The killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by a self-appointed "neighborhood watch captain" has provoked anguish, rage and now, at long last, resistance.
We've seen rallies, demonstrations and walkouts at dozens upon dozens of high schools in Florida alone.
Even more remarkably, this resistance has found expression in the world of sports. An impressive group of NBA players, from Carmelo Anthony to Steve Nash to the leaders of the NBA Players Association, have spoken out and called for justice.
Anti-racism
The murder of Trayvon Martin in a gated community in Florida has dramatised the depths of racism in United States society. Martin was young, Black and male — that was enough for neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman to decide he was "suspicious", to stalk him and eventually to pull the trigger.
African American families understand that Martin's fate could happen to their own children. That's why so many young Black men remember the time they had "the talk" — when family or friends tried to prepare them for dealing with racism in general and the police in particular.
This article first appeared in Tracker magazine on March 19.
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Aboriginal leaders in the Northern Territory have issued a strong warning that the Australian government’s new land grab in the form of the proposed 10-year extension of the intervention will send many communities into a dangerous downward spiral with still more death and misery.
Thousands of people gathered in Union Square in New York City on March 21 for a "Million Hoodie March" to demand justice for Trayvon Martin, as outrage at his racist murder continues to spread across the country and the world.
Martin was gunned down in the central Florida town of Sanford in late February as he walked to the home of his father's fiance. His killer was George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who was patrolling a gated community when he spotted Martin.
Aboriginal rights protesters gathered outside the Northern Territory tourism bureau in Sydney on March 21 to protest the death in custody of 28-year-old Aboriginal man Terrence Briscoe, and to condemn the “Stronger Futures” bill that will extend the NT intervention.
Deaths in custody campaigner Ray Jackson told the rally: “When Terrence died in a police cell, the family were first told it was a heart attack. Then it was respiratory. Then it was asphyxiation. How do you asphyxiate? When police jump all over you, forcing your breath out.
This is what the Nyoongar Tent Embassy looked like before the police invaded. This photo was taken on Thursday March 22, about one hour before the police arrived.
Living Black
Sundays, 4.30pm on SBS One
from March 18
“I had a terrible time at school,” Living Black presenter Karla Grant tells Green Left Weekly.
The veteran journalist, who is about to host a new series of the flagship Aboriginal affairs show she launched for SBS a decade ago, has come a long way since being taunted as a “boong” and “coon” in Adelaide playgrounds.
“It was awful,” says Grant, who is now Living Black’s executive producer as well as its host. “They were very ignorant - and I was the only Aboriginal kid at the school.”
When Aboriginal rapper Darah Morris uploaded his first music video, "Aboriginal Style", to YouTube, it became an instant hit. Then it got deleted. "After 15,000 views on YouTube it got removed for 'inappropriate content', which I find really ridiculous," he tells Green Left Weekly.
NT Consultation Report 2011 ― By Quotations
Published by Concerned Australians
72 pages, hardcover, $15
www.concernedaustralians.com.au
The latest Concerned Australians book, NT Consultation Report 2011 ― By Quotations, couldn’t have been released at a better time.
The simple but powerful collection of quotes are selected from the federal government’s Stronger Futures consultations, conducted across the Northern Territory between June and August last year.
A telling quote in the film KONY 2012 says: “Who are you to stop a war? — the question is, who are you not to?” I think the question that the people behind KONY 2012, which went viral on the internet on March 7, need to be asked is: “Who are you to start one?” Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army in eastern Africa, is a bad man.
Despite heavy police intimidation and media racism, the Nyoongar Tent Embassy at Matagarup, otherwise known as Heirisson Island in Perth, is still standing strong.
The Tent Embassy was founded by local Aboriginal people to voice dissent against a proposed deal with the state government that would include giving up native title rights.
The embassy is also about asserting Aboriginal sovereignty. Embassy participant Iva Hayward-Jackson told Green Left Weekly the embassy is about asserting Nyoongar sovereignty and protecting sacredness of Aboriginal culture.
Ten thousand people mobilised in Dresden on February 18 to stop an annual march of European neo-Nazis.
A broad coalition of political parties, church groups, trade unions and other anti-fascist groups formed a united front campaign to stop the planned neo-Nazi march through peaceful, mass blockades.
Six days earlier, a group of more than 1000 neo-Nazis gathered in Dresden for a march supposedly to commemorate the innocent deaths caused by the 1945 bombing of Dresden by the Allied forces.
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