Jena 6 flyer

I found this amazing image by doing a search for Jena 6 in flickr. The art is by Gilbert Vallian.

Funny!

From Reddit, I found THIS videoclip of a seagull stealing chips from a convenience store.

Women of Color bloggers want you to know

The amazing turnout for Jena 6 and the fact that it finally hit the mainstream media after months of work by WOC bloggers, reminds us that there are more issues out there that are just as worthy of attention. And if Jena tells us anything, the way to get the real truth is to avoid the nonsense put forth by money-making enterprises like cable news, and go straight to the grassroots.

FIERCE (Fabulous Independent Educated Radicals for Community Empowerment) in New York City, is just such an organization. They are leading the struggle to highlight the cause of four lesbian and black women who are imprisoned after confronting a sexist homophobic thug in the West Village of New York.

Imani Henry has written a terrific summary of the events leading to their prosecution that bfp posted in June here:

Lesbians sentenced for self-defense
All-white jury convicts Black women

By Imani Henry
New York
Published Jun 21, 2007 2:58 AM

On June 14, four African-American women—Venice Brown (19), Terrain Dandridge (20), Patreese Johnson (20) and Renata Hill (24)—received sentences ranging from three-and-a-half to 11 years in prison. None of them had previous criminal records. Two of them are parents of small children.

Their crime? Defending themselves from a physical attack by a man who held them down and choked them, ripped hair from their scalps, spat on them, and threatened to sexually assault them—all because they are lesbians.

Read the entire article.

Beautiful, Also, Are The Souls of My Black Sisters has a beautiful call to action:

That these women could not go to this area of town as if they had no right to be there (per the district attorney who prosecuted their case) reeks of society’s desire to segregate and suffocate these women for what they are. Lesbians.

That these women who sought to harm no one, but, instead, were vilified and castigated because of their attacker’s hatred, while he still walks free, and they languish in prison, is unconscionable. Deemed a so-called “hate crime” against this straight male, every possible racist, anti-woman, anti-LGBT and anti-youth tactic was hurled against these women by the state of New York, and that they lived in a working-class black-majority city of Newark, N.J., and their gender expressions and body structures, was dehumanized, and demonized, in the eyes of the public, and ultimately, the jury that decided against them, is concrete proof that LGBT people have rights that no heterosexual is bound to respect.

The organization, FIERCE!, (http://www.fiercenyc.org ) is fighting a campaign to free these women who have been unjustly imprisoned for having the temerity to be themselves in a lesbian, homosexual-hating society.

Please do not forget the Newark Women.

Contact FIRECE! to lend your help for these unjustly accused women in their fight for justice.

Give them your solidarity, your support, and let them know that they are not forgotten. Let them know that respect and dignity are the rights of all people: black, white, male, female, heterosexual—and lesbian and homosexual.

Making another flyer

Get the banner here
Sign the petition
Join the letter writing campaign

Also sign up for the virtual march

See the awesome example from Black Amazon. She rocks my world.

Looks like a fabulous turnout:

Two Days of Driving to D.C.

It's a long haul from Minneapolis to D.C., but we made it in two days. Stopped the first day in Baraboo Wisconsin to visit the International Crane Museum. Saw 15 species of cranes in one place and heard the amazing story of the restoration of these magnificent birds.

Then it was drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, drive.

Tomorrow we participate in the ANSWER Coalition protest against the War in Iraq. I'll post more when we get back to The Cities.

I'll scream for you, too!

Two Days of Driving to D.C.

Minnesota Daily Supports Teach-In

Awesome. The student newspaper for the Zooniversity encourages students to attend the teach in!

Teach-in for AFSCME

Faculty and students should support striking workers Sept. 11 and 12.

as the University workers' strike continues into its second week, the University's academic community needs to stand with AFSCME employees. This Tuesday and Wednesday from 10:00 a.m. to noon and 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., University faculty, students and AFSCME workers are asked to meet at the Oak Street Cinema near the corner of Washington Avenue and Oak Street in Stadium Village in support of the current workers' strike. The Teach-in, as the event is called, is intended to take the place of regularly scheduled classes in protest of both President Bob Bruininks and the University administration's wage increase offer to University workers, and as a learning opportunity in labor history.

The morning session will include AFSCME members, faculty, graduate students, labor educators and student activists discussing the importance of labor movements and the purpose of unions. A film and panel discussion of the 2003 AFSCME strike will take place in the afternoon. Following the morning session at noon on both days, students and faculty are encouraged to join striking workers on the picket line to show solidarity - the University administration must see they represent only the interests of the minority on campus and are supported by few.

Some faculty and students have already taken steps to oppose the University administration. professors and graduate students have moved classes off campus and students, this past Friday, protested a Board of Regents meeting. To those weary of politics, the University workers strike is not a political issue. The state Legislature already approved a 3.25 percent plus wage increase to state workers. It is the University administration that intentionally lowered the pay increase to 2.25 percent for technical and clerical workers and 2.5 percent for health-care workers. Bob Bruininks has devalued the worth of these women and men.

"The students are a bulwark of liberty," the writer José Martí said near the turn of the 20th century, "and its strongest army." University students and their teachers have an opportunity on Sept. 11 and 12 to amplify the voices of the striking technical, clerical and health-care workers. Please support the University workers on Tuesday and Wednesday and show them their worth.

Banner for Saturday's Protest

Put this together this weekend as well.

One of the IPAC members is going to have this blown up into a 3 ft. high banner to be carried in Saturday's antiwar protest!

Teach In flyer

The teachers of the U of M who support the AFSCME strike decided to put together a teach in. I worked on the flyer(s) this weekend. This should be a great chance for people to catch up on strike doings and to learn more about the labor movement.



Here's a 4-up version to hand on the picket lines.



This morning, Ravenhub and I got up before dawn to meet on the picket lines from 6 to 7 a.m. This was to stop the delivery trucks that come in with food and materials at the dorms. We turned back one truck, but we also got to meet three women strikers who were just awesome.

Updated flyer

Guess who forgot to put the TIME in the first draft of this flyer? Duh!

The awesome power of a strike

AFSCME workers at the University of Minnesota went on strike Wednesday, and it has been awesome to behold. The University has been steadily moving away from the mission of educating the populace and into a role as leader in research and elitist training of the twit children of the middle class. Oops. That's not exactly the language used in the recruiting material.

So, along with the elitist goals, it should come as no suprise that the U of M feels it can treat its lowest paid workers, the clerics, the techs, the dental assistants, the parking lot workers, the sign language interpreters, the child care workers -- like the peons they wish for in their fuedlistic dreams.

Given that, it is just awesome when the workers say, "No!".

I've had the opportunity to participate in the Labor and Community Strike Support Committee and the events of the last few days have simply rocked my world.

On Wednesday, more than 1,500 workers and their supporters rallied on the U of M mall and I was totally fired up by so many of the speeches. Elizabeth Edwards, stopped by during a campaign swing through the state to say she and her husband were walking the picket lines in spirit. Union leaders from the UTU Transit Workers Union and the Northwest Airlines Mechanics Unions, whose strikes received support from AFSCME workers and the community, were there to pay back the support and more.

Today, about 150 of us marched into the Board of Regents meeting to demand the workers' be given a fair wage increase.

This was followed by a rally of 500 plus people who have been walking the picket lines for three days now and who are still standing strong and backing each other up.

It is impossible to be cynical or demoralized when days like today occur.

Ads for the local press

This one is going into the Minnesota Daily, the University of Minnesota student newspaper.



This smaller one is for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, the oldest African-American newspaper in town.

Another flyer for the fall