January 19, 2015 – RI Future

January 19, 2015January 19, 2015

Group seeks to close loophole allowing guns in schools

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The law seems quite clear when RIGL 11-47-60 (a) states that, “No person shall have in his or her possession any kind of firearm or other weapons on school grounds.” But there is a curious exception. Under RIGL 11-47-11 it is stated that a person with a concealed carry permit (CCP) may carry their weapon “everywhere.” Presumably, this means schools.

Which law takes precedence?

Attorney Julia Wyman with the Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence (RICAGV) asked the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office and the Rhode Island Department of Education for clarification, but neither party could “figure out which law prevails,” she said.

The Department of Education has no regulatory authority, and therefore does not have the power to decide on this issue. As a result, legislation is going to be introduced to the General Assembly this year that seeks to clear up any ambiguity in the law, banning weapons from schools, even for those with a CCP.

As it stands now, anyone with a concealed carry permit may bring weapons into schools.

Rhode Island is one of only 18 states that allow guns to be brought in schools, according to a report by NBC News last year. Most of the 18 states on the list require that school officials give permission to bring the weapons into the schools, leaving Rhode Island one of only 5 states in which people may bring guns into schools without the knowledge of police or school officials.

The danger is obvious. In September of last year a teacher in Utah shot herself in the leg when her weapon discharged in class. In Idaho a “state university instructor was wounded in the foot after a concealed handgun in the person’s pocket discharged during a chemistry lab session with students in the room.” In each case, say news reports, the teachers had concealed carry permits.

Though some may argue that since Newtown, some teachers should be armed in the event that children need to be protected from intruders, depending on randomly armed, untrained teachers with CCPs is not a policy. Good policy needs to be vetted and debated so that the full implications might be considered. Policies such as this need to be done right and can’t simply be instituted by taking advantage of defects in a law written decades ago.

The General Assembly has an opportunity to correct this oversight, and should do so this year.

January 19, 2015

Juan Noboa denies wage theft allegations

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Juan Noboa, one of the owners of Café Atlantic accused of non-payment of wages by former employees, “denies that he hasn’t paid people proper wages,” said his lawyer Dawn Oliveri.

Further, Oliveri assured me that she knows Noboa as “a very respectable business man.”

She intends to fight the allegations made by Fuerza Laboral on behalf of workers who have claimed that Noboa owes thousands of dollars for work done at Café Atlantic, a restaurant Noboa opened in September of last year and then closed shortly after.

Oliveri questioned the tactic of protesting outside a man’s home in the early morning, telling me that Noboa claims that one of his children was awoken by the protesters and “terrified.” She added, “You don’t protest at a man’s home in the dark.”

Oliveri also questioned the using word “thief” by the protesters in describing their former employer. “I hope they can substantiate their case,” she warned.

Our short conversation revolved around tactics. In Oliveri’s opinion the proper place for the protesters to state their case was at the closed restaurant, located at 1366 Chalkstone Ave, where the alleged wage theft took place. She then added, “I have a lot of respect for civil disobedience and so does Juan.”

Complaints of non-payment of wages against Noboa and his partner, Jose Bren, have been filed by several employees with the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training over the last few months. In one complaint, Edwin says he was hired to work in the kitchen and claims that he is owed $700.

“Juan said he would pay some of the beginning wages in cash but only paid part. [Noboa said] the checks were set up but he didn’t bring them on Friday and then another excuse. Tomorrow. Then for Sunday but no one showed up. That Monday Juan and Chino assured me that all would be there money wise on Wednesday nobody again then or that week until a meeting with Chino.”

Jared, hired to be a front line cook, says that he was paid for the first week but not thereafter. He claims to be owed $462.

Flor Salazar was hired as an administrative assistant and claims she is owed $7,332.50. According to the complaint she filed, payment of the money owed her, “was requested, but [Noboa] never replied in person, only by phone and he refused to answer. We asked for a meeting so we could come to an agreement and he refused.” [Spanish translation provided by Tony Houston]

A worker named Oscar says he is owed $7,803. He wrote in his complaint that when he tried to find out why he wasn’t getting paid, Noboa, “never gave a valid reason, he just disappeared and I couldn’t talk to him again after he closed [the restaurant] either by cell or text message but there was no answer.” Oscar adds that Noboa agreed that, “he would give [my payment] to me in time because he was just starting, but in the end he just decided to close and he said he would open in 3 days, and it never happened. I only ask that he pay me what he owes me.” [Spanish translation provided by Tony Houston]

In the end, the cases will be adjudicated by the Department of Labor, and official determinations will be made. I will follow up on this story as it develops.

January 19, 2015January 20, 2015

Do tactics matter more than Black lives? An MLK defense of highway blockers

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If you want to speak your mind, you have the right in America to protest from the sidewalk. But if you want to make Americans pay attention, block the highway.

This tactic has been a signature action of the Black Lives Matter movement. More than 200 times since the Ferguson grand jury decision in late November have activists from across the country taken to interstates and major thoroughfares with the express purpose of stopping traffic.

It began with protesters taking to the streets as a part of larger protests, as happened here in Providence on November 26 when activists temporarily shut down Interstate 95. Last week it evolved into something different: a relatively small and organized group of mostly non-Black people chained themselves to cement barrels on Interstate 93 outside Boston during rush hour.

It was not an emotional reaction at a highly charged event, it was a coordinated sabotage of traffic.

It is not quite the same as the nonviolent direct action Martin Luther King defended in his must read Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

Indeed it’s perhaps closer to the “bitterness and hatred” among the movement that “comes perilously close to advocating violence” he warned against in his famous letter.

By this measurement, the Black Lives Matter movement isn’t strictly a peaceful protest. And quite frankly, it never was a particularly peaceful protest.

“It’s no longer about peace,” local activist Jared Paul, who helped block the highway here in Providence, said to me when we sat down to talk about it on Friday. “It’s about justice.”

No one should relish in this. But everyone needs to understand that institutional injustice for anyone is far less peaceful than morning gridlock for everyone. Or as King put it in his letter: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Predictably though, many people of privilege are annoyed. This isn’t some sort of unfortunate side effect, this was the stated goal. The idea was to force a conversation. The idea was to make people feel the frustration of a system doesn’t work. Many of us have just never had to face that reality.

For what it’s worth, King, in the same letter, had choice words for those who “more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.” He wrote:

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

But for my money, King has an even more prescient line in his famous letter which I think is the standard by which everyone should approach all struggles from justice:

“If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.”