In my latest for the New York Times, I wrote about the death of Eric Garner, a recent experience I had being searched by Customs and Border Protection in Arizona, and why we are right to be scared by interactions with police. nytimes.com/2019/08/20/opi…
In press coverage on Pantaleo, many journos have mentioned Erica Garner. But few of us this cycle have banged the drum that the only person in prison over the whole debacle is Ramsey Orta, who filmed Garner’s killing. theverge.com/2019/3/13/1825…
In 2014, @MaeRyan and I made a short film about Eric Garner. It’s a time capsule of what was happening at the time, when Black Lives Matter was exploding with energy. Haunting to look back on the site where Eric died & wonder what happened. theguardian.com/world/video/20…
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I have been thinking through something and it won't go away. I do not in any way want to minimized the horror of Gaza. I have seen three of these solidarity encampments grow, thrive and be dismantled, and I see how they are a metaphor for life in Palestine in some ways.
Each camp is its own little world. Life is modest, and not easy, but people carve out a little world, and they make something beautiful. Jews, Christians and Muslims live together relatively peacefully, until the police or Zionists show up and create chaos and bring violence.
People share what little they have, and give one another a sense of abundance. They make little worlds out of color, language, music, dance, the sun. They share real community. But eventually, either thru deceptive negotiations or brute violence, the little world is destroyed.
Today I am meditating on two of Baldwin’s quotes about children— “For these are all our children, we will all profit by or pay for what they become” and the one below. They both mirror how I feel about students—as teachers, they are all ours to protect.
I am a college professor, and I teach and learn with (and from) adults, and I do not mean to infantilize them. But I do feel protective of them, and I am aware that all faculty have a responsibility for the wellbeing of students, whether they are on our campus or others.
Thank you. I had a touching but sad exchange w a young person at DePaul, when they were having a tough moment. I asked them if they were a student there and they said kind of sheepishly no, they were a student at a community college but they wanted to join the protests.
Greetings friends from Lincoln Park, Chicago and Day 5 of DePaul University’s Liberation Zone. It’s a GORGEOUS day. To counter the lies fed to you by cops, uni admins, the mainstream media, the White House & Netanyahu himself, let’s look around at what’s happening here!
This is a Catholic Vincentian school and its Christian values are being interrogated by students in many places. As you enter the Liberation Zone, there a wall (50 feet long?) of names of children killed in Gaza.
As soon as I walk in a lady asks me if I would like some lunch. I demur bc I am going to a BBQ after but I accept some coffee. The lady and I recognize each other from Day 2 and I ask her it she works here. No, she’s “just Palestinian” and here to support the students. I say
BREAKING: for weeks, @shahanmufti & I have worked together to co-author & gather 50 signatures for a letter demanding the New York Times commission an independent investigation of "Screams Without Words." @laurawags has the story @washingtonpost washingtonpost.com/style/media/20…
Our letter was signed by more than 50 professors of journalism and communication at more than a dozen universities across the United States and Canada. It was delivered to A. G. Sulzberger and the NYT editor of standards and can be read in full here: washingtonpost.com/documents/adc3…
As we laid out in our letter, there is a lot of precedent for this. The Times itself followed up an internal investigation of its staff reporter Jayson Blair. And @RollingStone commissioned @columbiajourn to do just this after their UVA disaster. cjr.org/investigation/…
No, I am not tenured. How will I account for yesterday and today and tomorrow? Will our board forgive me when I go up and let me stick around? Doesn’t matter. This is the job: to speak about important matters. And protecting our students is the only thing that matters right now.
We must speak against the genocide. We must speak about the state and corporate suppression of free speech on our campuses. And we must backup our brilliant, brave, creative and wonderful students—putting our bodies between them and uni admin or cops if we must.
This is the job. It has been disappointing, but not surprising, to see how few tenured profs show up and speak up compared to untenured and contingent faculty, grad student workers, librarians and staff. But many GOT tenure BECAUSE unis reward silence in moments like these.
Wrapping up my first shift as an EJP faculty support for the Northwestern Gaza Solidarity encampment. An exciting day, and I’ve never felt more connected with my students. Heading home before my shift tomorrow, but first, let me share some things about the camp.
The camp is a sight of music, political education, mutual aid and sign making. The students are experimenting with how to teach, feed each other, make art and organize together.
The students are learning about POWER — both literal and political—and how to generate, wield, understand and distribute it.