1. A report from the streets of Chicago, where CPS students are walking out, demanding better conditions to face Covid-19. Riding my bike up Statr St towards the Board of Ed, I already see hundreds of students on their way
2. Students crossings fittingly, at Ida B. Wells Drive
3. A really beautiful scene — several hundred students in front of the Board of Ed chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, Lori Lightfoot has got to go”
4. I can see several dozen CPD hanging out in the street. National Lawyer Guild lawyers & adult volunteer medics watching closely. But protest all student led
5. These are the @chiradsCPS demand. They include demanding an apology to the @CTULocal1
6. Chants of “Fuck Lori Lightfoot, we won’t take her shit.” Teens don’t like being in boring classes in the best of times; be mware crossing them when you make them go to school in a pandemic as their teachers, parents and family get sick and die!
7. A march heading East as the students chant
CPD
KKK
HOW MANY KIDS HAVE YOU KILLED TODAY?
7. Students have taken over intersection of State and Madison, calling for linking arms and a mic check. Traffic stopped on both streets.
8. Students have taken over intersection of State and Madison, stopped traffic in both directions. Mic check, safety directions given. It’s starting to…snow? Eve so slightly?
9. March is retreating from intersection, CPD sirens going off. Helicopter flying low overhead, don’t know if it’s CPD or news. Meanwhile chalk is going down on sidewalks. They are displaying the weight and responsibility of adulthood but are also children under attack.
10. March is back on the sidewalk of Madison heading back to Board of Ed. Speaker is imploring everyone to hold someone’s hand. “You are not in this alone. We are family.”
11. The demands are so reasonable, as seen in signs like this, asking where 280 millio of Covid meant for schools went.
12. The police are moving in closer.
13. Endlessly fascinated by the theater and practices of protest. A continuation of mutual of care practices I’ve seen at Occupy and BLM for a decade now, tho w masks being handed out in addition to feed and water. (Everyone is wearing masks.)
14. What do the kids wants in addition to temporary remote learning? Free masks and tests. “Covid tests, not standardized tests.”
15. “Your profit, our loss.” I imagine these young ppl will be written off as rabble rousing tools by many. But they have as clear an understanding of social forces, social theory, economics and body politics any protesters I’ve ever seen
16. March is disappating in an orderly way. Megaphone speaker asked ppl to continue on social media, this won’t be the only event but they love them and what them to get home safely before cops crack heads.
17. Megaphones giving directions on how to get to various trains, ppl offering each other bus tickets. Lasted an hour. Most common chant was “fuck Lori Lightfoot.”
18. The CPR hangs out with guns and tasers even as the crowd of children dminishes. A telling detail in the next tweet…
19. It has always bothered me that abt 90% of ppl are right handed but, when I see cops with a bullet gun and a taser, the taser (yellow) is on their side 90%+ of the time—meaning if they reach w their dominant hand in a panic they’ll likely grab their gun instinctively first
20. Placing the taser in the non dominate hand and the gun in the dominant hand increases the chances of tragedies like these. (Also tasers don’t de-escalate violence, they increase it. Why are they OR guns used here w children?) npr.org/2021/12/23/106…
21. Signing for today remembering how it is not true that kids aren’t learning in these half-empty, whack schools staffed by subs or parents or national guard (!!!)
They ARE learning—that adults don’t care if they live or die.
And they’re learning to fight back & radicalize.
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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.