Announcing our 2012

Young Environmental Writers Contest

By The Editors 

SAGE MAGAZINE, a publication of the graduate students of the YALE SCHOOL OF FORESTRY AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES, is holding a WRITING COMPETITION

Awards: First Prize: $500; Second Prize: $300; Third Prize: $200
One writer under 20 will receive a Special Mention.
All finalists will be published on SAGE Magazine’s website and considered for our annual print publication.

Judging: SAGE Magazine staff will select finalists. Finalists will be judged by a panel including some of the country’s foremost working writers and journalists, including:

Bill McKibben, Author, Educator, and Environmentalist
Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, Staff Writer
Steve Hawk, Sierra Magazine, Executive Editor; Surfer Magazine, Former Editor-in-Chief
Jon Mooallem, The New York Times Magazine, Contributor
Scott Dodd, OnEarth.org, Editor; Columbia School of Journalism, Adjunct Professor

Submission Fee: There is none! We are generously supported by a grant from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Submission Guidelines: Send us essays, short stories, memoirs, poetry, graphic novels, reporting, sky-writing–all forms of environmental writing accepted (including excerpts from longer works). Writers under 20 must include their age to be considered for special mention.

Eligibility: Open to all non-professional writers. All writing submitted to SAGE Magazine after 10/01/2011 will be automatically considered for the competition.

Fine Print: SAGE takes no rights to publication, meaning  contest participants are free to submit and publish their work elsewhere. Editors will consult with winners to edit submissions for publication. SAGE reserves the right to declare a tie and to award only as many winners and finalists as are appropriate to the quality of work represented in the magazine.

Deadline: April 20th, Midnight, Eastern Standard Time
Please send final submissions to sagemagazine@gmail.com">SageMagazine@gmail.com
Winners and Finalists Announced May 15th, 2012

FAQs

What does “non-professional” mean? How does it relate to the “young writers” part of the contest announcement?

SAGE wanted to encourage young environmental writers, but had trouble setting an age limit. Plus, we figured that if there was someone out there who wanted to start an environmental writing career later in life–well, that’s great too! Hence: while we assume most submissions will come from young writers, we decided to make “non-professional” the key eligibility requirement. Non-professional means that you have either not previously published for pay or that you are just starting a paid writing career. We will generally consider writers who have published a limited amount, but reserve the right to discretion on this matter.

Would you accept pieces that have been published elsewhere?

We can’t consider pieces to which other publications own rights, and we’re unlikely to consider a piece that has been published for pay (that would make you a professional writer–see above). However, we will generally consider pieces that have appeared in other campus publications.

Call for Contributions on

Global Uprising - Edited Collection:

Transnational Literatures,

Gender and State Power

Deadline: 15 May 2012

Increasing interest in the conceptualization of “Transnational Literatures” calls for a re-appraisal of the role of gender in contesting official discourses of nation and power. As early as 1938, Virginia Woolf claimed that, “in fact, as a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.”1 In “Towards a New Consciousness,” Gloria Anzaldúa describes the dialogic nature of living across Borderlands, “Because I, a mestiza,/ continually walk out of one culture/ and into another,/ because I am in all cultures at the same time,/ alma entre dos mundos, tres, cuatro,/ me zumba la cabeza con lo contradictorio./ Estoy norteada por todas las voces que me hablan/ Simultáneamente.”2

In the spirit of this tradition, we seek contributions in the form of scholarly and/or creative work to the field of “Transnational Feminism” to include in a collection of essays entitled, “Transnational Literatures, Gender and State Power.” This collection investigates the ways in which transnational literatures and gender intersect to challenge the power of official narratives and/or state discourses, including those discourses that limit the mobility of subjects across cultural, national, historical, political, racial, theoretical or any kind of boundary.

We invite chapter-length discussions or creative explorations, including black and white photography and visual art, on a variety of aspects without limitations to geographical lines, theoretical approaches, or genres. Topics may include, but are not limited to the following headings:

* Transnational Discourses and Feminist Perspectives

* Feminist Transnationality and Global Uprising
(From Tunisia and Egypt to Occupy Wall Street)

* National and Transnational Discourses of Masculinity

* Activism, (Auto)- Ethnography and Transnational Narratives

* Post-racial Aesthetics and the Transgression of Borders

* Translation, Resistance, and Gender

* Migration and the Commodification of the Transnational

* State Repression of Gendered Texts

Submission Guidelines

Abstract Deadline: May 15, 2012

Please send a 250-500 word abstract or short excerpt of creative work to: joanie.conwell@gmail.com or ortega@sxu.edu.

Work under consideration must be previously unpublished.

Include with your submission: your name and affiliation, an email address where you can be reached after May 15, and a very brief bio.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For inquiries: joanie.conwell@gmail.com or ortega@sxu.edu

For submissions: joanie.conwell@gmail.com or ortega@sxu.edu

 

Jamaica Primetime

Interview With J. Michael Seyfert, Writer/Director Of The Film "Rent A Rasta"

By Xavier Murphy

Published Oct 1, 2006 

GO HERE TO VIEW VIDEO

Q: How did you come up with the idea to do a documentary film on “Rent A Rasta”?

A: The origin of Rastafari and its eventual co-opting as the commercial identity of Jamaica is a very interesting story. I have wanted to visit Jamaica for years and at one time I could see its lights from the south eastern shores of Cuba where I did a previous film. I have also been intrigued by Rastafari culture, to this day very much underestimated. When I read about “rentable rastas” on some websites and British women posting questions about hooking up with Jamaican men on their upcoming vacations, I started developing this project together with my son Bunker, who’s a film student at Drexel . I was perversely amused by the fact that the American dollar would not stop at anything and turn even the most innocent, marginal and most remote cultural group into a sex-ride in a tropical Disneyland setting.

Q: When will the documentary be released?

A: World Premiere is Oct 14, 2006 in Portsmouth, at the New Hampshire Film Expo and subsequently passionriver.com will assist in the distribution of the DVD. Free Speech TV also bought a license and will be broadcasting the film via satellite on Dish Network 9415, of course you can buy DVDs direct at www.rentarasta.com

Q: Are you currently doing the film festival rounds?

A: Yes, France, Germany, UK and USA/Canada are the target markets. So far we have received positive vibes from individuals but solid rejection from UK events and distributors, who found the film mostly offensive to QE1 and her slave masters.

 

Q: What do you hope to achieve with the documentary?

A: Stir controversy. Rent a Rasta is essentially an indictment of the Western World from the perspective of the Rastafari. After 450 years of red, white and blue slavery and poverty we now abuse their economical disadvantage to promote Hedonism resorts, Bob Marley t-shirts and sexual gratification, as in this case, benefiting mostly older, chubby and unattractive white broads vacationing with the "big bamboo" as and integral part of their Jamaica experience. While the Negril Chamber of Commerce does not condone “rastatution” you certainly will not find many dreads working in the hotel industry or in Wayne Cumming’s offices for that matter.

Q: What is the main focus of the film? As the writer of the film what angle of the Rent a Rasta scene did you want viewers to see?

A: One reviewer wrote “the film uses female sex tourism as a segue to expose the main issues surrounding contemporary rasta existence but is not exclusively about either. Another reviewer complained about "bait and switch". I see Rent a Rasta as a tapestry of four engaging issues woven around the theme of sex tourism, a product of slavery. Rastafari is a movement so persistent that all of the effort and deception of the “blond and blue-eyed power” structure has failed to stamp them out. When was the last time the Bobo Ashanti for example had the opportunity to go out and make a film about their issues? To a minor degree I think we did this for them. My very personal sense of social justice compels me to make films from the subject’s perspective, especially those who have no particular voice in the global context.

Q: Was any of the information you learned during the documentary surprising?

A: Yes, it was edifying to meet many very articulate and thoughtful elders who
would radiate with spiritual conviction and kindness, while they lived in ramshackle dwellings with barely a pot to cook with. Compared with the misery and poverty I see in Mexico for example, where ignorance and tv novelas smother every cubic centimeter of grey matter, the Rastafari I met were intellectually on the ball and nothing short of wise men, and not a single bureaucrat within the Commonwealth can claim to have contributed anything to their advancement.

Q: Did you feel any empathy for the men who are “Rent a Rastas” or the women who use their services?

A: “Sex for food”. Sure. All whores are human, Laura Bush is human. Who wants to work at Burger King for 80 dollars a week while watching Anna Nicole Smith jet her poodle around in a LearJet? “Sex tourists want to feel loved or valued or cared for, or to feel beautiful and able, or to feel kind and generous, and they do not feel any of these things back home.” These sentiments, of course, highlight much that is very wrong with North American/European societies - the way in which bodies are constructed as beautiful or ugly, the refusal to recognize people with physical disabilities as sexual beings, the sexual value that is attached to youth and the class inequalities which deny people the opportunity to be generous.

The sex tourist resorts they visit are like Disneyland because here, they experience themselves as desirable and oh-so-successful. This feat is achieved by either ignoring the massive imbalance of economic power between themselves and their local sex partners, or by interpreting it in ways which do not suggest that their partner is acting on a purely instrumental basis.

 

Q: How do you approach people on such a private taboo project?

A: Dr. Jacqueline Sanchez Taylor, Sociologist and Lecturer at the University of Leeds had already done very extensive research on female sex tourism in the Caribbean, investigating prostitution in the informal tourist economy in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic . Her research and publications address issues on race, gender, class and sexuality and how these intersect with global economic inequalities to shape informal sex tourist industries in developing countries, Jackie was very generous in making her material available for this film.

Q: Do you think the race plays a big role to the women as the economics do to the men?

A: In Jamaican culture, they will tell you, white bodies are valued over black, age doesn’t matter, obesity is a sign of wealth and sex is natural. As one forty-five year old white woman from Chicago said of Jamaican men: “They are all liars and cheats........ American women come to Negril because they get what they don’t get at home. A girl who no one looks at twice gets hit on all the time here, all these guys are paying her attention, telling her she’s really beautiful, and they really want her...They’re obsessed with their d****. That’s all they think of, just p**** and money and nothing else...”

Q: Based on the clips to the documentary some of the women are very frank in their intentions on why they visit Jamaica. Were the men as frank as these women?

A: Men love to boast, so that was not a problem.

Q: We have all seen the movies "Pretty Woman" and How Stella Got her Groove. Were there any genuine love stories? Do you think some of your footage could be of genuine couples who will no be tagged as a part of the "Rent A Dread" scene?

A: I think Hollywood and Genuine is a hilarious oxymoron. Naturally there are love stories and happy marriages among the “sex for food” varieties, but they were not our focus and would probably easier to be found off the island rather than locally.

Q: Do you believe you captured all you wanted in 45 minutes? If you had more time what would you have added to the documentary?

A: Of course I would have liked to come out with a feature length documentary, but our budget was very tight and while we could have featured lengthy interviews, we decided to focus on producing a relatively fast-paced overview of contemporary Rastafari culture and issues as opposed to an in-depth treatment of any singular theme . Rent a Rasta is really only a glimpse into a paradise laced with cultural misunderstandings and socioeconomic inequities.

Q: You did extensive work with “real” Rastafarian on this documentary. What were their impressions of the “Rent A Rasta” scene.

A: Essentially the great majority of our time was spent with interesting Rasta elders telling compelling stories and offering uncanny reasoning. We visited all four corners of the island, and spent only two days hanging around the beach in Negril dealing with “rentables”, who of course did not consider themselves as such. “Galice” was the preferred term (a man who “loves” women). I can not find any ethymological reference
to such a word, but those we would identify as “gigolo” preferred the more ambiguously positive connotation of “galice”.

Q: What are some of the deeper issues you see if this trend continues in Jamaica?

A: Jamaica is one of the poorest countries in the Caribbean receiving 1.4 million tourists last year.

Since the 1970s, world financial institutions have encouraged indebted nations like Jamaica to respond to economic crisis by developing tourism.

The International Monetary Fund agreements and World Bank structural adjustment loans, that the Jamaican government entered into have served to swell the prostitution labor market, for the policy packages tied to these loans have had a devastating impact on the poor with massive currency depreciation and a concomitant drop in the price of labor.

North American and European tourists’ very presence in the Caribbean is predicated upon a particular, and vastly unequal, world political and economic order. Even the working class, budget tourist from Europe, Canada or the USA is in a position to spend about as much on a package holiday in the Caribbean as many locals will earn in a year.

Exploitation and inequity are part and parcel of capitalism (and communism for that matter). Jamaica remains deeply embedded in HM’s neo-colonial designs. We were stopped by a genuine British police officer in Hope Bay, A very professional “whitey” inquiring about what we were doing. I don’t think Portia had any say about British cops roaming around the Jamaican country side.

Comments

Marcus Ebanks

Aug 10, 2011 10:47am [ 1 ]

This film is misleading to people who are not familiar with Rastafarianism. How can you do a film about "Rent a Dreads" (not rasta) but spend 90% of the film interviewing true Rastas? This misleads ignorant viewers to think they are one and the same. A proper director or producer would have been able to tell the true story here which is to highlight the contrast between the two. Instead the lines are blurred and the documentary does not really tell the story behind Rent a Dreads its instead a story about Real Rasta.

Jenny R.

Feb 28, 2012 8:44am [ 2 ]

I think it is a good documentary with excellent moments, that ties sex tourism to slavery and explain rastafarianism in introductory terms, there are plenty of reasons not to listen to european women talking sex, what would be the news? it is more interesting to listen to some unique rastas about what they have to say and see this in context of their exploitation, as well as understand that these real rastas have nothing to do with the rentables.

LATOYA RUBY FRAZIER

 

Photography ROBBIE FIMMANO

By MAIKA POLLACK

Since she was 17, LaToya Ruby Frazier has been taking black-and-white photographs of her family and hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Her camera techniques are decidedly old school, and the formal beauty of her images evokes Diane Arbus: gray skies blend into empty streets; a still life of personal effects on a bedside table could date from the 1970s; a boxy sedan on a lawn looks like a 20th-century relic.

Yet it is Frazier's second turn as a performance artist that brings the post-industrial decay of Braddock, a former steel town, into a relentless present. In 2010, Levi's featured the town prominently in an ad campaign, calling it "the new frontier." In response, Frazier performed in front of a pop-up Levi's photo gallery in SoHo with artist Liz Magic Laser, rubbing her body on the concrete sidewalk to wear out a pair of jeans as a critique of Levi's commodification of working-class America. "When I asked my elders about denim, they expressed how it was frowned upon to wear denim outside of work," Frazier remembers. "In fact, my great-step-grandfather, Gramps, never wore denim. He was one of the few African-American men who worked in Andrew Carnegie's steel mill. Gramps only wore suits. I will never forget watching him suffer from chronic arthritis and multiple other ailments that he developed while working in the steel mills . . . It came natural for me to tear a pair of Levi's jeans as a political gesture and testament for the men and women whose views counter such a fictitious, superficial, propagandized ad campaign."

The 30-year-old Frazier continues her critique of the Levi's Braddock ads by mixing their imagery and messages along with her own—and incorporating questions from community residents—for the 12-piece photo series she will show at the Biennial, entitled Campaign for Braddock Hospital (Save Our Community Hospital) (2011). "My main focuses are lack of healthcare and corporate exploitation," Frazier says of these works.

In repurposing advertising's images and phrases for political critique, Frazier's work continues in the subversive tradition of artists like Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, and Martha Rosler. And although Braddock is overwhelmingly the subject and setting, Frazier's work could also be seen as self-portraiture. Also on view will be her Homebody Series (2010), black-and-white photographs in which Frazier haunts her abandoned family home wearing "Gramps' pajamas" and "Grandma Ruby's velour bottoms."

ABOVE: LATOYA RUBIE FRAZIER IN NEW YORK, JANUARY 2012. ALL CLOTHING FRAZIER'S OWN. SPECIAL THANKS TO FAST ASHLEYS.

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LaToya Ruby Frazier

at the Whitney Biennial

By Susan Wallner

Self Portrait (March 10 a.m.) 2009 © LaToya Ruby Frazierr.

A hot young artist making waves at the current Whitney Biennial, LaToya Ruby Frazier has a laser focus and a committed work ethic. She commutes daily to her job at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers in New Brunswick, where she curates the gallery and teaches photography. She shows her work internationally, with exhibitions in Italy, Korea, and Spain in 2011 alone. The artist, born in 1982, creates evocative yet hard-hitting work about her family and the place where she grew up – the decaying steel town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh.

 

Frazier’s photographs hearken back to the poetic yet profoundly political images created by photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, Lewis Hine, and Berenice Abbott. She has taken up their goal of social commentary through documentary photography, yet she is also strongly influenced by later conceptual artists. As with many 21st century artists, Frazier is focused more on ideas than on a particular medium. She is best known for her large-format silver print photographs, but video, printmaking, writing, and performance art are all central to her work.

Frazier is committed to Braddock as her ongoing inspiration and social cause. She began as a teenager taking photographs of her family, which has deep roots in the city: her great-grandfather once worked in Carnegie’s steel mills, her grandmother lived through the Civil Rights struggles and white flight, and she herself was born during Reaganomics, a time when Braddock suffered from a deadly crack epidemic.

 

Sixth Street & Washington Avenue 2009 © LaToya Ruby Frazier.

Recently, she has deconstructed a Levi’s Jeans “Go Forth” ad campaign set in Braddock. The Levi’s billboards and commercials picture the town as an “urban frontier,” ready to be reclaimed by hipsters in hardhats. As a longtime resident, Frazier finds this offensive. As she writes on one of her prints, “How can we go forth when our borough’s buses and ambulances have been cut?”

 

Frazier now sees Braddock as part of a larger whole: “Taking the NJ Transit through New Jersey, passing through Newark, seeing the industrial ruins and the degradation,” she reflects, “there’s even a factory that says Pittsburgh Steel on it that I pass every day! It expanded me, realizing that this is a whole American problem with the global economy and the loss of blue collar jobs and the demise of all the factories.”

The New York Times calls it “one of the best Whitney Biennials in recent memory.” LaToya Ruby Frazier says she is honored to be part of the exhibition with some of her heroes, including documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman. Her work can be found on the 2nd floor of the Whitney through May 27, and on May 11 she’ll be giving a performance, “Demystifying the Myth of the ‘Urban Pioneer’”, free with admission to the museum.

“LaToya Ruby Frazier: Politics & Poetics” is featured on the next episode of State of the Arts, airing on Sunday, April 1 at 8 pm on NJTV. Watch a special preview.

 

The Whitney Biennial 2012 runs through May 27; for more information, visit whitney.org.

Susan Wallner is an award-winning producer with PCK Media. She is a long-time contributor to State of the Arts, now airing on NJTV Sundays at 8 pm.

>via: http://www.njtvonline.org/njtoday/2012/03/30/latoya-ruby-frazier-at-the-whitn...

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GO HERE TO VIEW VIDEO

What is the responsibility of an artist to her community? In this film, artist and activist LaToya Ruby Frazier discusses the economic and environmental decline of her hometown—Braddock, Pennsylvania—the city that the clothing company Levi’s used as inspiration and backdrop for a major advertising campaign in 2010. Having photographed in Braddock since she was sixteen years old, LaToya’s black-and-white images of her family and their surroundings present a stark contrast to the campaign images of “urban pioneers” and slogans such as “everybody’s work is equally important.” In a performance developed in collaboration with the artist Liz Magic Laser, LaToya carries out a choreographed series of movements on the sidewalk in front of the temporary Levi’s Photo Workshop in SoHo. Wearing a costume of ordinary Levi’s clothes, the artist’s repetitive and relentless motion ultimately destroys the jeans she’s wearing.

The Trayvon Martin Case:

Reflections on an Arrest

 

By Karen Hull

There is no doubt that when big news events occur, the media will step in to fill a vacuum created by government inactivity. This is even more true when the event has racial and political overtones and has been drawn out over time. Yesterday, local government stepped into the vacuum by arresting George Zimmerman and that act, which marks both the end of angst and the beginning of process, was, of course, captured in photographs.

The first photo is one people have anticipated on both sides of the various issues presented by the case: the mug shot of George Zimmerman shortly after his arrest. We see a noticeably smaller Zimmerman in the police photo. And, in the lack of expression on his face, we are free to read into the photo any number of emotions. To me, he looks surprisingly vulnerable and young. No smirk, no defiance, no suit, no tie; just a direct gaze into the police camera from a man dressed in classic laborer’s clothes. Though smaller, his face is round and shows a couple of blemishes on his forehead. As the object of desire for many advocating his arrest, this photograph may be a slightly disappointing denouement to this chapter of the Trayvon Martin story.

Then we have the photo from the press conference conducted by Zimmerman attorney Mark O’Mara. Associated Press photographer Phelan Ebenhack captured the frantic stance of the media as well as slyly placing the caption in the form of O’Mara’s shingle on the lawn in front of his office. But compared to yesterday’s photos of the bizarrely self-promoting press conference by Zimmerman’s former attorneys, O’Mara is visually typecast for the role of small town Florida defense attorney: worn shoes and court suit, hands active but not used as an accessory to prove a point (like the upraised fist from Zimmerman’s former lawyer), oddly Mr. Smithian. This photo doesn’t capture what he said, but manages to convey how he said it: humbly, calmly, earnest.

In the last photograph, Getty photographer Joe Raedle deftly captures everyone else with interest in the case: the prosecutors, black patrons of a Sanford barbershop, the media, and you, the news consumer: all reflecting the anticipation and interest of the country at large. To me, this is the most interesting photo of the three: only the woman in the photo is watching events on the TV facing the camera (facing you). The men seem to register various degrees of disinterest or even cynicism as they sit as subjects for the camera men reflected in the second mirror. They look away from the TV or at the photographers. Maybe that’s because they know the start of the process doesn’t necessarily guarantee a desirable outcome. Maybe the cameras themselves intrude on their interest in televised events. But if the classic booking photo and the O’Mara press conference shot serve to show a calm beginning of process, this photograph captures all the emotion and activity leading up to yesterday’s events — as well as the pensiveness over what is to come.

(Top photo: Sanford Police Department caption: This Wednesday, April 11, 2012 booking photo provided by the Sanford Police Department shows George Zimmerman. Zimmerman, 28, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder Wednesday after weeks of mounting tensions and protests across the country. His attorney, Mark O’Mara, said his client would plead not guilty. Middle photo: Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP Photo caption: Mark O’Mara, attorney for George Zimmerman, right, addresses reporters outside his offices in Orlando, Fla., Wednesday, April 11, 2012. Zimmerman, 28, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder Wednesday after weeks of mounting tensions and protests across the country. O’Mara said Zimmerman would plead not guilty. Bottom photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images caption: People sit and watch as the Florida Special Prosecutor, Angela Corey, is seen on television announcing second degree murder charges to be brought against defendant George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin shooting on April 11, 2012 in Sanford, Florida. Martin was killed by Zimmerman on February 26th while Zimmerman was on neighborhood watch patrol in the gated community of The Retreat at Twin Lakes, Florida.)

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Stand Your Ground:

Four case studies

A judge critical of the law said it allows a person to provoke a fight, kill, then claim self-defence

The death of Trayvon Martin has thrown a spotlight on Florida's controversial Stand Your Ground law, which grants individuals wide latitude to use deadly force if they feel seriously in danger.

The provision is backed by America's powerful gun lobby, but critics say it creates a Wild West legal environment in which people can kill one another without fear of prosecution.

With George Zimmerman facing a second-degree murder charge over the 17-year-old's fatal shooting, what are the chances of a conviction?

Here are four previous cases in Florida where killers were freed after citing Stand Your Ground:

Bullied teen fights back

In January 2011, Jorge Saavedra, then 14, stabbed to death 16-year-old Dylan Nuno in Collier County, Florida.

Dylan was two grades ahead of Jorge at Palmetto Ridge High School, and he and his friends had been bullying Jorge for months, taunting him with homophobic slurs and throwing spit balls at him.

The day of the killing, Dylan followed Jorge off a school bus and attacked him from behind. Jorge tried to escape, then pulled out a knife he had brought to school in anticipation of a confrontation and stabbed Dylan in the abdomen.

He was initially charged with manslaughter but was cleared of wrongdoing in January 2012.

A judge ruled he had reason to believe he was in danger of death or serious injury, and noted he had tried to escape even though the law did not require him to.

A gang shoot-out

Jamal Taylor did not seek immunity and was convicted of manslaughter

Michael Jackson, 15, was shot in the face and killed during a shootout between two groups of warring gang members in front of a Tallahassee apartment complex in February 2008.

The feud between the two groups began outside a cafe, when Jamal Taylor threw a bullet at a member of a rival gang. The action was perceived as a challenge, and later the two groups met again in the driveway of an apartment complex.

Jeffrey Brown said he had gone to the complex to see his girlfriend, but finding her not at home, he returned to his car where he found Andrae Tyler holding an assault rifle in his lap in the backseat of his car.

As they were leaving the apartment complex, Jamal Taylor, Michael Jackson and others entered the complex in a caravan of vehicles. A shootout ensued and Jackson was killed.

Brown and Tyler were granted Stand Your Ground immunity in the case. Taylor did not pursue the self-defence claim, according to a local media report. He was convicted of manslaughter, and served just over a year in prison.

Judge Terry Lewis found that under Florida's gun laws, Brown and Tyler were legally allowed to possess the rifle, which was not concealed; neither were engaged in an unlawful activity before the shootout; and both had a legal right to be at the complex.

In a decision, Judge Lewis criticised the Stand Your Law even as he applied it.

He said the men had all been spoiling for a fight, both groups were armed, and none took precautions to avoid a gunfight.

"Two individuals, or even groups, can square off in the middle of a public street, exchange gunfire, and both be absolved from criminal liability if they were reasonably acting in self defence," he wrote.

"The law would appear to allow a person to seek out an individual, provoke him into a confrontation, then shoot and kill him if he goes for his gun."

A boat sale gone bad

Raymond Mohlman, 49, and Matthew Vittum, 43, were shot to death by Michael Monahan, 65, after an argument on his sailboat near West Palm Beach in April 2011.

Mr Monahan had purchased the boat from Mohlman but had yet to register it in his own name. The boat had been written up for $500 in citations that had thus accrued to Mohlman, a former lifeguard, teacher and wrestling coach, police said.

Mohlman and Vittum, who were intoxicated, confronted Mr Monahan on the boat. An argument ensued and Mohlman and Vittum cornered Mr Monahan in the cabin, police said.

Mr Monahan said he fired his gun at them because he feared for his life, though the men were unarmed, he acknowledged they had not touched him, and Mohlman was in fact the boat's legal owner.

After the shooting, Mr Monahan tried to flee in a kayak, police said.

Initially charged with murder, Mr Monahan was set free by a judge before the case went to trial.

Judge Richard Oftedahl ruled Stand Your Ground did not require that the men actually be armed or commit physical violence for Mr Monahan to have a reasonable fear that they would either kill or severely harm him.

Mr Monahan had been living in the boat for about six months, he noted.

A deadly dockside fight

Michael Palmer, a 23-year-old construction worker, got into a fight with Timothy McTigue, 44, on a boat dock in South Florida in May 2007.

The two, who were strangers, were on the dock when the intoxicated Palmer made derogatory comments about Mr McTigue's girlfriend, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reported, citing court documents.

The men exchanged words and the spat escalated into fisticuffs. The men fell into the water and Mr McTigue said Palmer had tried to drown him.

Mr McTigue retrieved a handgun and shot Palmer in the side of the head as Palmer hoisted himself on to the dock.

Palmer's friends told investigators they had been drinking all day, Palmer had been taunting other strangers earlier and that they had warned him not to start fights.

Mr McTigue was charged with murder - prosecutors said Palmer had retreated from the fight - but was acquitted in a jury trial.

>via: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17693084

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What Got

George Zimmerman

Charged With

Second-Degree Murder

by Jelani Cobb Apr 12, 2012 4:45 AM EDT

 

Forty-six days. That’s how long it took for George Zimmerman to be charged in the death of Trayvon Martin.

More than the muted satisfaction that an accused killer was no longer on the streets, more than the vague relief that the judicial system would not ignore entirely the possibility that shooting an unarmed teen might be illegal, this is what I heard voiced when special prosecutor Angela Corey announced that Zimmerman would face a second-degree murder charge. Give it a moment and you’ll begin to hear triumphalist throat-clearing and echoed statements about how this arrest proves the system works, that justice is not immune to the concerns of African-Americans. And the retort, damning as it is unassailable, is simply this: 46 days.

Amid the bounty of ugliness unearthed by the case, and the many more profane moments we’re likely to witness before this is over, what people will remember is that it took nearly seven weeks for charges to be brought against a Hispanic man who shot an unarmed black teen. They will have learned that such a killing warrants only the most cursory of police examinations and that a simple arrest of the assailant requires incessant media attention, massive rallies in Miami, Sanford, New York, Atlanta, and Chicago, the palpable threat of social unrest, and a statement of concern from the president of the United States.

If the wheels of justice grind slowly, the court of public opinion expedites its verdicts. It takes far less than 46 days for a teachable moment to devolve into an airing of fetid undercurrents from the American id. In an instant the case pitched from tragedy to travesty to absurdist spectacle, the judgments coming far faster than the facts. In social media forums we’ve seen debates rage between evidence-proof minds, caulked against the entry of new information or contrary ideas. Between neo-Nazi patrols and black nationalist bounties, between Geraldo Rivera’s ridiculous fashion speculation and the hacking of Martin’s Twitter account we saw Sanford, Fla., become a racial ground zero, the place where our post-racial myths go to die.

Thursday will be the first morning that I do not begin my day by pointing out that the accused killer remains at large. I would like to say it’s a relief.

AP Photo

In announcing her decision, Corey was careful to point out that her office “does not bring charges in response to public demand.” Her words only further undermined the regard for the justice system. Prior to the placards, Trayvon Martin was an anonymous black boy, fatally shot and treated as a John Doe in the morgue. There are people in Sanford and in black communities across the country who live with the hard knowledge that in cases like this, public outcry may be their only hope of attaining justice. A mention of Trayvon Martin in these places yields a list of keyword associations: Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Oscar Grant, Rodney King, and a litany of other black men who were abused or killed with little or no consequence. Delve deeper and you run up against the social profanity that was lynching. And therein lies the truth.

Zimmerman Charged With Second Degree Murder Will there be justice for Trayvon Martin after all? Florida special prosecutor Angela Corey said George Zimmerman turned himself in and has been charged with second degree murder.

A Gallup poll last week highlighted the sad but predicable racial divide in perceptions of the Martin case. Seventy-two percent of blacks felt that race was a factor in what transpired that night in February, while just 31 percent of non-blacks agreed with that sentiment. But to the extent that those numbers reflect something beyond a cause for pessimism, they show our different understanding of history. For many whites, the Martin case is a sad but isolated incident; for blacks, it is part of a matrix of suffering that stretches back to the days when black men were hung in public for sport. This is a divide between those who feel that the past is best left in the past and those who know that history is interred in the shallowest of graves.

Three weeks ago I started a daily ritual, tweeting the date and the number of days that had elapsed since the death of Trayvon Martin without an arrest. It was meant to be a small effort to ensure that the case remained at the forefront of our minds. The tweets elicited statements of despair, solidarity, frustration, and more than a few racist tirades. Thursday will be the first morning that I do not begin my day by pointing out that the accused killer remains at large. I would like to say it’s a relief. But all I can think is that it’s pathetic it ever had to be done in the first place.

Jerome Okolo at

TEDxEuston 2011

- Not learning from history

 

Watch his amazing talk at TEDxEuston 2011 HERE.....and share it!

Hans Rosling was 'just' a well respected Swedish professor - until TED put him its stage. Since then Hans Rosling has become world famous - the first of his 3 TED talks has been watched close to 4 million times. That is the power of TED in shaping the conversations on things that matter. TEDxEuston aims to do the same with issues that matter to Africans. When we invited Jerome Okolo to the TEDxEuston stage - many asked - Jerome who?. Well, we were soon to find out! Having brought the audience to exhilarating laughter as he took us through his immigration journey, we wondered where it would end. Well it ended where it started - the piece of land known between 1967 and 1970 as the "Republic of Biafra" in South Eastern Nigeria. But his was not a war story, but one about history and our obligation to learn from it in order to shape our future. Just after Jerome delivered his talk which left the audience deep in thought news filtered into the TEDxEuston community that Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu - the leader of the Biafran struggle had passed away. As Ikemba Nnewi is buried today in Nnewi, it is important to listen again to Jerome's talk to remember why an understanding of our history is so critically important in shaping the future. Share his talk - every Nigerian should watch it - we are aiming for 4 million views! 

 

Jerome Okolo’s life story provides a vivid and personal illustration of our tumultuous and rapidly changing epoch. He was born just as Nigeria’s Civil War was breaking out. His parent's journey took them from being penniless refugees, to privileged University of Nigeria staff – classical music, tennis, swimming – and then to facing the ire of the successive Military Administrations. Sent off to the far North of the country for his college education, he got caught up in the first outbreak of Islamic militant violence, when the Maitatsine sect attacked Nigerian Security forces, an attack that had to be repelled by the Nigerian army. He left Nigeria to study in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, just as that town was the flash-point of the ill-fated Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He traveled on to Ukraine for further studies, just as the world’s worst Nuclear disaster takes place at Chernobyl. Traversing East to West and back again, he witnessed the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. He was completing his dissertation in Moscow, when the August 1991 putsch against Gorbachev was launched in Moscow. Returning to Central Asia after completing his studies, he was again caught up in civil war, this time in Tajikistan, and escaped on the last Tu-134 out of Dushanbe. In 1993 Jerome was just re-launching his business career when another violent event, the siege of Parliament by Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1993, almost ruined everything.

 

[[posterous-content:pid___0]]Siyabonga “Slikour” Metane

Video: Slikour ‘Blacks R Fools’

April 11, 2012 Posted by: Bongani Kona

Coz blacks are fools/they just wanna be fresh, and they wanna be cool/ give them a little money and they think they rule. Oh boy, South African hip hop artist Slikour (real name Siyabonga Metane) really brought it on “Blacks R Fools (We Better Than That)”, a track off his Ventilation Volume 3 LP that’s recently set fire to the twitterverse and internets this side of Nelson Mandela.

Music industry is shady, 10 years in the game and Slikour has seen enough shit shoveled down his throat — “radio don’t play us,” “downplayed by [tabloid] editors” — so he’s spitting it right back. It doesn’t make for easy listening, but that’s not the point. The Johannesburg-based MC is tired of the ubiquitous brand-worshiping and being taken for rides by marketing execs. He wants to change the trajectory by starting a conversation on values. Why? ‘Cause we better than that.

Check out Slikour’s own article explaining “Why Blackz R Fools”.

__________________________

by Siyabonga Metane

Black leadership needs to be redefined. 

Every African nation that has gained independence from a European oppressor almost always ends up being poverty stricken despite the abundance of natural or manpower resources. 

There are various reasons for this, but the end result is the same. The criticism is sugar-coated and behind our backs – and sometimes in our faces – we are seen as fools by other races. 

Many post-colonial black Africans have proven to be the most unproductive and those who have tried to claw themselves out of poverty have been failed by their own people more than by history itself.

Our faith as blacks is based on the fact that the God we believe in lives somewhere in the sky.

But what many do not realise is that God lives within us.We seldom listen to ourselves, let alone look for opportunities within ourselves to develop. 

This is ironic since we are a generation that has a majority of religious worshippers. 

In fact, our oppressors only exploited us because they saw God-sent labourers, not to mention that they see God within themselves so they worked together to exploit us and build an economy. 

Unfortunately, seeing God within ourselves as blacks has proven to be a challenge.

Do you ever wonder how much depth, reasoning and unification world leaders had to apply in order to make racism and segregation acceptable? 

Successfully implementing the two in their respective nations for centuries had to be a work filled with determination and firm belief in the “rightness” of their actions. 

Ironically, when the time came to take a global stance against colonisation and oppression, the oppressors did so without even raising an eyebrow, conveniently forgetting that they were the main proponents in the first place.

This might not be the best example, but the underlying lesson is global cohesion. Can our race really get to those heights when we struggle with local cohesion?



In the land that we wish to claim today, what has made the Jews wealthy or Afrikaners see opportunities in the labour that we offer? 

What has led the Indians and Somalis to see prosperity in our streets that we vandalise when putting on demonstrations or marching against injustices? 

Why do we bow down to the Walmarts and Vodafones at the expense of local entrepreneurs?

It might be that people who do not have faith, foresight or an understanding of freedom are often involuntarily at the mercy of developed nations and communities. 

Their ignorance and dislike of self only fuels the businesses of those who take advantage of them. This is unfortunately a reality that is facing Africans, from leadership right down to the grass roots.

Our picture of progress has always been associated with what the whites, Europeans or the West have or have achieved. For example, the German sedans, striving for a beautiful house in the leafy suburbs, having the best in French or Italian fashion wear, listening, broadcasting and emulating American music and films. 

The list of these foreign things we desire is endless.When we talk about liberation, peace and wealth, it’s always referred to as something whites took away from us. 

We need to re-establish through history and redefine using the present who we were before colonisation and what it means for our current communities. 

The answer is definitely not in the material things that we’ve chosen to define our success like the Louis Vuittons, Range Rovers and plush mansions.

I would like to see us rekindle the humility, sense of brotherly and sisterly love, community sharing and development that we have lost. 

Let us redefine what success meant for us before we were colonised. Like the Bible says: “Do not envy thy neighbour”. Let us rather find greatness within and work together to develop and nurture it.

Our task is to build a foundation of academies and give our children and future generations the opportunity to have a global view and perception that will keep them inspired. Children in the townships should not just learn from TV that there’s a big world out there. 

They need to also learn this from their schools, government and leaders. We have a responsibility to give them the belief that they can rise above the poverty many of them are born into.

Without creating this sense of purpose, we will keep fighting for land and, sadly, once we get that land, we won’t even know how to manage it, let alone work together to develop it.

We are already suffering the “we’ve got it now, what do we do with it” syndrome? 

For instance, once we achieved our hard-earned freedom and had our first black multimillionaires and billionaires, our first tenders, deeds to land, many have no idea how to use those to develop communities. 

There will never be an answer until we create a necessary sense of purpose and stop thinking money or the material things are what will make us progressive.

So whether you are a powerful politician, a rich businessman or a domestic worker, if your being is not rooted in pride of who you are, the foolish mentality will continue to grow. 

The poor will get poorer and the success of our liberation struggle will depreciate, our well of resources will run dry, our lands will go to waste, unemployment rates will rise, the torch of the Mother Continent – South Africa – will diffuse, and if you don’t hear the sceptics say blacks are fools today, you will hear them loud and clear then.

Now that we have started a dialogue, the next step is to change our attitude towards each other.

» Metane is a South African hip-hop artist 

- City Press

>via: http://www.citypress.co.za/Columnists/Why-blackz-are-fools-20120407

Watch SBTRKT

Change Things Up for

‘Live in NYC’

 

By: Steven Aguiar | April 11, 2012

 

SBTRKT performs 'Live in NYC' at Webster Hall in New York City. Photo: Brendan Tobin for MTV Hive

If you missed SBTRKT’s Live in NYC concert stream last week, we’ve got the next best thing for you: Hive now has all of the night’s best performances to stream on-demand. Backed by a cascading wall of ambient light and surrounded by a cluster of MIDI controllers and instruments, SBTRKT (real name: Aaron Jerome) and collaborator Sampha commanded the sold-out Webster Hall crowd for the entire show. See below to play performances of “Pharoahs,” “Heatwave,” “Never Never,” and of course their breakout hits “Wildfire” and “Hold On,” each beautifully mixed and with unique live takes that expand and re-imagine the studio versions. Also note Jerome’s use of a theremin at the end of “Hold On.” Crazy, right?

“Heatwave (Live)”

“Hold On (Live)”

“Pharoahs (Live)”

“Wildfire (Live)”

“Never Never (Live)”