News & Current Affairs
[Music Video] Ian Kamau – Black Bodies (from the One Day Soon album)
It’s been one year since Ian Kamau‘s One Day Soon was released. His message, especially in this song, is still relevant though after the ‘Summer of the Gun II’ here in Toronto. Read about Kamau’s inspiration behind the song HERE.
Bonus: Download the One Day Soon FREE EP HERE [zshare link]
[via @IanKamau]
[Video] Why Did UEFA Award the Euro 2012 Championship to Two Countries with Massive Racism Problems?
Here’s the background on BBC Panorama’s ‘Stadiums Of Hate’ program above:
A BBC documentary has flagged up Poland and Ukrainian football’s problems with racism, antisemitism and violence on the eve of UEFA Euro 2012. Here’s how the big hitters on Twitter have reacted to the screening of the damning footage.
With just days to go before the kick-off of the Euro 2012 championships, a hard-hitting BBC Panorama documentary has revealed shocking new evidence of racist violence and antisemitism at the heart of Polish and Ukrainian football. In the show, which went out in Britain on the evening of 28 May, a group of Asian fans are shown being attacked on the terraces of a Ukrainian premier league match and anti-Semitic chanting is captured on film at games in Poland. The show has cast fresh doubt on the joint hosts’ suitability to stage the high-profile football tournament.
Learn more:
– Euro 2012: Ukraine rocked by racism controversy [AP]
– Ukraine’s president downplays Euro 2012 racism fears [BBC News]
– Racism and Soccer Are in Play at a Big Event in East Europe [NYT]
In response to the video above though:
Smdh….
[News] The Marissa Alexander Case Proves Florida’s So-Called Stand Your Ground Law is Bullsh-t!
To refresh your memory, the Stand Your Ground law is the law and justification that kept George Zimmerman out of jail for so long after he gunned down Trayvon Marin in cold blood. Here’s the background on this story where, surprise, surprise, Stand Your Ground supposedly did not apply:
Marissa Alexander, the 31-year-old Florida woman who fired what her family calls a warning shot at her abusive husband, was sentenced Friday morning to 20 years in prison.
Alexander was convicted of three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for firing into a wall near her husband and his two young children at their Jacksonville home in 2010. Alexander has maintained that she wasn’t trying to hurt anyone and that she was standing her ground against a man who had over the course of nearly a year punched and choked her on several different occasions. Alexander says that she believed she was protected that day under the state’s Stand Your Ground Law, which gives people wide discretion in using deadly force to defend themselves.
A judge and a jury disagreed.
The State Attorney’s Office offered a plea bargain that would have sent Alexander to prison for three years, but she rejected it, hoping to convince a jury that she had been defending herself when she fired the weapon.
Alexander’s case has become the latest battleground in a fight against what Alexander’s supporters call the misapplication of the Stand Your Ground Law and Florida’s mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which offer stiff sentences for crimes involving guns.
According to Florida’s 10-20-Life statutes, anyone who pulls a gun during a crime receives a mandatory 10-year sentence. Firing a gun during the commission of a crime equals a mandatory 20-year sentence. Anyone convicted of shooting and killing another person during a crime is sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Alexander, who did not have a criminal record before the shooting, was convicted of felony assault with a gun.
Hmm, now I wonder what the difference is here?? F-cking travesty. Florida might be an even crazier and more racist state than Arizona! CLICK HERE to read more on MArissa Alexander’s case.
[News] George W. Bush & Tony Blair Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia in Malaysia!
This is basically meaningless but I kinda felt like I needed to post it anyway!
In Malaysia a mock tribunal has found former President George W Bush and Former Prime Minister Tony Blair guilty of war crimes. Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal which was formed at the request of former Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad, says the two leaders are guilty of crimes against peace, referring to their invasion of Iraq back in 2003.
CLICK HERE for more via Foreign Policy Journal.
[Video] Trayvon Martin’s Mom, Sybrina Fulton’s Mother’s Day Message
Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mom, released a video asking parents nationwide to support the Second Chance campaign, a new national campaign working to reform, repeal and prevent passage of new Florida-style “Shoot First” laws around the country.
The Second Chance campaign launched after Martin’s death with the NAACP, the National Urban League, the National Action Network, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, VoteVets and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to oppose reckless Shoot First laws that are on the books of 26 states and pending in 10 more. To learn more visit secondchanceonshootfirst.org for more info.