Why?

Why is it that if there is a crime in Preston, when you look at the article in the Chronicle Herald, right after the heading, the town is identified as Preston? Why is it when there is a crime committed in Millbrook, when you look right after the heading, the town is identified as Millbrook? Why do you find the same thing with Membertou, Pictou Landing, Wagmatcook, and Eskasoni?
Why is it when there is a crime in Cole Harbour, when you look at the article in the Chronicle Herald, right after the heading, the town is identified as...Dartmouth? Why is it that when a crime is committed in Porter's Lake, when you look right after the heading, the town is identified as Dartmouth? The same is true for many other areas. What got me thinking about this...once again is an article in the paper today. Turns out a great deal of stolen goods had been recovered in Debert and the article, right after the heading, said Truro. For those of you who do not know Debert is located approximately 14 kms Northwest of Truro and has a population of 1422. I remember looking at an article about a crime that had happened in Millbrook First Nation a couple months back and found it, well, not surprising, that right after the heading, it was actually identified at Millbrook. For those of you who are not familiar with the area, Millbrook is located on Truro's side doorstep and has a population of 1345. One only has to take a look at the racial makeup of these towns that are identified in stories and the racial identity of those towns that are not identified to see what the "real" story is behind the reporting of crime in the media. Shame on you

Do I want to Speak on Columbus Day...let me think about it!

First I want to personally thank Glenn Singleton and the staff at Pacific Educational Group for organizing once again an amazing Summit for Courageous Conversations in Baltimore. The feeling you get attending such an event with 500+ people passionate about anti- racism is, for lack of a better word, overwhelming. I was excited enough to be presenting my Historical time line workshop, on Columbus Day... in the US, and sharing the truth about terrorists like Columbus and Cornwallis to 25 or so people. However, on Monday, the day of the national celebrations of a glorified boat captain (I do not use the word explorer to describe these men. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Alrdrin are explorers, the others more like tourists visiting a place where someone already was/is), I was asked to speak to the entire conference for a couple minutes about Columbus. Talk about a dream come true...but only a couple minutes? Sure that is all this history deserves in a classroom, in the curriculum, but 2 minutes to to undo 517 years of lies...hmmm... I got it let's focus on present day

Here is a copy of what I said:

Columbus, South Carolina
Columbus, Missouri
Columbus, Indiana
Columbus, Wisconsin
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus State University...in Columbus, Georgia
Washington, D.C.
There is actually a statue of Christopher Columbus right here in Baltimore on the Inner Harbour, next to Christoper Columbus Building. Yesterday there was a parade through this very city to celebrate Columbus. Now I am one who loves geography, so I got out my maps and looked:
Hitler, Montana
Hitler, Arizona
Miloshevich, Kansas
Aldof Consolidated School
I could not find any of these places. If we are ok to name places after one person who committed genocide, why not others?

I would like to read you a few statements from the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948:

Article 1
The contracting parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace on in time of war, is a crime under international law.

Article 2
In the present convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group as such:

1. killing members of the group
2. causing severe bodily or mental harm to members of the group
3. deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
4. imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
5. forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
   

Were Canada and the US guilty of genocide? In Canada, First Nation children were forcibly taken, sometimes by gunpoint by the police, from their homes and sent to Residential Schools, in order for them to learn how to assimilate into a society that did not want them there in the first place. If they made it through alive, which many thousands did not, where could they go? Home? No, they no longer spoke the language or knew their culture. Into the dominant society? No, they were still not wanted there. The destruction is still being felt, generations later. Our students are disengaged from school at grade 3 and dropping out on average at grade 9. Many generations destroyed by one act. I ask you, where did this start and when will it end? Our Prime Minister, this year, stood up in the House of Commons, actuallystood up and issued an apology for the treatment of children at the Residential Schools, which was the first time in our history a group representing First Nations was allowed on the floor of the House of Commons...FIRST TIME. However, just a couple weeks ago, this same Prime Minister actually stood on the floor on the United Nations and said (Canada)"...we have no history of Colonialism" I guess that apology was nothing more that words.
As we observe Columbus Day today, I ask you, when did this genocide start, should it be celebrated, and when will it end? Thank you


I did not have enough time to finish my thoughts, so here it goes. This convention was written in 1948, after WWII. That year there were 72 residential schools open in Canada. The last federally run residential school officially closed its doors in 1996. Should Canada be held accountable for this genocide? Today, in 2009, Canada and the US still practice genocide through our biased judicial systems. A disproportionate number of Black, Latino, First Nation, men and women are being incarcerated as compared to Whites. For identical crimes, the first group is more likely to receive higher sentences, at higher security levels, for no other reason, except for the colour of their skin. In many of these cases, in relations to drugs, you will see the first group sentenced to federal time, while the second group is given a chance at rehab. Now, what happens when these folks have kids? The province/state steps in, removes the kids and puts them where? Many, many times, they are completely removed from their own cultural and racial identity., please see Article 2(5) above

5 arrested in East Preston drug raid

Ok, so there was a drug bust in Preston today (Sept 16) Not a huge haul 147 plants, a bit of coke, and so forth. Typical raid as far as raids go. What pisses me off, is not so much how this is being reported, but once again, the asinine, ignorant remarks coming from the readers of CBC's web site, who feel it is their life purpose to show their bigotry and ignorance towards a specific community that they have never been to nor probably ever will. Every community has its criminals, not just black communities. How many raids have there been in Colby Village? What about Portland Estates? Lawrencetown? Ross Road? how about the South end of Halifax? If you can't remember, you are not alone. These hit the news, usually page 4, 5,...of section B and disappear just as fast. When these raids take place in a community other than they typical white community, seems "those people have no sense of community" or "those people have no respect for anyone". Umm, what about the grow-ops that are happening next door to you as you read this, stealing YOUR power, or how about the meth lab you neighbour has in their basement? can you imagine the damage if that thing explodes? talk about no respect for your neighbours! So if all this is happening in YOUR communities, why is it the CBC readers think black communities have the monopoly drug raids and criminals? Does Jimmy Melvin live in Preston? I thought not. Speaking of which, it seems a lot of these folks get their misconceptions from a select few. They see a black guy arrested for drugs and suddenly all black folks are drug dealers. If this logic held true, all white males would could be either, say thugs with no respect for those around them, aka JM, or say terrorists, as Timothy McVeigh, or all old white males are pedophiles thanks to the actions of a few priests. Or perhaps all corporate white males are theives because of the actions of Conrad Black. See, this logic does not make sense. So if it does not make sense and you still believe it, what exactly does that make you?

A picture says a thousand words

Looking through the paper this morning and I noticed a trend that seems to be long running. Just curious, but do you think posting a picture in the paper of a suspect of a bank robbery, who is still out there, is more important than posting a picture of a suspect of a person who is in custody for a robbery? Ok, I agree, both are crimes to be reported, but what makes one priority over the other? I find it ironic, no, surprising, no typical, that the picture of a black male being put into the back of a police car warrants a large picture on page two, but a suspect in a bank robbery, who is white, in a predominately white community (Cole Harbour), and still on the loose, gets his tiny picture on page seven in the small Across Nova Scotia section. This seems to happen over and over in the paper. The same type of crime, different coverage.