The drug-bust double standard

For another installment in my “biased media” occasional series (God, that sounds so self-important), let’s talk about drug busts.

As everyone in the state of California, and possibly in the United States, has no doubt heard, over 75 students and 128 people total were netted in a drug sting by the DEA at, of all places, San Diego State University. This is apparently big news because, as everyone knows, college students don’t do drugs. (I can’t even keep a straight face typing that. Is the pervasiveness of drug culture on college campuses really news? Really?)

What has bothered me about these stories, though, is the way in which these students are being written about and spoken about. Let’s compare.

University President Stephen Weber defended the decision to bring federal authorities onto campus.

“Some have asked what we think this publicity has done for SDSU’s reputation. I have told them I am proud of the action taken by SDSU to proactively address this serious threat to our students,” Weber said in a statement Wednesday. “As a parent I would want my son or daughter to attend a university committed to providing the safest possible environment.” [Source]

Can you imagine the mayors of San Jose, Oakland, or Los Angeles defending drug busts in their city? Or even having to?

In July of 2005, “Operation Falling Star” led to one of the biggest drug busts in the state of Michigan, and allegedly helped to put a dent in the operations of a major international drug cartel.

Authorities say the bust would not have occurred were it not for massive amounts of cooperation from local, state and federal officials. Many officials are acknowledging that the bust is one of the largest ever in Michigan and likely one of the largest in the country.

“This indictment … is a showcase demonstration of cooperation,” Murphy said. [Source]

Hmm, not only was there no need for authorities to defend their actions, the bust was a “showcase” operation. I wonder what the difference was?

Authorities say the cartel, which has been in operation since at least 1994, was led by Detroiter Quasand Daniell Lewis, 35.

… Nah. Must just be a coincidence. I’m sure other drug bust operations have been forced to defend their actions, right? Like this one in October of 2007 in Oakland.

The ring had the capacity to distribute between to 50 and 100 pounds of tar heroin a month, police said.

“They were violent, moving lots and lots of heroin,” Pena said. “Today is a good day.”

U.S. Attorney Scott Schools agreed, saying the suspects wreaked havoc and “created disorder for their own purposes.” Six other suspects are being sought, Schools said. [Source]

Huh. Weird.

Federal and law enforcement officials targeting a violent Mexican heroin drug ring …

Oh. Well, both of these rings were tied to deaths. Maybe this SDSU drug ring — because it really was an organized ring, not just a handful of kids being stupid, as the media has implied — maybe they aren’t connected to any deaths.

Campus police started the probe a year ago after the cocaine overdose death of a freshman sorority member, but they soon called in federal agents to provide fresh faces on campus and supply the money needed to make drug buys. [Source]

Well, then. Maybe the president of the university was overreacting. A drug ring that had permeated campus and led to the death of at least one student surely must have angered parents, right?

Parents joined students at a campus rally Wednesday calling for more drug-abuse treatment instead of tougher enforcement.
“This heavy hand coming down is not going to change drug use on campus,” said Gretchen Burns-Bergman, whose son is a month away from graduating. “There’s not going to be a shortage of drugs on campus.” [Source]

So wait a minute. If some nice, wealthy (and don’t tell me they weren’t — you generally have to have money to join a frat) college students are moving thousands of dollars of cocaine, meth, whatever every day, the proper response is to create a “Good Samaritan” policy to report overdoses rather than cracking down? (Because “cracking down” by suspending six fraternities and arresting some students who have probably made bail already is heavy handed, apparently.)

But when it’s a drug ring made up of people of color living in poor areas like the “inner city,” then arrest away, and good job, coppers, for making the world safe for drug-free democracy? Let’s ask the San Jose Police Department, that bastion of impartiality.

The operation, allegedly run by Antonio Barka, is one of the larger drug operations dismantled in the San Jose area [in December of 2007]. Federal investigators, working with local law enforcement, determined Barka’s operation was connected to other drug rings in San Diego and Atlanta, Georgia.

”This was very much a successful operation,” said Doug James, agent in charge at the Drug Enforcement Agency in San Jose. “I believe that the seizure of this quantity of drugs, will have a positive impact on the community of San Jose.” [Source]

Business as usual then, I guess.

EDIT: My point being, whenever there’s coverage of a major drug bust where the suspects are poor or people of color or otherwise marginalized, the press falls over itself to produce glowing stories full of inspiring quotes that show the police in the best possible light. Whenever it’s a college or, worse still, a majority-white, well-off high school, those same reporters fill their stories with quotes from angry parents, “innocent” students who don’t understand how the police could just waltz in and do their job, and nary a quote about how this is keeping students safer in sight.

Have some journalistic ethics, people. Doesn’t J-school teach reporters to at least pretend to be unbiased anymore?

Native Hawaiians lock down Iolani Palace

A native rights group called the Hawaiian Kingdom Government has taken over Iolani Palace in Honolulu and is barring entry to all non-Hawaiians.

Two men at the gate fronting the state Capitol, Harris Fuller and Kimo Kamakeeaina, said they were sheriffs in the Hawaiian Kingdom Government and would not let non-Hawaiians nor people who were not “citizens of the kingdom” enter. The gates had large yellow signs claiming that entering the area would be considered “Criminal Trespass” by the Hawaiian Kingdom Government.

But Panakonou’e Kahau, who identified himself at the minister of interior for the group, later said the group was allowing people on the grounds.

The group says it will occupy the palace grounds indefinitely and start carrying out the business of what it considers the legitimate government of the Hawaiian Islands. [Full story]

That’s all I know and unfortunately, I don’t have time to look for much more right now. Does anyone have any other information?

This appears to be the organization’s website: Hawaiian Kingdom Government. [EDIT: This is apparently another organization with similar goals and the same name. My mistake.]

Learning from history: How to be an ally

It’s May of 1943, and the United States is in the middle of a war. It’s been two years since the Navy built a reserve armory in a Mexican-American neighborhood in Los Angeles, nearly one year since Pearl Harbor was bombed, and several months since they swept the city, dragging American citizens of Japanese ancestry away to be shipped to internment camps, where they would be confined for the duration of the war.

The sailors and soldiers stationed in the area often walk back to the armory after a night of drinking, spitting insults and racist comments at the Mexican-American civilians they encounter. They are particularly offended, it seems, by teenaged boys in the neighborhood who spend their time, or so the sailors believe, wasting money on drinking, card games, and expensive suits.

Things have gotten tense ever since Frank Torres was shot in June of ‘42. Newspapers have run sensationalist stories of Mexican boy gangs and “zoot suit” lifestyles. Police and servicemen have harassed Chicano youths in increasingly frequent street confrontations.

The beating death of Jose Diaz in October brought even more trouble; more than 600 Chicanos were arrested in a dragnet following the beating. Of those 600, 22 boys were brought to trial, and a judge, notorious for the number of prison sentences he’d handed out, sent several girls to jail without any trial at all when they refused to testify.

In December, a “drunken Pachuco” is claimed to have shot a police officer. In the meantime, as winter turns to spring, confrontations and clashes between the sailors and the “zoot suiters” increases from occasionally to weekly to a couple of times a day.

And now the boiling point has been reached. In May of 1943, the sensationalist media/propaganda, the claims of the police officers, and frustration over convictions of several young men in the death of Jose Diaz comes to a head when 500 sailors and white civilians storm a dance attended by the “zoots,” claiming that a sailor was stabbed, and attack the Mexican-American dance attendees in a fight that lasts for hours. At 2 a.m., the Mexican-American boys (not the sailors) are arrested “for their protection.”

Riots break out on a regular basis around the city. They are often spearheaded or provoked by sailors, and often end with “pachucos” or anyone dressed like them badly beaten.

On June 3, sailors claim to have been robbed by pachucos. Over 200 sailors storm through East Los Angeles, stripping several boys out of their zoot suits and leaving them nearly naked. Sailors and servicemen come from all over the Los Angeles area and even San Diego to join in the fights.

The primary victims of the Zoot Suit riots were young chicanos and chicanas, but their victimization isn’t what was remarkable. What was remarkable was this: knowing that sailors were attacking men wearing zoot suits, many African-American young men and a handful of other men of color deliberately chose to also wear zoot suits in solidarity. They were attacked by sailors along with the “pachucos.” As an eyewitness described:

Marching through the streets of downtown Los Angeles, a mob of several thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians, proceeded to beat up every zoot suiter they could find. Pushing its way into the important motion picture theaters, the mob ordered the management to turn on the house lights and then ran up and down the aisles dragging Mexicans out of their seats. Streetcars were halted while Mexicans, and some Filipinos and Negroes, were jerked off their seats, pushed into the streets and beaten with a sadistic frenzy. [Source]

As the riots quickly turned violent, African-Americans also offered Chicano victims vehicles and weapons to help defend themselves against servicemen run amuck.

Because African-Americans were standing with the Chicanos, the riots spread into the primarily-black neighborhood of Watts by June 7, before the Armed Forces finally ended the violence by declaring Los Angeles off-limits to all service personnel.

And they were not the only ones who saw something wrong and, rather than standing back and shutting up, chose to do something about it.

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote an unpopular and widely criticized column shortly after the riots, in which she called them “race riots,” blamed long-term discrimination rather than Mexican-American criminality for the violence, and said:

The question goes deeper than just suits. It is a racial protest. I have been worried for a long time about the Mexican racial situation. It is a problem with roots going a long way back, and we do not always face these problems as we should. [Source]

That might not seem like much, especially as it didn’t help the hundreds of young Chicanos arrested during and after the rioting (the sailors were simply returned to their bases, free men). But political opponents of her husband, the president of the United States during a time of war, seized on it. They painted Mrs. Roosevelt as a radical and a communist.

While she was the most powerful person to speak out, though, many others saw the wrong and demanded that the servicemen and police officers be charged and the zoot suiters released. It had no effect.

In some cases, being an ally means putting yourself at risk to stand up for what is right or what you believe, whether that risk is physical, political, or simply a risk of discomfort or emotional tension. It means standing up even if you aren’t personally affected by something, or even if you have the luxury to keep quiet. Sometimes you take the risk, and nothing comes of it. But what’s important in the end isn’t whether your actions paid off, but that you took them in the first place.

Sources:
Historians and WWII. Zoot Suit Riots.
Los Angeles Almanac. Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots.
PBS American Experience. Timeline: Zoot Suit Riots.
Suavecito Apparel Co. Zoot Suit Riots.
University of South Florida Educational MOOs. World War Two and the Zoot Suit Riots.
Wikipedia. Zoot Suit Riots.
Wyatt, David. Five Fires: Race, Catastrophe, and the Shaping of California. Oxford University Press, 1999.

Getting published

Before I worked for my current employer, I did some (very little) freelance writing, which is more difficult than comments of “if you don’t like it, write your own book” would make it seem.

But, for those of you who would like to take the challenge, one site was incredibly helpful to me, and I intend to rely on it again if I return to freelancing: Writing-World.com.

While it’s geared toward informational and fiction writing more than persuasive and op-ed pieces, a lot of the info on the site is very valuable, such as how to write a cover letter, tips for collecting clips, writing proposals, and tools and research sites that writers can find pretty helpful.

And no, this isn’t a paid post. I just figured that maybe it’d take some wind out of the haters’ sails if they couldn’t haul out the “write your own book” chestnut.

Online life vs. the “real world”

I find it very interesting that some people believe that BlackAmazon and BrownFemiPower have “given up and left” simply because they’ve closed their blogs, as if their blogs were the whole extent of their activism.

Some people actually do activist work in the “real world” rather than just writing about it online. Some people do activist work online that is unrelated to blogging.

If you’re one of those who think that blogging was the extent of BA’s or BFP’s activism, then you haven’t paid any attention to their writing; so why are you whining that they’re gone now, if you didn’t bother learning from them while they were here?

Listening means having your life changed

Sudy shares wisdom straight out of theater. Go read it.

Question/challenge

In August, if all goes as planned, I will be stepping into a classroom full of high school students (and then four more) and teaching them about the history of the world and of the United States. To that end, I’ve started working on mapping out a curriculum and brainstorming for lesson plans.

I do not want to teach them white male history. I will never forget how disappointed I was in my world history class in high school to learn that we would spend two weeks on Africa and China (and nothing at all on South or Central America, the rest of Asia, or Australia) at the end of class, after we spent a week and a half on the French Revolution alone. I do NOT want my students to go through that.

But I also realize that, despite my attempts to remedy these gaps in college, I will probably leave some important world events out, especially as the offering of classes was somewhat limited. For example, I know Philippine, Chinese and Japanese history fairly well, but know very little about the history of South Asia, Korea, Vietnam, and so on. I know next to nothing about African or Australian history. What I know of Russian history is heavily focused on western (European) Russia. I want to make sure that I am doing this right, and not just focusing on the areas I’m interested in.

So my questions to you all:
1. If you were in a high school world history class, what events would you want the teacher to cover? I’m not looking for a history lesson — I can research on my own. I just don’t want to miss anything vital but relatively unknown in the U.S. My only limitations are time and the required curriculum. Well, and parents who get upset that little Madison or little Hunter might actually have to learn something.

I think I have the U.S. covered fairly well, but I’m willing to take suggestions there as well. I’m always happy to learn something new! (And terrified I’ll forget something important.)

Now this is just fucking ridiculous

To anyone who says that the justice system in the U.S. is not horribly fucked up, let’s recap.

In New York, you can fire 50 shots at an unarmed man and kill him, but you won’t go to jail, as long as you have a shiny piece of metal that says NYPD on it.

In Los Angeles, if you fail to move your truck-based eatery every hour, then you may face a $1,000 fine and jail time. [Source]

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY!?

Insensitivity and injustice

I’m angry and upset, but hardly surprised, that the cops involved in Sean Bell’s wedding-day murder were acquitted. And I’m also unsurprised that, at least according to media coverages, only one of them had the balls to apologize, and it was a fairly empty and hurtful apology.

“I’d like to, uh,” he said, and then stopped. Seconds ticked by. His hands nervously worked the sides of the lectern, back and forth, back and forth, before he raised his head and picked up midstream, “say sorry to the Bell family for the tragedy,” he said. “I’d like to thank the Lord, my savior, for today. This is the start of my life back.” [Source]

Sorry I killed your son, but boy am I glad I got off!

“But they attacked the police with a car!” my coworker argued yesterday. I’d challenge anyone to hit the brakes when a cop jumps in front of you and shoots you 50 times. Kind of hard to stop a moving vehicle when you’re dead.

Honestly, I can almost understand the acquittal of Cooper — if I were a cop and heard one of my coworkers yelling for backup and lots of gunfire, instinct might take over. They still ought to have gotten some sort of punishment for running on instinct instead of brains, if not jail time necessarily, but I can at least see the judge’s reasoning there.

But Isnora definitely should have been given prison time. He was supposedly undercover investigating prostitution at this club, yes? So why the fuck was he following Sean Bell and his friends in the first place, who by all accounts had not tried to hire a prostitute? He abandoned his assigned job to follow and harass a bachelor party, and then opened fire on them? And Oliver, who emptied an entire clip and stopped to reload also should have been nailed. He had to know by that time that no one was firing back. How incredibly cold-blooded and calculated.

The point is, not one of them got so much as a slap on the wrist for dereliction of duty, murder of one man, and assault of another two. I cannot imagine the pain and anger and sense of betrayal Sean Bell’s family and fiancee must feel right now.

And while I’m not surprised at the verdict, I am surprised and disturbed at the number of people who choose to sympathize with the police officers and refuse to even consider how they might feel or what they might do if their son’s or fiancee’s murderers walked out of court free men.

If you’re in New York, there are some actions planned. More details at Angry Brown Butch. I’ll add more as I find them.

No, seriously, what the fuck?

http://dearwhitefeminists.wordpress.com/update/