Monday, May 12th, 2008

ICE Raids On Berkeley And Oakland Schools


OAKLAND, CA – May 6, 2008 – Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums joined unions and community groups at Stonehurst Elementary School after agents from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed up earlier in the morning. Dellums and others protested the ICE activity in Oakland, which is a sanctuary city, just days after marches took place across the country for immigrants’ rights. Dellums talked with concerned parents, as worried children left school at the end of the day. Photos and Caption By David Bacon.

The political campaigns may have become a cartoon, but real issues are still exploding in the streets.

This past week, ICE sent agents to elementary schools in Oakland, shocking and scaring students, parents, teachers, and city officials. Parents reported that the agents intimidated students by patrolling outside the school after being denied entry at Stonehurst Elementary. ICE followed up with arrests of parents at their homes in Oakland and Berkeley.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and Berkeley schools superintendent Bill Huyet quickly promised to protect students from such raids. Berkeley schools also offered escorts for worried parents and students.

Both cities–and San Francisco–are sanctuary cities for immigrants.

Parents, students, and immigrant advocates launched protests last week against the raids. In the past, ICE raids have often targeted workplaces. For many documented and undocumented immigrants, these ICE school raids introduce another level of fear and provocation.

ICE raids have often ripped young children from their parents and last week’s were no exception. One lawyer advocate reported being denied access to counsel a couple who had been arrested and detained. She ended up caring for that couple’s young child.

With the immigration debate sidelined for the duration of this presidential term, how will the presidential candidates address the issue in January? Are these kinds of raids throughout the summer the ICE bureaucrats’ way of forcing the issue sooner?

posted by @ 7:11 am | 0 Comments

Friday, May 9th, 2008

When The Campaign Becomes A Cartoon…

…the cartoons are becoming of the campaign. Certainly beats 99% of the coverage…

posted by @ 7:02 am | 0 Comments

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

Zirin on Bissinger v. Leitch, Blogs & The Future of Sportswriting

Costas’s HBO show on sportswriting the other week continues to generate waves of discussion, particularly the segment on new media in which old-school journalista Buzz Bissinger went after sports-blogger Will Leitch like it was a Tapout match and not a, you know, civil discussion.

Yo, great frickin TV, especially for reporter geeks of color like me. (Video is here. Watch the replays on HBO to catch the closing segment on race and sportswriting.)

Bissinger’s vampire weekend attack on Leitch reminded me a lot of the issues Oliver Wang raises in Total Chaos around the future of hip-hop journalism, especially the role of bloggers.

It should be noted that Bissinger is a highly accomplished reporter and journalist–he wrote Friday Night Lights and has scooped mad awards. Leitch is, in fact, an acclaimed author as well, but…well, let’s just say Deadspin–while fun, sometimes, willing to go where it needs going in others, but normally pretty trashy–is not necessarily Exhibit A of his own talents as a writer and editor.

I had a discussion with my editor at Vibe.com about it all. Blogging ain’t going away–Bissinger admitted as much at the end that that was the source of his vitriol. But how is it useful for bloggers to trumpet, as Deadspin’s Leitch does, a lack of “access, favor or discretion”? I was on the fence.

Along comes the brilliant Dave Zirin in this fantastic column that has me thinking, if not yet fully convinced.

I think it’s worth a conversation: Is this the future of hip-hop journalism too? (Or maybe asked another way, can hip-hop journalism really actually get worse?!) Are skilled journalists–and by extension, journalistic skills–an endangered species? Have they become media’s undead? Are outbursts like Bissinger’s a sign of a developing cold war between journalists and bloggers, a just a passing thing on the way to a new opinionscape, or just a sad example of what happens when you forget to take your meds?

Anyway, here’s a teaser from Zirin. Weigh in if you like…

Bissinger’s beef appears to be less with Leitch than with the changing media landscape. Sports blogs have brought younger, more diverse and more creative voices into the discussion of sports. While much mainstream sportswriting obsesses about personalities, scandal and statistics, the blogosphere offers other options. Pining for the past makes Bissinger sound like some 1950s preacher railing against rock ‘n’ roll. In some ways, Internet sports coverage is like rock–there’s bad and there’s good–but overall, it has expanded the confines of the form and content of sports journalism.

Costas fueled the controversy, likening blog commentary to what “a cabdriver” thinks about sports. In the past, he has called bloggers “pathetic, get-a-life losers.” It’s an attitude that’s shared by many A-list columnists and sports personalities, some of whom seethe over the fact that “some guy in his basement” gets to have equal voice–or, in Leitch’s case, even exceed the popularity of those whose once dominated the coverage.

There are sports blogs in every style, for every team, and they have entirely changed the game. Of course, some are repellent, but to swear off all blogs would be like refusing to read the New York Times because you don’t like the National Enquirer.

…

If anything, legacy sportswriters deserve far more scrutiny than the upstarts on the web. Washington Post and ESPN scribe Tony Kornheiser has said that this not a golden age of sportswriting, but it is a golden age for sportswriters. There is more money and fame for those willing to “play ball.”

Consider what Big Daddy Drew wrote on Deadspin about ESPN’s Rick Reilly. “Reilly is what I like to call a privileged sportswriter. I’m not saying he’s rich, or snooty, or anything like that. What I mean is that, in his position, Reilly has access to privileges that you or I, as normal sports fans, don’t have. He gets to go to the Masters, VIP-style. He gets to go golfing with Bill Clinton. He gets to ride in an Indy 500 race car. He gets to walk up to Sammy Sosa’s locker and dare him to pee in a cup for him. He gets to do all that. And that’s why he sucks…. If you’re a privileged sportswriter, you’re experiencing sports in a completely different way from normal, everyday fans. It’s no coincidence the bulk of ESPN’s programming now involves sportswriters talking to one another. They’re the only people they can identify with. You certainly aren’t part of the conversation.”

What infuriates old-school sportswriters is that people on the web are calling them on their privilege, isolation and celebrity. In sharp contrast, bloggers, with their messy passion and sharp interaction with readers, sometimes sound far more authentic.

Read it all here.

posted by @ 8:46 am | 1 Comment

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

It’s Not Over… + Darrin Bell on America-Hating Black Preachers

It’s not over.

We’re all still puzzling over Hillary’s spin that Indiana was somehow a tie-breaker. She barely escaped out of there with a virtual tie. The wrath of the math is upon the Clintons. But let no election results put asunder…

In any case less than half of voters in Indiana and North Carolina were distracted by the Reverend Wright scandals. Maybe we’re smarter than the media gives us credit for?

The last word should belong to Darrin Bell, whose Candorville has been straight killing it this week. These 6 panels–asking the question “If 2008 were 1968…”–are worth more than the hundreds of thousands of words that have poured out this past month.

Click through to see the strips full-size.

UPDATE :: Here’s the links to the rest of Candorville’s week…

+ Thursday

+ Friday

posted by @ 8:26 am | 1 Comment

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Breakin The Law :: B-Girls + B-Boys In Madison


Photo By Robin Davies (under Creative Commons license)

Big shout out to Jarius King, Rock Lee of Rhythm Attack, and all of the b-boys and b-girls–from as far away as Hong Kong, Japan, South Africa, and Wausau–who represented a couple weekends back at the Breakin’ The Law competition. (Video is here and here.) T-dot’s Supernaturalz took it in a close final against Milwaukee’s Motion Disorderz.

Robin Davies’s photos capture the vibe completely. Check them all out here!

posted by @ 9:25 am | 1 Comment

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

How About Some Music? :: Dubwise Santogold + Invincible The Sound Of Young Detroit

Out of the shed for a minute–where I’ve got things cooking at a good boil–to share some tasters.

Invincible :: Shape Shifters

After keeping it hot for Dilla, Sa-Ra, Platinum Pied Pipers, Slum Village, Black Milk and the cream of Detroit for years, Invincible finally gets her own shine. Quiet as it’s kept, she’s also one of the city’s most important young hip-hop activists–and you’ll hear that in her music–but her skills seal the deal.

Get her 3-song single here.

Santogold :: “Your Voice”

If you haven’t heard her yet, she’s worth the hype. I mean, this one’s free, so you can imagine how good the ones she’s charging you for.

Get her album here.

posted by @ 6:19 am | 0 Comments



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