After Sandy, Occupy Movement Re-Emerges as Relief Hub for Residents in Need

Democracy Now

In addition to the National Guard and FEMA, one of the more active relief efforts in New York City has been a volunteer effort organized by alumnae of Occupy Wall Street called Occupy Sandy Relief. Along with groups like 350.org and Recovers.org, Occupy activists quickly mobilized hundreds, and then thousands, of people to help affected areas of New York City. Democracy Now! senior producer Mike Burke speaks with Occupy organizer Catherine Yeager in the Rockaways about Occupy Wall Street's transformation into Occupy Sandy Relief.

Hymn to Working Class New York

Hymn to Working Class New York 

by Mark Naison | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)

 

As we struggle through the aftermath of the worst storm in New York’s history, my thoughts turn to the first responders- firefighters, police officers, EMS workers- and the role they played in the last great tragedy to strike New York, the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11.

The heroism these men and women displayed then, and in our current circumstances, is not a surprise to me. For the fifteen years I spent coaching and running youth programs in Brooklyn in the 80’s and 90’s, civil servants, especially fire fighters, were an integral part of the coaching cohort I interacted with daily, both in my own neighborhood, and throughout Brooklyn and Staten Island, and there was never a doubt in my mind, based on that experience, that they would sacrifice their health, well being and if necessary their lives if called on to rescue people in trouble.

My relationships with many of these individuals, especially those who represented opposing parishes—in CYO basketball—or opposing teams—in sandlot baseball—was  not always easy. They were, like me, stubborn, intimidating, over bearing and fiercely competitive and we had many arguments in the midst of closely contested games. But they were also selflessly devoted to their players, with whom they spent countless hours at games and practices, and whatever their private political or racial attitudes, were determined to maintain Brooklyn sports leagues as a place where young people from every neighborhood and racial and ethnic background could find an outlet for their talents.

 

Never did I see any of them participate in, or tolerate, the slightest amount of race baiting from their players and parents, even though some of them came from neighborhoods, such as Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge or Rockaway, then infamous for racial exclusivity. When push came to shove, they were as fair as they were loyal, and I never felt the slightest hesitation taking interracial teams from Park Slope into gyms or ball fields in all white neighborhoods because I knew we would always be protected.

This kind of quiet heroism, I felt, allowed for more dramatic forms of heroism when circumstances called for it. It surprised me not at all that some of my fellow coaches ran up the stairways of the World Trade Center to their death while other people were running down. Nor would it surprise me to see their counterparts today, some of whom might be their own children , run into flooded buildings to save a stranded families or risk being crushed when clearing fallen trees. This is the ethic of loyalty and sacrifice they grew up among, a New York working class tradition passed on from generation to generation among members of the uniformed services and among more than a few teachers, transit workers and other civil servants.

For quite a while, most of the attention by elected officials and the media have been bestowed upon financial and artistic elites who gravitate to our city. But it is the working people of New York who insure the city’s daily functioning, and in moments of crisis, sacrifice themselves for others so that the city can continue to survive, and when things improve, begin to grow and thrive.

We have always lived among quiet heroes, some of them immigrants working three jobs to support families her and in their home countries, some of them teachers and social workers serving people in the face of deep skepticism and contempt from the power that be; some of them members of our uniformed services who are asked to risk their lives for the rest of us.

I just wanted to take this moment to show some love for these people and hope you will do so as well.

***

Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program. He is the author of two books, Communists in Harlem During the Depression and White Boy: A Memoir. Naison is also co-director of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP). Research from the BAAHP will be published in a forthcoming collection of oral histories Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life From the 1930’s to the 1960’s.

Islamophobic Ads Come to NYC subway

RTAmerica 

Ads with calls to "defeat Jihad" are being put up in 10 subway stations in New York City. They come from a group that's accused of sparking hate by critics, but have been given the green light to be posted by NY officials. RT's Anastasia Churkina reports on the controversial message and what this may mean at a time when unrest fuels in the Middle East.

Grassroots Effort Launches to Reform NYC Jails, Combat Culture of Brutality at Department of Correction

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:Monday, July 9, 2012


CONTACT:Emma Woods, 646-200-5303/203-568-4780, emma@berlinrosen.com

Grassroots Effort Launches to Reform NYC Jails, Combat Culture of Brutality at Department of Correction

NYC Has One of the Highest Rates of Solitary Confinement in U.S.

By 2013, NYC Department of Correction (DOC) Will Have Increased Solitary Confinement Cells by 69%

Lawsuits against Correction Officers Cost City Millions, Yet Funding for Officer Training Down 40%; Top DOC Officials Have History of Brutality

New York, NY– A grassroots effort to reform New York City jails launched with a protest outside a meeting of the Board of Correction, where NYC Department of Correction (DOC) Commissioner Dora Schriro was present. The protest marked the first public action of the New York City Jails Action Coalition, a collection of activists working to improve conditions, stop the use of solitary confinement, and increase transparency and accountability at the DOC. As the Commissioner and Board Members entered the building, activists held signs calling out the DOC’s most brutal officers.

Amidst a national conversation on ending the abusive practice of solitary confinement, the NYC Department of Correction is partway through its plan to increase solitary confinement capacity by 69% by the end of Fiscal Year 2013. New York City jails have one of the highest rates of solitary confinement in the U.S.— by FY13, NYC’s rate will be up to five times the national average, with 9-10% of the jail population in solitary confinement at any one time.

DOC Commissioner Dora Schriro calls the DOC’s punitive segregation policies“progressive and highly effective.” Yet a United Nations expert on torture recently declared that solitary confinement should be banned as a jail punishmentand reserved for only the most extreme situations. Meanwhile, states across the country—including Mississippi, Maine, Ohio, Illinois, Colorado, and Washington State—have made efforts to reduce the number of people in solitary confinement and rethink the criteria used for placing people in isolation. Notably, Mississippi’s efforts resulted in a decrease in violence and a cost-savings for the state.

“At a time when solitary confinement is being nationally acknowledged as abusive and inhumane, New York City’s choice to expand this brutal method of punishment is unconscionable. Although New York State has acknowledged the horrors of solitary confinement by enacting the SHU Exclusion Law, which diverts people with serious mental illness from solitary confinement into treatment units, New York City’s DOC has turned a blind eye,” noted Alexandra Smith, MSW, who received a 2008 Soros Justice Fellowship to advocate for implementation of the state law.

“NewYork City uses solitary confinement to punish the most banal offenses, from‘horseplay’ to ‘noisy behavior.’” said Richard Sawyer, JAC member and  student at NYU School of Law. “The DOC uses solitary as the first resort when it should be the last.”

The coalition is also taking aim at the culture of brutality in the DOC. Each year, the City spends millions settling lawsuits filed against corrections officers for brutalizing inmates. Between 2003 and 2011, brutality lawsuits settled by DOC cost the City well over $5 million.

While allegations of abuse skyrocket, funding for correction officer training is down 40% over the last decade. Not only does the DOC tolerate abusive tactics, the coalition asserts, but it rewards them, with some of the worst offenders promoted to positions of leadership in the DOC.  According to a class action lawsuit filed by The Legal Aid Society at the end of May 2012:

▪    Deputy ChiefCarmine LaBruzzoserved as a captain in the Central Punitive Segregation Unit (CPSU), the main solitary confinement facility, from 1996-2003, when he was charged with personal involvement in no fewer than six use of force violations.

▪    Assistant Chief of SecurityMark Scottwas suspended for 42 days in 1997 after an Administrative Law Judge found that he had struck a prone incarcerated individual with his baton “as though he were spear fishing.”

▪    As Assistant Deputy Wardenof the CPSU, Eric Ramosallegedly lured an inmate out of his cell in 2002 and instructed his officers to beat the inmate, according to the Ingles v. Toro class action. Since he took command, inmate complaints of excessive force in the CPSU have increased dramatically.  Ramos is now the highest-ranking officer at the CPSU.

▪    While Captain in the CPSU in the mid-1990s, Ronald Jorgenson was observed brutally assaulting an individual and was reported to the Deputy Warden of Security. He was not disciplined, but was later promoted to Deputy Warden for Security at the Anna M. Kross Center (AMKC).

▪    While assigned to the CPSU in the mid-1990s, Emmanuel Bailey was notorious for his involvement in assaulting individuals incarcerated there.  An officer who later became an FBI informant saw Bailey assault an individual and then cover it up. He wassubsequently promoted to Warden of the Robert N. Davoren Complex (RNDC), where he was in charge of a notoriously violent youth facility where gang members are said to enforce discipline at the behest of correction officers.

“Family members are outraged at the continued brutality, poor mental health services and lack of accountability at Rikers Island,” stated Leah Gitter, member of Rights for Imprisoned People with Psychiatric Disabilities.  “Our loved ones should not be subjected to such extreme punishment and cruelty.  It is time to make changes at Rikers to stop these horrendous practices.”

“I worked with a 17-year-old for months before he felt comfortable sharing hisstory with me. When he was then put in solitary confinement and humiliated on a daily basis by officers, he became so depressed; there were days he wouldn't talk,” recounted Megan Crowe-Rothstein, LMSW, Director of Social Work at Urban Justice Center’s Mental Health Project.  “It was so painful for me to see him suffering – I can only imagine how he survived, or how anyone does, in those conditions.”

In the coming months, the NYC Jails Action Coalition plans to request that New York City adopt rules to severely curtail solitary confinement.

ABOUT THE NEW YORK CITY JAILS ACTION COALITION:


The New York City Jails Action Coalition is a grassroots collection of activists, including the formerly incarcerated, currently incarcerated, family members and other community members, working to promote human rights, dignity and safety for people in New York City jails. Our goals include: Increasing transparency in Department of Correction (DOC) policies in NYC jails and accountability for DOC practices and abuses; ending the use of solitary confinement (punitive segregation, SHU, the Box, the Bing) in NYC jails and opposing the DOC’s planned increase in punitive segregation cells; addressing the medical and mental health needs of people in NYC jails and ensuring access to continuing care in the community upon release; advocating for more rehabilitative services in NYC jails to promote reintegration; and fighting against the racist and discriminatory policies leading to mass incarceration.

###

Open Letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York

Mary Altaffer/Associated Press

Open Letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York
by Kevin Powell | special to NewBlackMan

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Dear Mayor Bloomberg:

I was awakened in the wee hours of this morning by texts and calls from friends and associates distraught that Occupy Wall Street protestors were being forcibly removed from Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan. Even more troubling is that you chose to make a mockery of the First Amendment of our United States Constitution by not only evicting the peaceful activists, but also by blocking media outlets from recording the police raid. This is America, Mr. Bloomberg, a nation that through much effort, tears, blood, and, yes, deaths, has evolved from a slaveholding country that also destroyed much of Native American culture, to one where women, people of color, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, the physically challenged, Jews, Muslims, White ethnics from places like Ireland and Italy, and so many others have been able to gain some measure of freedom and democracy. We are not the nation we ought to be, yet, but we are also not the nation we once were, either. We do that history, and ourselves, a great disservice when we in leadership positions resort to tactics used to deny freedom and democracy, in the old America of Jim Crow laws, in the old South Africa of apartheid.

As I watched the amateur video made of the raid online this morning, I got very choked up. I am a big supporter of Occupy Wall Street because it speaks directly to my history as a Black person in America. The occupation is nothing more than the bus boycotts, freedom rides, and sit-ins of the Civil Rights era. The nonviolent approach harkens back to the principles of Dr. King, borrowed, of course, from the great Indian leader Gandhi. The use of technology to spread the Occupy Wall Street messages is no different than how W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, and other visionaries used the media at their disposal in their day to communicate with the masses. So when we choose to walk down the path of repression, of removing and silencing those who would speak out, Mr. Mayor, we are saying that we are choosing to be on the wrong side of history. That we are choosing to be in bed with the devil, instead of on the side of God, of the noble promises of our America.


As I said, I am a supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement, here in New York City, and across America. I have been a part of many rallies and marches the past two months. I have spent much time talking and listening to participants, at Zuccotti Park, at planning meetings, and in private one-on-one sessions with some of the leadership. They are mostly good and decent Americans and I have not witnessed a movement like this since the anti-apartheid protests of the 1980s when I was a college student. It is the same energy, the same sense of purpose, and the same fire-in-belly belief that what they are doing is right. They are not anti-American. They are not anti-business. They are not anti-wealthy folks. They are not anti-police. They are not anti-you, Mr. Mayor. They, we, merely want to see our nation be a place where people, regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, religion, or educational level can have an opportunity to have an opportunity; to not struggle to get or keep a job or career; to not struggle to pay for an education which should be our birthright; to not suffer through housing woes, including foreclosures; to not have to spend our entire lives in debt, broke, or broken spiritually and emotionally because of our finances.

But what message are we sending, Mayor Bloomberg, when we come like the thief in the night to remove people by extreme force? What message are we sending when we inhumanly destroy a community built to show what democracy can look like in our era? How condescending and nearsighted are we to state these people are dirty and unfocused, that they somehow are more of a public nuisance than certain banks and corporations that have wrecked the lives of so many Americans? How arrogant are we to assume, just because we may have a certain financial background, status, or title, to think we are above relearning lessons of democracy at various points in our American lives? And how can we ever again say it was not right for militaries in Middle Eastern and North African nations to crack down on the democracies there, then we turn around and do the same on our own shores, only months later, and to our own children, to our own people?

Mayor Bloomberg, you said on your weekly radio show, several weeks ago, that it was inevitable for Americans to take to the streets because of the state of our economy. But is the solution to beat these people back with batons and gloved fists, or is the solution to listen to their voices, hear their concerns, and figure out a way, together, for us as a people, all people, to transform America for these times and beyond?

I know somewhere in your person, Mayor Bloomberg, you have a soul and a moral conscience. You are going to have to ask yourself, billionaire or not, mayor of New York City or not, whose side you are on, because the Occupy Wall Street movement is here to stay, and will only get bigger and stronger when leaders like you attack the protestors, as you've done. Justice, Mr. Bloomberg, is not on the side of those who would misuse and abuse their power. Justice is, forever, on the side of those who would even sacrifice their own bodies because they believe so deeply in their cause. Those are the kind of people and the kind of Americans I stand with, Mayor Bloomberg. Those are the kind of people I know, from their tents, blankets, and makeshift occupied communities, will do for America exactly what those Civil Rights workers did with their shoes, overalls, songs of freedom, and voter registration cards a generation ago. And so it shall be, and so it shall be-

Respectfully,

Kevin Powell

***

Kevin Powell is an activist, public speaker, and author or editor of 10 books. His 11th book, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and The Ghost of Dr. King: And Other Blogs and Essays, will be published by lulu.com in January 2012. You can reach him at kevin@kevinpowell.net, or follow him on Twitter @kevin_powell.

Mark Naison: Why Bloomberg Had To Attack Occupy Wall Street

Why Bloomberg Had To Attack Occupy Wall Street

by Mark Naison | special to NewBlackMan

Occupy Wall Street is Under Attack by a huge force while the subways have been closed, along with the Brooklyn Bridge. Here are some key components of the Bloomberg policies that might explain what the Mayor has to take such extreme measure to crush

Dissent:

1) Subsidize luxury housing in Brooklyn and Manhattan and concentrate all affordable housing in  the hyper-segregated sections of the Bronx and East New York.

2) Undermine public education by closing schools over the opposition of parents students teachers and community members and replace them with charter schools that promote rote learning, obedience and militarized discipline for the children of the poor.

3) When  a movement finally arises that challenges the Mayor's plan to turn Manhattan and parts of North Brooklyn into a city for the wealthy  of the globe at the expense of  the city's working class, middle class and poor who live in the outer boroughs, you close the bridges and subways, bar the press and crush that movement with Riot Police, pepper spray, water hoses.

Not since 9/11 have the police of this city been mobilized to this degree.

And for what?

Democracy has been under attack in this city for some time. Now even the illusion of Democracy has been removed.

***

Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program. He is the author of two books, Communists in Harlem During the Depressionand White Boy: A Memoir. Naison is also co-director of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP). Research from the BAAHP will be published in a forthcoming collection of oral histories Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life From the 1930’s to the 1960’s.

Why Teachers Must Become Community Organizers and Justice Fighters

Why Teachers Must Become Community Organizers and Justice Fighters

by Mark Naison | special to NewBlackMan

There is a long history of Teacher Activism in the United States. In New York City, the tradition goes back to the late 1930s when teachers associated with the Communist Party and the New York City Teachers Union fought to have Negro History Month honored in the NYC Public schools, to force the replacement or reassignment of racist teachers and to challenge the placement of Black students in the lowest tracks and most decayed schools in a highly tracked school system. This legacy of anti-racist activism, always done in collaboration with civil rights organizations and community groups, lasted into the late 50’s when many of the most effective teacher activists were pushed out of the New York school system during the Cold War. This forgotten tradition is described in depth in Clarence Taylor’s new book Reds and the Black Board: Communism, Civil Rights and the New York City Teachers Union.

After the old Teachers Union faded from the scene, another group of teacher activists, drawing upon a broad coalition of liberals, Socialists and moderate trade unionists, won recognition for the United Federation of Teachers as official bargaining agent for New York City School teachers, winning them decent salaries,  job security, and some level of freedom of expression inside and outside their schools.  The UFT from its outset worked to improve conditions in schools for all students and supported the non violent civil rights struggle in the South and the North. Unfortunately  in 1968,  the UFT found itself engaged in a conflict with some community leaders in Harlem and Ocean Hill Brownsville during a series of brutal strikes challenging community control of school policies in those neighborhoods. These strikes not only created a fissure between UFT and civil rights organizations, it created fissures within the UFT between supporters and opponents of the strike that left a legacy of bitterness that lasted for years to come. 

In the wake of that strike the UFT proved powerless to resist a devastating attack on the New York City Public schools orchestrated by bankers who dominated the Emergency Financial Board which took the city into financial receivership following the Fiscal Crisis of 1975. The Board of Education was forced by this unelected body to make budget cuts which closed down the world class music programs in the city’s junior high schools      (most junior high schools had upwards of 200 musical instruments which were lent out free of charge to anyone who had made their bands or orchestras) and ended the after school programs and night centers which were a fixture of every public school in the city in the 1940’s 1950’s and 1960’s. These programs were never fully replaced, leaving children in the city’s schools, from the late 1970s on, with far less in the way of arts and sports and after school mentoring than their parents generation had enjoyed in those very same schools

Nearly 40 years have passed since the Fiscal Crisis budget cuts and our public schools now face a challenge more insidious and perhaps, more formidable. All across the nation, a poisonous coalition of multi billionaire business leaders, test and technology companies, charitable foundations and elected officials are pushing a nationwide education agenda that involves the introduction of high stakes testing at all grade levels, evaluation of teachers and schools based on student test scores, and the introduction of “competition” into public education by the creation of independently managed charter schools given special advantages in funding and recruitment.

This Education Reform agenda, embraced by both the Bush and Obama Administrations and embodied in No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, represents a formidable assault on teachers hard won collective bargaining rights as well as their classroom autonomy and freedom of expression, but it also represents a devastating attack on children in America’s working class and poor communities at a time when our nation is experiencing a devastating redistribution of wealth upward and a sharp increase in poverty levels. Not only does corporate education reform reduce schooling in the nation’s poor communities to test prep and obedience training , squeezing out critical thinking and the arts, it divides those communities against themselves by transforming charter schools into privileged enclaves which promise passage out of the neighborhood to a few lucky children and view the remaining public schools, and their students, with aversion and contempt.

Given the complex challenge corporate education reform poses, today’s teacher activists cannot just have a strategy which is solely school or teacher centered. They must become community organizers who fight school closings, the proliferation of tests, and the weakening of teacher bargaining rights as attacks on the ability of working class people and people of color to fight for better opportunities for themselves and their children. In this setting, Teacher Activists must put forth a vision of Radical Democracy which envisions an education which empowers students as critical thinkers and agents of historical change, not just as obedient test takers and which envisions schools playing a central role in neighborhoods united and mobilized to get a fair share of the nation’s resources.

Occupy Wall Street has provided a language and an example to put that model of Radical Democracy into practice. But it cannot work unless teachers link their own fate to that of the students they work with and the people in the communities where their schools are located. Unless Teacher activists become community organizers and justice fighters in the broadest sense, they will lose the battle to defend their classrooms from the incursions of corporate interests.

***

Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program. He is the author of two books, Communists in Harlem During the Depression and White Boy: A Memoir. Naison is also co-director of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP). Research from the BAAHP will be published in a forthcoming collection of oral histories Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life From the 1930’s to the 1960’s.

Kevin Powell: #OccupyWallStreet: The Revolution Will Be Multiplied

#Occupy Wall Street: The Revolution Will Be Multiplied

by Kevin Powell | special to NewBlackMan

I wasn't sure what to expect on the sunny and gusty afternoon of Wednesday, October 5, 2011, when I left a lunch meeting in the Wall Street area of Lower Manhattan, New York City. I purposely scheduled the get-together there so I could easily move from the restaurant to Zuccotti Park, on Broadway between Liberty and Cedar near Ground Zero, where protesters have been camped out for three weeks. No, they are not actually occupying Wall Street (the city and the police are making sure of that), but they are close enough, right smack in the middle of America's largest and most powerful financial district. This began this past summer when the anti-capitalist magazine AdBusters put out a call for Americans to occupy Wall Street on September 17th. With people's rebellions in places like Egypt, Spain, and the American state of Wisconsin still fresh in some folks' minds, seems it was only a matter of time that protests would begin to spread, like wildfire, throughout America, regardless of who is in the White House at this very moment.

I came because I am in support of the protesters, of the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York and elsewhere, for two basic reasons. One, I too have been profoundly affected, financially, by The Great Recession, and I grew up in poverty, my single mother and I, so it troubles me to the highest degree to see anyone in America suffering hardships, economic or otherwise. Secondly, I have been a political and community activist and organizer for 27 long years, since I was a teenage student and youth leader, and I've worked in all sorts of movements and mini-movements. I've organized or participated in more building takeovers, sit-ins, marches, rallies, conferences, benefits, disaster relief efforts, concerts, and political and community interventions and negotiations than I can even recall at this point. This is my life work, to help people to help themselves. Thus any time I see or hear of a critical social cause, if I am able to do so, I am going to jump right in.

It is this spirit I carried into Zuccotti Park. And what an amazing spiritual and political vibe there: People on laptops and hand-held devices typing or texting nonstop. People napping on blankets, sleeping bags, or the grass. People plucking guitar strings, blowing horns, and banging on drums and garbage cans. People having random but passionate conversations here and there about "capitalism," "democracy," "President Obama," or "the police." People sitting peacefully, in a circle, as they meditate amidst all the compelling, organic, and chaotic magic around them. People serving food to the regular protesters in the community kitchen, while other people are painting demonstration signs on strips of cardboard with captions like "Poor people did not crash the economy" or "Give me back my future." People borrowing, returning, or thumbing through books from the makeshift lending library. Everyday people, mostly younger, but certainly a number of elders, some of whom, I am sure, have in their activist resumes Civil Rights or anti-Vietnam work, or a fond memory of Woodstock. Most of the people here are White, although there is some people of color present, too. Also very clear that there are straight folks and gay folks, persons with disabilities, and persons who are war veterans, with a few wearing their camouflage-green uniforms.

As I walked slowly through Zuccotti, from the Broadway entrance to the Trinity Place side, I thought it strangely ironic that the park's northwest corner is across the street from the old World Trade Center site. In fact Zuccotti Park was covered in debris immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and subsequently was used as a staging area for recovery efforts. Kissing the sky high above Zuccotti now is the Freedom Tower, the 105-story edifice with a price tag of about $3 billion and counting, which will finally be opened some time in 2013.

I also thought of the fact that Lower Manhattan had once been the staging area for significant parts of the American slave trade, the importation of Africans, my people, literally creating the concept of Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange because, well, the first stocks ever exchanged and the first global economy were enslaved Black people. As proof, not far from the Occupy Wall Street protest is the African Burial Ground, where bones of some of these Africans were discovered several years back. And before the Africans, and the European settlers, slaveholders, and colonizers, were the original owners of this land, the Native Americans. Manhattan as a word is of the Lenape language, and it means "island of many hills."

Not that any of the above would be known to the average person, or perhaps even the average protester here, but I think it important for those of us who call ourselves Americans, or human beings, or both, to be clear that nothing we do, with a structure or not, is without a context, or is ever disconnected from the history of who we are. We literally walk atop the spirits and the graves of the good and the bad that has led us to these days of protest and occupation.

We the people, that is. Therefore, this infant movement is absolutely correct in stating, loudly, "We are the 99 percent." We the American people, of diverse backgrounds, while the wealthiest 1 percent in America owns and controls 42 percent of America's wealth. You see it with the completely-out-of-control unemployment numbers and rapid freefall of America's middle class, as well as the horrific reality of America's underclass. You see it with the tax breaks and in-your-face salaries for corporations and their executives. You see it with the soaring crime rates in our communities, those crimes directly tied to financial desperation, especially in ghetto communities. You see it with students either dropping out of college due to tuition hikes and a decrease in student loans, and you see it with students with degrees on various levels that simply cannot find a job, any job. And you see it with the people sitting in court fighting foreclosure on their homes, or battling landpersons to hold onto apartments they rent.

Why this very week of the mass Occupy Wall Street protest my office has been inundated with calls, emails, and social network messages from people, everyday people, searching for work, or an apartment they can afford. One woman, a 74-year-old Brooklyn resident, is on the ledge, about to be evicted, but can only spare $800-$850 per month for rent. Her monthly social security check is $931. So she will have just $80-$130 per month to cover things like groceries, public transportation, and her prescription drugs. In the richest nation on earth it is completely inhuman and obscene that there are so many people suffering, surviving, barely, day-to-day, as images of wealth, power, and privilege are routinely thrown in our faces via our mass media culture.

So Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City and throughout America is for those of us who feel our voices and misery have been ignored. It is for those of us who believed, way down in our guts, that Barack Obama, the 2008 presidential candidate, was the change, finally, America had been waiting for. But I knew even then that that was not the case, that the best Mr. Obama could possibly be was a symbol of what was possible, but that real change only happens from the bottom up, from the people, never from the top down. That was the case with slavery and the abolitionist movement. That was the case for women and the feminist movement. That has been the case for the lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender community, and the gay rights movement. And that was certainly the case for Black folks and the Civil Rights Movement.

So it must be the case, now. And that is precisely why this people's "revolution" has multiplied. If you visit www.occupytogether.org, you see meet-up and actions on many levels presently happening in nearly 500 American cities. If you visit http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/Introduction you get personal testimonies from everyday people describing how tough their lives are during these times. Some mainstream media tried to ignore, distort, or even mock this movement initially, but no more. Not when celebrities like Susan Sarandon and Russell Simmons have come aboard to support, and not when 700 protesters were arrested attempting to cross the Brooklyn Bridge the other day. And not when you are dealing with a generation of young people so tech-savvy they are very clear that they are the media themselves, fully stocked with video cameras, informational websites, and even their own newspaper, "The Occupied Wall Street Journal." This is a movement everyone, and you need to get a late pass if you are missing what is happening here. For this is historic.

At least labor unions in cities like New York and Boston get it. What made October 5th so special is that workers were present in a massive way for the first time. Some 20,000 protesters showed up, many of them belonging to my city's largest labor unions, led by their union presidents. At Foley Square, a stone's throw from the Manhattan exit of the Brooklyn Bridge, and where the long-running tv drama "Law & Order" was often filmed, nurses, teachers, and other organized labor folks swarmed to a rally and march in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protesters. What was most memorable is the fact that one union leader after another admitted they were simply following the lead of "these young leaders." Unions definitely remain important in New York City politics, as evidenced by the assembly line of elected officials who showed up hoping to get the obligatory photo opportunity and microphone moment. But, to me, if we are to have a truly progressive, multicultural movement in America, it Is going to demand a different kind of coalition for these times, one led by a new configuration of progressive voices, and not overwhelmed by union leaders, not overwhelmed by politicians, not overwhelmed by religious leaders, and certainly not overwhelmed by the funding of corporations or foundations (I duly noted what leaders and organizations were not in attendance because of who clearly funds their work).

That old guard coalition has been happening since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s and it has run its course and we must let it die a natural death. While I was certainly glad and honored to be at this union-led rally (my own mother was a long-time member of 1199SEIU in Jersey City, where I was born and raised), my heart and mind were with the people in the crowd, and back at Zuccotti Park. Later for power or ego trips, photo opps, or who can and cannot speak at a rally. This is about the people, like that 74-year-old woman my team and I are desperately trying to find an apartment she can afford. And not for nothing, we've got to support the leaders, visible or not, who are actually the voices for the people and have their pulse on the veins of the people.

For when we in leadership positions, whether we call ourselves leaders or not, and begin to think in those terms, and not in terms of our careers or our prestige or our individual or organizational agendas, then and only then do we begin to do what the Tea Party begat in 2009: a natural-birth movement led by the people, then nurtured into a full-fledged political dynamo. Part of that nurturing-and the unions made this abundantly real just by their sheer numbers-has to be the inclusion of people of color into the Occupy Wall Street movement. Until yesterday, at least in New York City, the scene was, again, mostly White sisters and brothers (yes, we all are sisters and brothers, no question). Well-meaning, yes, but good intentions do not mean you are truly progressive. Can't continue to say "We are the 99 percent" but there is not a consistent and daily picture of the rainbow coalition of America from city to city. Can't continue to say "We are the 99 percent" and your leaderless leadership (which is untrue, because someone is clearly calling the shots here, at least some of the time) is mostly White males, and not inclusive as it could be of women, of people of color, of gay sisters and brothers, and of other marginalized people as equal partners in the leadership, visible or not. Can't continue to say "We are the 99 percent" and not understand the importance of history, of our shared history of protest, of movements, and how it is going to take younger people and older people, and new activists and seasoned activists like myself, to make this into the powerful movement it can truly be, not just for a few weeks, or a few months, but for the next several years, and as needed.

And you can't continue to say "We are the 99 percent" if, eventually, there is no real agenda for the people other than a lashing out about Wall Street, about the need for jobs, or to end all wars, and on and on. Where influential Tea Party backers were both brilliant and strategic is that they saw this spontaneous thing happening and they got behind it and blew wind into the sails. So much so that there are now Tea Party political candidates within the Republican Party. And certainly Republican presidential nominee contenders who feel compelled to respond to the Tea Party national agenda.

(And, to be fair to my White sisters and brothers, Black folks and Latino folks in America in particular, two of the most in-need communities, economically, need to get off our collective behinds and fully join and co-lead the Occupy Wall Street movement. As the saying goes, either you are a part of the solution or you are a part of the problem....)

That is what we on the left, we so-called progressives or liberals or whatever we call ourselves, must do. Drive the national conversations on issues of the day in a new direction. And not as a reaction to Republicans, or the Tea Party, or right-wing conservatives, but because we understand, as a people who know change is in our hands, truly, that movements only last if you are proactive, and have a vision for what needs to happen, even while maintaining a very loose and democratic leadership structure where different voices are heard and honored.

I thought of this and more as we 20,000 strong marched down Broadway to Zuccotti Park. It was organized and disorganized, it was fast and it was slow, and it was empowering and it was frustrating. And I loved every second of the march, of the people spilling into the park, of the sense of love and peace everywhere, of the heightened intensity of the drummers, at once whipping the crowds into a frenzy, and by the same token those drums a call, spiritually, for protection of these fearless protesters. And God knows that protection was needed, because as day shook loose its clothes and became night, more New York police, on horses, on motorcycles, on foot, and in the wagons, were dispatched to the area. A security guard at a local building even told me that some plainclothes officers had come in a few times this week to go to the highest floor possible, to do surveillance on the protesters.

As Russell Simmons called them, these are mostly "sweet kids." They are participating in civil disobedience, one of the grand traditions of world democracy, as taught by giants like Gandhi and Dr. King, two figures those in power love to quote when convenient. But that does not matter when the power structure of any country, be it Egypt or America, feels threatened. Or embarrassed. So when about 1000 of these protesters decided, at nightfall, to march down Broadway, to literally occupy Wall Street, they were met with the full force of the New York Police Department. About 30 were arrested and rumors immediately shot through the protest, like the stink of fresh urine on a side street wall, that a number of protesters had been beaten or maced by the police. Even a local tv crew was maced, it was said. (See http://occupywallst.org/ for more details) No matter, even more police barricades were brought out, even more police showed up, and before you knew it we were contained, like pigs in a pen, to a one-block radius on Broadway, right in front of the park. Warning sent loud and clear: you can protest, but the moment you dare to journey beyond these boundaries, we are going to stop you and arrest you.

One of my favorite chants of the movement is "Show me what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like." But when we beat and mace our young people for exercising their democratic rights to speak their minds and to assemble peacefully, what message are we sending to them, to ourselves, and to the world? And how are we any different, then, than Bull Connor, that infamous police chief of Birmingham Alabama, as he water-hosed and unleashed vicious barking dogs on young people during the Civil Rights era? Or leaders in foreign countries who attack their protesters for demanding democratic reform as we are doing here in the streets of America? And was it not New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg himself, a few weeks back in a radio interview, who said there would be unrest, soon, in America, if we did not get Americans jobs? Word for word, Mr. Bloomberg stated "We have a lot of kids graduating college can't find jobs. That's what happened in Cairo. That's what happened in Madrid. You don't want those kinds of riots here."

Neither do I, Mr. Bloomberg. But, like the protesters, what I do want to see, in our nation, is economic opportunities and justice for all Americans, not just for the privileged few. And I am clear that you cannot tease people about the unlimited possibilities of America then when they decide they want to have it, tell them no, we were not being serious. Where this movement goes from here is anyone's guess. Maybe it is simply suppose to be a space where the disillusioned and disgusted can finally make their voices heard. Or maybe it will be the progressive, multicultural movement I want to see, that I feel America so badly needs, in this 21st century. No matter what happens, no matter where this goes, it is so evident, more than ever and as was said during the Civil Rights Movement, that the leadership we've been waiting for is us....

***

Kevin Powell is a nationally acclaimed political activist, public speaker, and writer based in Brooklyn, New York. The author or editor of 10 books, Kevin's 11th, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and The Ghost of Dr. King: And Other Blogs and Essays, will be published January 2012 by lulu.com. Email him at kevin@kevinpowell.net, or follow him on Twitter @kevin_powell

The Bloomberg School Legacy

The Bloomberg School Legacy: 

Flawed Policies Poisoned by a Fatal Arrogance

by Mark Naison | special to NewBlackMan

It should surprise no one that only 34 percent of New Yorkers approve of Michael Bloomberg’s education policies, the policy area within which the Mayor most hoped to create a legacy. The Mayor not only introduced numerous questionable initiatives—ranging  from school closings, to preferential treatment of charter schools to attempts to rate teacher performance based on student test scores—he  did so with an arrogant disregard, not for the most experienced teachers and administrators in the system, but of parents and community leaders and elected officials who tried to make their voices heard in matters of educational policy. 

This top down approach to reorganizing New York City’s public school system not only reflected the ideology of the national School Reform movement—which  viewed public schools as corrupt institutions in dire need of the kind of competition and accountability allegedly characteristic of the private section—but  an egotistical effort to reproduce the success of Bloomberg LP by importing its management techniques into the Department Education.

Within weeks of taking office, the Mayor put his mark on the school system by insisting the central headquarters of the NYC Department of Education, as well as all of its district offices, look exactly like an office of Bloomberg Inc., with cubicles replacing offices. 

This astonishing reorganization, done without the input of  anyone in the system, was designed to show that this Mayor was determined to put his own personal stamp on the system down to the smallest detail, and a penchant for Mayoral micromanagement has been a characteristic of the New York Department of Education ever since.

Among the highlights of Mayoral Micromanagement have been:

*             Replacing four members of the Panel on Educational Policy, the major policy making body governing the Department of Education, when it refused to determine the promotion of third graders exclusively on their performance of standardized tests.

*             Publicly denouncing principals who questioned the school grades issued by the Department of Education after it became clear that the formulae used to compute those grades produced results that defied common sense, as well as school performance on state and national tests.

*             Appointing publishing executive Cathy Black as School Chancellor without the advice or input of anyone within the Department of Education, including outgoing Chancellor Joel Klein

*             Showing favoritism to charter school advocates who were personal friends of the Mayor, such as Harlem Success Academy director Eve Moskowitz, giving them license to seize facilities from existing public schools and discourage the enrollment of students who might lower their institution’s test profiles

It is one thing to try to convince educators and the public that schools, administrators and teachers should be evaluated regularly on the basis of student test scores, and that public schools would benefit from competition from charters, it is another thing to implement those policies unilaterally, from the top down, while stifling public discussion and trying browbeat and intimidate opponents.

Lost in the process were not only principles of democratic governance, but any kind of institutional way to subject Mayoral policies to external oversight, critical evaluation, or adherence to the most basic rules of evidence. Among the most damaging results have been, favoritism, cronyism, and corruption in the awarding of Department of Education contracts, and the creation of evaluation systems, first of schools, now of teachers, that are wildly inaccurate, and counterintuitive to what parents , teachers and administrators believe.

When you have a system without checks and balances of any kind and without any institutionalized or marginally respected input from the major stakeholders in the system- parents, students, teachers and administrators- don’t be surprised if you generate tremendous opposition.

What we have now in New York is a school system filled with teachers and administrators working under extreme duress, convinced the Mayor is their enemy, of students whose school experience is defined by one test after another, and of parents who feel their voices don’t matter.

This is Mayoral Control Michael Bloomberg style.

Many people in this city-teachers and principals foremost among them- will breathe a huge sigh of relief when his third term is finally up.

***

Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program. He is the author of two books, Communists in Harlem During the Depression and White Boy: A Memoir. Naison is also co-director of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP). Research from the BAAHP will be published in a forthcoming collection of oral histories Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life From the 1930’s to the 1960’s.

"Subway Stories: Sax, Cantor, Riff" (dir. by Julie Dash)

HBO held a contest asking New Yorkers to submit interesting true stories that happened on the subways. The winning stories were then adapted for the film. "Sax, Cantor, Riff" was written and directed by Julie Dash, featuring Taral Hicks (singer), Kenny Garrett (saxaphone), Dan Rous (Cantor) and Sam Rockwell. Produced by Jonathan Demme and Rosie Perez.

Trailer | Limelight: The Rise & Fall on the NYC Club Scene

Synopsis:

As the owner of legendary hotspots like Limelight, Tunnel, Palladium, and Club USA, Peter Gatien was the undisputed king of the 1980s New York City club scene. The eye-patch-sporting Ontario native built and oversaw a Manhattan empire that counted tens of thousands of patrons per night in its peak years, acting as a conduit for a culture that, for many, defined the image of an era in New York. Then years of legal battles and police pressure spearheaded by Mayor Giuliani's determined crackdown on nightlife in the mid-'90s led to Gatien's eventual deportation to Canada, and the shuttering of his glitzy kingdom.

Featuring insider interviews with famous players in the club scene as well as key informants in Gatien's high-profile trial, Billy Corben's (Cocaine Cowboys) exuberant documentary aims to set the record straight about Gatien's life as it charts his rise and fall against the transformation of New York, offering a wild ride through a now-closed chapter in the history of the city's nightlife.

A Strategy to Restore Hope to the City’s Public Schools

From Centers of Obedience to Centers of Resistance:

A Strategy to Restore Hope to the City’s Public Schools

by Professor Mark Naison | Fordham University

A tragic series of events is unfolding in working class New York. The lingering effects of the Recession, irresponsible private investments, and federal and state budget cuts, coupled with a failure to raise taxes on the wealthy, have created a toxic brew which is eroding the already fragile living standards of the city’s poor and bringing with it higher levels of homelessness, hunger and violence.

Nowhere is this more visible than in the housing market where a combination of foreclosures on private homes, failed investments by private equity companies, the phasing out of federal rent subsidies, the proposed end of Work Advantage Program in New York State, and rising rents in public housing have taken thousands of units of affordable housing out of commission and forced tens of thousands of people to “double” and “triple up” with friends and relatives or move into shelters.

The effects of this are visible throughout the city’s public schools where more and more children are arriving at school stressed, hungry, and frightened as their families are displaced and their ability to assure their children of adequate sleep, food and study space is undermined. Once, such wounded children could find safe, protected space in libraries and after school programs, but with upcoming budget cuts to libraries (which will cut public library hours from 40 to 28 a week) and to after school and recreational programs, these youngsters will be increasingly on their own, forced to spend time in public places--streets, subways and shelters--where danger lurks for young people without adult supervision and protection.

In the face of this unfolding tragedy, what are teachers, principals, and school guidance counselors to do?

The official policy of the NYC Department of Education is to pretend this isn’t happening. Their response is more assessments, more tests, more ratings, more pressure on students and everyone who is working with them.

And the result is predictable. The misery of the students is spreading to the teachers whose spirit is being broken, not only by the violent incidents occurring in schools with increasing frequency, but by the evident pain their students are in, visible not only in their inability to concentrate in class, but their harrowing stories of hunger and homelessness and family catastrophe.

All of this is taking place, I must add, amidst fierce pressure from the Department of Education (DOE) to raise test scores and graduation rates, with the fear of school closings and loss of employment as potential penalties.

It’s time to flip the script. Schools must become places, not only where students in trouble are protected and nurtured, but where the adults working there fight for them as if they were their own children.

Every New York City public school should become a center of resistance to budget cuts, not only in schools, but in libraries, after school centers, and programs that provide or protect affordable housing.The culture of compliance and obedience, which has left teachers and students alike demoralized and terrorized, must be replaced by a culture of resistance.

The school must become a place where political education and political organizing takes place uniting teachers, parents and students in strategies which will put pressure on elected officials that haven’t been seen since the 1960’s. Pressure to restore housing subsidies, expand funding for after school programs, restore library budgets to their 2008 levels, bring more arts and sports programs into the public schools, create more school health centers, end all teacher layoffs and and tax the wealthy to pay for these reforms.

Not only will such actions restore a sense of agency to teachers, who regularly vilified in the press and by public officials, asthe cause of their students “failures,” it will give hope and inspiration to tens of thousands of young people, and members of their families, who are losing hope that their lives will involve anything other than hardship and pain.

It’s time to transform New York City public schools from centers of fear and intimidation to “liberated zones” where teachers, students and parents can talk freely how to make their schools and neighborhoods places where people who are not wealthy can lead decent lives and provide hope and opportunity to their children.

And if that leads them directly to the steps of City Hall, the State Legislature, and the US Congress, or to the headquarters of Wall Street banks so be it.

On a small scale, this is starting to happen. A group of insurgent teachers and parents have started a program called “Fight Back Fridays” with actions taking place at public schools around the city on May 20.

But this should only be the beginning of a mighty wave of protest that will transform the New York City public schools from centers of obedience into center of resistance to the budget cuts and to government by the rich, for the rich, which seems to be the trend, not only in New York, but around the country.

The Sleeping Giant is starting to awake. Student, teachers and parents, joined together, can be a mighty force for Justice and Democracy.

***

Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program. He is the author of two books, Communists in Harlem During the Depression and White Boy: A Memoir. Naison is also co-director of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP). Research from the BAAHP will be published in a forthcoming collection of oral histories Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life From the 1930’s to the 1960’s.