November 2015 – Page 2

November 22, 2015October 22, 2016

Pressure builds on Wendy’s to join Fair Food Program

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The Brown Student Labor Alliance, with members of Fuerza Laboral, visited another Wendy’s in Providence Saturday, to deliver a letter and picket the restaurant to demand “Wendy’s to commit to signing onto the Fair Food Program, a program that ensures that farmworkers are provided a living wage and good working conditions.”

The activists entered the restaurant on Eddy Street and presented a letter to the manager. After the manager accepted the letter the activists moved peacefully out of the restaurant and to the sidewalk, where they marched and chanted. This was part of a series of similar actions covered in part here and here. In accepting the letter, the manager of the Wendy’s kept the disruption of business within the restaurant to a minimum.

According to the Fair Food Program website,

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) Fair Food Program is a unique partnership among farmers, farmworkers, and retail food companies that ensures humane wages and working conditions for the workers who pick fruits and vegetables on participating farms. It harnesses the power of consumer demand to give farmworkers a voice in the decisions that affect their lives, and to eliminate the longstanding abuses that have plagued agriculture for generations.

The Program has been called ‘the best workplace-monitoring program’ in the US in the New York Times, and ‘one of the great human rights success stories of our day’ in the Washington Post, and has won widespread recognition for its unique effectiveness from a broad spectrum of human rights observers, from the United Nations to the White House.

According to the activists, of “the five largest fast food corporations in the country — McDonald’s, Subway, Burger King, Taco Bell, and Wendy’s — Wendy’s is the only one to not yet sign onto the Fair Food Program.”

In a release announcing the action, the Brown Student Labor Alliance said, “With 14 food retailers now part of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program, we are seeing incredible changes — from a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment and modern-day slavery, to access to shade, water, and bathrooms, to a real voice on the job — made real not only in Florida, but across state-lines. Just a few months ago, the CIW traveled up and down the eastern seaboard of the United States — Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey — carrying out worker-to-worker education sessions about these new rights for the first time ever with thousands of workers beyond Florida. With these changes, there is now a deep urgency for reinforcement and expansion of the Program, which will only be possible through more retailers joining — yet, corporations like Wendy’s and Publix continue to utterly deny their responsibility to farmworkers.”

November 22, 2015December 18, 2015

The attempted coup at RIC

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News broke on Friday that “[a] group of current and former Rhode Island College employees is asking the state Council on Postsecondary Education to replace college President Nancy Carriuolo, who they accuse of destabilizing the institution.” Yet those who have a rudimentary understanding of how the internal dynamics of Rhode Island College work grasp very well that this is a cunning, mean-spirited, and ultimately transparent ploy by a group of disgruntled former administrators who are trying to derail the work Dr. Carriuolo has done since taking office.

I feel I have several qualifications that allow me to speak here, I am the treasurer of the Rhode Island College Class of 2009, a former editor of the Rhode Island College Anchor Newspaper, and a former member of 90.7 WXIN Rhode Island College Radio, media platforms that covered the selection of Dr. Carriuolo. Since graduation, I have been keeping lightly abreast of events at my alma mater and have had several very pleasant interactions with the campus Dr. Carriuolo has modernized and the president herself, who has been absolutely wondrous. I also understand that Mark Motte, Peg Brown, and Jane Fusco are being quite disingenuous in their complaints, framing a basic procedural element of the transition between former College President Dr. John Nazarian and Dr. Carriuolo as some sort of totalitarian putsch.

Without getting into the personality-based mire that is quite ugly when discussing the length of Dr. Nazarian’s tenure, the fact is that the man was in office for eighteen years, 20 if you add the two years he served as interim president following the death of Dr. David Sweet, and had a total of five decades of involvement as a student, faculty member, and administrator when he left the campus. In that time, he created a culture based around his managerial and fiscal philosophy that made the college what it was from 1990 to 2008. When Dr. Carriuolo, a long-time member of the Rhode Island College community, took over, she brought with her a wholly different set of ideas and philosophies that have fundamentally redirected the trajectory of the college. I am not able to judge at this juncture what the long-term outcomes are because of the length of time she has been in office. But that change in leadership dictated Dr. Carriuolo also change the administrators and staff around her to affect her wishes for the college. The individuals lodging this complaint were part of the Nazarian nomenklatura who simply became far too comfortable in their roles. If the West Wing staff at the White House were to kick up such a fuss when a new president was inaugurated, people would laugh at such behavior.

I personally think that the things Dr. Carriuolo has spearheaded has been fantastic. Let me begin with the film department that I graduated from. Several years ago, I was invited back to campus to screen a film. When I entered the hall that I had taken multiple courses over my four years of matriculation, the large screening room in the Horace-Mann building, I thought I was at the wrong campus. When I used to watch films in that room, the sound was awful, the screen was problematic, and the tables with connected rotating chairs were, putting it politely, not the seating arrangement that works best for film students. Now the room has theatrical-styled seats with desktop side-bars, the sound is equivalent to the Showcase Cinema, and the screen is a marked improvement.

The department has been given the funding to expand and balance the curriculum in a way so that students get a fair dose of both film literacy and practical studio work, whereas when I was a student funding was so short one would be lucky to get four practical classes. If one did so, it was often the case they would take a few through the Communications Department, which has an orientation and logic sometimes completely opposed to the Film Department. Another time, I had a class on documentary film through the Anthropology Department where the professor included in the first class a condescending and mocking digression on those pesky ‘filmies’ that talked about all those weird notions that he had no use for. I respect and understand that, Film Studies and Anthropology are two different fields, but nonetheless it obviates a case where the Film Department was being given pittances rather than being allowed to flourish. Dr. Carriuolo has reversed that trend.

There are other places that Dr. Carriuolo has improved matters greatly. She has allowed Drs. Richard and Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban to install bee hives at the college as part of a project that has multiple applications for various departments and curriculums as well as the Sustainability Program and garnering praise from environmental groups. She has expanded the Non-Western Worlds curriculum in ways that are directly benefitting the greater community. For example, even though he was descended from West Asian parentage that spoke the language, Dr. Nazarian was unwilling to allow for Arabic language classes, something the new President has allowed for. In a period of time when our international affairs continue to interact with Arabic-language states, one does not have to be John Dewey to understand why one might like the ability to take low-cost Arabic language instruction courses.

The President’s Illuminated Walkway, installed to commemorate her selection, is a wonderful project that creates a safe pathway students can take to get across campus at night. When one in four female college students experiences some form of sexual violence during studies, this project becomes obviously a massive treasure for the community that will help decrease a terrible trend for years to come. Her streamlining and implementation of policies that guarantee students do not get lost in the shuffle of classes and end up wasting time and money over multiple years with no advancement, including things like the elimination of the undeclared major and greater emphasis on mandatory academic advising, is creating high-quality and better-educated students.

One of the projects that could very well be a major element of her lasting legacy is the collaboration with the University of Rhode Island in a nursing center at the South Street Landing. Despite the claims of Michael Smith, who has called it “a house of cards built on a foundation of ego, profit, and a profound lack of understanding of public policy”, this is actually a brilliant idea on multiple fronts. First, it helps better solidify the inter-institutional collaboration between the University and the College while simultaneously maintaining fealty to the unique character of each institute. The College has a fantastic nursing program while the University has a great pharmacy school, ergo creating an environment where both faculties can come together in one facility to collaborate without dragging both institutions through the disaster of merging them into a utopian Ocean State University is a very smart idea. Second, the presence of a major educational complex run but not one but two public universities is a powerful and long-lasting thrust back against the ethnically cleansing gentrification project in Providence that is fostered in no small part by Brown and Johnson and Wales Universities. This building will bring into the city working class and first generation students that do not have the scholarships, trust funds, and bad attitudes of the private school students. It seems obvious that Mr. Smith has misspoken about ego in this instance.

One cannot offer purely celebratory verbiage without critique and I will not do so. For example, I think it was unnecessary and inappropriate to even allow for a community dialogue about arming the campus police several years ago. I am not in love with the fact that the renovated arts building is named for the Alex and Ani jewelry company. Adjunct professors still are given low wages and can get caught in the academic quagmire caused by a lack of tenure-track positions in various departments. Yet on the same token, the individuals lodging this complaint are not active in ameliorating these issues, they are part of a leadership generation that helped create these problems. For example, when the gun debate was held during the Nazarian era, these voices were not in rousing opposition. If these are valid complaints, which they very well could be, these issues have been hijacked and utilized by individuals who have very little room to speak.

This issue is far more than just a personality conflict between a few disgruntled employees and a president. At the core of this move is a fundamental difference in philosophy regarding the role of the state in higher education. One school of thought would hope to see public education wither and die so to make a space for more privatized education and more difficulty for low-income and minority students. The other would like to reinvigorate the public education sector and create a culture in Rhode Island where everyone has the opportunity to learn and think critically. The former school also has a tendency to personally profit from cuts to education, putting themselves ahead of the students. It seems abundantly clear that faculty, staff, students, and alumni should stand in solidarity with Dr. Carriuolo here so to protect the integrity and sustainability of the Rhode Island College project.

November 22, 2015November 22, 2015

Beyond the Lucky Charms version of Irish history

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In a recent press conference opposing the acceptance of Syrian refugees fleeing ISIS terror, the Rhode Island GOP drew a contrast between the past acceptance of Irish refugees of the Potato Famine and the current, ongoing refugee crisis in Syria. Arguing that Syrians fleeing ISIS were different, Rep. Mike Chippendale said, “‘the United States of America is an extremely compassionate nation’ but added this is a different time than when the Irish came to the country because of a potato famine” according to a Projo report on the press conference.

As the great-great-grandson of an Irish-American terrorist, I feel the need to correct the historical record.

William Crossin, my mother’s mother’s mother’s father, died in summer of 1912. His funeral procession was a well-attended public spectacle, as reported in the July 6, 1912 edition of The Gaelic American (here I pull from The Gaelic American as quoted in a 1982 undergrad paper by Denise M. Hennessey, my mother):

It was “one of the most remarkable tributes of respect for the dead ever seen in Philadelphia. No popular public man was ever more honored in the number and quality of those who accompanied his remains to their last resting place. And they were all men and women who knew him personally.”*

He was burried [sic] from the Church of the Annunciation, located at Tenth and Dickinson Streets, Philadelphia which church “was filled to capacity.”

“A dense mass of people thronged Morris Street and the neighboring blocks, and it required a detachment of police to keep the space in front of the house clear”

Six pallbearers carried Crossin’s coffin:

John DeVoy

John T. Keating

John L. Gannon

Francis Reilly

Edward McDermott

Joseph McGarrity**

A procession of honorary pallbearers included the dignitaries from all over the United States. Fifteen nuns were also among those in the procession and it was noted that, “Crossin had always been a great friend of the sisters and made many a collection for charitable enterprises in which they were engaged.”

“A long line of carriages followed the hearse to the church, all the side streets on both sides of the route had a double line of waiting carriages and more than 2,000 members of the Clan-na-Gael wearing badges marched on foot.

A high mass of Requiem was celebrated at his parish church and a host of priests assisted his Pastor, Rev. P. Daily. In his sermon Fr. Daily attested to Crossin’s good character when he said, “No man can point the finger of scorn at William Crossin. He was a good Catholic, a practical Catholic in the strictest sense of the word. His performance of his religious duties was not perfunctory. His faith was strong and his fervor was like that of the Irish missionaries who carried the light of the Gospel to the peoples of central and western Europe in the Middle Ages when Ireland earned the proud title of the Island of the Saints. He was filled with the spirit which animated those men. His life was simple and pure. He was a model husband and father, a good citizen who won the respect of his neighbors and of all who came in contact with him. He was loyal to the land of his adoption, and to his motherland he gave a devotion that was without the slightest taint of selfishness Men might differ with him but all respected his sincerity and singleness of purpose.”

“The procession of carriages going to the grave sight stretched as far as the eye could see.”

“Outside and on the way to the cemetary [sic] great satisfaction was expressed at this kindly and eloquent tribute to the dead. One of the professional men at the funeral, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, said that he had never met a man of finer intellect, of more upright character or stronger personality than William Crossin. Had Crossin had the advantage of a college training, the man believed Crossin would have become one of the foremost men of America.” [William Crossin was a horse-cart driver in South Philadelphia]

The Clan-na-Gael was a forerunner of the I.R.A., which collected money and weapons for the latter group as it formed. William Crossin, one of the Clan-na-Gael’s leaders, presided over the country’s largest chapter in Philadelphia. He was an intellectual and personal mentor to the leaders of the Easter Rising, which took place four years after his death. He also personally took part in actions such as the dynamiting of a British cargo ship leaving New Orleans for British South Africa. In his old age, William Crossin successfully fought extradition to Great Britain to face trial for his actions.

My mother had mixed feelings about her great-grandfather, as do I (my grandmother did not, according to family legend. When my mom came home to tell her parents what she had researched at night school, my grandfather gleefully exclaimed, “Good, Denise! Dig for the dirt! I want to know everything her [my grandmother’s] side of the family did!” My grandmother replied–I imagine between sips of milky black tea and puffs of a Camel cigarette–that, “If any relative of mine blew something up, they must have had a goddamned good reason”).

History does not repeat, but rhymes. There are contrasts and similarities between the Irish experience and the Syrian one. The Irish focused their violence on the British, not Americans, and Britain was not at that time considered a solid ally of the United States***. Irish resistance was violent, and incidentally must have harmed civilians, but was not the sort of nihilistic terrorist violence that characterizes ISIS (though it later would become exactly that type of violence). In both cases, the vast majority of people were non-combatants with nothing to do with terror.

Of course, the biggest immediate contrast is that Irish-Americans deeply sympathized with Irish republicanism in all its forms, and the leaders of the community, though perhaps not in full harmony with the Clan-na-Gael and I.R.A., certainly considered the group within the fold of reasonable disagreement. Syrians, by contrast, are overwhelmingly fleeing from ISIS. The Arabic slur, Daesh, meaning something akin to ‘the dividers’ gives clues to how the broader Syrian public feels about ISIS. There’s no doubt that we should be careful to screen out ISIS terrorists who might opportunistically try to hide amidst the hoards of their own victims, but that does not justify punishing the vast majority who are fleeing ISIS.

There is also a longer arc of history to be considered.

The date of my great-great-grandfather’s death in 1912, makes for a convenient endpoint from the perspective of my family, because we as his relatives need not fully grapple with the complexities of political violence. Helping to form the early seed of the I.R.A. but not carrying out its full history is something akin to being at the storming of the Bastille, but not sticking around for la Terreur****. The Easter Rising in 1916 bore William Crossin’s political mark but not his actual hand. The Rising, in which an armed brigade of I.R.A. militia took the Dublin Post Office and a smattering of other British buildings, marked the beginning of a protracted struggle for Irish independence. During the Rising many people died, including forty children, but by the standards of later I.R.A. violence, the Rising was a targeted and humane affair. Over the next century, the I.R.A. would become ever more nihilistic in its targeting of civilians. The initial choice by people like my great-great-grandfather to even consider the use of violence came from the sense that no other option was available, and as the U.K. used repressive torture and mass-detainment measures against the Irish Catholic population, the movement became correspondingly more desperate and terroristic.

Likewise, the Arab world once flourished with democratic ideals and religious tolerance. The struggles that Middle-Easterners fought ranged from the nonviolent to the limitedly violent, and the outright terroristic. But it was repression that gave terrorism the upper hand. Our leaders chose to overthrow Iranian democracy in 1953 to secure oil, and throw that country into the arms of theocracy. Our leaders chose to put chemical weapons in the hands of Saddam Hussein and the Iranian theocracy alike (supposedly our enemy). Our leaders chose to arm the Taliban. Our leaders chose to use torture and trial-free detainment policies similar to those of Northern Ireland at Guantanamo Bay. British repression pushed republicanism to the point that its most extreme practitioners became more like a pro-Catholic mafia fighting for an Ireland for Catholics Only. American repression has helped spawn a vicious movement for an exclusionary, theocratic “Caliphate”.

British repression did not justify the I.R.A. Our leaders’ choices do not justify Daesh/ISIS. Irish and Syrian terrorism has historical roots, but is carried out by individuals with agency and responsibility. We must defeat Daesh. But above all, Irish-American history should give us a guide for why terrorism happens, and how to stop it. You stop terrorism by isolating and fighting the extremists. You acknowledge and address the legitimate claims of the general public, which can either serve as your ally our the terrorists’.

We should remember what Irish-American history was, in all its hues. The Lucky Charms version of Irish history results from the fact that the goal of a free Ireland is no longer considered extreme, and from the fact that none of us in America recall the violence and destruction that went into its creation. It poses a view that we are the rational people, and the foreigners are dangerous and other. We should not pretend that there are not real dangers. But by recognizing the full scope of our history, we should be able to make rational choices about those dangers. I owe it to myself as an Irish-American, my ancestors, and the world to bring this story to light.

~~~~

*It’s unclear to me at times who is being quoted in The Gaelic American. The author may have been quoting someone mentioned earlier in the obituary, or it may be a typo from my mother’s paper.

**Joseph McGarrity was one of the heavyweights of Irish republicanism, and his papers are kept at Villanova University, where at night school, much of my mom’s research was done. According to my mother’s paper, 1960s bombings by the I.R.A. were often accompanied by letters signed with the pseudonym “Joseph McGarrity” the way one might sign a letter “Thomas Jefferson”. McGarrity was one of my great-great-grandfather’s closest friends, and another of the Clan-na-Gael’s chapter presidents.

*** (which does not really make any moral difference, but is certainly a relevant political one)

****(which, ironically, is the origin of the term “terrorism”)

November 21, 2015November 22, 2015

Providence observes Transgender Day of Remembrance, Resilience

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“The Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is an annual day of observance to honor those who have lost their lives to anti-trans violence, bigotry and suicide,” said Monay McNeil, reading the words of August Guang, who helped organize a march down Elmwood Ave in Providence Friday night. “Lead by people of color, the First National Trans March of Resilience… in numerous cities across the nation… [is] a way to honor the strength and resilience of trans lives, specifically the lives of trans people of color…”

Trans people and allies met at Knight Memorial Library in Providence and marched for nearly twenty minutes to PrYSM (Providence Youth Student Movement). Marchers chanted, “Black Lives Matter! Trans Lives Matter!” Traffic on Elmwood Ave was slowed and police stayed at a respectful distance.

At the end of the march participants crammed into PrYSM’s meeting space for a vigil, poetry and art.

McNeil noted the importance of this march, saying “As of 2015 there have been at least 700 [Black Lives Matter] protests across the country. Many trans people of color witness these protests in confusion and/or frustration, wondering why such national outrage is not also seen when trans women of color are brutally murdered and assaulted daily by both police and civilians.”

The night before the march, at the Beneficent Church downtown, the Transgender Day of Remembrance was celebrated with a service for trans persons who lost their lives in 2015. Candles were lit for each person who lost their lives this year, and as each name was read aloud, a candle was silently extinguished, slowly darkening the room.

This is the 16th year for the TDOR, started in 1999 in San Francisco by Gwendolyn Ann Smith in response to the 1998 murder of Rita Hester in Allston, Massachusetts, a case that remains unsolved. The full list of those who lost there lives this year can be seen here.

Mayor Jorge Elorza and Representative David Cicilline both spoke at that event, but it was the moving stories of Julián Cancino and Dominique Pistone that focused the service on what’s important: trans lives. Cancino spoke of being a Mexican immigrant to this country, having escaped persecution in his native country. America, to its shame, was not a welcoming place. Pistone spoke about a lifelong process of coming out and finding her true, authentic self. (I unfortunately don’t have Pistone’s talk on video, but I do have the short video of Alejandra Blaze, Ms. Trans Rhode Island, who spoke about trans empowerment and liberation.)

November 20, 2015November 20, 2015

RIPTA Riders Alliance rallies against elderly/disabled fare increases

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The RIPTA Riders Alliance held a rally and press conference outside the State House yesterday to call attention to the proposed increases in fares for elderly and disabled passengers. As has been reported here before, in order to close a budget gap, the General Assembly and Governor Gina Raimondo authorized RIPTA (Rhode Island Public Transportation Authority) to do away with free rides. In response, RIPTA is planning to charge, “all disabled people and seniors $1.00 per ride during peak AND off-peak hours, regardless of those passengers’ income levels.”

Other fare increases for monthly and weekly passes and transfers have been proposed, as well as eliminating discounts on multi-ride tickets.

Many seniors and disabled passengers live on fixed incomes and will be negatively impacted by this rate increase. Though the state will provide rides for scheduled doctor’s visits, free rides will not be provided for shopping, visits with friends and relatives, or attending political rallies. Those stuck at home will face isolation and declining health outcomes.

Balancing budgets on the backs of the most vulnerable populations in a state that continues to cut taxes on the wealthiest, is a moral outrage.

State Senator Harold Metts and Representative Aaron Regunberg both addressed the crowd and promised to revisit RIPTA funding when the new session of the General Assembly begins in January.

Here are RIPTA’s proposed fare hikes for early 2016, from the RIPTA Riders Alliance press release:

SENIORS AND DISABLED PEOPLE will be charged $1 per ride. Disabled people must go back and submit proof that they’re disabled again.

MONTHLY PASSES will go up from $62 to $70. Weekly passes will go up from $23 to $25. The 15-ride pass will be discontinued and replaced with a 10-ride ticket costing $20.

TRANSFERS, which now cost 50 cents, will double in price. The new transfers will cost $1 for regular riders and are usable for travel anywhere in a 2-hour period.

SENIORS AND DISABLED PEOPLE will pay 50 cents per transfer. If they want a monthly pass, that will be $35 per month. Weekly passes will be $12.50.

November 20, 2015

Workers claim unpaid wages at Teriyaki House rally

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Workers, alongside allies and organizers from Fuerza Laboral and RI Jobs with Justice marched into Teriyaki House restaurant in Providence yesterday afternoon claiming unpaid wages and poor treatment from the owners. Workers say owners of the restaurant failed to pay minimum wage or overtime for over 70 hours of work a week. In addition, say organizers, “workers have been verbally harassed and physically abused. They’ve been called lazy and have been repeatedly intimidated by management.”

Teriyaki House has been under investigation by the US Department of Labor since workers filed their complaint, says Jobs with Justice.

This is the second wage action against Teriyaki House. Workers previously entered the restaurant in August demanding their wages, where management reportedly refused to pay and called the workers “lazy.”

Yesterday a much larger group of workers and supporters entered the store, chanting and shutting down the business until the police arrived and ordered the crowd to leave. Outside, the rally continued as a picket, as people held signs, chanted, sang songs and told their stories. Fuerza Labroal organizer Phoebe Gardner said that the Department of Labor should be done with their investigation by March, and if the wages continue to be unpaid, they would return for more actions against the restaurant.

The most fun part of the action was the impromptu singing that erupted, demonstrating both a rising solidarity and strength among this growing and powerful food chain worker labor movement in Rhode Island.

According to Fuerza, “Teriyaki House workers have been joining with other food chain workers in Rhode Island, like the Wendy’s workers who went on strike, ROC, and workers from Calise industrial bakery, to form the new coalition [called] Food Chain Workers RIsing. Our hope is to bring together the struggles of workers along the food chain in Rhode Island with real worker leadership.”

November 20, 2015

AARON BRIGGS AND THE HMS GASPEE: How white supremacy still reigns in RI

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AARON BRIGGS AND THE HMS GASPEE will be screened on November 24 at 9 pm. All proceeds will benefit the Providence Industrial Workers of the World Office Fund. Tickets are $2. We invite RIFuture readers, contributors, and message board writers to come and engage in an open discussion about these topics. A version of this essay was previously published by CounterPunch!

“Why not make a film about the Gaspee?”

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE EVENT PAGE!

In 2010, I was out of work with a BA in Film Studies from Rhode Island College and nowhere to go. My mother, one of the primary supporting forces in my life, suggested I produce an independent documentary about the 1772 burning of the HMS Gaspee in Warwick, Rhode Island, an attack on a British ship that is seen by many local residents as the ‘First Blow For Freedom’ in the American Revolution, predating the Boston Tea Party by more than a year and involving gun violence against a British officer, much more bombastic than tossing some beverage mix overboard. However, what I found along the way would prove to be much more than purely educational. In my work trying to better understand the particulars of June 9, 1772, I discovered the way that white supremacy works in New England, what the forces of power will do to maintain control, and how people will sometimes violently react to suggestions that alter their perspectives.

To begin, what exactly happened when the Gaspee was burned?

On June 9, 1772, a ship called Hannah, owned by the merchant John Brown, was returning from sea and sailed into Narragansett Bay, the major waterway of Rhode Island. The HMS Gaspee, captained by a man called Dudingston, hailed the boat for inspection, as the vessel might have been carrying untaxed goods and was returning from trade on the Notorious Triangle, as the slavery circuit was called by Dr. Jay Coughtry. But instead, the Hannah gave chase. Brown’s boat, a lighter packet ship, angled in close to the shore in the shallows at Namquid Point, tricking the much-heavier schooner Gaspee to run aground. The Hannah continued on to Providence and alerted John Brown, who led a marauding party later that evening. Returning to the beached ship in the early morning, the raiders opened fire, wounding the captain, and setting the boat ablaze. Beginning in 1965 and celebrated every May into early June, residents in the community near the site of the original attack commemorate the event with a series of parades, fairs, and re-enactments called Gaspee Days.

But things are never so simple, and to understand what really happened, you must understand who John Brown was.

John Brown is a figure whose life and money is intertwined with the very fabric of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Since his ancestor Chad Brown was one of the original settlers of Providence, he and his brothers, through their business Brown Brothers Incorporated, created a mercantile empire to make the Rockefellers seem like like amateurs. They ran a successful import/export business across both the Atlantic and Pacific. They built ships and materials necessary for nautical voyages. They funded Samuel Slater, the man who built the first textile mill in America, and therefore jumpstarted the Industrial Revolution. They founded the first bank in the state. But the hinge of the entire Brown fortune was their trade in human beings. As early as 1636 and until well after the foundation of the United States, the Brown family was one of the most active and prosperous families in the slave trade.

From a simplistic mathematical perspective, the Brown family did not put the most human bodies on the shores of Rhode Island, so one can argue that they were not the largest slavers in the state. But from a Marxist perspective, taking into account the basic political economy of their business interactions, they were the most impactful business in not just New England but perhaps in the entire country. They built the ships that were sold to other slavers. They owned metalworks that forged the chains that were used to hold men and women in bondage below deck. In the time of the slave trade, merchants worked in markets operating under up to five different foreign currencies, so instead the day-to-day transactions of the trade were based on a barter system of sugar cane, molasses, and rum. Up and down the East Coast and in the Caribbean, the Browns owned and operated sugar plantations and distilleries, not to mention businesses that built barrels to transport these various sugary extractions. They were not merely involved in the Triangle Trade, they were the Triangle Trade. On the night of the Gaspee attack, an African/Native American teen named Aaron Briggs was brought to help aid in the raid. Later, Briggs would go on to try and testify against his master so to gain manumission, something that was prevented by an active campaign of silence by colonists who were opposed to the British. For such a dire infraction, it can be said Briggs did receive blows, but they certainly were not for freedom.

This heritage proves to be quite problematic in New England, a region that likes to pretend it was on the right side of history because it provided Union soldiers to fight the Civil War. But this is far from the reality. People in Rhode Island have no qualms about maintaining a status quo where black and brown people live in ghettoes while millionaires go yachting in Newport. For a state that prides itself on history, people are apt to forget the Boston bussing riots, where Louise Day Hicks threatened to assassinate Sen. Edward Kennedy for supporting desegregation. Racism is something that happened in the South a long time ago and is not a problem here because this state is solid blue Democrat and gave its electoral college votes to Barack Obama both times.

In the case of Brown University, endowed with John Brown’s fortune and built using slave labor, the administration has been historically reticent. For centuries, literally, the topic was a taboo that was not talked about. In 2000, Drs. Carolyn and Richard Fluehr-Lobban of the Rhode Island College Anthropology Department, along with colleagues from the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, recognized the moment had come when they might force this discussion into the open. The John Brown House, previously a private museum, had come into financial arrears and needed to be absorbed by the Rhode Island Historical Society, meaning it was now being funded by tax payers who had the right to insist that the building tours be modified to include mention of slavery. This led to an 18 month dispute, culminating in August 2002 with the unveiling of a plaque from Black Heritage that said the words ‘slave trader’. In 2003, Brown President Ruth Simmons, granddaughter of a slave herself, appointed a Steering Committee that later issued a report with suggestions for future scholarship and memorial.

However, Brown is quite territorial and wishes to maintain absolute control of the narrative. The head of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Prof. Barrymore Bogues, has accused me of unprofessional conduct for interviewing the Fluehr-Lobbans and other figures who forced the discussion to begin while not including him. The people in charge of the Gaspee Days celebrations have vandalized my posters advertising the film (though I must admit that a select few members, such as Latina educator Marta Martinez, bookseller Karen Calkins of Twice Told Tales, and Jeff St. Germain, owner of Little Falls Cafe and father with his husband Matt of an adopted African American child, have been supportive). Last year, with the assistance of the State of Rhode Island’s video production unit Capitol TV, traditionally used for the broadcasting of sessions from the State House, the Gaspee Days Committee produced its own documentary that white-washes the unsavory aspects of this story and glorifies men who traded in human flesh as heroes. This is the definition of racism in New England, not a glaring image like a burning cross but a conspiracy of silence and ignorance.

At this point, I have no delusions of grandeur about making it big with my documentary. But I remain forceful in fostering the discussion through screenings and other promotions. Why? In cities like Ferguson or Baltimore, the recent protests occurred because the reality is that community celebrations and heritage festivals did not make a place for historical persons of color. That cultural apartheid is dangerous.

The Pawtuxet area has evolved in a way where black and brown children are now moving into the area thanks to the suburbanization of a growing black middle class. Unless we create a narrative that not just has space for a few token blacks but instead celebrates their contributions from the beginning, we will have a tragedy on our hands very quickly. Gaspee Days began this year on April 3 and there is no discussion of Aaron Briggs. The children of color continue to expand in population and grow in age.

Like a pressure cooker, one can feel the white supremacy at work.

November 19, 2015November 19, 2015

Dems draw more with love than GOP does with fear

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There were two events at the State House today about the Syrian refugee crisis. A group of Democratic lawmakers, faith leaders and former refugees rallied to support the United State’s role in helping refugees of war in the Middle East while a smaller group of Republican legislators and anti-immigration activists spoke against helping the refugees.

To give you an idea of what Rhode Island thinks of these dueling perspectives, note the size of the crowd in the two pictures I took today.

Here is the Democratic rally in favor of helping refugees:

And here’s the Republican event against helping refugees:

And here are a few more stories RI Future has reported on the Syrian refugee crisis:

November 19, 2015November 20, 2015

Cathie Cool Rumsey will run against Elaine Morgan

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Catherine Cool Rumsey, a former District 34 state senator who was defeated by embattled Sen Elaine Morgan in 2014, was “horrified” by Morgan’s infamous email besmirching Islam was “horrified” and said it solidified her intention to run against Morgan in 2016.

“It does not represent the district,” she told me. “We need to represent our state and country in a better light.”

Cool Rumsey lost to Morgan 52 to 47 percent in 2014. A one-term progressive Democrat, Cool Rumsey defeated conservative Republican Frank Maher 55 to 44 percent in 2012. District 34 is made up of portions of Exeter, Hopkinton, Richmond and West Greenwich.

In the 2014 cycle, Cool Rumsey was endorsed by Clean Water Action, Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, RI Young Democrats, RI Progressive Democrats and the RI Sierra Club, among others.

Morgan made national headlines with an email she sent that said, among other offensive passages, “The Muslim religion and philosophy is to murder, rape, and decapitate anyone who is a non Muslim.” She was writing because she doesn’t think America should accept refugees fleeing war-torn areas of the Middle East.

Fellow Republican rep. Bobby Nardolillo, who held a State House event today on the same issue today, said Morgan should consider apologizing to Muslims.

Here are other stories RI Future has reported on the Syrian refugee crisis:

November 19, 2015November 19, 2015

Rep. Nardolillo thinks Elaine Morgan owes Muslims an apology

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Representative Bobby Nardolillo said fellow Republican Senator Elaine Morgan should consider apologizing to the Muslim community for her now-famous offensive email that besmirched Islam and said Muslim refugees should be relegated to camps if allowed into the United States.

“I would definitely say it was offensive and she should consider apologizing,” Nardolillo told me after addressing a small crowd at the State House on why America should reject refugees. “I completely disagree with her comments. She insulted a whole Muslim culture and I think that was totally inappropriate.”

Morgan, a freshman senator from South County, sent an email obtained by WPRI, that said, among other offensive passages, “The Muslim religion and philosophy is to murder, rape, and decapitate anyone who is a non Muslim.”

To my knowledge, Morgan has yet to publicly apologize for the politically incorrect email. A Senate spokesman for the Democratic caucus had not seen one, and asked his GOP counterpart to apprise him if one was issued. RIPR political reporter Ian Donnis said in a tweet he reached out to Morgan for further comment multiple times and has not heard back from her. According to the WPRI story, Morgan said the email should have read “the fanatical Muslim religion and philosophy.”

Morgan’s email was publicized nationally today, the same day Nardolillo led a scheduled event at the State House on why the United States should reject refugees from war-torn parts of the Middle East because of national security concerns. He said he didn’t think Morgan’s insensitive comments discouraged people from attending his event, which he said was more of a press conference than a rally.

November 19, 2015

ACLU and religious groups denounce xenophobia, welcome Syrian refugees

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The Rhode Island State Council of Churches, the RI Council for Muslim Advancement, the Board of Rabbis of Greater Rhode Island and the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island today issued this open letter to Governor Gina Raimondo, following her comments yesterday that the controversy surrounding the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Rhode Island was “much ado about nothing”:

Dear Governor Raimondo:

As the rhetoric and vitriol surrounding the issue of resettling Syrian refugees in Rhode Island increase, we urge you to demonstrate leadership on this critical humanitarian issue by firmly and publicly denouncing the rising xenophobia we are witnessing.

Yesterday you were quoted as calling it “much ado about nothing,” and saying that you would “take a look at it” if asked by the federal government to help with resettlement. Respectfully, when other public officials in the state are protesting efforts to welcome any Syrian refugees in Rhode Island by holding public rallies and calling for the internment of any refugees that do arrive here, this is anything but a non-issue. Nor is it something to be blithely ignored for now, and only looked at sometime in the indefinite future.

We believe that it is time for you, as Governor of a state that has welcomed immigrants and refugees from its founding, to forcefully affirm the view – in the same manner as some of your Gubernatorial colleagues elsewhere around the country have done – that Rhode Island is prepared to welcome immigrants and refugees fleeing violence from Syria, and that you reject fear-mongering that undermines our state’s strong commitment to non-discrimination against people because of their ethnicity or religious beliefs. To ignore these troubling strains of prejudice is to only give them force.

Sincerely,

Rev. Dr. Don Anderson, Executive Minister
Rhode Island State Council of Churches
100 Niantic Avenue, Suite 101
Providence, RI 02907

Imam Farid Ansari
President
Rhode Island Council for Muslim Advancement
P.O. Box 40535
Providence, RI 02940

Rabbi Sarah Mack
President
Board of Rabbis of Greater Rhode Island
70 Orchard Ave.
Providence, RI 02906

Steven Brown, Executive Director
American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island
128 Dorrance Street, Suite 220
Providence, RI 02903

November 19, 2015November 19, 2015

City Council committee passes tax break for hotel at choreographed meeting

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Some of the business suits worn in the Providence City Council Finance Committee meeting last night were worth more than a hotel worker’s monthly salary.

The power and pressure being brought to bear, to make sure that The Procaccianti Group (TPG) got their multi-million dollar Tax Stabilization Agreement (TSA) was enough to bend reality, as a five member committee was whittled down to three members and the final vote unanimous in favor of TPG.

City Hall was electric with meetings being conducted behind closed doors. What happened in the Finance Committee room was theater, the real deals were all made out of sight. The Finance Committee meeting seemed meticulously planned so that when it started, it would fall like a string of dominoes in favor of moneyed interests and to the detriment of hotel workers.

At issue was a 13-year TSA for the Fogarty Building site downtown, where TPG wants to build a new nine-story hotel. The building trade unions want the hotel, it will provide a couple years worth of good jobs. The hotel workers want the hotel and the jobs it will provide as well, but they wanted an amendment to the TSA “calling for workers to earn 1 1/2 times the federal poverty rate, or more than $14 an hour.”

Good wages for hotel workers are important. TPG is notorious for paying poorly, and the company requires their workers to do much more than workers at competing downtown hotels. Then there’s the steady stream of injuries to workers in TPG hotels. Unionization efforts at the Renaissance Hotel have dragged on for years and only recently did the hotel win a vote to unionize. Without the amendment, a new hotel full of underpaid, overworked and at-risk workers will be coming on-line even as Renaissance workers finally realize a fair contract.

On one side of the Finance Committee meeting room was Mayor Elorza’s Chief Operating officer, Brett Smiley, RI AFL-CIO leader George Nee, Michael Sabitoni, business manager for the RI Laborers’ District Council, state senator Josh Miller, a pile of lawyers and TPG reps, and prominent members of the Providence business community. Council President Luis Aponte stood nearby and monitored the proceedings.

Hotel workers and Unite Here! organizers, vastly outnumbered and outgunned, sat opposite.

Finance Committee Chair John Igliozzi was the city councilor who once suggested tying TSA’s to better wages way back in June, 2014. When it came time to amend the TSA, however, he was silent. Councilors Kevin Jackson and Sabina Matos were also silent, save to deliver the lines required to vote the TSA to the full City Council for final approval next month.

Missing from the committee meeting was Councilor Terrance Hassett, whose day job is Senior Investigator in the Workers’ Compensation Fraud and Compliance Unit at the Department of Labor and Training. He, like two other members of the finance committee, works for the state. It is well known that Governor Gina Raimondo wants this project to proceed. On background I was told that city council members were afraid of losing their jobs if they interfered with the deal, but nobody wanted to go on record.

(Given this, Providence voters might want to reconsider electing council members with state jobs.)

Hassett was a no show, but Councillor Carmen Castillo, a hotel worker herself, was there. She put her purse and coat down into her chair, then left the room to talk off stage with someone. While she was out of the room the Finance Committee meeting started and attendance was called. She was marked absent.

As the meeting got underway Castillo entered the room, recovered her purse and coat, and left without explanation.

There were three members left of the five member committee, enough for a quorum. As hotel workers looked on, the TSA was passed out of committee without the amendment they had requested. Millions of dollars in tax breaks were given to TPG.

There were smiles and handshakes all around as one half of the room erupted in enthusiastic conversation. Finance chair Igliozzi pounded his gavel for order, there was still the city’s contract with Local 1033 to be decided, so $40,000 worth of fine business suits moved outside and into the hallways, and eventually outside into the street.

The hotel workers gathered in a corner on the third floor so that a translator could explain to some of the Spanish speaking members what had happened.

But they understood.

This was government as business and business as usual.

November 18, 2015November 19, 2015

State senators to hold rally to support Syrian refugees

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Senators John Miller and Gayle Goldin are hosting a State House rally on Thursday at 1:30 “to demonstrate support and compassion for refugees fleeing the crisis in Syria,” according to a State House press release.

Miller said the rally tomorrow is to dispel any misconceptions that Senator Elaine Morgan’s comments are representative of the Senate as a whole. Morgan sent an email that brought national attention to Rhode Island because it said Muslim refugees should be kept in a camp, and, she wrote, “The Muslim religion and philosophy is to murder, rape, and decapitate anyone who is a non Muslim.” She later said she meant to include the word fanatical in this description.

“I’m embarrassed if people think that is a feeling that is prevalent in the Senate and this is an opportunity to show that there are other strong opinions,” Miller said. “I’ve heard from other senators who want to separate themselves from the comments made by Senator Morgan.”

Miller “absolutely” supports Rhode Island taking in Syrian refugees. “Not only is it the essence of Americanism it’s also the essence of Rhode Island.”

So far, the three state legislators to speak out for accepting Syrian refugees are all Jewish – sens. Miller and Goldin and Rep. Aaron Regunberg. Regunberg wrote a high profile letter to Gov. Gina Raimondo after reps. Bobby Nardolillo and Doreen Costa said they thought Rhode Island should not welcome refugees fleeing war and oppression in the Middle East because it poses a domestic security threat.

“I think the context for a lot of people is whatever their heritage is,” said Miller. “Our recent history shows how horribly wrong it can go when you start to identify the few.”

The senators will be joined by former Gambian refugee-turned-Rhode Island Omar Bah, whom Steve Ahlquist profiled in 2014. They will also be joined by Father Bernard Healey, a Catholic priest and State House lobbyist for the church, Rabbi Sarah Mack, a progressive rabbi from Providence and Iman Farid Ansari, a local leader of the Islamic faith, among others.

November 17, 2015November 17, 2015

Bannister House caregivers picket against new ownership

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Bannister House workers and labor allies picketed outside the historic nursing home Tuesday afternoon to fight for fair wages and higher quality resident care.

“The informational picket was in response to Centers Health Care, a for profit out-of-state corporation with no track record in Rhode Island, attempting to lower standards at Bannister House,” according to an SEIU 1199 press release.

“Earlier this year my co-workers and I mobilized to save a nursing home which has been in our community for generations, but now new management is attempting to drive down standards for workers, which would lead to high turnover and reduced quality care,” said Shirley Lomba a C.N.A/C.M.T who has worked at Banister for 14 years, in the release. “We are standing up to be treated fairly.”

Bannister House was founded in 1890 by Christiana Bannister “to provide long-term care to African-American women in Providence, many of whom were retired domestic servants with no resources or family to care for them.” Earlier this year, the nursing home was saved from closing when SEIU 1199 members, community allies and political leaders urged the Providence City Council and the Rhode Island Senate to pass “resolutions calling on all stakeholders to keep the historic nursing home open.”

The hard work paid off. Bannister House just celebrated its 125th anniversary.

Centers Health Care is described by SEIU 1199 as a nursing home chain “with a track record of layoffs.” SEIU is calling on Centers Health Care CEO Kenneth Rozenberg to reach a fair contract with workers to keep turnover low and the quality of care high. The picketers were handing out flyers asking passersby to call CEO Rozenberg at (718) 931-9700 ext. 216 and. “Tell him to be fair to the staff and residents at Bannister House.”

November 17, 2015November 17, 2015

Elorza confused by PVD Community Safety Act at East Side crime forum

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When the Step-Up Coalition decided to attend Mayor Jorge Elorza’s second meeting with East Side citizens concerning what Commissioner Steven Paré called “a slight uptick” in crime, a certain amount of friction was to be expected. Members of the Step-Up Coalition, which includes DARE, PrYSM, the American Friends Service Committee and the Olneyville Neighborhood Association, have been clamoring for a meeting with Elorza for months, but Elorza has continually declined the coalition even as he met with the wealthier, whiter and more politically powerful East Side residents twice.

Coalition members and supporters arrived early and held a press conference outside Nathan Bishop Middle School, where they accused the mayor “of showing preferential treatment to one neighborhood at the expense of the rest of the city.” Once inside, members of the coalition attempted several times to steer the forum towards their concerns, but moderator Cheryl Simmons, who provides an email list for residents to report crimes and receive alerts on the College Hill Neighborhood Association webpage, refused to allow the program to go off track.

At one point Simmons told the South Side residents in attendance that if they wanted to meet with the Mayor they should do the work of arranging their own meeting, to which they loudly replied, “We did!”

Though the Step-Up Coalition held signs and occasionally interrupted the proceedings, it wasn’t until Simmons had exhausted the questions submitted through her East Side crime list serve and decided to take questions from the audience that the coalition finally got to ask Elorza their question.

The floor now open to questions, Vanessa Flores-Maldonado, a PrYSM organizer, walked to the front of the auditorium with her arm raised.

“Can I ask a question or will I be denied because I’m a person of color?” asked Flores-Maldonado.

Simmons was quick to say that questions were open only to East Side residents. Flores-Maldonado replied that she was an East Side resident and that her question was crime related.

“If its related to crime, go for it,” said Simmons.

Flores-Maldonado reminded Elorza that as a candidate for Mayor he had promised, at the People’s Forum on October 22nd, that he would support 10 out of the 12 points in the Providence Community Safety Act (CSA), a proposed municipal ordinance aimed at creating new police accountability policies in the City of Providence. Since being elected Mayor, Elorza has backed away from his promises.

Elorza took the microphone, but he didn’t answer Flores-Maldonado’s question.

2015-11-16 Elorza East Side CSA 013 — Elorza enters

Elorza misinterpreted her question to be about the Comprehensive Community – Police Relationship Act of 2015, a bill passed by the General Assembly earlier this year and signed into law by Governor Gina Raimondo in July. This law requires all police departments in Rhode Island to collect racial data during traffic stops for an annual report to the Department of Transportation’s Office of Highway Safety, prohibits consent searches of minors, and contains other measures aimed at protecting citizens from police overreach.

The bill Elorza talked about is not the Community Safety Act. (Here’s a copy of the Act, marked up by Elorza and submitted to organizers ahead of the People’s Forum a year ago.) When the Step-Up Coalition members realized what Elorza was doing, they called him on his act at once. They shouted that he wasn’t talking about the right bill. Elorza smiled, and kept on talking about a state level bill as if he was answering the question about the city level ordinance.

Flores-Maldonado was not allowed a chance to follow up, but was told by moderator Simmons that the question was asked and answered. The next question was from an East Side resident. You can watch Elorza’s entire, baffling and embarrassing performance on this question here:

Afterwards, I spoke to people from both the Step-Up Coalition and the East Side neighborhood. Everyone I talked to was stunned by the Mayor’s outrageous behavior.

One woman, a long time East Side resident, told me, “I was really disappointed by the Mayor’s response to her question. It made me think that he might have been lying about other things he said tonight. I mean, how can I trust anything he said?”

Here’s the Step-Up press conference held just before the forum:

Here’s the full forum , up until shortly after Mayor Elorza left the building.

November 16, 2015November 18, 2015

Talking beer, beauty, and murdered protestors with ‘Out of Sight’ author Erik Loomis

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Erik Loomis is a Rhode Island treasure.

This much is clear from his Twitter feed, his prodigious blogging, and – based on excerpts in truthout and In These Times – his latest book, Out of Sight: Long and Disturbing Story of Corporations Outsourcing Catastrophe.

If you aren’t familiar with Erik – Rhody’s own fire-spitting, NRA-fighting, grave-visiting, environmental/labor history guru – you’ll want to head down to AS220 on Wednesday night (November 18) at 5:30 p.m. to hear about how “our systems of industrial production today are just as dirty and abusive as they were during the depths of the industrial revolution and the Gilded Age, but…hidden in faraway places where workers are most vulnerable” (a quote from the book’s promo copy).

In advance of the event, I spoke with him about a variety of topics via email. (And, no, RI Future’s previous three interviews – here, here, and here – had not answered all of my questions.)

SCALE OF 1 TO 10, HOW UPSETTING IS THIS BOOK TO READ?

Hmmm….depends on how much you already know about these things. I’m going to guess a 9 for most people.

We mostly have some sense of the problems with the economy–we don’t have steady work, we don’t make enough money, we know the 1% is gaining more control over us. In Rhode Island, we know the jobs have disappeared and that long-term unemployment and urban decline is a big issue. So that’s expected. What people might find more upsetting is the horrors corporations create in the rest of the world in order that they can profit.

At times the book is pretty rough–child labor, pollution, workplace deaths, oil companies having protesters murdered, and climate change are some of the topics I talk about. And I think that readers will be pretty angry at finding out why corporations have moved the jobs abroad and all the different ways it affects our society today. So many of our problems stem, at least in part, to corporations being able to move jobs around the globe. It leads to the decline of unions, which takes working voices out of politics and creates a vacuum filled by wealthy plutocrats like the Koch Brothers. It turns workers and environmentalists against one another when in fact they share a common corporate enemy. It makes it harder to fight climate change. It kills workers overseas while making it harder to fight for a dignified life at home. But I also try to point at concrete ways forward where we can fight to make positive change.

So you should be pretty mad after reading this book. But you should also feel empowered to create changes instead of hopeless despair.

WHAT WAS ONE “HOLY SHIT!” DISCOVERY YOU MADE WHILE RESEARCHING THE BOOK?

I’ve been writing about this stuff for years so I wasn’t too shocked about most of it. But I think one thing that is surprising to me and will be surprising for most people is how many times the government has made attempts to regulate production and working conditions that can be useful for us in trying to fix these problems of global labor exploitation and corporate domination over our lives.

We are told that the free market is a force like gravity that can’t be stopped. But that’s absurd. It’s a series of choices made by people and shaped by governments. Government can allow corporations to exploit workers or it can help stop that exploitation. In many cases, including as early as the 1915 Seaman’s Act, which allowed exploited sailors on foreign ships to leave their jobs when they landed in the U.S. if the conditions on the ships were bad, the government has gotten involved, both at home and with foreign workers, to create something that looks more like a race to the top than a race to the bottom. We can get the government to take these steps again.

YOU’RE A GUY WHO’S BEEN INVOLVED IN SOME INTERESTING CAMPUS-FREE-SPEECH CONVERSATIONS. CARE TO WEIGH IN ON WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON AT YALE AND MIZZOU IN THE LAST WEEK OR SO?

I don’t have particularly strong opinions on the worrying so many people are engaging in about whether the protesters are right or are not respecting free speech. I find these conversations uninteresting and those who complain about these things tend not to support protest generally. Sure, the students may be strident. But protesting students are always strident! That’s what they are supposed to do! Reasoned, civil discourse is for older people. We need both. The reality is that there is a lot of racism throughout the nation. That includes on college campuses. That should be fought. Yale does not need buildings named about John C. Calhoun, architect of secession. And the president of Missouri was horrible and tolerated racist actions on campus. He needed to go.

WHAT’S THE GREATEST ALBUM EVER RELEASED?

It’s funny you ask that. I listen to music almost constantly, except when I’m reading. I cannot live without it. Some people can’t write to music. I can. So what is the best album? I don’t know, that’s so hard and depends on the minute. Jazz, classic country, rock and roll, soul, so many genres. Here’s a list of 10 great albums. We’ll say 5 are “classic” albums, before 2000. And 5 are from the last 15 years:

“Classic”

Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On
Miles Davis, In a Silent Way
The Who, Who’s Next
Millie Jackson, Caught Up
Ray Price, Night Life

“Recent”

Drive-By Truckers, Decoration Day
Wussy, Strawberry
Frank Ocean, Channel Orange
James McMurtry, Live in Aught-Three
PJ Harvey, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea

YOU’RE A NON-NATIVE RHODE ISLANDER. IT’S ALWAYS INTERESTING TO HEAR HOW THIS STATE APPEARS TO, SAY, A WEST-COASTER. WHAT HAVE YOU NOTICED ABOUT THIS PLACE?

I grew up in Oregon. That’s pretty different than Rhode Island. There are some great things about the state–the seafood. Autumn leaves. Summers on the water. The proximity to New York and Boston. Cool old buildings.

There are some weird things about Rhode Island too. The crazy level of corruption in Rhode Island politics. The accents. That no one has been west of Pennsylvania. That Providence sets its water on fire while we Oregonians, um, don’t. And then there’s the winter. What’s the deal with the winter? How do people survive this every year? I think last winter traumatized me permanently. Not to mention the potholes and tire damage it all causes.

Finally, and I don’t want to alienate any readers, but the beer scene in Rhode Island is atrocious. First of all, a great pint of beer in Oregon runs you $5, tops. You can still find $3 happy hours for some of the best beers in the nation. The beer scene has improved here in my 5 years and I’m thankful for that, but we need more brewers, we need better brewers, and we need to find ways to sell this beer for less than $7 a pint. Rant over.

THE WORD “DISTURBING” IS RIGHT THERE IN THE SUB-TITLE OF THE BOOK. WHAT ACTIVITIES, IF ANYTHING, DO YOU HAVE FOR MAKING YOURSELF UN-DISTURBED? DO YOU EVER JUST TRY TO ENJOY THE DAY, LIKE NOAM CHOMSKY?

I laugh a lot at the world. I go outside a lot and enjoy the beauty of the country. I watch Oregon football, which usually makes me feel good if less so this year. You can’t let the bad parts of the world own your life if you can help it. There’s a lot of beauty in the world. Remembering that is important.

Come down to AS220 Wednesday 5:30 to 7:30 to hear more from Loomis about his book, beer, Oregon, TPP and anything else you’d like to ask this Rhode Island treasure about.
Erik Loomis on his new anti-globalization book “Out of Sight”
Erik Loomis on TPP: the ugly, the bad and the good
Erik Loomis on Bernie vs. Hillary: Not as critical as defeating the GOP

November 16, 2015

Humanists of RI support sheltering Syrian refugees in RI

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The following is an open letter to Governor Gina Raimondo, in light of the Paris attacks and statements from eight Republican governors who have decided to close the borders of their states to Syrian refugees.

To the Honorable Gina Raimondo,

The recent, horrific attacks in Paris serve to highlight the terrible plight of Syrian refugees. The apparent perpetrators of the Paris atrocities, I am sure you realize, are the same violent people and organizations that the refugees are escaping from. It would serve the attacker’s purpose, and make us complicit in their actions, were we to turn away these people in their time of need.As the governors of Illinois, Ohio Indiana, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Michigan, Alabama, Texas and Arkansas give into fear, ignorance and nativism, it is more important than ever for Rhode Island to stay true to its immigrant roots and do all we can to provide shelter, safety and compassion for as many Syrian refugees as we can bear.We are sure that there are powerful political forces and hundreds of letters, phone calls and emails pouring into the State House demanding that you close our borders to those in the world most in need. We would encourage you to listen to the better angels of our nature and open our hearts, and our borders.

Let’s show the world what it means to be a Rhode Islander, and a decent human being.

Sincerely,

The Humanists of Rhode Island

November 16, 2015

Jack Reed avoids peace activists at Brown

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The Rhode Island Antiwar Committee protested Senator Jack Reed at Brown University Sunday afternoon. The senator was speaking as part of the Watson Institute‘s Distinguished Lecture Series on “The Challenges of a Turbulent World.”

According to the Antiwar Committee, “Senator Reed has championed the continued presence of a large military force in Afghanistan and essentially supports and promotes the endless ‘war on terror.’ Also, Reed’s position as ranking member of the Armed Services Committee would allow him, if he so chose, to guarantee a legitimate investigation of the bombing of the hospital in Kunduz and call for an independent one.”

The protesters initially set up outside the John Carter Brown Library on the Brown campus, but were soon ushered off campus to nearby George St. by Brown University police and Providence police. Senator Reed never encountered the protesters, though they did hand out flyers to many entering the library to hear the senator speak. At 4pm, when the program inside the library was to start, one of the members of the Antiwar Committee, Cathy Orloff, entered the building to hear Reed speak, but was was turned away because the venue had reached capacity.

The text of the flyer is reproduced below:

QUESTIONS FOR SENATOR JACK REED FROM:
RHODE ISLAND ANTIWAR COMMITTEE
LOCATION: 94 GEORGE STREET, PROVIDENCE, RI
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2015

1) Since the United States finally admitted that it ordered and carried out a bombing which killed 22 people in a hospital in Afghanistan on October 3; such a bombing being widely considered a war crime and described as such by Doctors Without Borders (MSF); why aren’t you vigorously urging support for MSF’s call for an independent investigation by the International Fact-Finding Commission of the Geneva Conventions?

2) Do you support an expedited conclusion of the American investigation, now that more than one month has elapsed since the attack? Do you consider this act a war crime? Do you support a military court-martial of the person or persons who ordered it and participated in it? Would you support monetary compensation by the U.S. to the families of those patients and staff killed?

3) Although one of President Obama’s campaign promises was to end the long U.S. war in Afghanistan, and although he announced his decision last year to draw down forces there; you now have spoken in support of his about-face and preference for the U.S. continuing to fight that country (which has not attacked the U.S). Do you think this decision is one that most Americans support and will make our country safer and more respected around the world?

4) At the end of October, Obama reversed his campaign pledge and many subsequent statements and said he plans to put “boots on the ground” in Iraq and Syria. However, on October 29 the Iraqi government stated that it does not need U.S. ground forces, nor has it asked Washington for help in operations against the Islamic State. “This is an Iraqi affair, and the government did not ask the Dept. of Defense to be involved in direct operations,” Iraqi government spokesman Sa’ad al-Hadithi told NBC News. Al-Hadithi also warned the United States against sending ground troops to Iraq without first clearing it with Baghdad, in accordance with international law. In view of this statement, and a similar quote on November 1 of a Syrian parliament member that the U.S. sending troops into Syria would be an act of aggression because it does not have the government’s agreement. (Providence Journal 11/1/2015, p. B-1) do you now support sending ground troops into these two countries?

QUESTIONS FOR THOSE READING THIS FLYER Do you think citizens should actively monitor their country’s actions and speak up when conscience dictates? Would you like to spend some time working with other Rhode Islanders in this effort?
If so, please email ri-antiwar-activist@googlegroups.com

November 15, 2015November 16, 2015

Local comedian Rui Montilla keeps it real

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In August 2005, Rui Montilla was my room mate at my dorm at Rhode Island College, where we learned a lot about each other by just sitting around talking and joking. One of the things that helped radicalize my politics and better understand how racism works in America was sitting around joking with him about what it was like to have a Latin American and Portuguese grandmother.

BUY TICKETS FOR HIS PERFORMANCE AT MOHEGAN SUN ON NOVEMBER 18 HERE!

A newlywed and now employed at a local institute of higher education, he brings a unique perspective to a field that has a long and productive history in the state. We sat down and talked about how he feels about performing, the dynamics of being on stage, and developments in the comedy scene created by current events that might impact the future development of comedy in a way social upheaval during the Vietnam War era shaped the careers of Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and the original cast of Saturday Night Live.

November 14, 2015

ACLU reports continued over-suspension of students of color

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Despite growing consensus that out-of-school suspensions should only be used as a discipline of last resort, Rhode Island school districts continued to overuse suspensions during the 2014-2015 school year, a report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island has found. The report, Oversuspended and Underserved, a follow-up to previous ACLU reports on the use of suspensions in Rhode Island public schools, found that schools doled out 12,682 suspensions in the last school year, often for minor misconduct. As in previous years, students with disabilities and students of color served a disproportionate amount of these suspensions.

While some school districts, education officials, and policymakers have acknowledged the need to address Rhode Island’s suspension problem, today’s report finds that much still needs to be done to address the persistent over-suspensions of even the youngest students. Among the report’s findings for the 2014-2015 school year:

The suspensions meted out last year resulted in more than 25,000 lost school days.

Over 1,000 elementary school students were suspended from school. Seventy-five of them were in kindergarten alone.

More than 60% of all suspensions were meted out for low-risk behavioral offenses such as “Disorderly Conduct” or “Insubordination/Disrespect.”

Black elementary school children were nearly six times more likely than their white classmates to be suspended from school. Hispanic children were three and a half times more likely than their white elementary school counterparts to be suspended.

Students with disabilities who have Individualized Education Plans were over two-and-a-half times more likely than a student without disabilities to be suspended from school.

More than two-thirds of the suspensions levied against high school students with IEPs were for low-risk offenses – exactly the punishment that IEPs should help these students avoid.

The report comes on the heels of the Rhode Island General Assembly’s near-approval this year of legislation to limit the use of suspensions to only those situations in which a child poses a serious physical risk, or when the student is disruptive and other methods to address his or her conduct have failed. The ACLU recommended that the General Assembly enact this legislation as soon as it convenes for its 2016 session.

Among its other recommendations, the report called on the Rhode Island Department of Education to work with districts to determine appropriate solutions for high suspension rates, and for school districts to work with the community to investigate alternative disciplinary methods. The ACLU also reminded parents of their right to appeal suspensions that they feel have been unfairly imposed.

Hillary Davis, ACLU of RI policy associate and the report’s author, said today: “Rhode Island’s children with disabilities and children of color have for too long borne the brunt of a system over-reliant on removing children from the classroom rather than correcting their behavior. The last school year was no exception. Our children deserve the opportunity to learn from their mistakes rather than potentially face a lifetime of severe consequences. Earlier this year, the General Assembly stood poised to make Rhode Island a leader in protecting children from the over-reliance on suspensions. We hope that swift action when the General Assembly reconvenes in January ensures that Rhode Island’s children will no longer find themselves cast out of school because of a bad day.”

A copy of the report is available here.

Previous ACLU of RI reports on school suspensions are available here.

[From an American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island press release]

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