and in response they’re being told they’re not mature enough? By the League of Women Voters, no less? This entire thing is incredibly mature and impressive, and being planned and led by young people.

Also, this woman is so out of touch if she thinks the biggest burden these kids all have going on is doing 3 hours of homework. And props to that young woman tellin it: it’s been done before that voting rights were based on supposed maturity and intelligence.

mellamogerardo:

readin & fightin: McDonald’s riot

readnfight:

Weird story: Last night around 2:30am, I heard a bunch of people yelling and car horns, so I went out on the back porch. The back of our house faces a McDonald’s drive thru, close enough that sometimes we hear the person behind the order box thing asking to take our order and it’s really confusing…

This is so crazy. I just finished reading this from 1984: 

He remembered how once he had been walking down a crowded street when a tremendous shout of hundreds of voices women’s voices — had burst from a side-street a little way ahead. It was a great formidable cry of anger and despair, a deep, loud ‘Oh-o-o-o-oh!’ that went humming on like the reverberation of a bell. His heart had leapt. It’s started! he had thought. A riot! The proles are breaking loose at last! When he had reached the spot it was to see a mob of two or three hundred women crowding round the stalls of a street market, with faces as tragic as though they had been the doomed passengers on a sinking ship. But at this moment the general despair broke down into a multitude of individual quarrels. It appeared that one of the stalls had been selling tin saucepans. They were wretched, flimsy things, but cooking-pots of any kind were always difficult to get. Now the supply had unexpectedly given out. The successful women, bumped and jostled by the rest, were trying to make off with their saucepans while dozens of others clamoured round the stall, accusing the stall-keeper of favouritism and of having more saucepans somewhere in reserve. There was a fresh outburst of yells. Two bloated women, one of them with her hair coming down, had got hold of the same saucepan and were trying to tear it out of one another’s hands. For a moment they were both tugging, and then the handle came off. Winston watched them disgustedly. And yet, just for a moment, what almost frightening power had sounded in that cry from only a few hundred throats! Why was it that they could never shout like that about anything that mattered? 

It’s creepy how similar people are in 2011 to the proles of 1984.

Whoa. Yeah, I mean I guess I see how you’d be pissed if it was 2:30, you just finished clubbing, it’s Saturday night and goddamn if you aren’t gonna soak up your tummy’s alcohol with some Dollar Menu sponges. If I were, say, a member of ANSWER, or some other left-opportunist, I may have hopped the fence and tried blabbing at everyone about anarchism and all the reasons to be pissed. But they know those reasons already. So I just giggled on my porch. Someday my neighborhood will get collectively pissed about something bigger, and not just feel defeated, and it will be glorious.

(via eljotitomasbonito)

Weird story: Last night around 2:30am, I heard a bunch of people yelling and car horns, so I went out on the back porch. The back of our house faces a McDonald’s drive thru, close enough that sometimes we hear the person behind the order box thing asking to take our order and it’s really confusing to hear. There was a full line of cars going from the pick up window all the way around, and a bunch of people out of their cars and yelling, nobody was driving up through the drive thru, and all the horns started honking, and I couldn’t make out what anyone was yelling except, “All this over a Dollar Menu? All this over a Dollar Menu?!” They kept walking around, from car to car, and up and down the drive thru to the window, and everyone was shouting and honking, and more cars kept driving in, seeing the chaos, and leaving. At the height of it, some kid in a house on the other side of the McDonald’s started playing a single note ON A FUCKING TUBA to mimic the car horns. At 2:30 in the morning.

So I stayed out on the porch for a while trying to figure out what was going on, and after a few minutes most of the cars left, but a few stayed behind and a few people were still walking back and forth and yelling. Finally, I was able to make out a person going up to cars as they drove in, and screaming into the cars, “McDonald’s doesn’t have any fries! McDonald’s doesn’t have any fries! How are you supposed to get a cheeseburger?!”

I thought I was gonna actually see a riot in goofy little New Haven. I thought we were gonna throw down in outrage at our inability to eat cheeseburgers without fries. People were so pissed!

These are comrades in New Haven, and the space is used for gardening and bioregionalism meetings, in addition to other events and church services. I know there are at least a few members of this church community who are in various ways disabled, though I don’t know if anyone currently doing work out of the church uses a wheelchair or walker.

by Thomas MacMillan | Jun 16, 2011 4:01 pm

Holy rollers will have to wait a while longer before they can wheel themselves into services at the Unitarian Universalist Society on Whitney Avenue, after zoners nixed plans for a ramp there.

The Board of Zoning Appeals took the side of next-door neighbor Dr. Joseph Sabbatino, who said he was “very concerned about the aesthetics” of a wheelchair ramp, having spent $200,000 renovating the facade of his historic building.

Sabbatino made his comments at the Tuesday evening meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals, where the First Unitarian Universalist Society made its pitch for installing a wheelchair ramp on the south side of their building at 608 Whitney Ave.

The society sought special permission to have a smaller side yard than is required by law, to allow for the ramp.

Zoners voted unanimously—with one abstention—to deny that plan. Chair Cathy Weber said the society should come back with a plan to put the ramp on the north side of the building, away from Sabbatino’s property.

That will effectively double the price of installing the ramp, require cutting down at least two trees and creating a property easement of some kind, said Gaianne Jenkins, the caretaker of the Unitarian building.