29 Matching Annotations
  1. Aug 2020
  2. Jul 2020
  3. Aug 2018
    1. You might have seen the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter in the previous step. In this 6-minute video, #BlackTwitter after #Ferguson, we meet activists who were involved in the movement and learn about their own uses of Twitter as a platform of protest. Hashtags, when used like this, can be extremely complex in the way they represent ideas, communities and individuals.
  4. Jul 2018
    1. The Blue Lives Matter movement, which began after the December 20, 2014, slaying of two New York City police officers, soon adopted the Thin Blue Line flag. The murders were the catalyst for what quickly became a rebuttal to Black Lives Matter, its insistence that we pay more attention to killer cops than to cops killed in the line of duty.
  5. Feb 2017
    1. he did not scruple to chastise African Ameri-cans, particularly black men, for running after trivial pursuits, for lacking in educa-tional and professional ambition, and for avoiding the challenging task of speaking up for their people's rights.

      The Black Lives Matter movement has a similar dialogue embedded in it:

      But this call to "be better" puts the onus back on the oppressed on a whole other level:

    1. criminal history as proof that he was a bad actor

      As a student recently wrote in a brainstorm of questions, "Why are people judged by what they were?" https://www.instagram.com/p/86A-X7OmNX/?taken-by=paulrallison That's something else going from a "criminal history" to a trait: "bad actor." Maybe he was unlucky enough to not be able to escape the criminal justice system. Maybe he was a good person who had something terrible follow him.

    1. northeast Portland

      Here's a history of this the process of gentrification that Linda Christensen uses in here gentrification curriculum: BLEEDING ALBINA: A HISTORY OF COMMUNITY DISINVESTMENT, 1940–2000

    2. "Thank God for gentrification," one of the men yelled into a megaphone. "Someone had to clean up the neighborhood."

      The three men yelling this at Black Lives Matter demonstrators must not have learned their lessons in Linda Christensen's English class at Jefferson High School http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/EJ/1052-nov2015/EJ1052Focus.pdf

  6. Jul 2016
  7. Nov 2015
    1. "It makes me feel like a failure," he said of that photo. "I'm sitting here wishing I had done more. I wish I had made one more phone call. I wish we would have been able to give him a few more hours."

      I'm deeply saddened by this response. I've felt it so often. But what would Jamar have been able to do with those few more hours? What could have stopped this tragedy from speeding down to its inevitable end.

    2. he didn't have the structure to be the person he wanted to be

      What does that mean?!? Is it something in him? In our schools? In his experiences in his adoptive family? In not having a steady job? In getting pushed in and out of jail? What?

    3. Clark's sly grin in a selfie, wearing his Copeland Trucking hat.

      Jamar Clark

    4. terroristic threats

      Come again?

    5. "He cared about his family being connected with each other. He cared about having somebody care about him."

      I guess this is a basic human need: connection. But I'm struck with how sensitive Jamar was about this need. This sentence makes me want to write a song or a poem about Jamar, the lovely repetition of "cared" and "care."

    6. When things were going well, he was a nurturing, loving man who was drawn to her four children,

      This sentence and others in this article point to Jamar's connections to family: biological and adoptive parents, 14 siblings, wanting a family of his own, and a nurturing, loving man. And the police call him a "bad actor." Which is it? I guess he could be both. What does this phrase "When things were going well..." mean? Does it mean when Tim was providing employment and a motel room?

    7. The system failed miserably

      That seems pretty clear by now, a tragic series of events with Jamar going "in and out" of prison for three of his most precious years, his early 20's. But what can we imagine instead? How might "the system" respond to "troubled youth"? Who can we help now to avoid Jamar's path?

    8. Hoag was sure

      What gave Tim Hoag this optimism? What was he missing? Or is it just luck who can move past "it" and who can't.

    9. Clark spent much of his 20's in and out of prison

      Once back on the streets there were times when I couldn't afford to take the bus I didn't know where I was going to sleep at night Thank God for Tim who would get me a motel room, and a job when he could.

      I've made mistakes in my life, and I've paid my dues.

      When the cops stopped us after a high speed chase in July, did they have to beat me too?

    10. Tim Hoag and his wife hired Clark earlier this year

      I want to know more about Tim Hoag and his wife and their rental properties. And how Jamar came into their orbit. How could government have supported Tim Hoag and his wife in their reaching out to Jamar?

      Here's the beginning of a lead to learn more about Tim Hoag. He's the President of Copland Trucking. http://www.copelandtruc-king.com/team.htm Image Description

    11. petty misdemeanor for possessing a small amount of marijuana in 2009.

      Piecing this together, it seems that many of Jamar's troubles started with this "petty misdemeanor" for marijuana possession when he was 18. How can we see this story as being about a young Black man who was ensnared in a system of prison and crime that would only make things worse for him.

    12. protesters outside the police precinct insist Clark was handcuffed before he was shot, which police dispute.

      Okay, so which of these is more credible. Isn't it irresponsible journalism to just report such an important detail as he said/she said? Which of the people who the reporter interviewed seemed most credible? Who was actually there?

    13. a July arrest for fleeing police in a high-speed chase.

      Sarah Gartnor, a friend of Chris Rodgers -- who took us over to the 4th Precinct yesterday (Thursday) -- told us that when she was sitting in the Mayor's living room the night before as part of a protest, a special prosecutor told her and her fellow protesters that Jamar had been beaten at the end of this high-speed chase. He was about to testify about that beating in January, he told her.

    14. on probation

      He's had a hard time, but this sounds ugly.

    15. three years in and out of prison

      What does this mean? Was he is prison or not?

    16. they contend he was reaching for an officer's gun when he was shot.

      Okay, he was either reaching for a gun or he was handcuffed. How does a reporter merely report this without pointing out that this is clearly NOT what many witnesses said happened. And I would assume that she did follow-up interviews with quoting these eye-witnesses. what did these "union reps" have to say about why their story is so different?

    17. police union representatives

      Putting this out there like this: Are we expected to trust this or not. Is this totally up to the reader and his/her background as to whether or not we are to trust the "police union representatives?" Certainly we can all agree that these reps have a reason to make Clark look bad. Why doesn't the writer remind us of that fact?

    18. He cared deeply about his parents — biological and adoptive — and his 14 siblings, and had a job and hopes of going to college.

      What a sentence! I keep reading it and wondering what he would say if he could read it. Twenty-four -- with the last three years in prison, living at times in a motel, and he cared deeply about his parents and 14 siblings!

    19. troubled past that Jamar Clark struggled for years to escape

      Is this a formula? Dragging up a victim's past? And what's going to happen as I read this (again). On my first reading, I was upset with how Jamar was trying (sometimes unsuccessfully) to escape the criminal justice system, and now it finally caught up to him.