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/opiโฆ
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 Garnerโs killing. theverge.com/2019/3/13/1825โฆ
In 2014, @MaeRyan and I made a short film about Eric Garner. Itโs 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/20โฆ
โข โข โข
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
As night falls and waking up at 5 AM, flying to New York and 8 hours of street reporting non-stop catches up with me, I am about to leave this party and let these young ppl who welcomed me into their space carry on. But first, some final thoughtsโฆ
First, THIS is what university life should be! I saw and experienced some extraordinary things: running into old friends, having substantive conversations with students (from here and even Northwestern/Medill), learned from students, learned in teach ins....But most of all...
Most of all, I saw students experiment w making a society: they are experimenting w self governance, and with educating, entertaining, praying with, feeding, defending, organizing and caring for one another. How beautiful is that?!
1. PHEW. I am overwhelmed seeing all the photos in Pulitzer Hall at @columbiajourn of all the Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza and Lebanon
2. Canโt even see them all in one photo
Well, the universe provides: ran into @MedillSchool alum @yasmeenaltaji, who is studying at Columbia and who created this beautiful memorial to killed Palestinian journalists with The Arab and Middle Eastern
Journalists Association
A side note to the Berkeley law dinner fiasco: Professors shouldn't have work events with students in their homes!!!
This is a problem which extends beyond this situation. "Chemerinsky, who is Jewish, says that the incident is the latest in antisemitic attacks on him and that free speech does not extend to his home." OK, then don't have work events in your house! latimes.com/california/stoโฆ
This is all so bizarre to me. UC Berkeley is a public university & this was a UC Berkeley event! Yet the professor is arguing the mortgage is in his & his wife's names & "No one has the right to come into my house, or yours, and disrupt a dinner." HE INVITED THE PERSON WHO SPOKE!
Cheap rent made Philip Glass possible too, who told me in 2012: โThe problem is, when I came to New York, itโs much more difficult now. You could work 3 days a wk loading a truck or driving a cab, and youโd have enough money to live off of" the other 3+ weeks to do your art!
โWork," Glass said, "was a seasonal business! Can you imagine??? "You worked the weekends around the first of the month. And then you had the middle of the month to do your sculpture or your painting or your poetry or whatever you do." Cheap rent made that possible!
Manual labor, Glass said, was greatโthey didn't even own a van! No pressure, even for parking! "You were in great shape. You were physically very strong bc it was hard work but easy. Hard work but easy to do. Didn't take any brainpower & you didn't have to go to work every day."
As the sheriff evicted an elderly couple and was removing a handicapped woman with Parkinson's disease from their home, her partner doused himself with gas and set himself on fire. "This," Aaron Bushnell so presciently said, "is what our ruling class has decided will be normal."
The framing of this story is wild - the headline makes it about the neighbors' reactions, and the sub headline says the sheriff's office "saved one life today, but the outcome wasn't what they wanted." But the deputies' actions took a life, they didn't save any lives.
Their execution of an eviction also executed the end of one life right away and two lives, really -- what is going to happen to this elderly, disabled and now homeless woman? She already lost her home, and the eviction killed her partner and caretaker.
This is very sad, but I have some thoughts. I think Cecilia would have wanted the truth out there (I certainly do) as she didn't want anyone to feel shame about anything, but I think she'd be sad the major response is to arrest and prosecute the dealers. patch.com/new-york/new-yโฆ
I never feel comfortable when young-ish people die and no one says why. It's usually because they died of overdose or suicide (or, going back a few decades tho sometimes still now, AIDS). Treating them as unspeakable only increases stigma.
Cecilia didn't do stigma.
She didn't do shame, and she wouldn't want other people to feel stigma or shame or to experience barriers to getting help. And when we don't talk about HIV/AIDS, suicide or drug addiction, we increase the barriers to people getting help.