Misadventures at UMBC

Today/yesterday was an eventful to say the least. I ended up at UMBC after going out to eat at this Mexican restaurant with some friends. Everyone came to Rado's dorm where we watched the baseball game and drank. After a while we all headed out to another part of campus where some other friends were hanging out on a balcony. Apparently, someone pulled the fire alarm at the building that was across from us. As the students in the other building evacuated their building some of our friends were being loud and belligerent towards the students walking pass us. I walked back to Rado's dorm but nobody was there so I ended up walking back to the balcony with Kevin.When I got there, I realized that everyone had left. We ended up fixing the mess that was left behind. Then we went inside to the main lobby where we overheard a conversation between the guy who works the front desk and the person in charge of the building. The guy at the front desk was complaining about us being loud. They weren't able to get any names so the person in charge of the building simply said to contact him if it happens again. I ended up walking back to Sam's dorm where everyone from the balcony was hanging out. I sat down and played some Mario Kart and then went to Rado's dorm where I found him making microwave breakfast. I stayed in the kitchen area but wasn't able to fall asleep there. I eventually went down to the main lobby to watch the sunrise. After a while I got tired and went back to Rado's dorm and fell asleep on the floor.

Who Do They Protect and Serve?

New details have been released about the fatal shooting of 14-year old Deonte Rawlings. One year after the incident, copies of an interview of one of the cops who were involved in the shooting were obtained. In the interview, Officer James Haskell explains the events which led up to Deonte's death. His story was as follows, On September 17th 2007 Officer Haskell and Clay were off-duty driving through a Southeast public-housing complex searching for a bike which was stolen from Haskell's garage. Not long after, Haskell and Clay noticed Deonte riding a bike in the opposite direction. Haskell reversed his Tahoe sport-utility vehicle and pursued Deonte until they caught up with him. Haskell told investigators that he told Deonte to "Drop the bike". Deonte responded by saying "What". Haskell claims that Deonte dropped the bike and pulled out a .45-caliber semiautomatic. Deonte fired two shots first and Haskell retaliated with two shots from inside the vehicle. Clay, according to Haskell got out the car but did not participate in the shootout. Instead, Haskell told Clay to radio in for help. When Clay realized that he was on the "wrong channel", Haskell told Clay to take the car and go back to the house. Deonte continued to shoot over his shoulder at Haskell as he attempted to run away. Haskell fired a few more shots at him before Deonte finally dropped. Haskell left the scene and used the radio to call a fellow policeman to come pick him up a block away from the scene. Seven policemen responded to Haskell's call however Haskell did not direct them to the scene of the crime. Instead, Haskell was dropped off at his mom's house which was in the area. The stolen bike was later found in Upper Marlboro. I would love to say that these officers were brought to justice however this is simply not the reality. Both officers were cleared despite the obvious inconsistency in the story. The first would be that at no point in this altercation did Haskell or Clayton identify themselves as police officers. Also, Haskell's description of how Deonte shot the gun is questionable because no gun was found on or anywhere near the scene of the crime. Reports show that there was no residue found on Deonte's shirt, nor were there any shell casings found 100 feet of where the altercation occurred. It seems odd to me that of all places on the body, Haskell shot him in the head. In my opinion, a crime is still a crime regardless of who commits it. These policemen should be arrested and convicted for the crime they've committed. However, as I have come to find out, the laws doesn't always apply to the police. Time and time again we have seen that there are many policemen who abuse their power and see no repercussions for their actions. Police are above the law. Bottom line.
Which leads me to ask the following question..Who do they serve and protect?
Obviously, not you.

This story and the audio interview of Officer Haskell can be accessed at the following sites:

http://static.wjla.com/documents/haskelinterview0924.mp3
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/23/AR2008092303228.html

Response: Where Have All the Protests Gone?

David Segal wrote an interesting article in the Washington Post about today's youth and the lack of activism. In the article, he draws comparison between the activism during the Iraq War and the Vietnam War. He then goes on to ask the following question, "When was the last time you saw a street protest?" If memory serves right, I recall two major protests which took part this year and last year. One of them occurred on February 15th which had 6-10 thousand participants. There was also another protest in September which I attended that took place in Washington.That particular protests had 100,000 participants. There have been over 50 protest against the war in Iraq since 2002. Clearly, the American people are not lacking in activism. There are numerous websites, groups on campuses, and various non-governmental organizations that are trying to put an end to this war.Therefore, it would be wrong to assume that the American people are politically unaware. One reason one may get that idea is because these protests do not receive the proper attention from the media. Anything relating to revolution or change is automatically dismissed in the media. Newspapers don't do a very well job of covering protests either. The other thing I disagree with was the poor example that Segal used when he talked about Rick Ross being this generation's rebel leader. This was a bad choice on his part because Rick Ross does one genre music which is mainstream. Segal should have done better research and picked better examples of artists such as Immortal Technique, Rage Against, the Machine and Nas. Those are the artists whose music are more political and therefore best fits the title of our generation's rebels. The size of the protests fluctuate but they're always happening regardless.


Where Have All the Protests Gone?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/23/AR2008092303283_3.html?sub=AR

Gibson/O' Reily Say the Darndest Things

Another school shooting occurred recently at a high school in Ohio. Asa Coon went on a shooting spree which left four injured, he then took his own life. I think everyone can agree that incidents such as this are tragic. I was outraged when I heard Fox's radio host, John Gibson, make a comment regarding this incident that was both ignorant and racist. Gibson had the audacity to go on the radio and blame "violent" Hip-Hop for influencing Coon. Gibson went on to say, "this is another example of Hip Hop culture bringing murder and mayhem into the rest of our society”. After Gibson discovered that the shooter was white he said, “I know the shooter was white, I knew it as soon as he shot himself," Gibson remarked during his Oct. 10 broadcast. "Hip-hoppers don't do that..They shoot and move on to shoot again.” First off, I think its ridiculous to assume that music, specifically rap, influences people to shoot other people. These racist anchors need to stop blaming hip-hop for every shooting that occurs. In NO WAY do hip-hop artists or lyrics provoke anyone to do anything that is violent. If anything, parents are partially to blame for not BEING parents. We live in a country with a lot of irresponsible parents. If my kid started acting strange, I notice shit like that.


Bill O' Reily made it abundantly clear that he knows nothing about Hip-Hop when he went on air to bash Virginia Tech for letting Nas perform at their campus. Not only did he fail to pronounce Nas wrong (it's one syllable, it's not that hard to pronounce), but he went on to say that Nas is a gangster rapper and only talks about shooting and violence. Bill, being the biased racist he is, decided to highlight ONLY the songs where Nas talk about violence. What he failed to show was that Nas doesn't always talk about guns. He's a socially conscious rapper that makes song about various things. Socially conscience songs such as What Goes Around and I Can and songs with lyrical substance (It Ain't Hard to Tell, Nas is Like). It amazes me that O' Reily gets away with saying such outrageous things. He has no right to give his opinion on Hip-Hop because he knows absolutely nothing about it. He made that abundantly clear.


Heres the article about Gibson in case you want to read it on your own :

http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.5823/title.fox-news-blames-hip-hop-for-ohio-shooting

Media Hypocrites

The New Yorker has received much criticism lately because of it's cartoon magazine cover which depicts Barack Obama and his wife as anti-American Muslim extremists. Even the media (such as Fox News,CNN,MSNBC) denounced it. They called it tasteless, offensive, and unfunny. Whats ironic is that these news channels are very quick to accuse the New Yorker for depicting Obama in a negative way, when they themselves have been doing the very same thing since the beginning of the election. CNN did a story a while back which accused Obama of being educated in Muslim radicalism. MSNBC did an interview in which they accused him of being a flag hater. Fox news even went as far as to say that Barack and his wife did a "terrorist fist bump". I digress. My main point here is that the news media is very two-faced.They attack Obama with outrageous stories and accusation, but when someone else does it all of a sudden its blasphemy. It just goes to show that you cannot trust the media at all.


"History isn't the way the corporate controlled media made it look like it,
Read between the lines and free your mind,
Revolution is the birth of equality and the anti-thesis to oppression."

- Immortal Technique ( One Remix)