#i hear them on the radio arresting and harassing the students

[hotvampireadjacent]

fucking pigs. ACAB

[blackwoolncrown]

”This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. Under the guise of public safety, I personally ruined people’s lives but in so doing, made the public no safer… so did the family members and close friends of mine who also bore the badge alongside me.

But enough is enough.

The reforms aren’t working. Incrementalism isn’t happening. Unarmed Black, indigenous, and people of color are being killed by cops in the streets and the police are savagely attacking the people protesting these murders.

American policing is a thick blue tumor strangling the life from our communities and if you don’t believe it when the poor and the marginalized say it, if you don’t believe it when you see cops across the country shooting journalists with less-lethal bullets and caustic chemicals, maybe you’ll believe it when you hear it straight from the pig’s mouth.”

>>Copied here in case anyone gets paywalled when they click the above. The full article is...a lot.<<

WHY AM I WRITING THIS

As someone who went through the training, hiring, and socialization of a career in law enforcement, I wanted to give a first-hand account of why I believe police officers are the way they are. Not to excuse their behavior, but to explain it and to indict the structures that perpetuate it.

I believe that if everyone understood how we’re trained and brought up in the profession, it would inform the demands our communities should be making of a new way of community safety. If I tell you how we were made, I hope it will empower you to unmake us.

One of the other reasons I’ve struggled to write this essay is that I don’t want to center the conversation on myself and my big salty boo-hoo feelings about my bad choices. It’s a toxic white impulse to see atrocities and think “How can I make this about me?” So, I hope you’ll take me at my word that this account isn’t meant to highlight me, but rather the hundred thousand of me in every city in the country. It’s about the structure that made me (that I chose to pollute myself with) and it’s my meager contribution to the cause of radical justice.

YES, ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS

I was a police officer in a major metropolitan area in California with a predominantly poor, non-white population (with a large proportion of first-generation immigrants). One night during briefing, our watch commander told us that the city council had requested a new zero tolerance policy. Against murderers, drug dealers, or child predators?

No, against homeless people collecting cans from recycling bins.

See, the city had some kickback deal with the waste management company where waste management got paid by the government for our expected tonnage of recycling. When homeless people “stole” that recycling from the waste management company, they were putting that cheaper contract in peril. So, we were to arrest as many recyclers as we could find.

Even for me, this was a stupid policy and I promptly blew Sarge off. But a few hours later, Sarge called me over to assist him. He was detaining a 70 year old immigrant who spoke no English, who he’d seen picking a coke can out of a trash bin. He ordered me to arrest her for stealing trash. I said, “Sarge, c’mon, she’s an old lady.” He said, “I don’t give a shit. Hook her up, that’s an order.” And… I did. She cried the entire way to the station and all through the booking process. I couldn’t even comfort her because I didn’t speak Spanish. I felt disgusting but I was ordered to make this arrest and I wasn’t willing to lose my job for her.

If you’re tempted to feel sympathy for me, don’t. I used to happily hassle the homeless under other circumstances. I researched obscure penal codes so I could arrest people in homeless encampments for lesser known crimes like “remaining too close to railroad property” (369i of the California Penal Code). I used to call it “planting warrant seeds” since I knew they wouldn’t make their court dates and we could arrest them again and again for warrant violations.

We used to have informal contests for who could cite or arrest someone for the weirdest law. DUI on a bicycle, non-regulation number of brooms on your tow truck (27700(a)(1) of the California Vehicle Code)… shit like that. For me, police work was a logic puzzle for arresting people, regardless of their actual threat to the community. As ashamed as I am to admit it, it needs to be said: stripping people of their freedom felt like a game to me for many years.

I know what you’re going to ask: did I ever plant drugs? Did I ever plant a gun on someone? Did I ever make a false arrest or file a false report? Believe it or not, the answer is no. Cheating was no fun, I liked to get my stats the “legitimate” way. But I knew officers who kept a little baggie of whatever or maybe a pocket knife that was a little too big in their war bags (yeah, we called our dufflebags “war bags”…). Did I ever tell anybody about it? No I did not. Did I ever confess my suspicions when cocaine suddenly showed up in a gang member’s jacket? No I did not.

In fact, let me tell you about an extremely formative experience: in my police academy class, we had a clique of around six trainees who routinely bullied and harassed other students: intentionally scuffing another trainee’s shoes to get them in trouble during inspection, sexually harassing female trainees, cracking racist jokes, and so on. Every quarter, we were to write anonymous evaluations of our squadmates. I wrote scathing accounts of their behavior, thinking I was helping keep bad apples out of law enforcement and believing I would be protected. Instead, the academy staff read my complaints to them out loud and outed me to them and never punished them, causing me to get harassed for the rest of my academy class. That’s how I learned that even police leadership hates rats. That’s why no one is “changing things from the inside.” They can’t, the structure won’t allow it.

And that’s the point of what I’m telling you. Whether you were my sergeant, legally harassing an old woman, me, legally harassing our residents, my fellow trainees bullying the rest of us, or “the bad apples” illegally harassing “shitbags”, we were all in it together. I knew cops that pulled women over to flirt with them. I knew cops who would pepper spray sleeping bags so that homeless people would have to throw them away. I knew cops that intentionally provoked anger in suspects so they could claim they were assaulted. I was particularly good at winding people up verbally until they lashed out so I could fight them. Nobody spoke out. Nobody stood up. Nobody betrayed the code.

None of us protected the people (you) from bad cops.

This is why “All cops are bastards.” Even your uncle, even your cousin, even your mom, even your brother, even your best friend, even your spouse, even me. Because even if they wouldn’t Do The Thing themselves, they will almost never rat out another officer who Does The Thing, much less stop it from happening.

BASTARD 101

I could write an entire book of the awful things I’ve done, seen done, and heard others bragging about doing. But, to me, the bigger question is “How did it get this way?”. While I was a police officer in a city 30 miles from where I lived, many of my fellow officers were from the community and treated their neighbors just as badly as I did. While every cop’s individual biases come into play, it’s the profession itself that is toxic, and it starts from day 1 of training.

Every police academy is different but all of them share certain features: taught by old cops, run like a paramilitary bootcamp, strong emphasis on protecting yourself more than anyone else. The majority of my time in the academy was spent doing aggressive physical training and watching video after video after video of police officers being murdered on duty.

I want to highlight this: nearly everyone coming into law enforcement is bombarded with dash cam footage of police officers being ambushed and killed. Over and over and over. Colorless VHS mortality plays, cops screaming for help over their radios, their bodies going limp as a pair of tail lights speed away into a grainy black horizon. In my case, with commentary from an old racist cop who used to brag about assaulting Black Panthers.

To understand why all cops are bastards, you need to understand one of the things almost every training officer told me when it came to using force:

“I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.”

Meaning, “I’ll take my chances in court rather than risk getting hurt”. We’re able to think that way because police unions are extremely overpowered and because of the generous concept of Qualified Immunity, a legal theory which says a cop generally can’t be held personally liable for mistakes they make doing their job in an official capacity.

When you look at the actions of the officers who killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, or Freddie Gray, remember that they, like me, were trained to recite “I’d rather be judged by 12” as a mantra. Even if Mistakes Were Made™, the city (meaning the taxpayers, meaning you) pays the settlement, not the officer.

Once police training has - through repetition, indoctrination, and violent spectacle - promised officers that everyone in the world is out to kill them, the next lesson is that your partners are the only people protecting you. Occasionally, this is even true: I’ve had encounters turn on me rapidly to the point I legitimately thought I was going to die, only to have other officers come and turn the tables.

One of the most important thought leaders in law enforcement is Col. Dave Grossman, a “killologist” who wrote an essay called “Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs”. Cops are the sheepdogs, bad guys are the wolves, and the citizens are the sheep (!). Col. Grossman makes sure to mention that to a stupid sheep, sheepdogs look more like wolves than sheep, and that’s why they dislike you.

This “they hate you for protecting them and only I love you, only I can protect you” tactic is familiar to students of abuse. It’s what abusers do to coerce their victims into isolation, pulling them away from friends and family and ensnaring them in the abuser’s toxic web. Law enforcement does this too, pitting the officer against civilians. “They don’t understand what you do, they don’t respect your sacrifice, they just want to get away with crimes. You’re only safe with us.”

I think the Wolves vs. Sheepdogs dynamic is one of the most important elements as to why officers behave the way they do. Every single second of my training, I was told that criminals were not a legitimate part of their community, that they were individual bad actors, and that their bad actions were solely the result of their inherent criminality. Any concept of systemic trauma, generational poverty, or white supremacist oppression was either never mentioned or simply dismissed. After all, most people don’t steal, so anyone who does isn’t “most people,” right? To us, anyone committing a crime deserved anything that happened to them because they broke the “social contract.” And yet, it was never even a question as to whether the power structure above them was honoring any sort of contract back.

Understand: Police officers are part of the state monopoly on violence and all police training reinforces this monopoly as a cornerstone of police work, a source of honor and pride. Many cops fantasize about getting to kill someone in the line of duty, egged on by others that have. One of my training officers told me about the time he shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man wielding a big stick. He bragged that he “slept like a baby” that night. Official training teaches you how to be violent effectively and when you’re legally allowed to deploy that violence, but “unofficial training” teaches you to desire violence, to expand the breadth of your violence without getting caught, and to erode your own compassion for desperate people so you can justify punitive violence against them.

HOW TO BE A BASTARD

I have participated in some of these activities personally, others are ones I either witnessed personally or heard officers brag about openly. Very, very occasionally, I knew an officer who was disciplined or fired for one of these things.

Police officers will lie about the law, about what’s illegal, or about what they can legally do to you in order to manipulate you into doing what they want.

Police officers will lie about feeling afraid for their life to justify a use of force after the fact.

Police officers will lie and tell you they’ll file a police report just to get you off their back.

Police officers will lie that your cooperation will “look good for you” in court, or that they will “put in a good word for you with the DA.” The police will never help you look good in court.

Police officers will lie about what they see and hear to access private property to conduct unlawful searches.

Police officers will lie and say your friend already ratted you out, so you might as well rat them back out. This is almost never true.

Police officers will lie and say you’re not in trouble in order to get you to exit a location or otherwise make an arrest more convenient for them.

Police officers will lie and say that they won’t arrest you if you’ll just “be honest with them” so they know what really happened.

Police officers will lie about their ability to seize the property of friends and family members to coerce a confession.

Police officers will write obviously bullshit tickets so that they get time-and-a-half overtime fighting them in court.

Police officers will search places and containers you didn’t consent to and later claim they were open or “smelled like marijuana”.

Police officers will threaten you with a more serious crime they can’t prove in order to convince you to confess to the lesser crime they really want you for.

Police officers will employ zero tolerance on races and ethnicities they dislike and show favor and lenience to members of their own group.

Police officers will use intentionally extra-painful maneuvers and holds during an arrest to provoke “resistance” so they can further assault the suspect.

Some police officers will plant drugs and weapons on you, sometimes to teach you a lesson, sometimes if they kill you somewhere away from public view.

Some police officers will assault you to intimidate you and threaten to arrest you if you tell anyone.

A non-trivial number of police officers will steal from your house or vehicle during a search.

A non-trivial number of police officers commit intimate partner violence and use their status to get away with it.

A non-trivial number of police officers use their position to entice, coerce, or force sexual favors from vulnerable people.

If you take nothing else away from this essay, I want you to tattoo this onto your brain forever: if a police officer is telling you something, it is probably a lie designed to gain your compliance.

Do not talk to cops and never, ever believe them. Do not “try to be helpful” with cops. Do not assume they are trying to catch someone else instead of you. Do not assume what they are doing is “important” or even legal. Under no circumstances assume any police officer is acting in good faith.

Also, and this is important, do not talk to cops.

I just remembered something, do not talk to cops.

Checking my notes real quick, something jumped out at me:

Do

not

fucking

talk

to

cops.

Ever.

Say, “I don’t answer questions,” and ask if you’re free to leave; if so, leave. If not, tell them you want your lawyer and that, per the Supreme Court, they must terminate questioning. If they don’t, file a complaint and collect some badges for your mantle.

DO THE BASTARDS EVER HELP?

Reading the above, you may be tempted to ask whether cops ever do anything good. And the answer is, sure, sometimes. In fact, most officers I worked with thought they were usually helping the helpless and protecting the safety of innocent people.

During my tenure in law enforcement, I protected women from domestic abusers, arrested cold-blooded murderers and child molesters, and comforted families who lost children to car accidents and other tragedies. I helped connect struggling people in my community with local resources for food, shelter, and counseling. I deescalated situations that could have turned violent and talked a lot of people down from making the biggest mistake of their lives. I worked with plenty of officers who were individually kind, bought food for homeless residents, or otherwise showed care for their community.

The question is this: did I need a gun and sweeping police powers to help the average person on the average night? The answer is no. When I was doing my best work as a cop, I was doing mediocre work as a therapist or a social worker. My good deeds were listening to people failed by the system and trying to unite them with any crumbs of resources the structure was currently denying them.

It’s also important to note that well over 90% of the calls for service I handled were reactive, showing up well after a crime had taken place. We would arrive, take a statement, collect evidence (if any), file the report, and onto the next caper. Most “active” crimes we stopped were someone harmless possessing or selling a small amount of drugs. Very, very rarely would we stop something dangerous in progress or stop something from happening entirely. The closest we could usually get was seeing someone running away from the scene of a crime, but the damage was still done.

And consider this: my job as a police officer required me to be a marriage counselor, a mental health crisis professional, a conflict negotiator, a social worker, a child advocate, a traffic safety expert, a sexual assault specialist, and, every once in awhile, a public safety officer authorized to use force, all after only a 1000 hours of training at a police academy. Does the person we send to catch a robber also need to be the person we send to interview a rape victim or document a fender bender? Should one profession be expected to do all that important community care (with very little training) all at the same time?

To put this another way: I made double the salary most social workers made to do a fraction of what they could do to mitigate the causes of crimes and desperation. I can count very few times my monopoly on state violence actually made our citizens safer, and even then, it’s hard to say better-funded social safety nets and dozens of other community care specialists wouldn’t have prevented a problem before it started.

Armed, indoctrinated (and dare I say, traumatized) cops do not make you safer; community mutual aid networks who can unite other people with the resources they need to stay fed, clothed, and housed make you safer. I really want to hammer this home: every cop in your neighborhood is damaged by their training, emboldened by their immunity, and they have a gun and the ability to take your life with near-impunity. This does not make you safer, even if you’re white.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE A BASTARD?

So what do we do about it? Even though I’m an expert on bastardism, I am not a public policy expert nor an expert in organizing a post-police society. So, before I give some suggestions, let me tell you what probably won’t solve the problem of bastard cops:

Increased “bias” training. A quarterly or even monthly training session is not capable of covering over years of trauma-based camaraderie in police forces. I can tell you from experience, we don’t take it seriously, the proctors let us cheat on whatever “tests” there are, and we all made fun of it later over coffee.

Tougher laws. I hope you understand by now, cops do not follow the law and will not hold each other accountable to the law. Tougher laws are all the more reason to circle the wagons and protect your brothers and sisters.

More community policing programs. Yes, there is a marginal effect when a few cops get to know members of the community, but look at the protests of 2020: many of the cops pepper-spraying journalists were probably the nice school cop a month ago.

Police officers do not protect and serve people, they protect and serve the status quo, “polite society”, and private property. Using the incremental mechanisms of the status quo will never reform the police because the status quo relies on police violence to exist. Capitalism requires a permanent underclass to exploit for cheap labor and it requires the cops to bring that underclass to heel.

Instead of wasting time with minor tweaks, I recommend exploring the following ideas:

No more qualified immunity. Police officers should be personally liable for all decisions they make in the line of duty.

No more civil asset forfeiture. Did you know that every year, citizens like you lose more cash and property to unaccountable civil asset forfeiture than to all burglaries combined? The police can steal your stuff without charging you with a crime and it makes some police departments very rich.

Break the power of police unions. Police unions make it nearly impossible to fire bad cops and incentivize protecting them to protect the power of the union. A police union is not a labor union; police officers are powerful state agents, not exploited workers.

Require malpractice insurance. Doctors must pay for insurance in case they botch a surgery, police officers should do the same for botching a police raid or other use of force. If human decency won’t motivate police to respect human life, perhaps hitting their wallet might.

Defund, demilitarize, and disarm cops. Thousands of police departments own assault rifles, armored personnel carriers, and stuff you’d see in a warzone. Police officers have grants and huge budgets to spend on guns, ammo, body armor, and combat training. 99% of calls for service require no armed response, yet when all you have is a gun, every problem feels like target practice. Cities are not safer when unaccountable bullies have a monopoly on state violence and the equipment to execute that monopoly.

One final idea: consider abolishing the police.

I know what you’re thinking, “What? We need the police! They protect us!” As someone who did it for nearly a decade, I need you to understand that by and large, police protection is marginal, incidental. It’s an illusion created by decades of copaganda designed to fool you into thinking these brave men and women are holding back the barbarians at the gates.

I alluded to this above: the vast majority of calls for service I handled were theft reports, burglary reports, domestic arguments that hadn’t escalated into violence, loud parties, (houseless) people loitering, traffic collisions, very minor drug possession, and arguments between neighbors. Mostly the mundane ups and downs of life in the community, with little inherent danger. And, like I mentioned, the vast majority of crimes I responded to (even violent ones) had already happened; my unaccountable license to kill was irrelevant.

What I mainly provided was an “objective” third party with the authority to document property damage, ask people to chill out or disperse, or counsel people not to beat each other up. A trained counselor or conflict resolution specialist would be ten times more effective than someone with a gun strapped to his hip wondering if anyone would try to kill him when he showed up. There are many models for community safety that can be explored if we get away from the idea that the only way to be safe is to have a man with a M4 rifle prowling your neighborhood ready at a moment’s notice to write down your name and birthday after you’ve been robbed and beaten.

You might be asking, “What about the armed robbers, the gangsters, the drug dealers, the serial killers?” And yes, in the city I worked, I regularly broke up gang parties, found gang members carrying guns, and handled homicides. I’ve seen some tragic things, from a reformed gangster shot in the head with his brains oozing out to a fifteen year old boy taking his last breath in his screaming mother’s arms thanks to a gang member’s bullet. I know the wages of violence.

This is where we have to have the courage to ask: why do people rob? Why do they join gangs? Why do they get addicted to drugs or sell them? It’s not because they are inherently evil. I submit to you that these are the results of living in a capitalist system that grinds people down and denies them housing, medical care, human dignity, and a say in their government. These are the results of white supremacy pushing people to the margins, excluding them, disrespecting them, and treating their bodies as disposable.

Equally important to remember: disabled and mentally ill people are frequently killed by police officers not trained to recognize and react to disabilities or mental health crises. Some of the people we picture as “violent offenders” are often people struggling with untreated mental illness, often due to economic hardships. Very frequently, the officers sent to “protect the community” escalate this crisis and ultimately wound or kill the person. Your community was not made safer by police violence; a sick member of your community was killed because it was cheaper than treating them. Are you extremely confident you’ll never get sick one day too?

Wrestle with this for a minute: if all of someone’s material needs were met and all the members of their community were fed, clothed, housed, and dignified, why would they need to join a gang? Why would they need to risk their lives selling drugs or breaking into buildings? If mental healthcare was free and was not stigmatized, how many lives would that save?

Would there still be a few bad actors in the world? Sure, probably. What’s my solution for them, you’re no doubt asking. I’ll tell you what: generational poverty, food insecurity, houselessness, and for-profit medical care are all problems that can be solved in our lifetimes by rejecting the dehumanizing meat grinder of capitalism and white supremacy. Once that’s done, we can work on the edge cases together, with clearer hearts not clouded by a corrupt system.

Police abolition is closely related to the idea of prison abolition and the entire concept of banishing the carceral state, meaning, creating a society focused on reconciliation and restorative justice instead of punishment, pain, and suffering — a system that sees people in crisis as humans, not monsters. People who want to abolish the police typically also want to abolish prisons, and the same questions get asked: “What about the bad guys? Where do we put them?” I bring this up because abolitionists don’t want to simply replace cops with armed social workers or prisons with casual detention centers full of puffy leather couches and Playstations. We imagine a world not divided into good guys and bad guys, but rather a world where people’s needs are met and those in crisis receive care, not dehumanization.

Here’s legendary activist and thinker Angela Y. Davis putting it better than I ever could:

“An abolitionist approach that seeks to answer questions such as these would require us to imagine a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions, with the ultimate aim of removing the prison from the social and ideological landscapes of our society. In other words, we would not be looking for prisonlike substitutes for the prison, such as house arrest safeguarded by electronic surveillance bracelets. Rather, positing decarceration as our overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment-demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance.”

(Are Prisons Obsolete, pg. 107)

I’m not telling you I have the blueprint for a beautiful new world. What I’m telling you is that the system we have right now is broken beyond repair and that it’s time to consider new ways of doing community together. Those new ways need to be negotiated by members of those communities, particularly Black, indigenous, disabled, houseless, and citizens of color historically shoved into the margins of society. Instead of letting Fox News fill your head with nightmares about Hispanic gangs, ask the Hispanic community what they need to thrive. Instead of letting racist politicians scaremonger about pro-Black demonstrators, ask the Black community what they need to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. If you truly desire safety, ask not what your most vulnerable can do for the community, ask what the community can do for the most vulnerable.

A WORLD WITH FEWER BASTARDS IS POSSIBLE

If you take only one thing away from this essay, I hope it’s this: do not talk to cops. But if you only take two things away, I hope the second one is that it’s possible to imagine a different world where unarmed black people, indigenous people, poor people, disabled people, and people of color are not routinely gunned down by unaccountable police officers. It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, this requires a leap of faith into community models that might feel unfamiliar, but I ask you:

When you see a man dying in the street begging for breath, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a mother or a daughter shot to death sleeping in their beds, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a twelve year old boy executed in a public park for the crime of playing with a toy, jesus fucking christ, can you really just stand there and think “This is normal”?

And to any cops who made it this far down, is this really the world you want to live in? Aren’t you tired of the trauma? Aren’t you tired of the soul sickness inherent to the badge? Aren’t you tired of looking the other way when your partners break the law? Are you really willing to kill the next George Floyd, the next Breonna Taylor, the next Tamir Rice? How confident are you that your next use of force will be something you’re proud of? I’m writing this for you too: it’s wrong what our training did to us, it’s wrong that they hardened our hearts to our communities, and it’s wrong to pretend this is normal.

Look, I wouldn’t have been able to hear any of this for much of my life. You reading this now may not be able to hear this yet either. But do me this one favor: just think about it. Just turn it over in your mind for a couple minutes. “Yes, And” me for a minute. Look around you and think about the kind of world you want to live in. Is it one where an all-powerful stranger with a gun keeps you and your neighbors in line with the fear of death, or can you picture a world where, as a community, we embrace our most vulnerable, meet their needs, heal their wounds, honor their dignity, and make them family instead of desperate outsiders?

If you take only three things away from this essay, I hope the third is this: you and your community don’t need bastards to thrive.

RESOURCES TO YES-AND WITH

Achele Mbembe — Necropolitics

Angela Y. Davis — Are Prisons Obsolete?

CriticalResistance.org — Abolition Toolkit

Joe Macaré, Maya Schenwar, and Alana Yu-lan Price — Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?

Ruth Wilson Gilmore — COVID-19, Decarceration, Abolition [video]

[ravennm84]

Damning Evidence

This story was inspired by the idea of a what would happen if a civilian tried to go after Ladybug or Chat Noir’s miraculous and it got caught on video. Origially, I was going to have Alya be the one recording, but I decided someone outside of the Akuma Class needed some love. Warm-Fuzzies and please enjoy!!

Aurore Borell considered herself a dedicated weather girl and journalist. She paid attention to leads, always checked her sources, listened to witnesses after akuma battles, and always minded her safety when there was an attack. The akuma of the day was a boy from her school, she didn’t know him personally but he was going by the name Stillshot. Aurore had heard on the news that he had the ability to freeze people in place if he took your picture. 

The battle had moved close to where she lived and she hadn’t felt safe in her home, seeing as the akuma was a street level type and she lived in a lower apartment with her parents. So, she had moved to the roof of her apartment building with her phone to record everything she could see from her vantage point. 

And boy, did she see a lot.

Ladybug and Chat Noir were barely keeping clear of the beams that were shooting from the camera in Stillshot’s hands. They were even more encumbered because they were carrying a civilian around with them. Aurore recognized her as Lila Rossi, another student from her school. She didn’t know her well, but was pretty sure that the girl was a total liar. She’d once heard her say that she used to be a junior weather girl in Italy, which was admittedly impressive. But when Aurore looked her up, she couldn’t find a single news or radio station that ever listed her as an employee, intern, or even a volunteer; so she was pretty sure that it was a total lie.

Looking down, her phone in hand, she could see Stillshot shouting at the two heroes for protecting the girl. To her surprise, Ladybug and Chat Noir didn’t look thrilled by the situation either, but were still doing their best to protect her. When Ladybug called for her Lucky Charm and got a can of hairspray, Aurore was excited to see how the heroes would use it to save the day. 

Lila was quickly tossed to the side, Chat Noir used his Cataclysm to destroy the top spray button, and then Ladybug chucked the can at the akuma. Hairspray practically exploded all over him, covering his lens with a thick coat of the sticky substance and making it impossible for the camera to focus enough to take a picture. Then the yo-yo shot at the camera, breaking the lens and freeing the little purple butterfly to be caught and purified. 

Seeing the magical ladybugs swarm around the city always made Aurore smile. So much so that she almost missed Ladybug and Chat Noir jumping over her roof and landing on the building next to hers. It was a story lower than her apartment building, which gave her a good vantage point to look over at them. It was a bit surprising to see that they had brought Lila with them… and they appeared anything but happy with the girl.

“Thank you so much for saving me! I was so scared, and I have no idea why he was coming after me-”

“Will you stop lying already? There’s no one here to show off for.” Ladybug snapped at the girl, surprising both Lila and Aurore. “We know that you told that poor boy that you would get him a personal interview with Gabriel Agreste to become one of his photographers, and he believed you because you're a Gabriel model. Then when he went to the mansion, at the time you told him to, he was arrested for trespassing!”

Chat Noir put a hand on his partner’s shoulder in an attempt to calm her down, but he didn’t look any happier. “This has got to stop, Lila. We’ve heard about all the things you’ve been doing; lying about having disabilities, sexually harassing Adrien Agreste, getting Marinette Dupain-Cheng expelled from school because she called you out on your lies! Do you not care that your lies are hurting people?”

The facade that Lila had been wearing at first faded into a cruel scowl that caused a cold shiver to crawl down Aurore’s back.

“Do I look like I care? I only tell people what they want to hear. If they’re stupid enough to believe me, then that’s their own fault.”

“And what about the danger you’ve put your family in?” Ladybug asked, seeming almost desperate. “What if Hawkmoth sees that fake interview on the Ladyblog of you claiming to be my best friend? He’ll target you or your family, just to get leverage to get out miraculous!”

Lila let out a manic laugh before stepping closer to Ladybug. “Like I would care about that? If anything, I would gladly help him if it meant taking you down!”

That’s when the girl lunged at the red and black spotted hero, her hands reaching for her ears as Ladybug was knocked back onto the roof in surprise. But before she could rip the jewels from her earlobes, Chat Noir had grabbed Lila by the back of her jacket and flung the girl away from his partner. The italian landed hard on her shoulder and Aurore could see scrapes on her cheek and knees from the impact as Chat helped Ladybug to her feet and checked her ears to make sure her miraculous were still in place.

Aurore made doubly sure that she was out of sight as she kept recording, barely believing that someone would dare try to take Ladybug’s earrings while knowing what would happen to Paris and its people without Ladybug. Lila’s smile reminded her of a feral animal as she stood up. “Now I’ll make both of you regret ever challenging me! Everyone saw you carrying me away, I’ll tell everyone that you beat me up.”

“And why would we even do that?” Chat snapped at her.

“I’ll think of something,” she continued to grin. “A few tears, tear my clothes a bit more, you’ve already given me a few marks to make it more believable. By the time I’m done with the two of you, you’ll be just as infamous as Hawkmoth.”

Chat and Ladybug were alerted by their miraculous that they were down to their last minute and had no choice but to flee, glaring at the girl before jumping away. Aurore continued to record as Lila grabbed the sleeve of her jacket and ripped it at the shoulder, then slapped herself across the face to leave nail marks on her right cheek, opposite of the scrape on the left . She paced around for a moment, muttering to herself before she began crying.

“I don’t know why they did it. *sob* They carried me to the roof, I thought it was to make sure I was alright, but then they started blaming me for the akuma, said that they should have just let it have me and then they wouldn’t have to deal with me anymore. *hicup-sob-hicup* I tried to get away but Ladybug slapped-” she stopped crying suddenly, giving her head a shake “No, I can do  better than that.” Then she started crying again “I tried to get away, but Chat Noir grabbed me and threw me down, it hurt so bad. Then Ladybug slapped me and said that if she ever saw me again, she’d do worse than just scare me. Chat Noir even said he would gladly use his Cataclysm on me. Please, I’m so scared, I don’t know what to do!” 

Then Lila’s face went back to that manic look that gave Aurore the creeps before skipping over to the fire escape and began climbing down. She stopped recording as soon as the girl was out of sight and then played the recording back. She’d never been so relieved to have a good quality phone, the camera had caught everything that happened and picked up every word that was spoken.

She was nearly in a state of panic, indignation, and urgency as she raced inside and down the stairs, calling her producer at KIDZ+ news to call an emergency meeting and get some police there as well. The producer sounded skeptical at first, but when Aurore went on to say that she had proof of someone that was not akumatized trying to steal Ladybug’s earrings, that got her moving.

~oOo~

The entire upper level staff of KIDZ+ and TVi News were present when Aurore arrived. Officer Roger Raincompix had come, along with Mayor Bourgeois. They had been in a meeting when Roger received the call and the mayor insisted on coming, saying that if someone was threatening the heroes of Paris, he wanted to be in the know. She began playing her recording from the beginning, attempting to prove how recent it had been made and that she’d of had no time to doctor the footage. When it came to the footage from the roof… the reaction to her recording had been immediate and about what she had expected; shock, horror, fear, and disgust at the girl’s actions.

“Are you sure this recording is accurate?” Officer Roger asked, looking like he was about to be sick.

“I’m sure,” she said before sliding it towards him. “Check it, put it through every test you can think of to see if it’s authentic. I recorded that video from the roof of my building, it was right by where the akuma battle ended. I’ll give you my address so you can make sure it’s right.”

“I can also say, from a preliminary look, that I didn’t see any cuts, skips, or changes in color or texture which would indicate that this recording has been altered.” Nadja Chamack stated as she restarted the video and looked it over with a more critical eye. “At this point, I’d say that this is authentic, but I agree that we’ll want to run some tests to be absolutely sure before putting in on the news.”

Just then, Roger’s phone rang. He mentioned that it was the station and that he had to answer it. Stepping away, Aurore watched his back go stiff and his brows crease into a deep scowl. “I understand. Are her parents present?” Another pause and he nodded. “Put her in a private interrogation room, and don’t let her talk to anyone else. Tell her that we cannot do anything or properly take her statement unless she has a guardian present. Do what you can to keep her at the station and her mother present. I’ll be in touch very soon.”

Hanging up his phone, he turned back to the group. “Apparently, a Mlle. Lila Rossi has just come to the police station claiming that she was assaulted by Ladybug and Chat Noir. Her injuries that Officer Laurent told me, match the ones that were shown in the video.” He then looked to the President of TVi News. “How long will it take your people to inspect the recording?”

“Since it hasn’t been uploaded to any social media sites and we have the date, location, the phone that recorded the video, and the person who recorded it; not long, maybe a few hours.” She glanced at the clock, reading 11:27am before looking back at Officer Roger. “It could be ready and verified in time for the 6 o’clock news tonight.”

“Get started,” Roger nodded, “I’ll be sending a few of my people from our tech division to observe and double check the work. Once it has been verified, I want copies made for evidence.”

“I will also need a copy,” Mayor Bourgeois spoke up, finally finding his voice after the shock of the video. “If I’m not mistaken Mme. Rossi is employed by the Italian Embassy, meaning this could result in an international incident. If this turns out to be true, I will not allow this horrid girl to remain in my city or to ever set foot on French soil again.”

The TVi President nodded, writing down notes while Officer Roger called his best tech people from the station to drop whatever they were doing and come to the TVi station immediately. Then he turned to Aurore, took her statement, her address, and had her send him a copy of the recording before calling another one of his officers to meet him at that address to compare the video to the scene. As well as sending officers to the Dupain-Cheng Bakery and the Agreste Mansion to get corroborating statements. 

~oOo~

Lila was beginning to get tired, she had been fake crying for hours and really wanted to go home and take a nap. It had become even more taxing when she was forced to call her mother to the station or else the police wouldn’t be able to take her statement. At least her mother had bought her story hook, line, and sinker and was already talking about filing charges against the city of Paris for allowing a couple of vigilante teenagers to run around and hurt her daughter.

It was just after 5pm when Officer Roger, Sabrina’s dad, entered the interrogation room along with Officer Laurent. The younger officer had taken her statement not long after her mother arrived at the station but had told them that, due to the serious accusations being made, it would be best to take this up the chain of command to make sure that nothing was overlooked. That had made Lila nervous at first, but she was confident that they would believe her. After all, she was the one that had been hurt and Ladybug and Chat Noir were nowhere in sight to contradict her story.

“Hello Mme. and Mlle. Rossi, I’m Officer Roger. I want you to tell me what happened.” He said as he placed his tablet and a notebook on the table and pulled out a pen.

“Do I have to do this again? Just thinking about what they did scares me.” Lila squeezed her eyes shut as she pinched her inner thigh to draw tears. Her mother wrapped an arm around her shoulder in comfort, eating it up.

“I understand that this must be difficult, but I need to hear your statement.”

Giving a shaky nod, Lila went into her story again, making sure that her voice trembled a bit and to keep her shoulders hunched. “I don’t know why they did it. *sob* They carried me to the roof, I thought it was to make sure I was alright, but then they started blaming me for the akuma, said that they should have just let it have me and then they wouldn’t have to deal with me anymore. *hicup-sob-hicup* I tried to get away, but Chat Noir grabbed me and threw me down, he even kicked me. It hurt so bad. Then Ladybug slapped me when I was trying to get up and then grabbed my face, it felt like she was going to crush my chin. She said that if she ever saw me again, she’d do worse than just scare me. Chat Noir even said he would gladly use his Cataclysm on me. Please, I’m so scared, I don’t know what to do!” 

Officer Roger nodded as he continued to write everything down. “And you’re willing to testify to this in a court of law?”

Mme. Greta Rossi was already nodding to the affirmative. “Yes, those incompitent vigilantes are going to pay for hurting my daughter. I want to file lawsuits against them for assault and intimidation.”

Roger nodded in understanding but then gave Mme. Rossi a curious look. “I understand that you are upset, but I don’t see how Ladybug and Chat Noir could be labeled as incompitent. They have always defeated the akumas sent by Hawkmoth.”

“That’s not true, my daughter’s school was closed for months, months, because those two couldn’t beat the principal of her school after he was akumatized and damaged the school.”

He blinked at her. “Mme. Rossi, I’m not sure if you are aware of this, but our daughters are enrolled in the same school and attend the same class. There have been days when an akuma will cause the school to open a bit late or close early, but it has never been closed for months. And as for M. Damocles being akumatized, that occurred after school hours, with the majority of the battle taking place off of school grounds, and he was returned to normal before the end of the night. It did not interrupt the school at all.”

Hearing this, Mme. Rossi’s mouth dropped open before turning to look at her daughter, who had gone suspiciously quiet and was ducking down a bit in her chair.

“And as for the lawsuits that you wish to file, you should be made aware that there lawsuits being filed against your daughter by three different parties for assault, slander, intimidation, sexual harassment, and a few other charges.”

“WHAT!?”

“Yes, Madame. Some of those charges are being filed by the city of Paris, itself.”

“How dare you!” Mme. Rossi yelled as she stood so quickly that she knocked her chair backwards onto the floor. “My daughter was assaulted by those two and the city has the nerve to blame Lila? I won’t stand for this!”

Officer Roger stayed calm as he turned on his tablet and played the video he’d queued up. As Mme. Rossi watched the video, her anger ebbed away into surprise at the things the two heroes  said and how Lila didn’t deny it; then shock when Lila attacked Ladybug for her earrings only to see that she was injured because Chat Noir had protected his partner; back to anger as she watched her daughter rip her clothes, scratch her own face, and then practice the lines she had told the police, almost word for word. Officer Laurent was forced to come around the table to steady Greta before righting her chair so she could sit down. 

“For the record, Mme. Rossi, multiple people have inspected this recording, including TVi News and members of the Paris Police Department, and have come to the conclusion that it is authentic. No tampering whatsoever. Your daughter assaulted Ladybug in an attempt to steal her miraculous, which is designated as a terrorist act as she and Chat Noir are the defenders of Paris, and currently our best defense against the known terrorist, Hawkmoth.”

Lila had been silent since giving her statement again, she hadn’t expected her mother talking about the school being closed or Officer Roger destroying that lie so easily, but that was something she might have been able to recover from if given the chance. But now with that recording, actual hard evidence that proved that she’d been lying, had attacked Ladybug, and had faked her injuries and lied to the police… there was hardly a single thin straw for her to grab at, but she had to try.

Lila turned up the tears as she desperately gripped her mother’s arm. “Mom, you don’t actually believe them, do you? You know I would never do the things they’re saying I did. That video has to be a fake! Please, you have to believe me!” 

To her dismay, her mother removed her grip on her arm, stood from her chair, and began pacing the room. “Who are the other parties that are filing lawsuits against her?”

“Mom!”

“Be quiet!” Mme. Rossi snapped at her daughter, glad that her mouth snapped shut before slumping lower in her seat. “Who else has she hurt?”

“M. Agreste is planning on filing lawsuits for sexual harassment and slander. The Dupain-Chengs are filing lawsuits for slander, intimidation, and harassment. I have looked into the school and found that Mlle. Dupain-Cheng was indeed expelled after your daughter accused her of assault and theft, but later recanted her story while claiming that she suffered from a disease that makes her lie uncontrollably. Mlle. Dupain-Cheng also claims that your daughter has been bullying her by spreading lies and rumors about her to isolate her from her friends.”

“She’s lying! Marinette’s the one that’s been bullying me!”

“I SAID BE QUIET!”

Lila jumped in her chair that time before cowering, she’d never seen her mother this angry before. It was actually kind of scary, but even worse… she was sure that her mother wasn’t going to support her or back up her lies. She was on her own.

~oOo~

When the news broke an hour later, Mme. Rossi had never been more humiliated in her life. The Embassy had called her as well, saying that she would be on leave pending an investigation, meaning that she would be lucky to still have her job by the end of the week. After leaving her daughter at the police station to face the charges against her, Greta had made a beeline for the school, demanding to know why they had never contacted her about the truancy, the disabilities, or her daughter’s supposed tumble down the stairs. The teacher and principal had given her less than satisfactory answers like “Lila said you were busy and we didn’t want to disturb you” and “she promised that she would get us those doctors notes”. She was on the phone with the Board of Governors before she was off the property. Since they had also seen the news, she could easily say that they were almost as upset as she was and the two incompitent educators would be lucky if they were still employed at the end of the week. 

The visit to the Dupain-Cheng Bakery was even more enlightening. From the stories Lila had told her during the past few months, she expected Marinette to be cold, callous, and rude. But that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Sabine Cheng had invited her up to the livingroom to speak and Marinette soon joined them. She was a shy but sweet girl that offered to get her a glass of water and whatever she would like from the bakery. To be honest, she had wanted to try the pastries from the shop months ago, but had made the mistake of believing her daughter when she said that they were terrible. So she asked for a berry scone and Marinette gave a kind smile before going down stairs and coming back up with the scone, a few different macaroons, a croissant, and a chocolate chip cookie. 

When Mme. Rossi looked at her in surprise, Marinette gave her a kind smile. “You look upset, I thought having a variety of sweets might help cheer you up.”

The sincerity on the girl's face nearly brought tears to her eyes. She couldn’t believe that her daughter had been tormenting this sweet girl just because she had called her out on her lies. She asked the girl honestly, what her daughter had done to her. And although hesitant, Marinette told her everything; from the threats and lies, to acting like she had been pushed down the stairs and planting her necklace in Marinette’s locker; if it could even be called that since it didn’t lock. 

After that, Marinette asked to be excused and Greta proceeded to speak with Sabine. She admitted that she’d had no knowledge as to what Lila had been up to, that the school had never contacted her about any of the incidents, she had already filed a complaint with the Board of Governors, and recommended that they do the same. Despite Lila’s terrible treatment of Marinette, Sabine accepted the advice with gratitude but informed her that they would still be filing the lawsuits against Lila. Greta stated that she hadn’t come to change their minds, but to hear Marinette’s side of the story.

Just before she left, Marinette hurried down the stairs with a small white silk square with royal purple flowered embroidery. In one corner, the initials G.R. were stitched in elegant script and looked to be hand sewn. “It’s a handkerchief, my way of saying ‘thank you’ for hearing me out. Other than my parents and the police officers that came by this morning, you were the first person to really listen to what I had to say about Lila. Thank you.”

Not bothering to hold back tears this time, Greta accepted the gift and asked the girl for a hug, which she easily gave. Then turning to Sabine, she told her. “You are wonderful parents, I am so sorry that my daughter has put you through so much. I just hope after this, she’ll learn that actions have consequences.”

After that, Greta jumped in a cab and made her way over to the Agreste Mansion. This was a completely different experience compared to the Dupain-Chengs. She never actually spoke to Gabriel Agreste, only Adrien and Gabriel’s assistant Nathalie. Adrien explained that he discovered that Lila was lying on the first day when she claimed to be best friends with Ladybug and the descendant of the wielder of Fox Miraculous. That was when Ladybug had shown up and chastised her for lying about her. Adrien agreed due to the danger of tempting Hawkmoth. 

He went on to say how Lila claimed that she was traveling the world with her mother and was friends with all sorts of celebrities. If Mme. Rossi wanted a more complete list of her lies, to check out the Ladyblog, as she had done several interviews. Adrien also went on to talk about how during their first photoshoot together, Lila wouldn’t keep her hands off of him and it made him uncomfortable. Lila had told him that unless he wanted Marinette to suffer even more, he’d stop complaining.

When Greta mentioned that she was told that the photoshoot was a relationship announcement between the two teens, and that she’d had no idea that she was a Gabriel model, Nathalie pulled up Lila’s contract on her tablet. The one that Greta had supposedly signed to grant her underaged daughter permission to work as a model. Mme. Rossi told the assistant at a glance that it wasn’t her signature and Lila had never shown her any such paperwork. To which Nathalie informed her that Gabriel would also be adding forgery and fraud to the list of charges being filed against her daughter, Greta simply nodded in acceptance. After all, forgery and fraud weren’t nearly as bad as assault, sexual harassment, or terrorism. 

~oOo~

When her daughter was brought to trial two weeks later, Greta Rossi sat dutifully behind her daughter but refused to testify on her behalf, not that it would have helped her. Between all the charges that were filed against her by the city of Paris, the Agreste family, the Dupain-Cheng family, and the investigation into the school and Lila’s actions by the Board of Governors; her daughter had no leg to stand on. She also made the mistake of lying to the judge on the first day and committing perjury, which only added to the charges.

The trial lasted for three days due to all the evidence and testimonies brought against her and the fact that Lila was the daughter of a diplomat. However, the evidence was overwhelming and the Italian government had already revoked any immunity that Lila might have had. The jury found her guilty and the judge declared that the sentencing would lie in the domain of the Italian government. Although it was decided that Lila would not be permitted to return to France.

Mme. Rossi made it clear to the court that she was already preparing to send her daughter to a juvenile corrections center in Italy, where she would remain until her 18th birthday and the courts would decide further sentencing. 

Lila had screamed at her mother, accusing her of betraying her only daughter and that she was not her mother anymore. She had also hissed and attempted to attack Marinette for “ruining her life because she couldn’t keep her nose out of her business” and “why couldn’t you have just killed yourself”. Greta did her best to ignore the cruel words, but found herself pulling out the handkerchief that Marinette had given her. It was a small comfort, but it was more than what she deserved after Lila had hurt so many people.

Taglist:

@7-sage-7  @fantasiame  @seraphichana

@t1dwarrior-of-earth  @ghostmaster83  @izang

@ulmban  @plushbookworm  @corabeth11

@ramos123  @darkened-flame  @caffeinetheory

@iamablinkmarvelarmy  @abrx2002

@delightfulcookiesrecipespizza 

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Long story short, sister thinks what's happening in Afghanistan isn't bad and the Taliban actually helps women and aren't extremists

A little help?

During an interview with The New York Times, published on Wednesday, a spokesman for the Taliban said that "music is forbidden in Islam."

Zabihullah Mujahid, who is seen as a likely contender for the new government's culture minister role, told the paper that the Taliban is hoping to "persuade people" not to perform music.

Under the previous period of rule, the Taliban banned all music, apart from some religious chants, according to The Guardian. Cassette tapes were destroyed, musical instruments were forbidden, and even captive songbirds were outlawed, the paper said.

It's not only music that the Taliban intends to crack down on. According to India Today, female voices on TV and radio channels have also been outlawed.

A threat assessment from the United Nations has warned the Taliban is intensifying a search for people who worked with United States and NATO forces and is going “door to door” to find them.

The confidential report – provided by the UN’s threat-assessment consultants and seen by a number of news media – says the group has “priority lists” of individuals it wants to arrest and is threatening to kill or arrest family members if the wanted do not give themselves up.

The new higher education minister has said women and men must be separated at universities, and the historical consequences of services promoted as “separate but equal” within a discriminatory system strongly suggest that women will be pushed out or get a lower quality education.

A labyrinthine new decree to private universities, seen by the Guardian, lays out a long list of prescriptive, and likely expensive, rules to prevent male and female students even glimpsing each other’s faces during years of study.

Women must be provided with transport in buses with covered windows and a curtain separating them from the presumably male driver. They must be confined to a “waiting room” before and between classes, and the decree even details a required clothing colour for female students and teachers (black).

All new classes must be segregated, and in current classes with under 15 women, a “sharia partition” must be erected to keep students of different gender apart. Ideally, teachers will also be separated by gender, the new rules say. “In the future, all universities should provide female teachers for women’s classes. They should also try to use older teachers with a good background,” the letter said.

The claim that restrictions on women’s lives are a temporary necessity is not new to Afghan women. The Taliban made similar claims the last time they controlled Afghanistan, said Heather Barr, the associate director of women’s rights at Human Rights Watch.

“The explanation was that the security was not good, and they were waiting for security to be better, and then women would be able to have more freedom,” she said. “But of course in those years they were in power, that moment never arrived — and I can promise you Afghan women hearing this today are thinking it will never arrive this time either.”

Brian Castner, a senior crisis adviser at Amnesty International who was in Afghanistan until last week, said that if the Taliban intended to treat women better, they would need to retrain their forces. “You can’t have a movement like the Taliban that has operated a certain way for 25 years and then just because you take over a government, all of the fighters and everyone in your organization just does something differently,” he said.

But, Mr. Castner said, there is no indication that the Taliban intend to fulfill that or any other promises of moderation. Amnesty International has received reports of fighters going door to door with lists of names, despite their leaders’ public pledges not to retaliate against Afghans who worked with the previous government.“

The rhetoric and the reality are not matching at all, and I think that the rhetoric is more than just disingenuous,” Mr. Castner said. “If a random Taliban fighter commits a human rights abuse or violation, that’s just kind of random violence, that’s one thing. But if there’s a systematic going to people’s homes and looking for people, that’s not a random fighter that’s untrained — that’s a system working. The rhetoric is a cover for what’s really happening.”

As the insurgency advanced, the first concern of the staff of Women for Afghan Women and others running similar shelters was what the Taliban might do to punish them. As the country’s rulers in the 1990s, the Taliban strenuously opposed women traveling on their own or gathering together.

Relatively recent examples of Taliban conduct have been worrying. When the Taliban briefly took over the city of Kunduz in 2015, the Women for Afghan Women shelter operators and clients all fled as threatening calls flooded in from the insurgents. The shelter director described being actively hunted, and said she was getting calls from the Taliban saying they would capture her and hang her in the village square as an example.

But it is not just fear of the Taliban that has frightened the shelter operators and their clients this time. Taliban fighters have come to some of the shelters in recent weeks. Sometimes they have vandalized the premises and taken over the buildings, but there have been no reports of their harming anyone yet, said Ms. Viswanath, the group’s co-founder.

“None of our staff has been beaten, attacked, killed, as far as I know,” she said.

Much of the concern has come from the waves of prisoners set free during the Taliban advance. Among them were men imprisoned under women’s protections laws that were enacted with Western support over the past 20 years. The former prisoners have a grudge to bear not just against the female relative who spoke out against them and humiliated them publicly, but also against all those who supported that effort — the safe house directors, counselors and lawyers.

In some areas of Afghanistan that fell to Taliban control in recent weeks, the group imposed restrictions on women. Women were banned from leaving the house without a male relative and forced to wear burqas, which cover a woman from head to toe. Some commanders demanded families hand over unmarried women to marry their fighters. In Kabul, images of women outside beauty parlors have been painted over or ripped off. Female teachers were barred from teaching to boys. Female journalists employed by state TV, now under Taliban control, were stopped from going to work.

Meanwhile, the Taliban's assurance of a "safe passage" to the Kabul airport, where thousands have thronged in a desperate bid to be taken out of the country, has also been undermined by a report and photographs by a Los Angeles Times journalist.

In one of the graphic images, a woman and a child are seen with blood on their faces, apparently unconscious.

Hundreds of people were outside the airport Wednesday, The Associated Press reported. It said the Taliban demanded to see documents before they allowed the rare passenger inside. The Taliban fired occasional warning shots to disperse them, the agency said.

Amputations, stonings and executions of criminals could return in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, the organisation has admitted.

As its fighters prepared to assume power in Kabul, the militant Islamist group insisted it would protect the rights of women, the media and diplomats.

But, asked about violent punishment of offenders – a hallmark of brutal Taliban rule in the 1990s – a spokesman said: “That is up to the religious followers and the courts. They will decide about the punishment.”

Asked specifically about the chopping off of hands and feet, stonings and state killings, Suhail Shaheen told the BBC: “I can’t say right now. It is up to the courts and the judges and the laws.”

==

Honestly, I think she's lying. Not just to you, but to herself. She's so possessed by Islamophobia-phobia (fear of being seen as "Islamophobic") that she's willing to turn a blind eye to what happens to the people over there in order to alleviate her own discomfort.

And she has the luxury of this lie because she's so far removed from the reality of it.

Force the issue by taking her at her word. Give her two options:

Fly to Afghanistan and spend a week in Kabul. She'll think you're kidding, but spin up a GoFundMe page to raise the money. I'll even link to it on my blog; or

Live for one month based on the rules and restrictions coming from the reports out of the area. She'll need a burqa (hijab is empowering, right?), she'll need to stop listening to music, and she'll need a mahram (male guardian, who must be a relative) to leave the house. Every day, review what's going on as Sharia takes hold, and she has to do it.

If she believes what she's saying - and she doesn't - then prove it. If she won't, then you're entitled to conclude she doesn't really believe it.

==

Also, they're fundamentalists. They're picking up where Muhammad left off.

[itsmassivecollectionpatrolus]

Life under Fire: The Wages of Apostasy

(Presented at the Eleventh IHR Conference, October 1992.)

Thank you, United States, for letting me come and speak. I mean that seriously because the fight is now getting quite creepy. For two years now, in country after country, I have been conducting this international Campaign for Real History. During this period, in country after country, I’ve come up against an international campaign against real history — an international campaign full of lies, an international campaign to suppress the truth. The truth of this campaign is quite clearly something that I had previously not wanted to believe: there is, in fact, an international force out there with an influence that transcs frontiers. Day after day, country after country, month after month, I come up against this international force.

 In my apartment in London, I’ve accordingly opened a file titled “Jewish Harassment.” This should not be taken to mean, in the slightest, that I am anti-Jewish, because I’m not. The fact that many Jews are anti-Irving does not mean to say that I am anti-Jewish. There’s no paradox in that statement. Week after week, month after month, they are causing me immense harassment, embarrassment and distress. But journalists come to me, again and again, and ask me: “Mr. Irving, are you anti-Semitic?” And I reply, “Not yet.”

 For two years now, I have been the target of this worldwide campaign — in Germany, France, Spain, South Africa, the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, and England. Let me tell you a little about what has been happening in some of these countries.

 In Germany, I’m now technically a prohibited person. I can’t go there because the German authorities have ordained that David Irving shall no longer cross their frontier. A free democracy, and yet that’s the only way they can fight against me: by forbidding me to come in. That edict was issued in March 1990. But since then, I’ve been in and out of Germany 60 times. I’m not going to tell you how I’ve done it — but there are ways of doing it.

 In Austria, there’s an arrest warrant out against me, but no entry prohibition (whereas in Germany there’s the entry prohibition but no arrest warrant). So between the two of them you can find a way of getting in. As I said to the Germans the last time I spoke to a mass meeting of 7,000 people in Passau: there are enough people here in plain clothes taking notes for the Ministry of the Interior, and tonight they’ll be asked: how did he get in again? To this I can only say: “Go ask your colleagues in Austria how David Irving got in this time.”

 Banned in South Africa

 Besides Germany and Austria, officially I am not permitted to get into Italy or South Africa. Last January and February, I spoke for two months in South Africa, this time visiting 15 towns and cities. Two weeks after I returned to England, a letter arrived from the South African government in Pretoria. It told me: “Mr. Irving, as an Englishman you normally do not require a visa to enter South African territories. For you we are going to make an exception.” I reported this ban to the South African newspapers, which discovered in a matter of days that this unique embargo was being placed on me by the South African government at the request of South African Jewish organizations. This was followed by an outcry by other South Africans who wanted to hear me on radio and television, and in person. It was another encroachment on freedom of speech.

 Of course, I am able to come and speak here in the United States because you have something very important, your First Ammendment guaranteeing freedom of speech. It is very unlikely, I think, that the United States government would actually stoop to trying to prevent me from coming here to speak. It would be a very, very serious day indeed if that should happen.

 In Canada, I have a big speaking tour lined up that is due to start on October the 26th. Yesterday, here in this very hotel [in Irvine, Califronia], I was handed an express letter from the Canadian government informing me that I would not be allowed to enter Canada. Once again, pressure has been exerted by these international groups to keep me from speaking. In this case it was the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, but the reason given me was this: “Mr. Irving, under the immigration act, a person is not permitted to enter if he has committed a criminal offense in another country, or if he is likely to commit a criminal offense in Canada. We may consider you likely to commit a criminal offense.”

 After receiving this, I straight away instructed my attorney in Canada to point out that I’ve been to Canada some 30 times since 1965, and not once have I committed a criminal offense. So, prima facie, I am unlikely to commit a criminal offense on the 31st occasion. [On October 26, Irving legally entered Canada. He was illegally arrested — after lecturing on freedom of speech — at Victoria, B.C., and deported on November 13 after a three week court battle. He is appealing.]

 Detention in Rome

 In June of this year, I went to Italy. I arrived in Rome, after a stop in Munich, from Moscow, where I had been working for two weeks in the former Soviet government’s secret state archives. As I got off the plane in Rome, six Carabinieri police cars were waiting for me at the airfield, and as I got into the airport bus, the police stormed the bus, rifles drawn, and called out my name, “Mr. Irving.” Ladies and gentlemen, now that’s embarrassing! Under the circumstances, I tried to make it look as if this was my VIP escort!

 They held me there in the police station at Rome’s airport for four hours until the plane turned round and flew back to Munich. And half way through, they let in the Italian student who had arrived to meet me there. (I had been invited by a university professor.)

 During the police interrogation, I “hadn’t understood” a word of Italian, and I made them speak English to me. But when the students came in, I spoke with them in Italian, explaining how sorry I was. Seeing this, the police colonel became very indignant and said: “Silenzio, Don’t Speak.” So I said, “Where does it say that I can’t speak?” He repeated, “Silenzio, Don’t-a speaka.” And I repeated: “Excuse me, but nowhere do I see a sign that says Silenzio.” At that, he seized a thick felt- tip pen, and in a blind, Italian temper he went to the magnificently painted wall inside this beautiful, brand new police station, saying “You can’t-a see-a? Here!,” and wrote the letters S I L E N Z I O on the wall, and then shouted: “Silenzio!”

 Last October [1991], I spoke in Argentina. On the morning of the first day, I took part in a two-hour television program. (I also speak Spanish.) I was on with a man named Maurizio Maro, but whose real name turned out to be Goldfarb. If only they had told me beforehand! But too late.

 Goldfarb asked me questions like: “But Adolf Hitler, he was crazy wasn’t he?” And I said: “No, he wasn’t.” “But of course he was crazy,” he retorted. I responded by saying:

     There’s no evidence for that at all. The evidence is that we — the British and Americans — captured seven of Hitler’s doctors. We interrogated all seven of them on that specific point: Hitler’s own physicians were asked if they considered him clinically sane or out of his mind. All of them came to the conclusion that, even until the very last moments of his life, he was totally sane. And not only that, I have personally found Hitler’s medical diaries — the diaries kept by his doctor, Theodor Morrell, which I found in the archives in Washington, DC. After transcribing them, I published them. These diaries also confirm, without a doubt at all, that Hitler was perfectly sane and physically normal.

 Now considerably agitated, Goldfarb responded: “But the man must be totally crazy because he killed forty million human beings.” The first time he threw out this figure, I let it pass, but the second time round, I stopped him, saying: “Forty million? Excuse me, where does this figure come from then?” Goldfarb then said: “A person who kills even one man is a criminal.” In this case, then, I said, President Bush is a major criminal because of the damage he did in the Gulf War this very February.

 At this point, the interview was dramatically cut short. And the very next day, all the other interviews that had been lined up by my publisher in Argentina were cancelled. Newspaper and television interviews, and a Belgrano University appearance — all were cancelled. It was an object lesson on the influence that certain people have. The day after that (October 18, 1991), a major daily newspaper, La Nación, published a communique issued by Argentina’s Jewish governing agency, with a headline calling me an “International Agitator.” Well, I’m sorry that the Jews get so easily agitated. But it’s not my fault. My job is to go there and lecture on the historical truth as I see it.

 The Right to be Wrong

 I admit that we may be wrong. Each of us in this room may be wrong on this or that matter. But I demand the Right to be Wrong! That is the essence of freedom of speech in any country.

 No one is going to define for us what the received version of history is or should be. But that is what they are trying to do now in Germany, and all around the world.

 Every other aspect of world history is open to debate and dispute — except one. Anyone who challenges this one aspect of history is automatically, ipso facto, described as an anti-Semite. Jewish leaders are now saying that anyone who questions any aspect of the Holocaust is an anti-Semite. Of course, that’s not true. We are just lovers of the truth, and determined to get to the bottom of what actually did and did not happen.

 I do not insist that what I tell you here today is necessarily the only version of the truth, and that thou shalt have no other truth than this. I’m not as arrogant as that. I do say that this is the best that I can do, given limited resources, and against the harassment that I’ve come up against in the last few years.

 That harassment has gotten worse and worse, particularly with the recent Focal Point publication of the new edition of Hitler’s War. This new edition contains material never seen before. If you want to see a photograph showing what it looks like when 17,500 people are killed in 30 minutes, here it is. Everyone’s heard about Hiroshima and Dresden, but no one knows about what happened in Pforzheim, a small German town in Baden-Württemberg, where one person in four was killed in the most horrible manner in mid-February 1945. We have photos of that crime. I’ve shown this photograph to audience after audience.

 On the previous page of Hitler’s War are the well-known photographs of Dresden, where a hundred thousand people were killed in a period of twelve hours by the British and Americans. So many were killed so quickly that there weren’t enough living left to bury the dead. So the corpses had to be burned on these huge funeral pyres in the Dresden Altmarkt. I published the photographs in 1963 in my first book, The Destruction of Dresden and, now, in Hitler’s War, I publish them for the first time in color.

 Window Smashing

 There are 60 color photographs in this book, a work that no other publisher could have published so lavishly. Of course, our traditional enemies are absolutely livid because of this book, which is very sought-after in Britain. We published it ourselves, and personally delivered 5,000 copies to 800 book shops up and down the country and around the world.

 Our traditional enemies have been fighting back. Their local cells, branches and agents have been visiting — patiently and methodically, one by one — every book shop that stocked this book, demanding that it be “un-stocked.” Because most book shop managers are not open to intimidation in the way newspapers are, they get their windows smashed. As result, there’s been a campaign of window smashing throughout Britain during the last three or four months.

 During the night, the big plate-glass windows of the book stores are smashed, and the next morning the stores receive a letter on letterhead of the local synagogue, or the local Jewish Board of Deputies. The letters say “we are very sorry that your windows were smashed, but what can you expect? We promise that if you stop stocking David Irving’s books, you will find that this kind of problem ceases.”

 This campaign — smashing the windows of book stores, big and small, including chain book stores in Britain such as Waterstone’s and Dillon’s — has been reported in all the local newspapers. I subscribe to a press clipping service, so I get all these clippings. But there’s been nothing in the British national newspapers.

 And why not? Well, the answer is that these wondered where these journalists come from, these spineless, nasty little creeps such as Bernard Levin of The Times of London.

 I am philosophical about newspapers. I remember one Monday morning ten years ago when my secretary came to me, saying: “David, how can you stand for it? Have you read what they’ve written about you yesterday in the Sunday Times? It’s only a short thing, but you now might as well pack up. You’re finished.” He read from the article: “David Irving, who appears substantially to have over-estimated his mental stability this time …” “They’re calling you mad!”

 Recycled Lies

 I responded by saying, “Okay, so what? Are they going to assign me to some kind of psychiatric gulag archipelago? That’s from the Sunday Times, and this is Monday.” That’s the difference between being an author and being a journalist. When I write a book it goes into a library and stays there — especially if it’s on acid-free paper. What a journalist writes for the Sunday Times appears on Sunday, but by Monday it’s wrapping fish ‘n chips! So who cares? Or if it’s not wrapping fish ‘n chips, the paper’s being recycled to be made into new newsprint for new lies.

 One South African journalist wrote to me during the height of my South African tour in March 1992. I was speaking at meeting after meeting, addressing packed halls. In Pretoria, as usual, 2,000 people came to hear me. In Cape Town, another huge audience turned out to hear me at the Goodwood Civic Centre. The next day, I received a fax letter from a Cape Times journalist named Claire Bisseker who earlier had bombarded me with questions about what I thought about President de Klerk, the prospects for South Africa, the ANC, and all the rest of it. This time her letter was quite brief:

     Mr. Irving, the Cape Times would like to have your response to the following allegations made by a Capetonian who atted your meeting at Goodwood [Centre] on March 8. The source said that the meeting was of a neo-Nazi nature. Complete with Nazi banners and Nazi salutes. We would appreciate it very much if you could fax back to us your response as soon as you are able.

 So I turned this matter over in my mind. “Remember,” I told myself, “you’re dealing with a journalist — a journalist who will twist whatever you say. If I say that I have no comment, they will print the lies and say that Mr. Irving had no comment. If I deny it, they will print the lies and say that Irving denied it. They will print lies whatever you do.” So after some thought, I sent this brief letter to Claire Bisseker:

     Dear Clair,

     Thank you for your fax, and I appreciate your inquiry. Yes, you do have excellent sources. Neo-Nazi nature, Nazi banners, and Nazi salutes — the lot. As I marched in, an orchestra struck up the Slaves’ Chorus from Verdi’s opera, “Aida.” Later, the orchestra played the first bars of Franz Liszt’s “Les Préludes,” and it concluded with Liszt’s Opus 63 String Quartet. Meanwhile, searchlight batteries stationed around the Goodwood Civic Centre lit up, their crystal beams joining in a cathedral of ice ten thousand feet above the site; a thousand hands were once more flung aloft in the holy salute, and a thousand throats roared the Horst Wessel anthem. A video is available, directed by Leni Riefenstahl.

     I hope the above material suffices for what you have in mind.

 That’s the way to deal with journalists! I have developed my own techniques in dealing with them.

  David Irving

[inthefallofasparrow]

Article via Medium

“I was a police officer for nearly ten years and I was a bastard. We all were.”

“This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. Under the guise of public safety, I personally ruined people’s lives but in so doing, made the public no safer… so did the family members and close friends of mine who also bore the badge alongside me.”

“But enough is enough.”

“The reforms aren’t working. Incrementalism isn’t happening. Unarmed Black, indigenous, and people of color are being killed by cops in the streets and the police are savagely attacking the people protesting these murders.”

“American policing is a thick blue tumor strangling the life from our communities and if you don’t believe it when the poor and the marginalized say it, if you don’t believe it when you see cops across the country shooting journalists with less-lethal bullets and caustic chemicals, maybe you’ll believe it when you hear it straight from the pig’s mouth.”

Article via Medium

                         (click link through to Medium or ‘keep reading’ to continue)

“WHY AM I WRITING THIS

As someone who went through the training, hiring, and socialization of a career in law enforcement, I wanted to give a first-hand account of why I believe police officers are the way they are. Not to excuse their behavior, but to explain it and to indict the structures that perpetuate it.

I believe that if everyone understood how we’re trained and brought up in the profession, it would inform the demands our communities should be making of a new way of community safety. If I tell you how we were made, I hope it will empower you to unmake us.

One of the other reasons I’ve struggled to write this essay is that I don’t want to center the conversation on myself and my big salty boo-hoo feelings about my bad choices. It’s a toxic white impulse to see atrocities and think “How can I make this about me?” So, I hope you’ll take me at my word that this account isn’t meant to highlight me, but rather the hundred thousand of me in every city in the country. It’s about the structure that made me (that I chose to pollute myself with) and it’s my meager contribution to the cause of radical justice.

YES, ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS

I was a police officer in a major metropolitan area in California with a predominantly poor, non-white population (with a large proportion of first-generation immigrants). One night during briefing, our watch commander told us that the city council had requested a new zero tolerance policy. Against murderers, drug dealers, or child predators?

No, against homeless people collecting cans from recycling bins.

See, the city had some kickback deal with the waste management company where waste management got paid by the government for our expected tonnage of recycling. When homeless people “stole” that recycling from the waste management company, they were putting that cheaper contract in peril. So, we were to arrest as many recyclers as we could find.

Even for me, this was a stupid policy and I promptly blew Sarge off. But a few hours later, Sarge called me over to assist him. He was detaining a 70 year old immigrant who spoke no English, who he’d seen picking a coke can out of a trash bin. He ordered me to arrest her for stealing trash. I said, “Sarge, c’mon, she’s an old lady.” He said, “I don’t give a shit. Hook her up, that’s an order.” And… I did. She cried the entire way to the station and all through the booking process. I couldn’t even comfort her because I didn’t speak Spanish. I felt disgusting but I was ordered to make this arrest and I wasn’t willing to lose my job for her.

If you’re tempted to feel sympathy for me, don’t. I used to happily hassle the homeless under other circumstances. I researched obscure penal codes so I could arrest people in homeless encampments for lesser known crimes like “remaining too close to railroad property” (369i of the California Penal Code). I used to call it “planting warrant seeds” since I knew they wouldn’t make their court dates and we could arrest them again and again for warrant violations.

We used to have informal contests for who could cite or arrest someone for the weirdest law. DUI on a bicycle, non-regulation number of brooms on your tow truck (27700(a)(1) of the California Vehicle Code)… shit like that. For me, police work was a logic puzzle for arresting people, regardless of their actual threat to the community. As ashamed as I am to admit it, it needs to be said: stripping people of their freedom felt like a game to me for many years.

I know what you’re going to ask: did I ever plant drugs? Did I ever plant a gun on someone? Did I ever make a false arrest or file a false report? Believe it or not, the answer is no. Cheating was no fun, I liked to get my stats the “legitimate” way. But I knew officers who kept a little baggie of whatever or maybe a pocket knife that was a little too big in their war bags (yeah, we called our dufflebags “war bags”…). Did I ever tell anybody about it? No I did not. Did I ever confess my suspicions when cocaine suddenly showed up in a gang member’s jacket? No I did not.

In fact, let me tell you about an extremely formative experience: in my police academy class, we had a clique of around six trainees who routinely bullied and harassed other students: intentionally scuffing another trainee’s shoes to get them in trouble during inspection, sexually harassing female trainees, cracking racist jokes, and so on. Every quarter, we were to write anonymous evaluations of our squadmates. I wrote scathing accounts of their behavior, thinking I was helping keep bad apples out of law enforcement and believing I would be protected. Instead, the academy staff read my complaints to them out loud and outed me to them and never punished them, causing me to get harassed for the rest of my academy class. That’s how I learned that even police leadership hates rats. That’s why no one is “changing things from the inside.” They can’t, the structure won’t allow it.

And that’s the point of what I’m telling you. Whether you were my sergeant, legally harassing an old woman, me, legally harassing our residents, my fellow trainees bullying the rest of us, or “the bad apples” illegally harassing “shitbags”, we were all in it together. I knew cops that pulled women over to flirt with them. I knew cops who would pepper spray sleeping bags so that homeless people would have to throw them away. I knew cops that intentionally provoked anger in suspects so they could claim they were assaulted. I was particularly good at winding people up verbally until they lashed out so I could fight them. Nobody spoke out. Nobody stood up. Nobody betrayed the code.

None of us protected the people (you) from bad cops.

This is why “All cops are bastards.” Even your uncle, even your cousin, even your mom, even your brother, even your best friend, even your spouse, even me. Because even if they wouldn’t Do The Thing themselves, they will almost never rat out another officer who Does The Thing, much less stop it from happening.

BASTARD 101

I could write an entire book of the awful things I’ve done, seen done, and heard others bragging about doing. But, to me, the bigger question is “How did it get this way?”. While I was a police officer in a city 30 miles from where I lived, many of my fellow officers were from the community and treated their neighbors just as badly as I did. While every cop’s individual biases come into play, it’s the profession itself that is toxic, and it starts from day 1 of training.

Every police academy is different but all of them share certain features: taught by old cops, run like a paramilitary bootcamp, strong emphasis on protecting yourself more than anyone else. The majority of my time in the academy was spent doing aggressive physical training and watching video after video after video of police officers being murdered on duty.

I want to highlight this: nearly everyone coming into law enforcement is bombarded with dash cam footage of police officers being ambushed and killed. Over and over and over. Colorless VHS mortality plays, cops screaming for help over their radios, their bodies going limp as a pair of tail lights speed away into a grainy black horizon. In my case, with commentary from an old racist cop who used to brag about assaulting Black Panthers.

To understand why all cops are bastards, you need to understand one of the things almost every training officer told me when it came to using force:

“I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.”

Meaning, “I’ll take my chances in court rather than risk getting hurt”. We’re able to think that way because police unions are extremely overpowered and because of the generous concept of Qualified Immunity, a legal theory which says a cop generally can’t be held personally liable for mistakes they make doing their job in an official capacity.

When you look at the actions of the officers who killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, or Freddie Gray, remember that they, like me, were trained to recite “I’d rather be judged by 12” as a mantra. Even if Mistakes Were Made™, the city (meaning the taxpayers, meaning you) pays the settlement, not the officer.

Once police training has - through repetition, indoctrination, and violent spectacle - promised officers that everyone in the world is out to kill them, the next lesson is that your partners are the only people protecting you. Occasionally, this is even true: I’ve had encounters turn on me rapidly to the point I legitimately thought I was going to die, only to have other officers come and turn the tables.

One of the most important thought leaders in law enforcement is Col. Dave Grossman, a “killologist” who wrote an essay called “Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs”. Cops are the sheepdogs, bad guys are the wolves, and the citizens are the sheep (!). Col. Grossman makes sure to mention that to a stupid sheep, sheepdogs look more like wolves than sheep, and that’s why they dislike you.

This “they hate you for protecting them and only I love you, only I can protect you” tactic is familiar to students of abuse. It’s what abusers do to coerce their victims into isolation, pulling them away from friends and family and ensnaring them in the abuser’s toxic web. Law enforcement does this too, pitting the officer against civilians. “They don’t understand what you do, they don’t respect your sacrifice, they just want to get away with crimes. You’re only safe with us.”

I think the Wolves vs. Sheepdogs dynamic is one of the most important elements as to why officers behave the way they do. Every single second of my training, I was told that criminals were not a legitimate part of their community, that they were individual bad actors, and that their bad actions were solely the result of their inherent criminality. Any concept of systemic trauma, generational poverty, or white supremacist oppression was either never mentioned or simply dismissed. After all, most people don’t steal, so anyone who does isn’t “most people,” right? To us, anyone committing a crime deserved anything that happened to them because they broke the “social contract.” And yet, it was never even a question as to whether the power structure above them was honoring any sort of contract back.

Understand: Police officers are part of the state monopoly on violence and all police training reinforces this monopoly as a cornerstone of police work, a source of honor and pride. Many cops fantasize about getting to kill someone in the line of duty, egged on by others that have. One of my training officers told me about the time he shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man wielding a big stick. He bragged that he “slept like a baby” that night. Official training teaches you how to be violent effectively and when you’re legally allowed to deploy that violence, but “unofficial training” teaches you to desire violence, to expand the breadth of your violence without getting caught, and to erode your own compassion for desperate people so you can justify punitive violence against them.

HOW TO BE A BASTARD

I have participated in some of these activities personally, others are ones I either witnessed personally or heard officers brag about openly. Very, very occasionally, I knew an officer who was disciplined or fired for one of these things.

Police officers will lie about the law, about what’s illegal, or about what they can legally do to you in order to manipulate you into doing what they want.

Police officers will lie about feeling afraid for their life to justify a use of force after the fact.

Police officers will lie and tell you they’ll file a police report just to get you off their back.

Police officers will lie that your cooperation will “look good for you” in court, or that they will “put in a good word for you with the DA.” The police will never help you look good in court.

Police officers will lie about what they see and hear to access private property to conduct unlawful searches.

Police officers will lie and say your friend already ratted you out, so you might as well rat them back out. This is almost never true.

Police officers will lie and say you’re not in trouble in order to get you to exit a location or otherwise make an arrest more convenient for them.

Police officers will lie and say that they won’t arrest you if you’ll just “be honest with them” so they know what really happened.

Police officers will lie about their ability to seize the property of friends and family members to coerce a confession.

Police officers will write obviously bullshit tickets so that they get time-and-a-half overtime fighting them in court.

Police officers will search places and containers you didn’t consent to and later claim they were open or “smelled like marijuana”.

Police officers will threaten you with a more serious crime they can’t prove in order to convince you to confess to the lesser crime they really want you for.

Police officers will employ zero tolerance on races and ethnicities they dislike and show favor and lenience to members of their own group.

Police officers will use intentionally extra-painful maneuvers and holds during an arrest to provoke “resistance” so they can further assault the suspect.

Some police officers will plant drugs and weapons on you, sometimes to teach you a lesson, sometimes if they kill you somewhere away from public view.

Some police officers will assault you to intimidate you and threaten to arrest you if you tell anyone.

A non-trivial number of police officers will steal from your house or vehicle during a search.

A non-trivial number of police officers commit intimate partner violence and use their status to get away with it.

A non-trivial number of police officers use their position to entice, coerce, or force sexual favors from vulnerable people.

If you take nothing else away from this essay, I want you to tattoo this onto your brain forever: if a police officer is telling you something, it is probably a lie designed to gain your compliance.

Do not talk to cops and never, ever believe them. Do not “try to be helpful” with cops. Do not assume they are trying to catch someone else instead of you. Do not assume what they are doing is “important” or even legal. Under no circumstances assume any police officer is acting in good faith.

Also, and this is important, do not talk to cops.

I just remembered something, do not talk to cops.

Checking my notes real quick, something jumped out at me:

Do

not

fucking

talk

to

cops.

Ever.

Say, “I don’t answer questions,” and ask if you’re free to leave; if so, leave. If not, tell them you want your lawyer and that, per the Supreme Court, they must terminate questioning. If they don’t, file a complaint and collect some badges for your mantle.

DO THE BASTARDS EVER HELP?

Reading the above, you may be tempted to ask whether cops ever do anything good. And the answer is, sure, sometimes. In fact, most officers I worked with thought they were usually helping the helpless and protecting the safety of innocent people.

During my tenure in law enforcement, I protected women from domestic abusers, arrested cold-blooded murderers and child molesters, and comforted families who lost children to car accidents and other tragedies. I helped connect struggling people in my community with local resources for food, shelter, and counseling. I deescalated situations that could have turned violent and talked a lot of people down from making the biggest mistake of their lives. I worked with plenty of officers who were individually kind, bought food for homeless residents, or otherwise showed care for their community.

The question is this: did I need a gun and sweeping police powers to help the average person on the average night? The answer is no. When I was doing my best work as a cop, I was doing mediocre work as a therapist or a social worker. My good deeds were listening to people failed by the system and trying to unite them with any crumbs of resources the structure was currently denying them.

It’s also important to note that well over 90% of the calls for service I handled were reactive, showing up well after a crime had taken place. We would arrive, take a statement, collect evidence (if any), file the report, and onto the next caper. Most “active” crimes we stopped were someone harmless possessing or selling a small amount of drugs. Very, very rarely would we stop something dangerous in progress or stop something from happening entirely. The closest we could usually get was seeing someone running away from the scene of a crime, but the damage was still done.

And consider this: my job as a police officer required me to be a marriage counselor, a mental health crisis professional, a conflict negotiator, a social worker, a child advocate, a traffic safety expert, a sexual assault specialist, and, every once in awhile, a public safety officer authorized to use force, all after only a 1000 hours of training at a police academy. Does the person we send to catch a robber also need to be the person we send to interview a rape victim or document a fender bender? Should one profession be expected to do all that important community care (with very little training) all at the same time?

To put this another way: I made double the salary most social workers made to do a fraction of what they could do to mitigate the causes of crimes and desperation. I can count very few times my monopoly on state violence actually made our citizens safer, and even then, it’s hard to say better-funded social safety nets and dozens of other community care specialists wouldn’t have prevented a problem before it started.

Armed, indoctrinated (and dare I say, traumatized) cops do not make you safer; community mutual aid networks who can unite other people with the resources they need to stay fed, clothed, and housed make you safer. I really want to hammer this home: every cop in your neighborhood is damaged by their training, emboldened by their immunity, and they have a gun and the ability to take your life with near-impunity. This does not make you safer, even if you’re white.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE A BASTARD?

So what do we do about it? Even though I’m an expert on bastardism, I am not a public policy expert nor an expert in organizing a post-police society. So, before I give some suggestions, let me tell you what probably won’t solve the problem of bastard cops:

Increased “bias” training. A quarterly or even monthly training session is not capable of covering over years of trauma-based camaraderie in police forces. I can tell you from experience, we don’t take it seriously, the proctors let us cheat on whatever “tests” there are, and we all made fun of it later over coffee.

Tougher laws. I hope you understand by now, cops do not follow the law and will not hold each other accountable to the law. Tougher laws are all the more reason to circle the wagons and protect your brothers and sisters.

More community policing programs. Yes, there is a marginal effect when a few cops get to know members of the community, but look at the protests of 2020: many of the cops pepper-spraying journalists were probably the nice school cop a month ago.

Police officers do not protect and serve people, they protect and serve the status quo, “polite society”, and private property. Using the incremental mechanisms of the status quo will never reform the police because the status quo relies on police violence to exist. Capitalism requires a permanent underclass to exploit for cheap labor and it requires the cops to bring that underclass to heel.

Instead of wasting time with minor tweaks, I recommend exploring the following ideas:

No more qualified immunity. Police officers should be personally liable for all decisions they make in the line of duty.

No more civil asset forfeiture. Did you know that every year, citizens like you lose more cash and property to unaccountable civil asset forfeiture than to all burglaries combined? The police can steal your stuff without charging you with a crime and it makes some police departments very rich.

Break the power of police unions. Police unions make it nearly impossible to fire bad cops and incentivize protecting them to protect the power of the union. A police union is not a labor union; police officers are powerful state agents, not exploited workers.

Require malpractice insurance. Doctors must pay for insurance in case they botch a surgery, police officers should do the same for botching a police raid or other use of force. If human decency won’t motivate police to respect human life, perhaps hitting their wallet might.

Defund, demilitarize, and disarm cops. Thousands of police departments own assault rifles, armored personnel carriers, and stuff you’d see in a warzone. Police officers have grants and huge budgets to spend on guns, ammo, body armor, and combat training. 99% of calls for service require no armed response, yet when all you have is a gun, every problem feels like target practice. Cities are not safer when unaccountable bullies have a monopoly on state violence and the equipment to execute that monopoly.

One final idea: consider abolishing the police.

I know what you’re thinking, “What? We need the police! They protect us!” As someone who did it for nearly a decade, I need you to understand that by and large, police protection is marginal, incidental. It’s an illusion created by decades of copaganda designed to fool you into thinking these brave men and women are holding back the barbarians at the gates.

I alluded to this above: the vast majority of calls for service I handled were theft reports, burglary reports, domestic arguments that hadn’t escalated into violence, loud parties, (houseless) people loitering, traffic collisions, very minor drug possession, and arguments between neighbors. Mostly the mundane ups and downs of life in the community, with little inherent danger. And, like I mentioned, the vast majority of crimes I responded to (even violent ones) had already happened; my unaccountable license to kill was irrelevant.

What I mainly provided was an “objective” third party with the authority to document property damage, ask people to chill out or disperse, or counsel people not to beat each other up. A trained counselor or conflict resolution specialist would be ten times more effective than someone with a gun strapped to his hip wondering if anyone would try to kill him when he showed up. There are many models for community safety that can be explored if we get away from the idea that the only way to be safe is to have a man with a M4 rifle prowling your neighborhood ready at a moment’s notice to write down your name and birthday after you’ve been robbed and beaten.

You might be asking, “What about the armed robbers, the gangsters, the drug dealers, the serial killers?” And yes, in the city I worked, I regularly broke up gang parties, found gang members carrying guns, and handled homicides. I’ve seen some tragic things, from a reformed gangster shot in the head with his brains oozing out to a fifteen year old boy taking his last breath in his screaming mother’s arms thanks to a gang member’s bullet. I know the wages of violence.

This is where we have to have the courage to ask: why do people rob? Why do they join gangs? Why do they get addicted to drugs or sell them? It’s not because they are inherently evil. I submit to you that these are the results of living in a capitalist system that grinds people down and denies them housing, medical care, human dignity, and a say in their government. These are the results of white supremacy pushing people to the margins, excluding them, disrespecting them, and treating their bodies as disposable.

Equally important to remember: disabled and mentally ill people are frequently killed by police officers not trained to recognize and react to disabilities or mental health crises. Some of the people we picture as “violent offenders” are often people struggling with untreated mental illness, often due to economic hardships. Very frequently, the officers sent to “protect the community” escalate this crisis and ultimately wound or kill the person. Your community was not made safer by police violence; a sick member of your community was killed because it was cheaper than treating them. Are you extremely confident you’ll never get sick one day too?

Wrestle with this for a minute: if all of someone’s material needs were met and all the members of their community were fed, clothed, housed, and dignified, why would they need to join a gang? Why would they need to risk their lives selling drugs or breaking into buildings? If mental healthcare was free and was not stigmatized, how many lives would that save?

Would there still be a few bad actors in the world? Sure, probably. What’s my solution for them, you’re no doubt asking. I’ll tell you what: generational poverty, food insecurity, houselessness, and for-profit medical care are all problems that can be solved in our lifetimes by rejecting the dehumanizing meat grinder of capitalism and white supremacy. Once that’s done, we can work on the edge cases together, with clearer hearts not clouded by a corrupt system.

Police abolition is closely related to the idea of prison abolition and the entire concept of banishing the carceral state, meaning, creating a society focused on reconciliation and restorative justice instead of punishment, pain, and suffering — a system that sees people in crisis as humans, not monsters. People who want to abolish the police typically also want to abolish prisons, and the same questions get asked: “What about the bad guys? Where do we put them?” I bring this up because abolitionists don’t want to simply replace cops with armed social workers or prisons with casual detention centers full of puffy leather couches and Playstations. We imagine a world not divided into good guys and bad guys, but rather a world where people’s needs are met and those in crisis receive care, not dehumanization.

Here’s legendary activist and thinker Angela Y. Davis putting it better than I ever could:

“An abolitionist approach that seeks to answer questions such as these would require us to imagine a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions, with the ultimate aim of removing the prison from the social and ideological landscapes of our society. In other words, we would not be looking for prisonlike substitutes for the prison, such as house arrest safeguarded by electronic surveillance bracelets. Rather, positing decarceration as our overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment-demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance.”

(Are Prisons Obsolete, pg. 107)

I’m not telling you I have the blueprint for a beautiful new world. What I’m telling you is that the system we have right now is broken beyond repair and that it’s time to consider new ways of doing community together. Those new ways need to be negotiated by members of those communities, particularly Black, indigenous, disabled, houseless, and citizens of color historically shoved into the margins of society. Instead of letting Fox News fill your head with nightmares about Hispanic gangs, ask the Hispanic community what they need to thrive. Instead of letting racist politicians scaremonger about pro-Black demonstrators, ask the Black community what they need to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. If you truly desire safety, ask not what your most vulnerable can do for the community, ask what the community can do for the most vulnerable.

A WORLD WITH FEWER BASTARDS IS POSSIBLE

If you take only one thing away from this essay, I hope it’s this: do not talk to cops. But if you only take two things away, I hope the second one is that it’s possible to imagine a different world where unarmed black people, indigenous people, poor people, disabled people, and people of color are not routinely gunned down by unaccountable police officers. It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, this requires a leap of faith into community models that might feel unfamiliar, but I ask you:

When you see a man dying in the street begging for breath, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a mother or a daughter shot to death sleeping in their beds, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a twelve year old boy executed in a public park for the crime of playing with a toy, jesus fucking christ, can you really just stand there and think “This is normal”?

And to any cops who made it this far down, is this really the world you want to live in? Aren’t you tired of the trauma? Aren’t you tired of the soul sickness inherent to the badge? Aren’t you tired of looking the other way when your partners break the law? Are you really willing to kill the next George Floyd, the next Breonna Taylor, the next Tamir Rice? How confident are you that your next use of force will be something you’re proud of? I’m writing this for you too: it’s wrong what our training did to us, it’s wrong that they hardened our hearts to our communities, and it’s wrong to pretend this is normal.

Look, I wouldn’t have been able to hear any of this for much of my life. You reading this now may not be able to hear this yet either. But do me this one favor: just think about it. Just turn it over in your mind for a couple minutes. “Yes, And” me for a minute. Look around you and think about the kind of world you want to live in. Is it one where an all-powerful stranger with a gun keeps you and your neighbors in line with the fear of death, or can you picture a world where, as a community, we embrace our most vulnerable, meet their needs, heal their wounds, honor their dignity, and make them family instead of desperate outsiders?

If you take only three things away from this essay, I hope the third is this: you and your community don’t need bastards to thrive.”

Article via Medium

[vmheadquarters]

Happy Birthday @anilcadz91!

You wanted a happier ending (and a happy ending ;) to the scene above and, since the librarians think you should get what you want on your special day, our very own @cheshirecatstrut has made your wish come true. We hope you have a very happy birthday!

When Logan emerges from the Anthropology building holding Dick in a laughing headlock, only to lose his smile upon spotting Veronica? She knows right away something’s wrong. Even at his most sophomore-year-hateful he flirted and posed, mirth, lust and anger twining in his dark, compelling eyes.

She plays the odd moment off with panache, if she does say so herself, joining forces with him to mock Dick; but his disinterest in banter makes her stomach squirm. Logan’s fascination with V has always been so consuming, she’s never once considered it might wane.

But she’s Veronica Mars and she doesn’t back down—so after Dick gets a clue and wanders off to harass Lilith House, she takes the bull by the horns. “You weren’t outside my criminology class,” she accuses, going for playful. Tugs him closer by his overlarge button-down. “I waited.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, lackluster, and turns his face away.

The sick feeling in her stomach becomes an uncomfortable knot…he’s not playing along with her attempt to charm. “Is something wrong?” she asks, because how can she not?

He transfers his focus to his shoe. Studies it intently for a moment before glancing up from under his brow to meet her eye. “I can’t…” he begins, hesitant, in a defeated tone; then stops, exasperated, when her phone rings.

Holding up a ‘wait one second’ finger, V frowns at the display, thankful for a reprieve. “It’s my dad,” she says, trying to make ‘relieved’ sound ‘apologetic’. “Hang on to that thought for just one sec.”

Logan spins in an exasperated circle but nods, and she turns her back, moves a few steps away. “What’s up?” she chirps into the receiver, sounding way more chipper than she feels.

“Veronica, are you anywhere near Dean O’Dell’s office?” Dad’s clearly harassed, and also hard to hear over the traffic noise in the background.

“I could be,” she says. “Are you standing on the side of the highway?”

Dad sighs. “More or less. Look, he’s not answering my calls. Can you swing by and ask if he’ll meet at two instead of noon? Some fan of our work slashed my tires while I was running down a clue, and I need to get a tow and have them replaced.”

“Nobody appreciates genius anymore.” She checks her watch. “I’ll do it now, and then send you this mysterious type of confirmation message called a “text’.”

Dad fake-laughs and hangs up, and Veronica spins to find Logan watching impatiently, hands on hips. “Sorry, can’t talk after all, emergency,” she says, running the words together and holding up the phone in explanation. Walks quickly backwards, because she does NOT want to hear whatever he plans to say. “Dinner later? Student union, burgers, you, me, seven PM?”

“Veronica…” he begins, running agitated hands through his hair, but she just cuts him off with an, “Excellent! I’ll pencil you in!” and scurries away, heart pounding.

At least he doesn’t try to stop her, which is great, she decides. Because whatever was about to happen seemed big, yet she’s got no idea what his DEAL is. The last time they had anything like a fight, she told him she loved him and promised they were OK. What more does he WANT? Does he think those kind of words come easy to her? Surely he gets her instinctive need to flee any interaction that resembles ‘fraught’?

Logan should be cosseting her fears, after last week’s massive display of vulnerability. Not sulking like she stuffed his childhood teddy bear in the blender and hit ‘puree’.

Normally, Veronica can admit, she takes Logan’s loyalty for granted, no matter how insecure about her sex appeal she sometimes feels. She’s always assumed as long as her fidelity matches his, she’s the one who’d have to walk away. The idea that there IS a line, and she’s got no idea how she crossed it…well, she’s supposed to meet Wallace and Mac for lunch. And she’s clueless at the moment as to how she’ll choke down food.

She hikes across campus and finds the Dean at his desk, fiddling with a lukewarm pizza like he has no appetite either. Maybe dissatisfaction’s in the air today, like a virus. She passes Dad’s message, and he just says, “Sure, why not? It’s not like I have any social life or plans.”

This is clearly an invitation to probe further, but Veronica’s got her own problems. So she just says, “Thanks, I’ll let him know!” and heads over to the food court, where she greets her friends with decently-faked good cheer. But she’s so fidgety and indecisive in line, even Mac notices. “Veronica,” she says, after womaning up and ordering the fettucine. ‘Either you’ve got a bee in your shoe, or you’re upset and trying to hide it. What’s wrong?”

“Ugh, curse you and your new intimidating social skills.” Veronica tries a playful foot stomp, then abandons pretense with a sigh. “I’m fine, really. It’s just that Logan’s brooding is off the charts today, and I have no idea why.”

Mac looks at Wallace, brows raised. “But…isn’t Logan always brooding? I thought that was his trademark.”

“Nah, this is different.” Wallace, accepts a double helping of pudding and licks a spill off his thumb. “He was doing the thing in sociology yesterday where he hides his hands in his sleeves, and twirls a pencil instead of listening. He only acted like that in high school when he was planning to ditch for a month or get arrested.”

Veronica and Mac both stare, because how perceptive, and Wallace rolls his eyes. “What? I notice things. I’m told that’s a GOOD quality in a guy whose best friends are girls.”

Veronica opens her mouth to probe further, but at this inopportune moment Piz appears, bubbling over with oblivious excitement. “Hey gang, what’s the word? Is it avuncular?”

“No?” he continues, cutting across Mac’s attempt to reply with a chortle at his own joke. “Just a shot in the dark. Hey, set your dials to KRUFF tonight. I mean, we’re already moving on as to what to do with the whole Greek Row ghost town next summer. I’ve got this one guy coming on the show—wants to turn it into an ROTC training—“

“Jesus Piz, do you EVER stop talking?” Veronica snaps, temper combusting. “Seriously, how do you manage to interview people when you can’t shut up long enough to listen to answers?”

Tossing her tray down she storms away, ignoring the concerned stares that follow her. And okay, maybe she overreacted a tad—Piz is harmless, just super-nerdily enthusiastic about radio and his own opinions. But she’s been unenthused for a while, frankly, about having to share Wallace with Chatty Cathy. Especially at moments like this, when Wallace has data about CRITICAL ISSUES, but she can’t get a word in edgewise.

She’s almost out of the food court when she passes Dick, engrossed in ominously-excited conversation with Charleston Chu; the phrases ‘big-ass tires’, ‘drive right onto the quad’ and ‘group moon’ are mentioned, all of which inspire terror. So she has no qualms about interrupting with, “Dick, I’ll give you a cookie if you quit plotting to get expelled for five minutes, and answer some questions. And by cookie, I mean I won’t turn you in to the Dean.”

Dick heaves an over-exaggerated sigh but gestures to a table, shooing Charleston away. “This isn’t you hitting on me, right? Because Logan may have finally located his balls and taken away your whip, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be the next gimp in line.”

“Dick,” she says, sitting, and watches him follow suit, “and I mean this sincerely. The idea of smacking you down deeply appeals, but NEVER in that context.”

“So what do you want, then?” He takes a long swallow from the tall-boy he’s holding, in defiance of the Union’s no-booze rule. “Connor Larkin’s phone number?”

I already HAVE a boyfriend, Veronica would like to say, and I’ve got no interest in another. But clearly Dick thinks she DOESN’T have Logan, which means he believes a dumping was planned. Ergo, the squirmy feeling in her gut’s on point, as usual, and now she needs to turn Dick upside down and shake him for DETAILS. “I just need to know why Logan’s mad,” she says. “That’s all. Just what exactly, WAS the final straw? Because we’ve been getting along fine, as far as I know, and I don’t understand his issue.”

“Here’s a hint: you’re psycho.” Dick shrugs. “It’s not like we paint each others’ nails and gossip in our free time, Ron-Rons. All I remember is, he rushed home from dinner a week ago and sat staring at his phone for half an hour. And ever since, when your name comes up he changes the subject. Which, no offense, but I’ve been praying for this day since you two started dating. So excuse me while I celebrate with a twelve-pack, then show those angry feminists how the Pi Sigs get things DONE.”

Veronica scowls as he leaves and pulls out her cell, a suspicion beginning to coalesce. Pages through her call list and determines that yes, the last time Logan reached out was six days ago, at dinner time. Which is about five-and-a-half days longer than he usually goes without calling. But she failed to notice, what with the rape case, and three tests this week, and the coffee-stained stacks of unfiled cases that spilled all over Dad’s office…

Casting her mind back, she counts. Six days ago, she went to the Lilith House and confronted Nish, then learned about Patrice Pitrelli. She remembers being upset for hours, after, because those women cast HER as the villain, when THEY were faking rapes to sabotage a frat (not to mention assaulting frat members). She remembers buying comfort food, because nothing helps a girl shake off gender-traitor accusations better than pasta. And she remembers eating at a table by herself, because she just didn’t have it in her to deal with humanity. She got several calls that night, while wolfing down spaghetti and…

Sent them straight to voice mail.

Her jaw clenches then, because she knows what happened, and it’s just so LOGAN. Of course he’d call her from the food court while he was also in the food court, and say, “Want to see a magic trick? Bet I can guess where you are.” And of COURSE if he watched her hit ignore, his pride would be hurt. He might even assume she didn’t love him, because Logan Echolls, under all the snark and smarm, is a surprisingly delicate flower.

Jesus, he needs to get a grip. But as she pages through the list of ‘recents’ she has to admit…she’s been ignoring his calls a LOT.

Shit. Veronica lets her head fall back, stares at the sandwich somehow glued with old mayonnaise to the industrial-tile ceiling. The only thing she hates more than admitting she’s wrong is apologizing. But if she wants to keep her boyfriend, which she has to confess she does, even if said boyfriend is a DUMBASS…is there a way she could convince him, maybe, without having to do both?

XXXXX

When Veronica makes it back to the food court that night, Logan’s waiting at their ‘special’ table (which she knows, even though he’s never said so, is his do-over for banning her from his high school lunch group). He’s already purchased burgers and bottled sodas, plus the extra serving of fries she likes, and even managed to locate a bottle of ketchup. But instead of eating, he’s twiddling his straw with barely-contained angst, and Full Emo staring at the wall. She’s come up with a plan in the nick of time.

Plunking her bag down by a chair, she says cheerily, “Wow, if THIS doesn’t hit the spot after a hard day at the office!” and sits.

He half-smiles, trying not to succumb to her charm. “I figured you’d be hungry.” Looks sideways, takes a deep breath, then leans earnestly towards her. “But listen, before we eat. Veronica…”

She holds up a hand. “Logan, I know there’s something you want to tell me. And you can, I promise. But first, I have something I need to tell you.”

He nods, slumping back, and she says, “I recognize things have been difficult between us lately—for me, because this rape case is stressful, and…not bringing back the best memories. I’m guessing you feel the same. And even though we talked about you reforming and me acting unnaturally, which I swear, I’m trying to do? Angst makes my patience with people…more limited. I’m pretty sure, in light of the fight we had last week, I’m not holding up my end of the bargain. So I’ve decided to take steps.”

Folding his arms across his chest, he lifts his brows, uncharacteristically non-verbal. She forges ahead, though, because this feels like her last, best chance. “One of the ways you’ve been more open this semester is by giving me your room key. And I loved that gesture, but I can’t reciprocate, because you know my dad would blow a gasket if I gave you a key to our apartment. So I thought about what I might do instead that would be in the same spirit and…I need you to call me.”

“Call you?” His brows inch higher. “From across the table?”

“Yes,” she says. “Pull out your phone and call me right now. It’ll make sense in a minute, I promise.”

He sighs elaborately but does as she asks, thumbing open his phone and reluctantly pressing what she knows for a fact is speed dial number one. Removing her own cell from her pocket, she displays it with a Vanna White wave. Sets it on the table as the introductory trumpets of ‘Ain’t No Other Man’ by Xtina begin to play. Logan barks out a laugh, like he can’t help himself, and she makes a production of pretend shock before picking it up. Adopting a sultry expression, she coos, “Hello?”

Fighting a slow-growing smile, he says, “Who is this? Because I thought I was calling Veronica ‘all work, no play and DEFINITELY no cramping my style’ Mars.”

“She’s not here right now.” Veronica crosses her legs, doing her best hardboiled sexpot. “The only Veronica at THIS number is the one who gave her boyfriend a special ringtone. So even when she’s had it up to HERE with humanity, and would rather cut off her ears than make conversation, she’ll know it’s too important a call to miss.”

His gaze softens as understanding dawns. He unfolds one arm from his self-protective stance to pick up the straw, and taps it, musing, on the tabletop. “You mean there are two of you at large on the Hearst campus? Jesus, Dick will never sleep again.”

She snorts her contempt and indifference, breaking character, and his smile fractionally widens. So she forges determinedly ahead. “Since it’s you, I have a few minutes to talk, before I bolt my dinner and pull an all-nighter for a midterm. So why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind? Let me relieve you of all your troubles and cares. I promise not to lecture or judge, much.”

“Well that’s new. Hmmm…I guess I just want to say…” he pauses, the asshole, to consider—not even potentially-relationship-ending-conflict can dent Logan Echolls’ instinct towards drama. V clenches her jaw so hard it hurts, but manages to hold the smiling pose. “That this fake voice is doing it for me in ways I’ve never previously considered possible. And my ringtone’s pretty bangin’…although those trumpets will startle the shit out of anyone within a ten-foot radius.”

“Maybe I should have chosen ‘Hips Don’t Lie’?” she murmurs, as relief floods through her. His smile breaks through finally, FINALLY, like the sun emerging from a cloud.

“For us, that seems appropriate,” he says, and hangs up his phone. She slides hers shut too, and they stare at each other across the table.

She thinks he’ll want to discuss this almost-miss they just had, because Logan never shirks the tough subjects. But, “So where are you planning to study?” is all he asks, picking up his burger and sinking in teeth. Like he suddenly has his appetite back. Like all the tension and distance she’s fretted about today just vanished into the mist. “Because Dick’s been up to no good, planning something doubtless-embarrassing with the Pi Sigs, so my place is quiet. And, you know, you have a key.”

“As a matter of fact, I DO.” She unwraps her own burger, the knot in her stomach finally unraveling. “But I have to warn you—cramming for tests kicks my stress level up to eleven. Any idea how I might relax, once I’m done, so I can walk into that exam room tomorrow with a clear head?”

“I’ll give it some thought.” He pauses to sip his Coke. “Considering how stressed you GET, though, my plan will need to be exhaustive. So we should start as soon as you have time.”

She grins, chewing, as his feet surround hers under the table. Reflects that Dick will have to wait in vain for his months-long wish to come true. And Piz can find another sucker to listen to his ninety-percent-Piz radio show. Because she’ll be…otherwise occupied.

As for Wallace, he deserves a batch of snickerdoodles, soon-ish; his gossipy ways just saved her ass, and should be encouraged with sugar. But right now, Veronica decides, she needs to concentrate on the care and maintenance of what’s hers. So she twines her fingers through Logan’s while he talks, and debates which stress-relieving techniques to employ.

[tusouthafrica]

Female Student Activism: Speaking Out Despite Facing Gender Discrimination

Article, Photos and Audio by: Emma Padner

A Seasoned Activist

At just 12 years old, Brenda Leonard attended her first political meeting. By age 15, she became the president of the Student Representative Council at her high school in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town. 

Leonard was an active student protestor in 1985 when South Africa was ruled by the Apartheid Government. Leonard, who currently works at Bush Community Radio in Woodstock, Cape Town, was working to fight and ultimately overturn this government.

But she and the other women participants had to battle for equality within the majority male protest organizations. Leonard recalled a time when the women protested in order to gain the respect of their male counterparts.

“[The men] thought we were distracting away from the real issues and we were called anti-revolutionaries and lots of other things,” she added. “But for us it was important that our voices are heard because we make a contribution, a very important contribution towards liberating the country.”

“Our liberation is not different to your liberation and because of that our issues need to be recognized within this.”

-Leonard, on how women during the Apartheid Era needed to ‘prove’ that gender liberation should be valued in society

Hear From Leonard

A Rich Past of Student Activism

Student protests have played a pivotal role in South Africa’s history. In 1974, the Apartheid Government made it compulsory that the Afrikkans language be taught in all South African schools.  

On June 16, 1976, students in Soweto, Johannesburg marched in protest of this significant curricular change. What began as a peaceful protest turned violent when police arrived, resulting in an original report of twenty three deaths. Estimates rose to 176 casualties. 

Leonard added that in the 1980s when she was actively protesting, students were more violent; burning tires, disrupting schools, and making petrol bombs. 

In 2015, students began protesting the rising fees for higher education. This sparked the #FeesMustFall movement. Meanwhile, the Western Cape province held protests for the removal of colonialist Cecil John Rhodes statue, which was at the University of Cape Town (UCT)’s main campus. There were also protests to prevent the outsourcing of university workers. 

Media organization Daily Vox reported that the movement did not get immediate attention because it originated at historically black, rural universities like The University of Limpopo. Once protests spread to historically white universities such as Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and UCT, it grew into a national movement. 

Unfortunately, the historically black universities continued to be ignored by most major media outlets throughout the movement. 

#FeesMustFall from a Journalist’s Viewpoint

Asisha Dadi Patel was attending Johannesburg’s Wits and covered the #FeesMustFall protests firsthand for Daily Vox in 2015 and 2016.

During her honors (postgraduate year), she worked to uncover the truth about #FeesMustFall. Patel said she represented the protests from the students’ point of view. 

“As a journalist, covering [#FeesMustFall] was amazing for me because it was literally stuff that had never happened before...and here I was being able to be a part of documenting it,” she said.

Despite appreciating the opportunity to cover the protests, Patel recalled multiple times where she was harassed while doing her job because of her gender. She said it was common to see that sort of practice within the movement.

“A lot of issues of sexism came to the foreground, a lot of issues of patriarchy; people, including women themselves, were not willing to take women leaders seriously,” she added. “I know there were multiple accounts of sexual assault and those sorts of thing by the security with female students. They were just brutalized, they were just manhandled really badly. One girl had her shirt ripped open and her breasts were hanging out just because of police brutality.” 

Patel said when class registration was shut down in 2016, a group of students gathered to occupy the concourse on campus. She took a photo for her article. 

“[The group] got extremely angry and within a matter of 30 seconds there was a massive mob surrounding me,” she said. “They were trying to grab my phone and trying to force me to delete the picture and it turned into a very big thing. They were getting physical.” 

The violent situation caused her to feel exhausted by the movement and traumatized. She added that violence increased in 2016, due to the police presence on campus.

“A whole group of women banded together to protest that exact issue and say, ‘If this movement isn’t going to be inclusive of women and elevate the voices of the women who are elected as our leaders rightfully, then we don’t want to be part of it.’”

-Patel, on the unequal treatment of the rightfully elected female leaders of the Wits Student Representative Council in 2015 

Hear From Patel

2016 Protests at Wits University

For journalism honors student Tumell Modiba, #FeesMustFall was new to her when she started at Wits in 2016. Modiba was born in South Africa but grew up in the United Arab Emirates.

“I was kind of culture shocked in a way because I’ve seen protests happen on TV but not really happening at school,” she said. “I remember attending class this one time and students came in and disrupted and said that it’s very unfair that students are continuing to study whilst we are fighting for free education.”

Modiba was in a difficult situation during the protests, she added, as she did not participate because her parents asked her not to. They were visiting while campus was shut down because of protests and had her travel to Cape Town with them so she would not be involved or put in danger.

“I would tell my parents every day what's happening, how there were police vans on campus, how some people were being tear gassed, shot at with tear gas by the police, and my parents were very scared of that.”

-Modiba, on why her parents would not allow her to participate in the #FeesMustFall protests

Hear From Modiba

Modiba said women seemed to fall victim to violence by police forces more than their male counterparts, despite not actively participating in the protests on campus. 

“The policemen themselves were very intimidating. They would even catcall us, try to flirt with us and it was very unsafe because you wouldn't know if you denied any of their advances, what they would do to you,” Modiba said. “They could easily arrest you.” 

She added she heard there were many women who were assaulted on campus by private securities. 

Jabulile Mbatha, a journalism honors student at Wits, said she needed to participate in the protests because she and her friends were directly affected by the fees.

As a commuter, Mbatha had to go out of her way to travel to campus each day to protest. She said doing this she put herself in danger as she did not have an immediate safe space to run to, like a dormitory. 

She said she spoke with her parents about participating in the protests. Mbatha added her family had always been open and encouraging, and her parents simply warned her to avoid violence and “try and remain as you are.”

Mbatha added the protests were unlike anything she had experienced in the past, as the university was highly militarized and it was her first encounter with police at such close contact.

“For [police officers] to also be fighting back as much as they did was just unbearable because you saw the things they did to other students or the people you were protesting with, and it’s hard for you to not want to fight for your own life,” she added.

Though Mbatha did not experience additional struggle due to her gender, she noticed her male counterparts seemed to lead more discussions and have more decision-making power.

“There’s a hierarchical structure where gender takes an important role and the male student activists seem to shine or seem to want to lead the protest or give direction,” she said. “...which is very frustrating because we’re all facing the same struggle.”

“Some of my friends that stayed back home thought that it was very unnecessary putting my life in danger...by coming all the way here, knowing that [I] wouldn't have an immediate safe space to run to if ever it just got really bad.”

-Mbatha, on commuting to campus in order to participate in protests

Protests in the Western Cape

At UCT, students were not only protesting high fees, but also the presence of a Cecil John Rhodes statue on campus. The #RhodesMustFall movement sparked a call to ‘decolonize’ education across South Africa. 

UCT masters student Alexandria Hotz, studying philosophy and human rights law, said though there were students who seemed to step up more than others, the UCT protesters did their best to eliminate hierarchy within the protest space. 

She said history tends to seek out someone to illuminate as a leader even if there is not one, creating divisions within the space. 

“It [is] important that some women and queer, nonbinary people were emphasized as leaders and it gave confidence to young women, young queer people, young non binary people,” Hotz said. “But it also had an impact on who was valued, who was seen, who was not and that's really one of the biggest things that I think was really unfortunate.” 

Hotz’s involvement in politics began when she was young, as her parents were politically active and took her to marches and protests. She added that sometimes she wanted to live a “carefree, blasé, apathetic life,” but politics always called to her.

“You begin to realize that your body is racialized and your body is gendered and that shapes the experiences that you have in the world and on campus,” she said. “It makes it also very difficult to ignore or remain silent or not want to be part of what was happening and unfolding at the university.” 

“We’re not going to sit quietly and take this type of oppression and violence. We are going to speak about what's happening in our political spaces, and if we are wanting to see a different world than that different world needs to start within the organizing spaces that we’re in.”

-Hotz, on the reaction of how women, queer, and nonbianry people were treated in protests

Hear From Hotz

Pushing Past Gender Barriers

Wits journalism and media studies student Imaan Moosa also identifies as a student activist. However, she was not at Wits during the #FeesMustFall protests. She is active with the Palestine Solidarity Community. She serves as the group’s secretary. 

Moosa said in her experience, it is more difficult and unsafe for women in protests. She added she has personally been manhandled by police while protesting. 

“When you’re in an environment like that and then you’re being targeted by police and they are trying to harm you, it makes you very angry,” she said.  

Moosa said she believes there is a ‘stigma’ around women in leadership positions, and that women have to “work 10 times harder than a man whose in this position because [men] don't see [females] as valuable as men.”

Moosa found herself and other women having to prove themselves not just to the men in the activism community, but to men in general who want to get involved. 

“There’s that added challenge of being a woman in activist circles where you’re not just being targeted by police or people in power but you have to explain your existence in that space,” Moosa added.

“[Men] don’t see [women] as valuable as men and you have to prove yourself not just to the men in the activism community but just to men in general who want to get involved because they don’t see you as worthy of that [leadership] position.” 

-Moosa, on how women leaders are portrayed in politics and protests

Hear From Moosa

Looking to the Future 

Activist Brenda Leonard said she was proud when the #FeesMustFall protests broke out because of the large number of young women who were unafraid to step up and be active in the protests.

“I smile because it made me feel, ‘Yes we’ve done something right!’” she said. “We fought for years, [and] here’s what we fought for, because they stood up there, they were young, they were articulate, confident and they could fight for the issues.”

Moosa emphasized the importance that students, especially women, continue to vocalize what they believe in and fight for those beliefs, because young people always seem to push for change worldwide.

She added that the struggle and danger for young women is a universal idea, and that because of the universality, they will continue to stand up for other women across the country and globe.  

“As South Africans, we have a duty to help others...any small change matters,” Moosa said. “We are the future of our generation and we are going to be the ones who are sitting in Parliament, who are making laws and changing policy and we do have a voice and we should be able to use our voice to make a difference.”

Hear From Leonard about the Future 

[freelanews-blog]

Sexual Harassment In Nollywood: Fact or Fiction?

SEUN MANUEL FALEYE “A renowned actor gave her an appointment to see him, so he could help her persuade her boss, another actor whom she was having an issue with at the time.” Yoruba actress, Bimbo Oni began, narrating to eelive.ng the sad experience of her colleague in the hands of a libidinous senior actor in Nollywood. “The discussion got suspiciously longer than normal, which elongated her stay in his hotel room. After the discussion, the actor, locked the door and started to touch her in places that made her uncomfortable. She tried to leave, but he began to manhandle her. To the extent that he tore her dress. They struggled to the extent that she became weak and passed out. That was her saving grace. By the time she was revived, the sexual urge in the actor had disappeared, fear had taken over and he could only thank his stars that he did not have a dead body on his hands. My friend’s boss heard about the issue, but it was handled as a ‘we-we affair’, so the perpetrator was not arrested, nor was justice served.” Oni concluded. Although, most of the actors and actresses who spoke to eelive.ng, said that they have not had personal experiences of sexual molestation in the course of their careers, they were unanimous in their agreement that there are many such cases in the industry. They have mostly credited their knowledge of the misdemeanor to third party testimonials; usually from their colleagues who were victims. Investigations by eelive.ng revealed that a substantial number of practitioners do not see it as anything more than an ordinary workplace hazard, something they need to grow the stamina to cope with. Those who have been victims of the hydra headed pandemic at certain points in their careers stomach their experiences, accepting it as dues they had to pay or a requisite sacrifice for stardom, in the hands of their hot to trot and perpetually horny film marketers, producers and directors, who have been glorified to demi-gods in the industry. Sexual Molestation As Old As Sin On a broader spectrum, sexual assault has plagued our society from the early days. The menace is as old a sin – as the inception of the co-existence of man. Every profession, without an exception is confronted with sexual harassment. In academics, male lecturers put female students on the brink, and demand sex for marks, a requisite for them to graduate. Business executives demand sex from sales reps. and marketers to close business deals. Managers demand for sex in exchange for employments, certification and competence of applicants regardless. Even the sacred places of worship are not left out of the misdemeanor. This much was buttressed by Actress and Blogger, Hannah Ogundare, she agreed that; “Sexual harassment is everywhere. It is not just in the movie industry. The reason why it is mostly heard of in entertainment, especially movie industry is because, practitioners are in the public eyes. The reason why we don’t really hear about such cases in other industries is because they are not they are the ones on television and radio, and they don’t make headline news in the print media.” she asserted.

The Situation in Nollywood Regardless of this widespread nature of sexual molestation however, there is a worrisome permissive and liberal tradition that makes the act more prevalent within the film industry. Fast rising actress Oyinyechi Amos told of her experience as follows: “I should have gone very far in my acting career, if not because of this so called sexual molestation. In 2014 when I first came into this industry, by my friend who introduced me. She introduced me to one director, they usually call him, Uncle J, he used to direct epic films for African Magic Epic. I usually played few waka pass roles in some of his films then. And he was also teaching me how to be a continuity manager too. But one day, he messed up. He called me, that he has a job to direct for someone and he wanted me to go with him to the location in Ogun State. And we would be there for two weeks. I packed my bags and told my mum where I was going. My mum had his number, they had spoken on a few occasions. So she freely allowed me. I was 21 years old then. I met Uncle J in his house at Apapa, then we drove in his car to Ogun State.” On arrival, Amos explained that they drove to some hotel where the director said they were going to lodge and wait for the Production Manager for the film they were going to shoot to come for them in the morning. She was however shocked to see that the said Uncle J planned for them to sleep in the same room. “We checked into same room. I told him, I have not slept in the same room with a man before, and I was not comfortable with it. He said I was behaving like I am not matured. He took off his clothes, trousers and pant in my front and walked naked into the bathroom. My heart was beating so fast. I didn’t know what to do or say.” She informed eelive.ng that when she asked him to give her the script they came to work on; he dismissed the request and asked her to leave work until the next morning. Done with his bath, he allegedly came back into the room, ordered food for two from the kitchen and then settled down to sleep. And this is where Amos’s story gets very sordid as she told our reporter: “After we ate and it was time to sleep, he started his moves, touching me all over and that night, he had sex with me multiple times. I didn’t struggle with him, I just cried, but he didn’t mind. As soon as I saw day light the next morning, I left the hotel with my things before he woke up. Until today, I have not set my eyes on him again. I told my mother what happened when I got home, because, I don’t hide anything from her. My mother called him and laid curses on him. Since then, my mother forbids me from chasing my acting career. It’s just now, that I am gradually coming back. I think I can handle things better now, and acting is really my passion.” In her own case, actress Bisola Omoniyi shared as follows: I went for an audition and I was picked, after the casting, the producer asked me out but I refused due to that I wasn’t called for the shoot. There was another shoot I went for and during the process of the shoot, the director single handedly picked that he will like to have me in his bed but I clearly stated that ‘ko le werk’ because of that, he started frustrating me on the set . But of course I finished the job despite the frustrations and bid him good bye.” Celebrated film director, Tope Oshin , who started her career as an actor equally testified about the existence of the practice in the industry when she told the BBC World Service as follows in an interview: “I have practiced in Nollywood now for about 20 years, I started as an actor. I was more aware of it (Sexual Harassment) as an actor, because it seemed more as an unspoken culture. There were instances where producers would say to me, I have a role that is perfect for you, if you could only come see me at so so hotel, the role could be yours. “I had instances where I turned such offers. But there were people who took those ‘opportunities’, they saw it as a step forward in their careers, and truly it did pushed them forward.”

Various Dimensions Eelive.ng findings showed that sexual assaults in the industry take a variety of dimensions. Sources tell us that there are a few senior female producers who unduly woo their younger colleagues in exchange for roles, there are the pimps who set their peers and younger colleagues up for men who wishes to have them at a fee, there are the male marketers, directors and producers who offer roles for sex to up and coming actresses, a practice that is also otherwise known as “couch casting”. A Yoruba actress who wanted to be anonymous shared her experience with a senior female practitioner; “A female producer once invited me for her production. She was the friend of the boss that trained me in the industry. You know in Yoruba movie scene, we usually have bosses. I trained in Ogun State. So I have always begged the aunty to invite me for her production whenever she wanted to shoot. So she invited me for the production too. After the shoot, she begged me not to go home yet, that I can play with her in her home. So we went to her house on the outskirts of Lagos together. I just noticed she’s fond playing with my breasts at the slightest joke. Or hit my ass. The major surprise was when she said we should go and bathe together. I didn’t even count it. I just told her to go first. After all that she brought out Hennessey from her refrigerator, she made me comfortable, we talked like mates, even though she was much older than me. I got very high that evening. Next thing I knew was she started to touch my private part. I was still in my bra and panties because we were alone, and I didn’t think anything like that could happen. Although, I was drunk and too weak and put up some feeble resistance and at the end of the day, she left me alone. Eventually, I saw her bringing out her vibrator and satisfied herself. None of us said anything about it. I just acted matured about it, but I can never make the mistake of being in the same room with her again.” Adenike Ayodele shared her experience with a director who assured her of a leading role in his soon-to-be shot TV series. “A particular Director wanted something else and began to promise me some big roles in a particular TV series. Maybe he was thinking I was a greenhorn. After all was said by him and he noticed I didn’t oblige him. He decided to give the role he promised me to someone else. Till date, he avoids me like a plague and he keeps saying I offended him by behaving like a child. It really doesn’t matter as long as my integrity is intact.” Yet, People Are Mum Those who spoke to eelive.ng indicated that most of the cases of sexual harassment in Nollywood are, like in other industries swept under the carpet. They identified reasons ranging from desperation of girls not to ruin their chances of getting more opportunities, ignorance as to the relevant criminal laws against forceful sex as well as the fear of stigmatization. “This is more so, as history has shown that most people accused of rape do not just commensurate punishment at the end of the day, so why ridicule yourself unnecessarily,” an artiste asked Once speaking with this writer, award-winning actress, Genny Uzoma said in reaction to questions about what her she would do if she ever faced sexual assault in the industry that: “I’ll probably not speak up. I’ll deal with it my own way by refusing the person’s advances and moving on except if it’s rape. I hate being the center of attention in controversial cases though it can’t be helped sometimes. She said further:“Truth is, anyone speaking up on sexual harassment faces a lot of things – scorn, disbelief, and even detestation by her fellow women, who would be like ‘it happened to us, it’s the norm, why are you screaming blue murder?’ She might even be unofficially blackballed and blacklisted in the industry. You must be very brave and strong to speak up on issues like this. I’m strong but I’ll save that strength for other issues. All those ladies in Hollywood coming out to accuse Harvey Weinstein kept it secret for years for one reason or the other, till one person summoned up courage because she felt she had nothing to lose. Corroborating the position that offenders either get away with this crime or just punishments that are nothing more than a mere knock on the head, human rights lawyer, Evans Ufeli, recently informed that despite the overwhelming cases of sexual assaults in Nigeria, only 18 rape convictions have been recorded in the country’s history. Nollywood practitioners therefore reason that if the entire country has such a poor record of convictions, how could the film industry be different!

Those Who Have Spoken Up In the wake of recent allegations by Busola, wife of Gospel Soul Singer, Timi Dakolo that Abuja based Preacher Biodun Fatoyinbo of Common Wealth Zion Assembly had illegal carnal knowledge of her about two decades back, some Nollywood actresses have raised similar allegations. One of such actresses is Kemi Afolabi who accused a Yoruba filmmaker, Laide Olabanji of alleged sexual molestation while she was yet to find her footing in the industry. And just as she voiced out the allegation, three other actors, Wunmi Toriola, Funmi Awelewa and Hannah Ogundare all claimed to have had similar experiences with the same person. Olabanji however denied these claims in an interview with eelive.ng insisting that these ladies whom he brought into the industry only aimed at tarnishing his over three decades experience in the history. He explained: “I met Kemi Afolabi through Mercy Aigbe in the Gbagada area of Lagos. She had shown interest in acting, and I offered to give her a role in my movie. We usually assemble somewhere before proceeding to location to next day, usually for rehearsals and production meeting. It is like a suite. So that faithful day, we were in the sitting room of the suit, I was guiding Kemi for the role, and held her, to demonstrate an action. She then asked why I was holding her in that manner. That was it. I told her she needed to be flexible to be an actor, actors are not rigid. The following morning she left for Ebute Metta with the pretext to be going to move her wardrobe and costumes for the shoot we wanted to do. And that was how she left. Until date, almost 20 years later I have not set my eyes on her. Earlier this week, the association called us to mediate between us, she said she saw me in 2017 at AMVCA but I didn’t see her….” Speaking about Wunmi Toriola, Olabanji said: “everyone knows her character. She has even fought Toyin Aimakhu that brought her into the industry from Ilorin. She once hit something on the head of a girl that was her personal assistant during one of my movie shoots and constituted a nuisance on the set. Since then, I decided not to invite her for my productions again. I have a name to protect. I can’t allow young girls, who just came into the industry to spoil it for me.” He clarified. The pattern usually is for these directors or producers to invite actresses to come read for roles or audition for roles at hotels, or their homes. And mostly, these invitations come with stern instructions for these actresses to come alone. Sadly, the naïve once sad fall for the gimmick. In 2015, cross-over actor, Rahama Sadau took to Instagram to accuse Adam Zango of denying her of a role because she refused his sexual advances. She, however, apologized the next day, describing her post on a matter as sensitive as sexual harassment, as ‘childish.’ A young female actor turned producer who does not want to be mentioned confessed that she had to compromise in a few ways before she made an inroad into the industry and would in fact love not to let her daughter grow up in Nigeria given the deep patriarchal sentiments in the country. She explained: I would really wish my daughter grow up out of Nigeria, the male dominance psyche makes it natural to victimize women. I can’t wish for my girl child to experience what I experienced surviving. Although I’m not proud of some of the things I have done trying to survive. First as an actor, now as a producer. It is tough, but what can we do? I have had to shamefully bend my back, compromise on my values to survive.”

When Actress Lay The Bait  Investigations by eelive.ng however show that there are situation when actresses are either complicit or even initiators of the sexual relationship with some of the men in the position to influence their careers. As a matter of fact, men who make passes at ladies themselves go after soft targets such as greenhorns and mediocre, without the requisite talent that can stand them out. A source told us that “these men go after those who show traits of desperation and naivety and are probably not been to any film school to learn acting formally. These ones are usually seen as having nothing to offer apart from their beautiful faces, and their bodies. Buttressing his point that actress who know their onions and are confident about themselves would hardly find themselves in this situation, our source referred to recent interview Tana Adelana had with London based DJ Abass on his programme, “For the Record”. Asked if she knew ‘couch casting’ in Nollywood, she replied saying she wouldn’t know because they have not come to her and vowed to expose anyone who makes such unholy passes at her. In further support of this position, Actress Hadiza Abubakar recently released a video where she took a swipe at her colleagues whom she accused of willingly offering their bodies to producers and directors, sometimes even production managers. She noted that most of these actresses already gave themselves cheaply for a slot on the screen and should not have the guts to call out any producer or director, A production manager, who simply asked to be called Okechukwu agreed with Hadiza that some fast-rising actresses rely on people like him to lobby directors for roles for them and that such people were usually ready to do anything. Okechukwu said; “There are a lot of ‘I want to act’ girls out there. Once they know you are into production, they start to ‘chewing gum’ you. Usually, I quickly chop and clean mouth, before taking them to film locations, because, once they get to location, and directors and producers start to like them, they will forget us the PM, that once helped them, unless she is your normal girlfriend!” Another source revealed that: “90% of the time, it’s the women offering the men sex for roles in the Yoruba movie industry,” she informed further that most marketers and producers accept this “free sex” without scruples! The question is can this also be referred as harassment?

When Male Actors Try Their Luck  There is another existing although rather uncommon situation wherein male actors sexually harassing female producers and directors. Director, Tope Oshin recounted her experience during an audition exercise in the BBC interview quoted earlier: “I’ve had a situation where I was casting director and an actor walked to the front of the camera, introduced himself and said, ‘lovely hair’. I said thank you. He went on, ‘My name is so so so, I’m an actor, but I have other hobbies that could interest you. I replied, what are these other hobbies? He responded; ‘any way you want me to please you ma’am.’ It took all of me to keep a straight face, then I told him, we would only be needing your acting skills today. The he said, ‘Okay, but it’s still open ma’am, anytime you want me.’ I had to tell him, can we see your performance, we don’t have all day. This has necessitated my stance as at auditions, which makes me wear plain looking face, no emotions. I just go straight to the point, I don’t crack a smile. I ask for your name, and straight to what you have to offer,” she posited. The Repercussion A veteran filmmaker, once told this writer in confidence that these assaults and unabated sexual character displayed by Nollywood practitioners was a one of the factors responsible for actors lack of show of commitments to marriages. “As a people, it is important we understand that rape experience leaves it’s victims with a lot of damage. Apart from increasing their chances of contacting sexually transmitted infections, it also causes mental and emotional imbalances. Rape is causes low self-esteem too. “One wonders why a lot of our actors and actresses cannot stay in a committed relationship for a long time without break-up and divorce. These are some of the after effects that these victims suffer but cannot speak of, for fear of being misunderstood.” He explained instructively. Read the full article

[manuquialex120683]

rise in Hate Crime?

The daily caller makes a interesting point, from 11 months to the point where president Trump was elected, there has been some harsh things that happened that specific leftist media would not acknowledge. Hate groups (actual facist group) like Antifa, rise up in various colleges in mask with weapons attacking anyone on the right with their justification if they are for Hitler/Nazi you can strike them just for that and then associating anyone being Christian, Conservative, Republican, for MAGA or likes the president as a Nazi, as a racist, bigoted, homophobic, xenophobic and Islam phobic. Theres no counter debate no evidence just a moral attack, which, then for them justifies refusal to hear the other side. Here some scary events that occurred during those months (information obtained by the Daily Caller News foundation, article by Dave Brooks entitled "This list of attacks against conservative is mind blowing "):

June 2016: protesters jumped on cars, stole hates, fought with and threw eggs at Trumps supporters outside of Trump rally in San Jose, California (unprovoked)

July 2016: Hilly Clinton supporter lights a flag on fire and attacks a Trump supporter in Pittsburgh

August 2016: Trump supports were spat on, harassed, forced to leave a Trump fundraisers in Minneapolis, also they beat an elderly man, a Tennessee man was assaulted at a garage sale for being a Trump supporter, in New Jersey trumps supports were attacked with crowbars.

September 2016: North Carolina was fire bombed and spray painted with "Nazi Republican" get out of town or else.

November 2016: High school student was attacked, they ripped her glasses and punched her in the face.

month after month the violence and attacks kept increasing.  It was contrary to the information I obtained from the Hill in a article entitled Hate crimes up for the third year in a row: FBI. they were citing FBI statistics, saying there was a 17 percent in crease from 2016 to 2017 (7,175 hate crimes to be exact) and also stating that 23 percent are religious based, 58.1 percent of crimes were against Jewish people (anti-Semitic).

Heres the real data, I got from wiki but you can copy their source to validate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States#Right-wing_extremism_and_anti-government) NOTE: A lot of the ones labeled as right wing terrorist are not. Some are blatant socialist, others communist. KKK for example targeted all Republican. Its almost as if it were meant to characterize Republicans are evil people.The only exception I would say would be the attack on abortion clinics.

2010–present[edit]

Date Type Dead Injured Location(s) Details Perpetrator February 18, 2010 Suicide attack 1 (+1) 13 Austin, Texas Austin suicide attack: Andrew Joseph Stack III flying his single engine plane flew into the Austin Texas IRS building killing himself and one IRS employee and injuring 13 others. Stack left a suicide note online, comparing the IRS to Big Brother from the novel 1984. Joe Stack March 4, 2010 Shooting 0 (+1) 2 Arlington County, Virginia 2010 Pentagon shooting: John Patrick Bedell shot and wounded two Pentagon police officers at a security checkpoint in the Pentagon station of the Washington Metro rapid transit system in Arlington County, Virginia. John Patrick Bedell May 1, 2010 Bombing 0 0 New York City 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt: Faisal Shahzad ignited an explosive in Times Square. The bomb failed to go off, and he was later arrested on a flight leaving for Dubai.[99] Sentenced to life in prison on October 5, 2010 after pleading guilty to a 10-count indictment in June, including attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.[100] Faisal Shahzad May 20, 2010 Shooting 2 (+2) 2 West Memphis, Arkansas 2010 West Memphis police shootings: Two West Memphis police officers were killed by a father and son who supported the sovereign citizen movement during a traffic stop. The suspects were later killed by other officers. Jerry and Joseph Kane September 1, 2010 Hostage taking 0 (+1) 0 Silver Spring, Maryland Discovery Communications headquarters hostage crisis: James J. Lee, armed with two starter pistols and an explosive device, takes three people hostage in the lobby of the Discovery Communications headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland before being killed by police. After nearly four hours, Lee was shot dead by police and all the hostages were freed without injury. Lee had earlier posted a manifesto railing against population growth and immigration.[101][102] James J. Lee October 2010 Bombing 0 0  Virginia Farooque Ahmed conspired with law enforcement officials posing as al-Qaeda to bomb Arlington Cemetery, the Pentagon City subway station, Crystal City subway station, and Court House subway station.[103] Farooque Ahmed October 29, 2010 Bombing 0 0 Chicago, Illinois Cargo planes bomb plot: Two plastic explosive bombs were discovered on two cargo planes destined for two synagogues in Chicago. They were discovered at East Midlands Airport and Dubai International Airport while en route.[104] al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula October 17, 2010 – November 2, 2010 Bombing and Shooting 0 0  Virginia Northern Virginia military shootings: A series of shootings took place at the five military buildings including the National Museum of the Marine Corps and the Pentagon. He also attempted to bomb and damage Arlington National Cemetery.[105] Yonathan Melaku November 25, 2010 Bombing 0 0 Portland, Oregon 2010 Portland car bomb plot: Mohamed Osman Mohamud attempted to detonate what he thought was a car bomb at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony.[106] Mohamed Osman Mohamud January 17, 2011 Attempted Bombing 0 0 Spokane, Washington Spokane bombing attempt: A radio-controlled-shaped pipe bomb was found and defused in Spokane, Washington along the route of that year's Martin Luther King Jr. memorial march.

On March 9, 2011, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Kevin William Harpham, 36, of Addy, Washington. On December 20, 2011 he was sentenced to 32 years in prison for the attempted bombing.[107]

Kevin William Harpham May 25, 2011 Bombing 0 0 Bowling Green, Kentucky Two Iraqi immigrants were arrested for sending money and weapons to Iraq while residing in Bowling Green, Kentucky, as well as participating in attacks while in Iraq and plotting to kill American soldiers on their return.[108] Mohanad Shareef Hammadi and Waad Ramadan Alwan December 6, 2011 Shooting 2 0 Fort Stewart, Georgia Killing of Michael Roark and Tiffany York: 19-year-old Michael Roark and his girlfriend, 17-year-old Tiffany York, were found by two fishermen near a rural road in southeastern Georgia. It was believed that Roark was killed for his part in giving information to Fort Bliss authorities in El Paso.[109] FEAR August 5, 2012 Shooting 6 (+1) 4 Oak Creek, Wisconsin Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting: Six people were killed and three others were injured, including a police officer who was tending to victims at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. The gunman, 40-year-old Wade Michael Page, killed himself after being shot by police.[110] The shooting is being treated by authorities as an act of domestic terrorism.[111][112] While a motive has not been clearly defined, Page had been active in white supremacist groups.[110] Wade Page February 3–12, 2013 Shootings 4 (+1) 6  California Christopher Dorner shootings and manhunt: Former LAPD officer Chris Dorner goes on a killing spree targeting police officers and their families throughout Southern California. Dorner was eventually killed in a shootout and fire in Big Bear Lake, California. Dorner stated he committed the shootings in response to police brutality. Chris Dorner April 15, 2013 Bombings, shootout 5 (+1) 280 (+1) Boston, Massachusetts Boston Marathon bombing: Two bombs detonated within seconds of each other near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing 3 and injuring more than 180 people.[113][114] On the evening of April 18 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, an MIT campus police officer was shot and killed while sitting in his squad car. Two suspects then carjacked an SUV and fled to nearby Watertown, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. A massive police chase ensued, resulting in a shootout during which several IED's were thrown by the suspects. A Boston transit police officer was critically wounded and suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a Russian immigrant of Chechen ethnicity, was killed. The second suspect, Tsarnaev's younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, escaped. A "Shelter in place" order was given for Boston, Watertown, and surrounding areas while house-to-house searches were conducted, but the suspect remained at large. Shortly after the search was called off Tsarnaev was discovered hiding inside a boat parked near the scene of the shootout. He was taken into custody after another exchange of gunfire, treated for injuries received during his pursuit and capture, and arraigned on federal terrorism charges.[115][116][117][118] Preliminary questioning indicated the Tsarnaev brothers had no ties to terrorist organizations.[119] A note written by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the boat where he was captured said the bombings were retaliation for US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan against Muslims.[120] On April 8, 2015, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty on all 30 counts related to the bombing and shootout with police.[121] On May 15, 2015, Tsarnaev was sentenced to death.[122]

Boston Marathon bombings on April 15, 2013

Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev April 16, 2013 Bioterrorism 0 0  Washington, D.C. April 2013 ricin letters: Two letters, sent to Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker and president Barack Obama, were tested positive for ricin. Each letter contained the message "I am KC and I approve this message". On April 27, 2013, a man named Everett Dutschke was arrested. Evertt Dutschke November 1, 2013 Shooting 1 6 (+1) Los Angeles, California 2013 Los Angeles International Airport shooting: Paul Anthony Ciancia entered the checkpoint at the Los Angeles International Airport and fired his rifle, killing one Transportation Security Administration officer and injuring six others. The motivation behind the attack was Paul's inspiration of the anti-government agenda, such as believing in the New World Order conspiracy theory, and stating that he "wanted to kill TSA" and described them as "pigs". Paul Anthony Ciancia December 13, 2013 Bombing attempt 0 0 Wichita, Kansas 2013 Wichita bomb attempt: 58-year-old avionics technician, identified as Terry Lee Loewen, was arrested on December 13, 2013, for attempting a suicide bombing at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, where he was employed. Loewen became radicalized after reading extremist Islamic material on the Internet. He was arrested while driving a vehicle into the airport with what he believed to be an active explosive device. Later sentenced to 20 years in Federal prison.[123] Terry Lee Loewen April 13, 2014 Shootings 3 0 Overland Park, Kansas Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting: A pair of shootings committed by a lone gunman occurred at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community, in Overland Park, Kansas. A total of three people died in the shootings. One suspect, identified as Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr., a neo-Nazi neo-Pagan, was arrested and charged with capital murder, first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, and aggravated assault. Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr. April 27, 2014 Shootings 1 0 Seattle, Washington Ali Muhammad Brown shot and killed a man who was walking home from a store. This killing was part of a series of terrorism related killings in the states of Washington and New Jersey.[124] Ali Muhammad Brown June 1, 2014 Shootings 2 0 Seattle, Washington Ali Muhammad Brown shot and killed two men outside a Seattle gay nightclub. These killings were part of a series of terrorism related killings in the states of Washington and New Jersey.[124] Ali Muhammad Brown June 8, 2014 Shooting 3 (+2) 0 Las Vegas, Nevada 2014 Las Vegas shootings: Two police officers and one civilian died in a shooting spree in the Las Vegas Valley committed by a couple, identified as Jerad and Amanda Miller, who espoused anti-government views and were reportedly inspired by the outcome of the Bundy standoff. The Millers both died during a gunfight with responding police; Jerad Miller was fatally shot by officers, while Amanda Miller committed suicide after being wounded. Jerad and Amanda Miller June 25, 2014 Shootings 1 0 West Orange, New Jersey Ali Muhammad Brown shot and killed a man who was driving home from college while stopped at a traffic light. This killing was part of a series of terrorism related killings in the states of Washington and New Jersey.[124] Ali Muhammad Brown September 12, 2014 Shooting 1 1 Blooming Grove, Pennsylvania 2014 Pennsylvania State Police barracks attack: Two Pennsylvania State Policeman are shot in a sniper attack nearby a police barracks, one dies. Eric Frein is arrested for the shooting after a 48-day manhunt. Eric Frein September 24, 2014 Stabbing 1 1 (+1) Moore, Oklahoma Vaughan Foods beheading incident: Alton Alexander Nolen aka "Jah'Keem Yisrael" attacked two employees at Vaughan Foods, beheading one and stabbing the other before being shot and injured by Vaughan Foods' Chief Operating Officer.[125] Alton Alexander Nolen

"Jah'Keem Yisrael"

October 23, 2014 Melee attack 0 (+1) 3 New York City 2014 New York City hatchet attack: Zale Thompson injured two New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers, once critically at a Queens, New York City shopping district by striking them with a hatchet. Four officers were posing for a photograph when Thompson charged them. The police opened fire killing Thompson and injuring a civilian. Thompson, who converted to Islam 2 years before the attack, posted "anti-government, anti-Western, anti-white" messages online.[126] Zale Thompson December 2014 Cyberattack 0 0  United States "The Guardians of Peace" linked by the United States to North Korea launched a cyber attack against SONY pictures. Embarrassing private emails were published and the organization threatened attacks against theaters that showed The Interview, a satire which depicted the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Following the refusal of theater chains to show the movie, SONY Pictures withdrew release of the movie, a decision that was criticized by President Obama and others. Obama said the USA will respond. North Korea denied responsibility for the attack and proposed a joint investigation with the U.S.[127][128][129] North Korea May 3, 2015 Shooting 0 (+2) 1 Garland, Texas Curtis Culwell Center attack: Two gunmen opened fire outside the Curtis Culwell Center during an art exhibit hosted by an anti-Muslim group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative in Garland, Texas. The center was hosting a contest for cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Both gunmen were killed by police. A Garland Independent School District (ISD) police officer was injured by a shot to the ankle but survived. The attackers, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, were motivated by the Charlie Hebdo shooting in France and the 2015 Copenhagen shooting in Denmark earlier in the year. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for the attack through a Twitter post.[130] Elton Simpson, Nadir Hamid Soofi, and Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem June 2, 2015 Stabbing 0 (+1) 0 Boston, Massachusetts Police investigating a planned Islamic terrorist attack on police confronted Usaama Rahim to question him. He pulled out a military knife, and was eventually shot and killed by police as he approached them with the knife. David Wright was later arrested and charged with planning a terrorist attack with Usaama Rahim.[131] Usaama Rahim and David Wright July 16, 2015 Shootings 5 (+1) 2 Chattanooga, Tennessee 2015 Chattanooga shootings: Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez opened fire on two military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He first committed a drive-by shooting at a recruiting center, then traveled to a naval reserve center and continued firing. He was killed by police in a gunfight. Four Marines were killed immediately, and another Marine, a Navy sailor, and a police officer were wounded; the sailor died from his injuries two days later. The motive of the shootings is currently under investigation.[132] Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez November 4, 2015 Stabbing 0 (+1) 4 Merced, California University of California, Merced stabbing attack: Faisal Mohammad, armed with a hunting knife, stabbed four people at the University of California before being shot and killed by police.[133] Faisal Mohammad November 27, 2015 Shooting 3 9 Colorado Springs, Colorado Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting: Robert L. Dear, armed with a semi-automatic rifle opened fire at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic. Two civilians and one police officer were killed, while four civilians and five police officers were wounded before the suspect surrendered. Dear told police "No more baby parts" after being taken into custody.[134] Robert Dear December 2, 2015 Shooting 14 (+2) 24 San Bernardino, California 2015 San Bernardino attack: A mass shooting occurred at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, with 14 dead and 22 injured. Two suspects, Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, fled in an SUV, but were later killed.[135][136][137][138] Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik January 7, 2016 Shooting 0 1 (+1) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania A man shot at a police officer in his cruiser multiple times, injuring him in the process. The officer returned fire injuring the assailant. The assailant later pledged allegiance to ISIL, citing it as his reason for the attack.[139] Edward Archer February 11, 2016 Melee attack 0 (+1) 4 Columbus, Ohio Ohio restaurant machete attack: Four people were injured in a restaurant when a man with a machete attacked them at random. After a car chase, the assailant, who was from the West African nation of Guinea, was killed by police.[140] Mohamed Barry June 12, 2016 Shooting, hostage taking 49 (+1) 58 Orlando, Florida Orlando nightclub shooting: 49 people were killed and 53 were injured in a terrorist attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The sole suspect behind the slaughter was identified as Omar Mateen, an American-born citizen with Afghan immigrant parents who was later killed.[141][142][143] The FBI asserted his possible link to radical Islam.[144] Despite assertions to the contrary, the FBI could not find evidence to suggest Mateen was gay or targeted Pulse because it was a gay club, according to The Washington Post[145] Omar Mateen August 20, 2016 Stabbings 0 2 Roanoke, Virginia On August 20, 2016, Wasil Farooqui stabbed a man and a woman in a random attack at an apartment complex.[146] Wasil Farooqui September 17, 2016 Stabbings 0 (+1) 10 St. Cloud, Minnesota St. Cloud, Minnesota mall stabbing: On September 17, 2016, a mass stabbing occurred at the Crossroads Center shopping mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Ten people were injured, and the attacker was shot dead inside the mall by an off-duty law enforcement officer.[147] ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack through its Amaq media agency, claiming Adan "was a soldier of the Islamic State".[148] Dahir A. Adan September 17–19, 2016 Bombings 0 34 (+1) New Jersey and New York City 2016 New York and New Jersey bombings: Four bombings or bombing attempts occurred in the New York metropolitan area, specifically in Seaside Park, New Jersey; Manhattan, New York; and Elizabeth, New Jersey. Thirty-one civilians were injured in one of the bombings. Ahmad Khan Rahimi was identified as a suspect in all of the incidents and apprehended on September 19 in Linden, New Jersey, after a shootout that injured three police officers.[149] According to authorities, Rahimi was not part of a terrorist cell, but was motivated and inspired by the extremist Islamic ideology espoused by al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda chief propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki.[150] Ahmad Khan Rahimi November 28, 2016 Vehicle attack, stabbing 0 (+1) 13 Columbus, Ohio Ohio State University attack: A car ramming attack and mass stabbing occurred at 9:52 a.m. EST at Ohio State University (OSU)'s Watts Hall in Columbus, Ohio. The attacker, Somali refugee Abdul Razak Ali Artan, was shot and killed by the first responding OSU police officer, and 11 people were hospitalized for injuries. According to authorities, Artan was inspired by terrorist propaganda from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.[151] Abdul Razak Ali Artan March 20, 2017 Stabbing by sword 1 0 New York City Stabbing of Timothy Caughman: James Harris Jackson, 28, traveled from his home state of Maryland to New York City with the "sole purpose of stalking and killing black men for a statement-making media spectacle" according to police. On March 20 he allegedly attacked Timothy Caughman, 66, in Midtown Manhattan with a sword, killing him. Police allege ties to White Supremacist hate groups.[152] James Harris Jackson August 12, 2017 Vehicle-ramming attack 1 28 Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville car attack: On August 12, 2017, James Alex Fields Jr. intentionally drove his car into a group of counter-demonstrators at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Charlottesville mayor called it "an act of domestic terrorism". The suspect is described as a white supremacist.[153] James Alex Fields Jr. August 5, 2017 Bombing 0 0 Bloomington, Minnesota On August 5, 2017, an explosive device shattered windows and damaged an office at the mosque, which primarily serves people from the area's large Somali community. October 31, 2017 Vehicle-ramming attack 8 11 (+1) New York City 2017 New York City truck attack: On October 31, 2017, an ISIS-inspired man drove a rented Home Depot flatbed pickup truck in a vehicle-ramming attack on cyclists and runners along 1 mile (1.6 km) of a bike path alongside West Street in Lower Manhattan, killing eight people and injuring at least 11 others. The attack took place several blocks north of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Authorities found a note near the truck used in the incident which claimed that the attack by the 29-year-old was made in the name of ISIS.[154] Sayfullo Saipov February 16, 2018 Assault with vehicle 0 3 East Orange,

New Jersey

A man crashed a stolen truck into a Planned Parenthood clinic, injuring a pregnant woman and two others.[155] Marckles Alcius October 22–, 2018 Bombing 0 0 Several states October 2018 United States mail bombing attempts: In late October 2018, at least 12 packages containing pipe bombs were mailed within the U.S. Postal Service system to several prominent critics of U.S. President Donald Trump, including various Democratic Party politicians (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Eric Holder, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Maxine Waters, Cory Booker), actor Robert De Niro, billionaire investor George Soros, former CIA Director John O. Brennan, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Cesar Sayoc Jr.

  Terrorist incidents in the United States[5][6] YearNumber of incidentsDeathsInjuries 20176595932 20166468139 2015385458 2014292619 20132023436 20122077 20111002

[garkomedia1]

The Radical Organizing That Paved the Way for LA’s Teachers’ Strike

Thousands of teachers marched and rallied in downtown Los Angeles, December 15, 2018. (AP Photo / Damian Dovarganes)

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There are three picket lines at the Harry Bridges Span School in Wilmington, California, on the morning of Wednesday, January 16, but the one in front of the gate is where the action is. There’s a truck driver there to make a delivery. He’s looked at the picket line and kept on driving for the previous two days, to the jubilation of the rallied teachers, parents, and neighbors holding the line. But today his supervisor is there, and it appears the supervisor has called the police to clear the way for the drivers.

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The teachers are facing off with the police officers—one teacher is in tears—as they explain why they think fellow unionized workers should stand with them, not try to cross the line. One woman taps my shoulder, saying, “The police should be going after bad people, not teachers!” Another picketer asks where all these police cars are when someone gets shot.

But the line holds. The police don’t make good on their threats to cite or arrest teachers, and the truck and police cars drive off. One of the officers even gets on his radio before he leaves and says, “Don’t let them come between us. We support you!”

Four days into the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) strike, the picket lines are working like well-oiled machines—and the groundwork that union reformers put into reshaping a massive organization into a fighting union, one that has taken over the city with mass rallies and pickets, is showing. So is the work the union has put into building community alliances, as parents, students, and community groups continue to organize solidarity actions that include visits to the homes of schoo-board members and charter-school funders. The UTLA strike, which leadership has called “a battle for the soul of public education,” at this point looks to be a model for how to keep public-sector unions strong in the age of Janus Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.

It’s still raining—it has been since Monday, the first day of the strike—but that doesn’t stop anyone. Phyllis Hoffman, the chapter leader at Harry Bridges school, and Michael Gearin, the “cluster leader” who coordinates with other local schools, are running around. They’re talking with police, leading chants, accepting donations of donuts, coffee, and breakfast burritos, and conferring with parents. A local battle over a charter school, Hoffman tells me, sparked a revitalization in the union at their school, named for the famous leftist labor leader, founding president of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU). And those longshore workers are here in a group, with signs and T-shirts saying “ILWU stands with UTLA!”

“When you’re a union, you have to go out and support other unions. ‘An injury to one is an injury to all’ doesn’t just mean our union, it means all unions,” Gary Herrera of Local 13 of the ILWU tells me. The ILWU’s district council, he explains, set up an adopt-a-school program weeks ago and has been telling everyone to come join the pickets around Los Angeles. But this school is special to them. “This is our community. And I think Harry Bridges would want us to get out and do social things, not just our work.”

Strike! Strike! Strike!

That solidarity—between the community and teachers, teachers and the community—goes both ways, Gearin explains. Local businesses have also adopted the picket lines, delivering hot coffee and bagels. In turn, the teachers have coordinated—with money from UTLA—to put together brown-bag lunches for local students who depend on the meals (some of them three a day) they receive at the school.

Such solidarity in the community has been key to UTLA’s rebuilding, and it remains key to the success of the strike. Parents and students feel that the fight UTLA is fighting is their fight, too, and that has brought them out in torrential rain; to the doorstep of LA school-board chair Monica Garcia with a list of demands; and to the picket lines before the sun rises every morning.

The story of UTLA’s rebuilding goes back to the 2008 financial crisis and recession, when mass layoffs rocked the district. “If you look at our teaching population, between ages 27–32, there are no teachers, because they were getting pink-slipped every single year,” says Emerson Middle School teacher Noriko Nakada. She and a group of others, including UTLA’s current president, Alex Caputo-Pearl, who taught at Emerson then, organized a one-hour work stoppage and civil disobedience in protest of the cutbacks.

That moment, she says, was when Caputo-Pearl, Cecily Myart-Cruz (now UTLA/NEA vice president) and others began to get serious about reforming the union and formed the Union Power caucus. “They already were huge union activists,” Nakada says, “but the union wasn’t doing what they wanted the union to do.” When, several years later, the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators took power in the Chicago Teachers Union, and then led a successful 2012 strike, the Union Power crew was inspired to kick into high gear—and has been building with CTU and other union reformers ever since.

Caputo-Pearl is a heavyset man who answers questions thoughtfully; he’ll talk cheerily about the problems with charter-school co-locations or the astronomical costs of a school-board election in Los Angeles, but he really lights up when asked to talk about the reforms his caucus has brought to UTLA since it was elected in 2014 on the promise to institute an organizing department, a political department, a research department, and a parent/community division. The union even managed to get teachers to vote to increase their own union dues in order to make those things happen.

With the Supreme Court’s June decision in the Janus case, which ruled that workers covered by a collective-bargaining contract do not have to pay fees to the union, public-sector unions around the country feared losing membership. But, Nakada says, UTLA organized to get teachers to re-up their membership before the decision dropped, so when the school year started, they weren’t scrambling to maintain membership and instead presented a united front during bargaining. “Being able to do that kind of organizing that far in advance has really helped lay the ground for what you are seeing here,” she says. “People were already buying in post-Janus and seeing the value of the union.”

UTLA’s strategy has hinged upon making sure that their message is heard by parents, students, and community members across the district, and in turn taking the time to really listen to the parents about their concerns about the schools. What’s known in union circles as “bargaining for the common good”—the idea of introducing demands in collective bargaining that benefit the community as a whole, not just the union’s membership—has been a way not just to revitalize stagnant unions but to reinvigorate interest in the public sector as a whole. It also means that when teachers take to the streets, they have parents willing not just to join them, but to take risks of their own.

A key component of that work—and this is where UTLA has had to excel, simply given the geography of its district—is building structures for systematic, bottom-to-top organizing. That means, Caputo-Pearl says, the union can’t just have a small bargaining team that meets with the district when a contract is up. It has to be in constant contact with membership, through an ongoing process of identifying and developing leaders. Teachers are elected as leaders at the school or chapter level; then those chapters are grouped into clusters that have their own leaders, all of them in regular contact with the union leadership.

“For the strike, it has helped us immensely having this on-the-ground leadership of rank and file in each area,” he explains. “All the stuff that we are able to do right now when we have to do it, pushing information out to members, getting immediate response from members about how people are feeling, pushing stuff out to parents, getting immediate feedback from parents—it is because of years of setting down systems and structures.”

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A strike is the ultimate test of those structures, as organizer and No Shortcuts author Jane McAlevey has written, and the Union Power caucus was clear from the beginning that it had to build a union that wasn’t afraid to strike.

The building of those community ties has meant the building of real principles and demands that resonate not only for the union leadership but also for members like Rosa Jimenez, history teacher at RFK Community School. She sees the union’s focus on racial justice not merely as a feel-good sound bite but as a reflection of the reality faced by so many of their students: undocumented students, students who are harassed by police in their neighborhoods only to run into school police (LAUSD has its own police force) in the schools, and students being gentrified out of their homes.

Jimenez organizes with Students Deserve, a grassroots group that has been inspired by Black Lives Matter’s divest/invest framework and is part of what she says is a different way of thinking about a labor-community alliance. It’s an approach, she says, that gives parents and students a real voice rather than treating them as junior partners.

That has meant using the union’s foundation arm to give funds to DACA recipients to renew their papers. It has meant pushing back in bargaining on “random” searches of students on campus. And it has meant calling for the district to establish an immigrant-defense fund to support families threatened by Trumpism. Even the school-funding question, Caputo-Pearl says, needs to be seen through an understanding of institutional racism. California, he notes, used to rank among the states in the nation with the highest per-pupil funding. But as the proportion of nonwhite students in the public schools increased, tax revolts ensured the schools would be starved, and politicians began to cut back further. Now, California ranks 43rd in the nation—this despite the vast wealth that literally looms over the school district in the forms of millionaires’ homes in the hills and studio buildings downtown.

“Fighting about class size and a full-time nurse in schools in a district that is overwhelmingly kids of color is a racial-justice issue. Period,” Caputo-Pearl says. But it has also been important, he says, to take on specific struggles “that have challenged our members to see our union as, yes, the vehicle for teachers’ rights, but also a broader vehicle to fight for the folks who are most important allies, our parents and their kids.”

Teachers have long been willing to make do with less because they care about their students and the work they do. Such dedication is easy to exploit, and it can be hard to convince caring workers to take the risk of a strike. Yet after decades of cutbacks, privatization, testing, and teacher-bashing—by politicians and the media—teachers around the country are increasingly tired and ready for a fight.

“There is this idea, whether it is nurses or teachers, that these are important jobs, but they are not important enough that we should invest in them,” says Wil Page, who teaches in an environmental magnet program. Gender, he suspects, plays a role in that thinking; the UTLA membership is made up, overwhelmingly, of women as well and has more recently become majority teachers of color teachers of color. “If teaching happened to be a male-dominated industry, we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now.”

The local media, English teacher Joseph Zeccola says, have tried to paint the fight as one between Austin Beutner, the district’s superintendent, and Caputo-Pearl. “It looks like two bosses fighting,” he says of the media’s cartoon version of the struggle. But, “a union of 32,000 voted 98 percent. It is us against him.”

“I think right now we are stronger than we have been in two decades,” he said.

Los Angeles has plenty of rich people in it, but they mostly don’t send their kids to public school—and thanks to Proposition 13, the 1978 California initiative that capped property taxes at 1 percent of a property’s assessed value, they don’t pay all that much in property taxes to fund the schools either. But living in Los Angeles has only gotten more and more expensive, and it shows even driving down the streets; tent cities line underpasses in the shadow of the Hollywood sign.

The Movement Moment

“I knew that when I got into education, I wasn’t doing it for the pay,” Page says. “But there is no way I could rent an apartment in my school community.” The cost of living has gone up nearly as fast as his class size, but the union is called greedy for asking for a 6 percent raise in this contract—when Page can identify 20 or so teachers just at his school who drive for Lyft or Uber on the side. Since the start of his career, even if that 6 percent raise comes, Page says, he’s going to have effectively lost 10 percent of his wages just to increases in the cost of living in LA. “At some point, something has got to give.”

The UTLA strike is calling the question not just on whether private interests should have their fingers in public education, but also on the entire issue of economic inequality in progressive bastions. California, teachers tell me over and over, is the richest state in the country, the fifth-largest economy in the entire world—so why are their schools funded at levels low enough to rival the “red” states of Oklahoma and West Virginia that saw strikes last year? And why are so many people living in poverty?

“One of the things that we are most proud of is our very, very deep work with groups like the Schools and Communities First initiative,” Caputo-Pearl explains. Together, he says, the groups and the union managed to get an initiative on the 2020 ballot to reform Prop 13—the first such effort in years. The initiative would raise taxes on commercial and industrial properties, raising as much as $11 billion a year, its proponents say, and boosting state education funding by 6 percent. But, Zeccola notes, the leadership of the Los Angeles Unified School District hasn’t endorsed the initiative.

Within its coalition work, UTLA has also brought housing issues into bargaining, proposing that some vacant land owned by the school district be used for affordable housing. “You can’t live in LA and have vacant lots and be able to go to sleep at night with a conscience if you are not working to build affordable housing for some of them,” Caputo-Pearl says. It is another example of the union’s positioning itself as the defender not just of schools but also of the public good writ large.

Charter schools have been a focus of the union’s fight, because they do exactly the opposite of what UTLA wants: They funnel public money into private hands and cherry-pick students, while not serving those with the highest need. And so, on the second day of the strike, UTLA held a rally in front of the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), even as the CCSA has refused, somewhat conspicuously, to wade into the strike fight.

UTLA was there to push for robust charter-school regulation, but also to support teachers at the Accelerated Schools, a group of charters who joined the strike, walking off the job in only the second charter-school strike ever. Chandler Heath, a teacher at one of the Accelerated schools, tells me, “This school is like watching somebody take a Ferrari and crash it into a wall.” Teachers there, she says, are paid some $15,000 a year less than at neighboring schools, and there is a brutal 40 percent turnover rate. Teachers have to wait until the end of the year to find out if they keep their jobs. For the Accelerated teachers to join the UTLA strike seemed a shot across the bow to the CCSA; the union is calling for a cap on charters, but it also isn’t afraid to organize them.

The union also continues to challenge Democrats, who have a near-complete grip on the reins of power at all levels in the state, to pick a side. “It really is kind of a come-to-God moment for public schools and for the Democratic Party,” Nakada says.

During the Chicago teachers strike in 2012, Rahm Emanuel was fresh from Barack Obama’s administration, where Education Secretary Arne Duncan had instituted the “Race to the Top,” a competition for funding based on test scores, and he had no qualms against cracking down on teachers. But national momentum has shifted recently toward public schools, with wins for teacher unions as well as moves by organizations like the NAACP, which came out for a moratorium on charter schools. California’s new governor, Gavin Newsom,has advocated placing more regulations on charters and this week called for the legislature to take up the issue.

Yet in Los Angeles, the elected school board has independent power, and this has proved a challenge. Chicago’s schools were under the mayor’s watch; the union’s fight was with Emanuel. In a similar situation in LA, the union could challenge an ambitious mayor: Which side are you on, the public or the privatizers? But the school board isn’t filled with people looking to build political careers so much as it is filled with people on one side or the other of an ideological fight, and the school-board elections have been astronomically expensive—$14.7 million in outsider funding last time. The aim of those outside funders, Nakada says, was a district-wide takeover like in New Orleans, where the entire district has been charter-ized.

But that attack, Nakada says, has only galvanized the union to fight harder for its public schools. “Most of our teachers are good worker bees. They do what they are supposed to do. Then we had a superintendent who took this hammer or bat to the beehive of every school.”

And so, the teachers lined Sunset Boulevard on day four of the strike, waving signs and soliciting honks from passersby in support of their vision for public schools. It is a radical vision not because it is outside the bounds of public opinion but because implementing it would require vast changes to the way our society has been organized. But the old structure is crumbling, despite its triumphalism, and teachers have emerged as the leading voice for a different way of doing things—and a different society. This is a society that values children for their differences, not their standardizable skills; that takes back public spaces for the public; that values play as well as work; that wants resources distributed equitably; and that stands in sharp contrast to Margaret Thatcher’s statement that there is no such thing as society.

Thatcher and her equivalents argued that the world was made up of individuals and families; teachers declare that every child is their family and that, as the UTLA banner says, “Teachers work for the people.”

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