Established in 1999, this first-book award is dedicated to the discovery of exceptional manuscripts by African American poets. The participation of distinguished judges and prominent literary presses has made this prize highly competitive.
2011 Honorable Mention: Lauren K. Alleyne for What Kept Us.
2012 Competition
Final Judge: Major Jackson Reading period opens March 15, 2012 Deadline to submit: April 30, 2012 Entry Fee: $15 Application Guidelines | Submit Online
DEADLINE: April 30, 2012. No submissions accepted before March 15, 2012.
ENTRY FEE: $15 non-refundable
AWARD: Winner receives $1,000, publication by Graywolf Press in fall 2013, 15 copies of the book, and a feature reading.
FINAL JUDGE: Major Jackson (Judge reserves the right not to select a winner or honorable mentions.)
ELIGIBILITY: African American writers who have not had a full-length book of poetry published by a professional press. Authors of chapbooks and self-published books with a maximum print run of 500 may apply. Simultaneous submission to other book awards should be noted: immediate notice upon winning such an award is required. Winner agrees to be present in the continental United States at her or his own expense shortly after the book is published in order to participate in promotional reading(s).
SUBMISSION: • Submit manuscripts online at cavecanem.submishmash.com. • One manuscript per poet allowed. • Upload manuscript as a .doc or .pdf document. Must include a cover sheet with the title only and
table of contents. Author’s name should not appear on any pages within the uploaded document. • Cover letter should include author’s brief bio (200 words, maximum) and list of acknowledg-
ments of previously published poems. • Manuscript must be paginated, with a font size of 11 or 12, and 50-75 pages in length, inclusive of
title page and table of contents. A poem may be multiple pages, but no more than one poem per
page is permitted. • Manuscripts not adhering to submission guidelines will not be considered. • Post-submission revisions or corrections are not permitted.
Cave Canem Foundation, Inc. | 20 Jay Street, Suite 310-A, Brooklyn, NY 11201 | www.cavecanempoets.org
Deadline: September 30, 2012. In addition to book publication by Anhinga Press, the winner will receive a $2000 honorarium.
Final Judge: TBA
1. Manuscript should be original poetry, not previously published in book form, and should be 48-80 pages, no more than one poem per page.
2. Include two manuscript title pages: one with name and contact information and one with the name of the manuscript title ONLY. Manuscripts will be screened and judged anonymously.
3. All poets are eligible except: faculty, current students and graduates of the MFA Program at California State University, Fresno and close friends, family, or recent students of the judge.
4. The entry fee is $25. Checks should be made out to "Fresno State (Levine Prize)".
5. Please bind your manuscript with a binder clip only and mail by 9/30/12 (postmark deadline), to:
Philip Levine Prize in Poetry Department of English, Mail Stop PB98 5245 North Backer Avenue, California State University, Fresno, Fresno, CA 93740
January 1 – April 30, 2012 (postmark or online submission-date) Final Judge: To Be Announced $3,000 Prize
The First / Second Book Award includes a cash award of $3,000 in addition to publication by Tupelo Press, a book launch, and national distribution with energetic publicity and promotion. Manuscripts are judged anonymously. All finalists will also be considered for publication. This competition is open to all poets who have not yet published a full-length collection of poetry and those who have published only one full-length book. Previously published poems with proper acknowledgment are acceptable. Translations are not eligible, nor are previously self-published books. Employees of Tupelo Press and authors previously published by Tupelo Press are not eligible.
Manuscript Requirements:
Submit a previously unpublished, full-length poetry manuscript of between 48 and 88 pages (of poems). Include two cover pages: one with the title of the manuscript only, the other with title of manuscript, name, address, telephone number, and email address. Include a table of contents and, if applicable, an acknowledgments page for prior publications in periodicals or online venues. Cover letters or biography notes are optional; if included, these will not be read until the conclusion of the contest.
The First Book Award is open to anyone writing in the English language, whether living in the United States or abroad. Translations are not eligible for this prize.
In 2011, in recognition of the many difficulties of publishing a second book, this contest is open to submissions from those who have previously published one book of poems.
Individual poems in a contest manuscript may have been previously published in magazines, print or web journals, or anthologies, but the work as a whole must be unpublished (this includes previously self-published books).
Simultaneous submissions to other publishers or contests are permitted, as long as you notify Tupelo Press promptly if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
All finalists will also be considered for publication.
Tupelo Press endorses and abides by the Ethical Guidelines of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), which can be reviewed here, along with more about Tupelo Press’s ethical considerations for literary contests.
Before you submit a manuscript to a Tupelo Press competition, please consider exploring the work of the poets we have published. We’re drawn to technical virtuosity combined with abundant imagination; memorable, vivid imagery and strikingly musical approaches to language; willingness to take risks; and penetrating insights into human experience.
Terms:
A reading fee of $28 (US) by check or Pay Pal must accompany each submission. If sending a check, please make this payable to Tupelo Press, Inc. Multiple submissions are accepted, so long as each submission is accompanied by a separate $28 reading fee.
Why a reading fee? We are an independent, nonprofit literary press. Reading fees help defray, though they don’t fully cover, the cost of reviewing manuscripts and publishing the books we select through our competitions.
Notification:
If mailing your submission, you may include a stamped, self-addressed postcard for confirmation of your manuscript’s receipt. The online Submissions Manager (see below) automatically confirms receipt.
If you like, enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope (SASE) for notification of the winner. An email announcement will also be sent to all entrants. Do not enclose a SASE for return of manuscript; all manuscripts will be recycled at the conclusion of the competition, except those under consideration for future publication.
Kindly refrain from requesting an individual response to confirm our receipt of your manuscript and/or payment. Both the electronic submission manager and the PayPal system offer automated confirmations. For those wishing acknowledgment of a paper manuscript, your self-addressed stamped postcard will serve this purpose. We receive thousands of manuscripts each year and cannot offer individual acknowledgments beyond these. Thank you for your understanding.
Results will be announced in late July 2012.
Online Submission
Click here to submit electronically. The online submission system will be accepting First/Second Book Award manuscripts between January 1 and April 30, 2012.
Online PayPal Payment
Click below to pay the reading fee for online or postal mail submissions:
Submission via Postal Mail
We also accept manuscripts via postal mail. Please include a check or money-order for the $28 reading fee, payable to Tupelo Press, or utilize our online PayPal option and enclose a copy of the receipt with your printed submission.
You may also include a self-addressed postcard for acknowledgment of receipt of your manuscript and a SASE for notification of the winner, who will also be announced by email.
Mail your submission (and check or PayPal receipt) to: Tupelo Press First/Second Book Award PO Box 1767 North Adams, MA 01247
International submissions only: Tupelo Press First/Second Book Award 243 Union Street, Eclipse Mill #305 North Adams MA 01247 USA
All entries must be postmarked or certified by our online Submissions Manager between January 1 and April 30, 2012.
Hundreds of people gather at a park in Sanford, Florida, for a town hall meeting on the shooting of an unarmed youth.
Sanford, Florida (CNN) -- The core of Trayvon Martin's story has been told again and again in recent days -- about how the 17-year-old went out to a Sanford, Florida, convenience store, only to be killed on his way back to his father's fiance's home.
Yet one month later, questions persist as to exactly how and why that happened. The man who admitted shooting the teen has not been charged in connection to the case, much to the dismay of Martin's parents and thousands of strangers nationwide who've rallied behind them.
On Monday, the story continued to gain both complexity, and clarity, thanks to details of the account that Martin's shooter gave to police after the shooting.
George Zimmerman's description is outlined in an Orlando Sentinel article that cited "authorities" as the source of its information. The Sanford Police Department subsequently released a statement that, while condemning what it called"unauthorized leaks," confirmed the newspaper account "is consistent with the information provided to the State Attorney's office by the police department."
Zimmerman, a 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer, told police he was on his way to the grocery store when he saw Martin, a black male, walking through his gated community, according to the Sentinel report.
"Something's wrong with him," he told a 911 dispatcher, according to the contents of a call released last week. "Yep. He's coming to check me out. He's got something in his hands."
The teen started to run, Zimmerman said. When he said he was following the boy, the dispatcher told him, "We don't need you to do that."
Shortly afterward, neighbors began calling 911 to report an apparent altercation, then a gunshot.
The Orlando Sentinel report fills in some blanks, purportedly from Zimmerman's perspective, of what transpired in the meantime.
Zimmerman, according to the Sentinel report, later told police that he lost sight of Martin and was returning to his SUV when the teen approached him. The two exchanged words, according to Zimmerman, who said Martin then punched him in the nose.
On the ground, Zimmerman said he was repeatedly punched and had his head slammed into the sidewalk, according to the Sentinel report. He began yelling, he told police.
Previously released tapes of 911 calls included neighbors saying they had heard hearing screams -- though it wasn't clear whether they came from Zimmerman or Martin.
Mary Cutcher told CNN on Monday that she and Selma Mora Lamilla were in a kitchen nearby when they "heard a whining, someone in distress, and then the gunshot."
They ran outside and, "within seconds," were about 10 feet away from Martin's body, Lamilla said.
"(Zimmerman) was standing over the body, basically straddling the body with his hand on Trayvon's back," said Cutcher, adding that they called three times to him before he finally asked them to call police. "It didn't seem to me that he was trying to help him in any way."
And Martin's girlfriend was on the phone with him prior to the shooting, according to a lawyer for the shooting victim's family. Benjamin Crump said last week that the girl "completely blows Zimmerman's absurd self-defense claim out of the water."
What is evident is that, minutes after that Zimmerman's first 911 call, police arrived at the scene. They found Martin "laying face down in the grass," according to a police report.
A short time later, Martin was pronounced dead.
As to Zimmerman, "his back appeared to be wet and was covered in grass (and he) was also bleeding, from the nose and back of his head," according to the same report.
Zimmerman was questioned, but has not been charged in the case.
This fact has triggered widespread uproar, with nearly three-fourths of Americans -- including 67 percent of whites and 86 percent of non-whites -- believing he should be arrested, according to a CNN/ORC International poll released Monday.
Those attitudes were on display in more than dozen cities Monday. Many demonstrators wore hooded sweatshirts and carried Skittles candy -- just like Martin had, on the night he was killed -- from Atlanta to San Francisco in many communities, big and small, in between to show support for the victim's family and denounce racism, profiling and laws that permit use of force in self-defense.
In the central Florida city of Sanford, a regularly scheduled city commission meeting turned into a forum focused on the Martin case. Near its start, Rev. Al Sharpton presented a petition that he said had been signed by 2 million people calling for Zimmerman's arrest.
He was one of several speakers who called for answers and accountability for police officers who they felt bungled the case by not testing Zimmerman for alcohol and drug levels and not doing a background check on him -- even though they did both for the victim.
"The Sanford police department needs to be held accountable," said an emotional Tracy Martin, Trayvon's father.
Martin's family and supporters have said that they believe race played a role in the shooting. Zimmerman is a white Hispanic. His family says he has been mistakenly portrayed as racist.
On Monday, Martin's supporters continued to insist that Zimmerman should be held responsible for Martin's death -- saying the teen would be alive today if Zimmerman had simply followed the 911 dispatcher's instructions, to stay away.
"We're dealing with a self-appointed watchdog who disobeyed the dispatcher's instructions that he agreed to," said Sharpton, during a press conference earlier Monday with Martin's parents in Sanford. "All else is irrelevant."
That includes, he added, reports that first surfaced Monday in media accounts and later confirmed by a family spokesman that Martin had been suspended after a search of his book bag turned up an empty plastic bag with marijuana residue.
Martin, who lived in Miami, was visiting Sanford after receiving a 10-day suspension from school, according to a family spokesman. An empty plastic bag found in his book bag had marijuana residue, spokesman Ryan Julison confirmed.
"The only comment that I have right now is that they've killed my son and now they're trying to kill his reputation," Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, said at a news conference.
Crump, the family attorney, said authorities were trying to "demonize" the teen.
"Whatever Trayvon Martin was suspended for had absolutely no bearing on what happened on the night of February 26," he said.
Both of Trayvon's parents will be in Washington on Tuesday, attending a House Judiciary Committee meeting with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, according to a news release from the congresswoman's office.
A special prosecutor is investigating the case. A grand jury scheduled to begin deliberations on April 10, but it is uncertain if the group will ever work on the case. The prosecutor, Angela Corey, said Monday on HLN that she has never used a grand jury to decide on charges in a justifiable homicide case.
"We do a thorough investigation. We make that decision ourselves," she said.
The two prosecutors assigned on the case worked through the weekend and will do their best to provide answers quickly, Corey said. They have not yet interviewed Zimmerman, nor does her office know where he is, she said.
An attorney for the Martin family said Monday that any jury that sees the evidence in the case -- much of which she said was collected by investigators working on the Martin family's behalf -- would convict Zimmerman."Clearly, the investigation in this case was either bungled, or ignored completely," Natalie Jackson said of the initial police inquiry.
Sanford authorities say they could not arrest Zimmerman under Florida's "stand your ground" law, which allows people to use deadly force to defend themselves anywhere they feel a reasonable fear of death or serious injury. The evidence police had at the time didn't allow for an arrest, police have said.
In addition to the investigation led by Corey, the state's governor has formed a task force to review the state's "stand your ground" law. The Justice Department is also investigating.
Sanford's city manager, Norton Bonaparte, also has said he is seeking an outside review of the police department's handling of the case.
The neighborhood where Zimmerman was volunteering in the neighborhood watch program could also face a lawsuit, the National Association of Black Journalists said, citing Martin family attorney Daryl Parks.
Parks spoke to the group's board of directors over the weekend.
There is evidence that the Twin Lakes homeowners' association told residents who saw suspicious activity to call Zimmerman if they could not contact the police, according to the association's statement.
Meanwhile, a handful of members from the New Black Panther Party have offered a $10,000 reward for Zimmerman's "capture." The group is distinct from the better-known Black Panther Party and is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as a "virulently racist and anti-Semitic organization."
The Rev. Jesse Jackson cautioned people not to try to capture Zimmerman, saying it would not only put them at risk of being arrested, but also because it would a distraction.
"The focus must be on Zimmerman himself and what he did," Jackson said.
Joe Oliver, a friend of Zimmerman's told CNN on Monday that Zimmerman is in hiding and all his family members are worried for their safety.
Even with the shooter's account clear, authorities still are working to piece together the details from February 26.
"Right now, we have too many unanswered questions," Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday.
CNN's Kim Segal, Greg Morrison, John Couwels and Vivian Kuo contributed to this report.
The killing of Trayvon Martin was only the most infamous Florida homicide complicated by the legal inanity known as “Stand Your Ground.”
Police in Sanford, maddeningly hesitant in their dealings with the 28-year-old neighborhood watch zealot who shot young Martin, have been widely disparaged for citing the 2005 Florida statute that grotesquely altered the doctrine of self-defense.
But just last week, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Beth Bloom bolstered the Sanford cops’ contention that state law now trumps common sense. She sprang another stand-your-ground killer.
Stand Your Ground, the way the law has been interpreted, has proven to be a wild misnomer. Like Trayvon Martin, Pedro Roteta was pursued down a city street by his killer.
On Jan. 25, Roteta had apparently been trying to steal the radio from a truck owned by Greyston Garcia, parked outside his apartment in southwest Miami. Truck burglary’s a crime of course, but not a capital case. Not before 2005.
Garcia grabbed a large knife and chased the 26-year-old Roteta down the block. He caught up with Roteta, who was unarmed except for an unopened pocketknife in his pocket, and stabbed him to death. The confrontation was captured on a surveillance video.
Miami police were not nearly as cautious as the cops in Sanford. Garcia was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. But under the peculiarities of the stand-your-ground statute, the case never went to trial. Judge Bloom decided Wednesday that Garcia was immune from prosecution.
This aspect of the law drives prosecutors to distraction. The Florida Supreme Court, trying to sort out the ineptly written law (a piece of boilerplate legislation contrived by the NRA) ruled that the immunity conferred by stand-your-ground was for a judge, not a jury, to decide. Judge Bloom decided, under the squishy language of the statute, that Garcia “reasonably believed it is necessary” to use deadly force “to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.”
“We believe this is a determination best made by a jury,” said Ed Griffith, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, in a bit of understatement. Prosecutors were stunned by the judge’s ruling. So was Miami police Sgt. Ervens Ford, who headed up the homicide investigation. He told The Herald’s David Ovalle that Judge Bloom’s decision was a “travesty of justice.”
Travesties of the Stand Your Ground kind keep adding up. At mid-afternoon on Aug. 11, 2009, a black Maxima chased a beige Infiniti at harrowing speeds down Old Cutler Road. Other cars veered off the road. One innocent motorist was sideswiped before the Infiniti crashed into a clump of bushes, the rear window blasted out, bullet holes in the trunk, spent cartridges littering the interior.
The driver of the Infiniti, Sujaye E. Henry, 26, was killed, slumped over the steering wheel, two bullet wounds in the shoulder, a third through his left eye socket. Here was a homicide brought on by reckless gunfire on a city street, spawned by a dispute over a drug deal. There was a time when Anthony Gonzalez Jr., 31, aka “White Boy,” a passenger in the pursing Maxima and the gunman who fired the fatal shot, might have faced harsh consequences.
The case never went to trial. Gonzalez, after all, as he fired away from the passenger seat, was acting under the permissive parameters of the Stand Your Ground doctrine.
Stand Your Ground preempted any thought of prosecuting a former Broward County deputy sheriff who pumped four rounds into an aggressive panhandler outside a Miami Lakes ice cream parlor in January. The month before, Broward Circuit Judge Ilona Holmes bypassed a jury and acquitted Nour Badi Jarkas, 54, of Plantation, who had shot his estranged wife’s boyfriend four times inside her house in 2009. Judge Holmes cited Stand Your Ground, saying, “nothing was presented ... to rebut the reasonableness of the fear that [Jarkas] testified that he had.”
In 2009, after two FPL workers, in their blue shirts and pith helmets, approached Ernesto Che Vino’s mobile home in Northwest Miami-Dade to shut off the juice, Vino came storming out of the house with his rifle, cuffing one of the workers on the head then firing shots as the two ran for their truck. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge John W. Thornton, “following the dictates of Stand Your Ground,” decided that Vino’s claim that he feared for his life was not unreasonable. He tossed two counts of armed assault and one count of improper exhibition of a firearm.
Essentially, the law requires a judge to read the mind of any assailant who claims self-defense, no matter how outrageous the circumstances. Jurors, of course, would do a fine job of sorting out truly reasonable fears from all this hokum. No mind reading required.
It’s not as if prior to 2005 prosecutors were ringing up convictions on innocent self-defense claimants. In 1986, in South Florida’s most famous case of self-defence, a Miami-Dade grand jury refused to indict Prentice Rasheed, a crime-weary Overtown merchant who had booby-trapped his shop windows and managed to electrocute a burglar. Rather than a criminal defendant, Rasheed became a local folk hero.
Not was there a public outcry to loosen the definition of self defense back in 2005. The law was just another of a series of overreaching and dangerous statutes passed in homage to the National Rifle Association. Some 23 other states have passed variations of Stand Your Ground. The NRA is pushing the law in other states, but perhaps the Trayvon Martin tragedy will slow the gun lobby’s momentum.
The handling of that case, so far, has been a travesty. But the resolution of the Pedro Roteta killing, where the police moved aggressively, was also a travesty.
Sanford police have caught hell for failing to bring charges against shooter George Zimmerman. They have been castigated by civil rights leaders and state and national politicians. Caricatured in the international media. Taunted by protest marchers. Yet, for all their fumbling, when they cite Stand Your Ground, there’s plenty of precedent in Florida that says, sadly, no matter how outrageous, criminal charges just might prove futile.
Outrage over the shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin has spread nationwide, with congregants at Middle Collegiate Church in New York invited to wear hoodies to Sunday's services in a show of support for Martin. (Seth Wenig/AP / March 25, 2012)
By Tina Susman
March 25, 2012, 3:10 p.m.
Reporting from Sanford, Fla.—
George Zimmerman, whose fatal shooting of an unarmed teenager has sparked nationwide protests over alleged racial profiling, had thought the entire incident would "blow over," a friend said Sunday. Instead, Zimmerman is hiding amid death threats and demands for his arrest.
Joe Oliver told ABC News that he had never seen any indication Zimmerman, 28, whom he has known for about a decade, is racist. Oliver also said that in the days immediately after the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who is black, he heard that Zimmerman "couldn't stop crying."Zimmerman, who is of Latino and white heritage, has said he fired at Martin in self-defense. Zimmerman had encountered Martin on Feb. 26 as the teenager was walking through a gated community in Sanford, Fla., where Zimmerman is a neighborhood watch volunteer. The fiance of Martin's father lives in the complex, and Martin had been returning to her home after buying candy and a drink at a nearby convenience store."It's just starting to sink in" to Zimmerman how big the controversy over the shooting has become, Oliver said. "Up until this point, because he was there and he knows what happened ... he has been very confident -- naively -- that this would all blow over."Among other things, the shooting has forced the Sanford police chief, Bill Lee Jr., to temporarily leave his post while the investigation continues. It has also focused attention on Florida's so-calledstand your ground law, which permits people to use deadly force if they feel threatened. Lee has said that because of the law, which took effect in Florida in 2005, police could not arrest Zimmerman.Martin's parents and supporters, however, say evidence from witnesses who called 911 the night of the shooting indicate that Zimmerman followed Martin because he was black. They've alleged that racism is at the root of both the teen's shooting and the decision not to arrest Zimmerman.With Monday marking one month since the shooting, city officials in Sanford -- a lakefront city of 55,000 people about 20 miles from Orlando -- were preparing for thousands to attend the regularly scheduled City Commission meeting Monday evening. The meeting site has been shifted from City Hall to the Civic Center to accommodate crowds, and it will be devoted to discussion of the Martin case.Zimmerman has dropped from sight since the shooting, but in recent days, a lawyer who has described himself as Zimmerman's legal advisor has begun speaking out in defense of Zimmerman. Oliver was the latest in a small group of friends who have come forward to speak up for the shooter.The lawyer, Craig Sonner, has said that Zimmerman had a history of mentoring young blacks, had friends of all races and shows no indication of being a racist. Sonner also said Zimmerman had no choice but to go into hiding during increasingly angry demands that he be arrested.The latest demand came from the New Black Panther Party, which on Saturday offered a $10,000 reward for Zimmerman's capture. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," New Black Panther leader Mikhail Muhammad said when asked whether the offer could incite violence, the Orlando Sentinel reported.At rallies held in solidarity with Martin's family, people have sold T-shirts featuring pictures of Zimmerman below a large "WANTED" sign. And Sonner said he and Zimmerman have received death threats."Is George a racist? The answer is no, absolutely not," Sonner told the Associated Press. He said Zimmerman's friends "only have good things to say about him" but that many were afraid to come forward because they feared being targeted for supporting Zimmerman.That did not deter Oliver, who said he understood why Zimmerman was fearful. "Wouldn't you be?" he said. "There's someone ... who put a $10,000 bounty on his head."On Sunday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson became the latest activist to come to central Florida to speak about the case. Jackson delivered a sermon at a Baptist church in Eatonville, about 20 miles from Sanford, where he urged people to ensure the case sparked a movement for social change."There is power in the blood of the innocent," Jackson told the packed church.
Yesterday at 3 p.m., just outside San Diego, a family of Iraqi immigrants ended the life support that had been keeping their mother, 32-year-old Shaima Alawadi, alive since Wednesday, when she was found beaten bloody in the dining room of her El Cajon home, with the house's glass door smashed apart. She'd been repeatedly hit in the head with a tire iron, her 17-year-old daughter told local news sources, and next to her body a note was found: "Go back to your own country." While police say they are investigating the possibility of a hate crime and are calling it an "isolated incident," Alawadi's tragic death has already become part of the increasing furor surrounding the "self-defense" killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was carrying nothing more threatening than a bag of Skittles and iced tea, by a still-free (and still gun-carrying) neighborhood watchman.
Indeed, the national conversation has largely boiled down to the two items of clothing that Trayvon and Saima were wearing at the times of their deaths: the hoodie that Geraldo Rivera now infamously said was "as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was," and Shaima's hijab. But Rivera's advice that people simply avoid wearing hoodies (or, by the same logic, hijabs) to avoid being profiled misses a broader point, that people still profile the young-and-black and Muslim as dangerous.
We reserve the right to wear a hoodie in the rain and not be racially profiled and killed because bigots think that their appearance is suspicious, or threatening.
That's from a statement by the Reverend Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church (where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached), announcing plans to conduct today's Sunday services in full hoodie regalia.
Apart from the simple right to wear what we each see fit, the fiery (and, at times, inflammatory) language used to discuss the Shaima Alawadi killing online reminds us that the hijab is not just a fashion accessory but an identity marker for many who wear it. And it was that identity — Iraqi, Arab, Muslim — that got Alawadi killed. The note found by her body indicates that pretty strongly, and so does the note the family found a month earlier, as remembered here by Alawadi's eldest daughter.
A week ago they left a letter saying, 'This is our country, not yours, you terrorists,' so my mom ignored that, thinking [it was] kids playing around, pranking. And so the day they hurt her, they left it again and it said the same thing.
Except this family had lived in the United States for seventeen years. Most if not all of their five children were almost surely born here and therefore full American citizens. Which adds xenophobia to the racism that so many already see at work in Trayvon Martin's and Shaima Alawadi's deaths and that, normally pulsing below the surface of our national awareness, have now broken into a full-fledged debate.
Shaima Alawadi's daughter Fatima al Himidi found her body after the brutal attack. Photograph: Kusi News
The body of an Iraqi-American woman who was found beaten unconscious in her home next to a note that said "go back to your country, you terrorist" will be flown to Iraq for her funeral, a local Muslim leader has said.
Shaima Alawadi, 32, was taken off life support on Saturday, three days after her 17-year-old daughter found her unconscious in the dining room of the family home in El Cajon, San Diego.
Investigators said they were exploring all aspects of her death, including the possibility that the attack was a hate crime.
Alawadi's father is a Shia cleric in Iraq, and the Iraqi government will pay to have her body sent back, a Muslim leader in Michigan told the Detroit Free-Press on Sunday. "Everybody is outraged," Imam Husham al-Husainy, of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Centre, in Dearborn, said. "This is too evil, too criminal."
The woman's daughter, Fatima Al Himidi, told KUSI-TV that her mother had been beaten on the head repeatedly with a tyre iron.
Police said the family had found another threatening note earlier this month, but did not report it to the authorities.
Himidi said her mother had dismissed the note, found outside the home, as a child's prank.
Flowers were piled on the doorstep of the housee on Sunday. A neighbour said the family had moved in only a few weeks ago. Friends said Alawadi wore a hijab.
Hayder al-Zayadi, a family friend, told the Free-Press Alawadi had moved to the US with her family in 1993 and was part of a wave of Shia Muslim refugees who fled to Michigan after Saddam Hussein cracked down on an uprising in 1991.
After living in Dearborn for a few years, she moved to the San Diego area in 1996, graduated from high school and became a housewife, raising five children.
Zayadi said Alawadi's brothers worked for the US army, serving as cultural advisers to train soldiers who were going to be deployed to the Middle East. Another family friend told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Alawadi's husband had a similar job.
El Cajon, north-east of downtown San Diego, is home to one of the largest Iraqi communities in the US.
Kwame is an animator and illustrator living in Nairobi, Kenya heading up animation studio Apes in Space. He has been involved in several animation training and production initiatives on the continent, including UNESCO’s ‘Africa Animated!’ Project, and Tiger Aspect’s ‘Tinga Tinga Tales‘ children’s TV series. Kwame produces short films, commercials, and storyboard work for the budding film and animation industry in Kenya. Kwame also illustrates for book and editorial. His most notable success being writing and illustrating the children’s book ‘A Tasty Maandazi’ 2006.
The short film ‘The Legend of Ngong Hills’, produced in 2010, marks Kwame’s endeavor to showcase the possibilities that lie in using animation to tell African folklore and fantasy.
Adamu Waziri is a lover of all things animation. As is common with most animators, he was drawing comics and cartoons from a young age. He trained as an architect originally at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. He then did a Masters in Animation at the NCCA in Bournemouth in the UK. He worked as a 3D animator in London in companies like Passion Pictures and Arup. He proceeded to set up EVCL, a creative studio in Abuja Nigeria. EVCL is now producing a new children’s series called Bino and Fino.
Dr. Mohamed Ghazala is a lecturer, artist of animated films, and the founder and director of the first chapter of the International Animated Film Association ASIFA in Africa and in the Arab world based in Egypt. Currently he works as full-time lecturer in Minia University and Since he finished his under graduation study, he directed and co-directed many awarded films, such as "Carnival" (2001), "Crazy Works" (2002), "HM HM" (2005),"Sayari Yetu" (2006), including the first Yemen's animated film "Salma" in 2006.and "Honyan's Shoe" (2009) which won the Animation Prize at The African Movie Academy Awards (The African Oscar AMAA) in Lagos/Nigeria 2010.
Ree Treweek forms a third of the fantasy collective The Blackheart Gang whose focus largely concerns explorations into a realm best known as The Household. The Gang have been documenting this realm using a number of mediums including music, books, short films and Instillation pieces. Ree also forms part of the Gang’s commercial counterpart, Shy The Sun. As a character designer and director, Ree forms an integral part of the company, adding pivotal ideas and imagery to the company’s creative process.
A Kenyan Digital Content Creator, Gatumia trained in Canada and has been working in Kenya for the last 9 years. He has worked with various advertising agency teams to produce advertising material for the television broadcast media. He has also done editing and post-production work on two short documentaries. He currently heads RECON-Digital, a local animation outfit, actively engaged in developing top quality animation products for both the Kenyan and the international markets with a strong leaning towards producing story-driven animation.
Anthony was born in 1979 in Cape Town, left a career in science to pursue his love for animation. He studied stop-motion animation at Van Arts, in Vancouver, and his first film "The Slipper Cycle", was awarded in Tampa, Florida, and the NTVA Stone Awards. Anthony is now Head of Story and Creative Producer/Director at Triggerfish, in Cape Town. He is one of the founding members of Animation SA and animationXchange.
Phil Cunningham’s is an entrepreneurial, “out of the box” animation producer & the owner of Sunrise Productions. His passion is story and the incredible power of how story translates across race, cultural and age barriers in the format of animation. He produced Africa’s first animation feature film The Legend of the Sky Kingdom. Following that came Jungle Beat a CGI TV series that has been broadcast in 170 countries. Series 2 is currently in production. Soon to be released is The Lion of Judaha full-length CGI animated feature Phil produced. Sunrise also created Bokkie a CGI animated character who is the official mascot of SA Rugby.
Big up to our partners at African Digital Art, an incredible resource for digital artist enthusiasts and professionals. Jepchumba, the creative director and founder, is responsible for the fine look and feel and functionality of the site you're browsing right now.
ALBUQUERQUE — Mike Gomez has been angry with the police officer here who shot and killed his 22-year-old son, Alan, last year, after officers responded to a report that the young man was acting erratically and firing a rifle. But Mr. Gomez became even angrier just days ago after he learned that the officer, Sean Wallace, received a $500 payment from the Albuquerque police union shortly after the shooting.
Craig Fritz/Associated Press / Raymond Schultz, the city’s police chief.
The payment, union officials said, was made to help Officer Wallace cope with the stress of the shooting. But Mr. Gomez said he believed the money served a more ruthless purpose: as a bounty-style reward for a shooting.
“You’re telling police that if you shoot somebody you’re going to get paid leave and you’re going to get $500,” said Mr. Gomez, whose son was unarmed when he was shot last May. “If the police shoot a person they get this. What does the family get? A funeral bill.”
The controversy surrounding the payments has shed light on a little-known practice that police unions in at least a few other cities, including Phoenix, have engaged in for years.
Advocates and others here have protested the Police Department’s 23 shootings by officers since 2010 — 18 of them fatal — with some people calling for the police chief’s resignation and for a Justice Department investigation.
Albuquerque, the largest city in New Mexico with a population of 546,000, has 1,100 sworn officers. New York City, with a population of 8.4 million and a uniformed police force of 35,000, had 22 fatal shootings by officers in the same time period.
The police union payments were reported on Friday by The Albuquerque Journal. Twenty Albuquerque officers involved in shootings in 2010 and 2011 were paid by the union, with 16 receiving $500, two $300, one $800 and another $1,000, the newspaper reported, citing internal union financial documents. Many of the officers who received the money were involved in the 15 fatal shootings in Albuquerque during that time.
Executives of the union, the Albuquerque Police Officers’ Association, said the payments had been given to officers after the shootings and that the practice had gone on for at least two decades. They said the payments of up to $500 were to cover the costs of out-of-town trips for officers and their families after stressful episodes, and that any payment to an officer beyond $500 was for other union-related matters. The executives denied that the money was intended to reward officers who fired their weapons.
“It’s difficult for people to understand what officers involved in shootings go through — the self-doubt, the worry — and we take great offense to the fact that people are referring to this as a reward system,” the union’s president, Joey Sigala, said in an interview. “We hold onto the honor and the integrity of this profession. And we take great pride in this community.”
Under pressure from city and police officials, union executives held an emergency board meeting on Friday to discuss suspending the practice. They later announced that the union would continue issuing the payments, saying that its 20-member board would now decide who would get the money on a case-by-case basis. Previously, it was left to Mr. Sigala and the three other members of the union’s executive board on how the payments would be allocated.
The union’s move to keep issuing the payments goes against the wishes of Mayor Richard J. Berry and the police chief, Raymond D. Schultz, both of whom want the payments stopped.
“I think we all have the same goal in mind: helping the officer and his family after a traumatic incident,” said Chief Schultz, who has been under increasing pressure to ease concerns over the rise in shootings by officers in recent years. “The biggest concern is making a cash payment to the officer. That obviously sends the wrong message to the community.”
Mayor Berry said he was disappointed in the union’s decision to keep making the payments.
“I am convinced there are other ways other than cash payments to support our officers and their families during times of great stress and crisis in their lives, and I will direct Chief Schultz to continue to work with the union to craft a better solution for our officers and our community,” he said in a statement on Saturday.
Police union officials in other cities said they often provided financial assistance or other types of aid to officers involved in shootings, and they said there was nothing wrong with the practice.
“It is completely perplexing to me how anyone can equate this to anything other than the concern and compassion for a police officer who has just been through a traumatic event,” said Joe Clure, president of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association. “It’s insulting to me as a police officer that they’re trying to paint these guys as villains.”
Mr. Clure said his union typically sent movie tickets, a gift certificate to dinner and a personal card when officers were involved in a shooting or a car crash. In certain circumstances, he said, the union would give officers “$500 or $1,000 to send them to the beach or help them relax.”
Ray Hunt, president of the Houston Police Officers Union, said his organization did not give officers involved in shootings money or gifts, but he strongly defended the Albuquerque union, saying he thought it was beneficial to help officers get out of town during stressful times. “Anyone who claims that this is a reward has absolutely no idea about police work and how traumatic it is for an officer who has been in a shooting and for their family,” Mr. Hunt said. “I thank God every day that I’ve never had to take someone’s life.”
Renetta Torres, whose son, Christopher, was killed by the Albuquerque police last April, said she was appalled by the practice. Her son, who suffered from schizophrenia, was shot after the police said he tried to wrestle away the gun of an officer questioning him about a road-rage incident.
The Torres family, along with the Gomez family, have filed wrongful-death lawsuits against the Police Department.
“These were needless killings,” Ms. Torres said. “We put these police on paid administrative leave and we give them their little bonus. It flies against everything that is decent and right.”
Debbie O’Malley, a member of the Albuquerque City Council, said the city had been fielding complaints from citizens about excessive force and shootings for months, and that in recent years, the city had paid more than $10 million stemming from various lawsuits against the Police Department. “We have a real serious problem here,” she said. “Myself and other members of the council are very concerned about this. Something needs to change. We can’t keep this up.”
Matt Flegenheimer contributed reporting from New York.
Many free African American men found work at the iron furnace in Muirkirk (photo circa 1920). (Laurel Historical Society, Laurel Historical Society / March 12, 2012)
Imagine a life in which you cannot read or write, where you sign your name with an X to vote, exchange money or buy land.
This was the reality for many African Americans in Maryland before and during Reconstruction, the period of readjustment from 1856 to 1877 following the Civil War.
Institute of Museum and Library Services fellow Krystal Appiah has been using the Maryland State Archives for the past seven months in a new approach to understanding African Americans' experiences during Reconstruction.
"This is an area that's ripe for research," Appiah said in her lecture, "Life After Freedom," at the Laurel Historical Society March 8.
"It's just a time period that we don't know much about."
By scrutinizing census data, fliers for runaway slaves and other documents from the Reconstruction era, Appiah has been able to weave a fuller picture of what she calls an "understudied period of U.S. history."
"It's really a lot of fun to be able to sketch out so much information about people that we thought to be anonymous," she said.
( Photo by Clara H. Vaughn / March 12, 2012 )
Institute of Museum and Library Services fellow Krystal Appiah lectured March 8 at the Laurel Historical Society on what life was like for African Americans during Reconstruction.
As a boarder state, Maryland did not secede from the Union during the Civil War. While federal Reconstruction largely did not apply to Maryland, state-wide reconstruction gave African Americans more autonomy over their families, political rights, education and institutions.
The Maryland Constitution of 1864, passed on Nov. 1 by a small margin of 375 votes, abolished slavery in the state.
"However, there were several stumbling blocks," Appiah said.
From 1864 to 1867, anti-slavery laws could be circumvented by "proving" African American parents unfit to care for their children, forcing children to leave their families and serve as apprentices, she said.
Some African Americans struggled to keep their families together, as evidenced by the experience of Perry Wilmer, a free black man living in the second half of the 19th century. Wilmer was able to purchase his wife and children from slavery in 1858, but had to sell his youngest son, John, into slavery for nine years to afford his family.
Taking advantage of voting rights
After achieving family unity, the right to vote was imperative to African Americans during this time, Appiah said.
The Maryland Senate and House of Delegates opposed the 15th Amendment's granting of suffrage to all men. Despite this, Baltimore hosted the nation's largest celebration of the amendment's passage, with more than 20,000 attendees hosting a citywide parade.
Between 1882 and 1912, African American voter registration rates in Maryland reached 89 percent —just three percent below registration rates for whites.
Voter turnout in elections increased to 77 percent during that period, suggesting that newly registered African American voters were taking advantage of their right to suffrage.
The high percentage of illiteracy in African Americans during the Reconstruction era staggered many who attended the lecture.
While Maryland established a public school system in 1864, education remained segregated and unequal: InPrince George's County, only 148 of 9,780 African Americans attended school, compared with 1,491 of the county's 11,358 whites. African American schools were sieged by discrimination, from arson of schoolhouses to landowners' refusals to sell plots of land for the construction of the schools.
The African American communities banded together, providing housing for teachers or school supplies, Appiah said.
Despite these struggles, she described the 1870s and 1880s as "great periods of hope for African Americans."
Tricia Most, who came from Adelphi to attend the lecture, felt a similar hope for race relations today.
"I would like to think that people would be smarter and make smarter decisions" with a better understanding of history, she said.
The lecture also resonated with Harold Skipper, of Laurel.
"I've been through all this we're talking about," he said. "When I first came to Maryland (40 years ago), it was a prejudiced place. You couldn't sit down in a white restaurant."
Appiah said sharing her research has been one of the most rewarding parts of her fellowship since she began seven moths ago.
"It helps explain the present," she said. "When you see inequalities that still exist in society, you can see how they formed in the past. We never learned this kind of school (in high school), and it's so relevant," she said. "It makes history come alive."
Rhythm and Blues Revue (1955) by Joseph Kohn, Ben Frye, and Studio Films Inc. (public domain). Musical variety show filmed at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York City, featuring a cast of popular African-American performers: Willie Bryant, Freddie Robinson, Lionel Hampton, Faye Adams, Bill Bailey, Herb Jeffries, Freddy & Flo, Amos Milburn, The Larks, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Joe Turner, Delta Rhythm Boys, Martha Davis, Little Buck, Nat King Cole, Mantan Moreland & Nipsy Russell, Cab Calloway, Ruth Brown, Paul Williams Band.
