Cornel West on Obama and MLK’s Bible
January 23, 2013 § 1 Comment
Cornel West Explains Why It Bothers Him That Obama Will Be Taking The Oath With MLK’s Bible
Israel 2012, The Question of a Nation: What Does Culture Have to Do with Politics? (Part 2)
December 25, 2012 § 5 Comments
Earlier this week, I found a message in my inbox by an Israeli, who’s a Jazz musician, who’s paying gig was canceled because of a successful BDS movement campaign to get Swedish Jazzist, Andreas Öberg, to cancel his gig in the Eilat Red Sea Jazz Festival. Usually, the extent of my response, when I get unsolicited mail from angry Israelis, is to take a screenshot and add it to my “Love Letters” albums on my Facebook profile. Call it an artistic form of exhibiting political repression, racism and sexism, if you will (but what does culture have to do with politics, I wonder…). This time, however, since we’re not talking about your typical angry Red Hot Chili Peppers fan, but someone who has lost a paying gig. I think it merits a response (even though, as I will argue below, I am actually not the address for cultural worker grievances).
You Don’t Know Me and I Don’t Know You
The Politics of Power: Burying Truth through Resolutions
September 5, 2012 § Leave a Comment
by William A. Cook
The California Assembly’s resolution passed on August 23, 2012, HR 35, purports to condemn “anti-Semitism” in public post-secondary institutions of higher learning by denying expression of opinions or statements that might be construed as expressing hatred of the Jewish people or critical of the state of Israel. Pamela Geller’s ad campaign quoted above, and placed in public vehicles in the city of San Francisco, expresses an opinion that demeans a group of people who are unquestionably Semitic by blood and language, yet would not be protected by the Assembly resolution since the term as defined is based upon the European Union’s definition that is exclusive, protecting Jews only.
The ad has created considerable reaction; a parallel poster expresses the same statement with a change of wording: “in any war between the colonizer and the colonized, support the oppressed, support the Palestinian right of return.” In short, Geller’s ad campaign began a dialogue that has illumined quite opposing perspectives: what is the meaning of civilized man on the one hand and what is the meaning of colonized on the other. Perhaps out of this dialogue understanding will arise. Freedom of expression triumphs.
Apple’s Racial Profiling
June 22, 2012 § 1 Comment
This happened at more than one location. Jamal Abdi of NIAC speaks to Al Jazeera.
Ziad Jilani Vs. Israel: Another Case of Extrajudicial Summary or Arbitrary Execution of a Palestinian
June 17, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Within a couple of days, Israel State Attorney, Yehuda Weinstein, will have to decide whether to press charges against the Israeli Border Patrol officers, who shot and killed Palestinian Ziad Jilani, on his way back from prayer, who’s truck swerved off the road and hit 2 soldiers walking on the opposite lane. In the official investigation following the killing on 11th of June 2010, conducted that same day by the Police Internal Investigations (Machash), neither Machash interrogators nor the police saw fit to take testimony from the many eyewitnesses on the street at the time. Only soldiers and police personnel were interrogated.
The case was closed last year, citing “lack of evidence” and the incident reported in Israeli media as a “hit-and-run terror attack”. But Jilani’s widow, Moira Jilani, and her three daughters, with the help of the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, conducted an independent investigation (including an autopsy, which the Israeli authorities refused to do, and the Israeli media dubbed “body snatching”). The investigation pointed the way to the killers; Maxim Vinogrodov, a Border Patrol officer, and his commander, Shadi Kherraldin.
Confirmation of Killing: Standard Procedure
Punishment and Profits: Immigration Detention
April 12, 2012 § 1 Comment
Josh Rushing brings another episode of Al Jazeera’s excellent Fault Lines.
The detention and deportation of immigrants has reached an all-time high under the Obama administration. Fault Lines investigates the business of immigrant detention and finds out how a few companies are shaping US immigration laws.
Max Blumenthal on Trayvon Martin and Shaima Alawadi
March 28, 2012 § Leave a Comment
The great Max Blumenthal, Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow for the Nation Institute, is interviewed on RT about the killings of Trayvon Martin and Shaima Alawadi, racial profiling and the normalization of Islamophobia in the U.S.:
Racism Report: Africans in Israel
February 1, 2012 § 2 Comments
David Sheen‘s devastating report for the African Refugee Development Center (ARDC) on the mistreatment of asylum seekers in Israel was submitted to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on January 30, 2012.
Who’s Afraid of Women’s Song?
December 20, 2011 § 3 Comments
At 4:02, as the women sing, a male protester yells: “Who’s afraid of women’s song?”
The following is a testimony of one of the women, out of the 23 activists, who were arrested in this week’s Nabi Saleh demonstration (above video). This demonstration was the first after Mustafa Tamimi’s murder. It was extremely brutal, which is a relative term, considering the continuous repression that the demonstrations against the apartheid wall face, and the village of Nabi Saleh in particular.
Out of the 23 activists, many were physically assaulted while handcuffed behind their backs, as Mohammed Khatib, one of the leaders of the Bil’in popular committee, describes in his own testimony. Mustafa Tamimi’s sister, Ola, who was prevented from being with her brother as he took his last breaths, was pepper sprayed in the eyes, from a few centimeters away. And another handcuffed woman was slapped with the back of the hand of a passing male settler, when she expressed objection to him assaulting Khatib and taking pictures. These are just a few of the testimonies that were published and taped, we still don’t have a complete story of this particular demonstration, and many other stories will be lost in the clouds of gas.
Testimony of Sahar M. Vardi
Casual racism on BBC’s Top Gear
November 21, 2011 § 1 Comment
Fresh from his scrimmage with the Murdoch press, Steve Coogan, creator of the comedy classic ‘I’m Alan Partridge’, takes on the casual racism of the BBC’s Top Gear. (via The Guardian)
The trio of jackasses that hosts BBC's Top Gear
As a huge fan of Top Gear, I normally regard the presenters’ brand of irreverence as a part of the rough and tumble that goes with having a sense of humour. I’ve been on the show three times and had a go at their celebrity-lap challenge, and I would love to receive a fourth invite. But I think that’s unlikely once they have read this. If, however, it makes the Lads question their behaviour for a second – ambitious, I know – it will be worth it.
I normally remain below the parapet when these frenetic arguments about comedy and taste break out. But this time, I’ve had enough of the regular defence you tend to hear – the tired line that it’s “just a laugh”, a bit of “harmless fun”.
Some of the Lads’ comments again, in case you missed them. “Mexican cars are just going to be lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus, with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat” (Richard Hammond). Mexican food is “sick with cheese on it” (James May).
Jeremy Clarkson added to the mirth by suggesting that the Mexican ambassador (a certain Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza) would be so busy sleeping he wouldn’t register any outrage. (He wasn’t and he did.)
OK, guys, I’ve got some great ideas for your next show. Jeremy, why not have James describe some kosher food as looking like “sick with cheese on it”? No? Thought not. Even better, why not describe some Islamic fundamentalists as lazy and feckless?
