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The Guilfordian March 6, 2015 | 7 OPINION WWW.GUILFORDIAN.COM/OPINION GUILFORDIAN@GUILFORD.EDU Letters from your black friend: another shooting There is an awful trend of police violence that includes not only black men but black women often being overlooked. BYJORDAN CLARK'14 Guest Writer / • March 1, 2015, a task force in Los Angeles responded to a call on skid row after receiving a 911 call reporting a possible robbery. The incident led towards an all too familiar police report of the victim "resisting arrest,” a struggle taking place,and a victim losing their life. The police report states that the victim was “reaching for the officer’s gun,” but a quote from Ida B. Wells reminds us that “those who commit the murders (also) write the reports.” Thus, we must be critical towards what we hear and see in these events. “At least one officer involved in the incident was wearing a body camera,” said Commander Andrew Smith of the Los Angeles Police Department in the LA Times. From body cameras, to eye witness video-recordings, to surrounding security footage, multiple sources and angles of the incident have been recorded. From the trend of past police violence, close-up video evidence of police choking and killings of black bodies brought inconclusive proof that would lead to a non indictment. However, blurry far-out video footage of a black boy raising his arms (Hands Up, Don’t Shoot) brought conclusive evidence that his shooting and death were justifiable. LAPD and the media ensures the community that because the incident was caught on camera, explanations will be delivered, answers will be discovered and justice will be served. What has become apparent is that even if you put body cameras on every cop, if they won’t be held accountable for what we see with our own eyes, it doesn’t matter.. If juries continue to'allow these racial murders to continue, these cameras do not matter. If judges continue to overlook evidence, these cameras do not matter. While details are still being discovered, we must turn a critical eye to what is being reported by the LAPD. We must criticize what the media does and does not report on. This incident is already being called another Eric Garner case, reported as a story following Eric Garner, Mike Brown and Tamir Rice. There is an awful trend of police violence that includes not only black men but black women often being overlooked. This is an awful trend of violence that has bled into 2015. We must remember that All Black Lives Matter and that there have already been several incidents of violence and death towards transgender women of color this year, leading to the question: why haven’t these cases been reported? Why haven’t these cases of slain transgender women of color received the same level of attention as Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown or Eric Garner? This leads us to wonder whether the Black Lives Matter movement would be more aptly titled, “Cisgender Black Male Straight Lives Matter.” Do we only talk about incidents of police violence on black victims when we physically see it on footage? The incident in LAPD is horrific and justice deserves to be served. It is not only the camera’s duty to hold these officers accountable for the victim’s death but ours to hold the entire criminal justice system accountable. Body cameras on law enforcement are solid towards the right direction. However, I don’t need the police officer’s POV. I need justice for All Black Lives. Staff Editorial Facing the tremors caused by the recent murders of Deah, Yusor and Kazan As the initial hearing for Craig Hicks approaches, we hold in the light Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister Kazan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, as well as their families and the Muslim communities, both near and far, weathering this loss. We mourn for them as we mourn for the many other Muslims whose lives are cut short by religiously motivated attacks. We recognize and feel the fear that these attacks inspire, and we stand beside our Muslim brothers and sisters, charging our communities to put an end to anti-Islamic violence. In recent years, Islamophobia has continued to grow in our country, and while Hicks’s attack has not been confirmed as a hate crime, the threat of violence looms over the heads of Muslims and Arabs. Of the Guilford community, we ask for support for those grieving and affected by the reverberations Craig Hicks’ gunshots created. In the wake of this tragedy, we must remember those who are left feeling threatened. For those of us who have the privilege to practice our belieft without fear, it is our duty to practice empathy, to listen attentively to the concerns of our neighbors and to work toward making Guilford College a safe place for those who feel unsafe. For those of us who are Muslim or from Muslim families, we must remember to persevere and hold hope that our voices will be heard, insha’Allah. Omid Safi, director of Duke University’s Islamic Studies Center, offered an eloquent call to prayer and action at UNC Chapel Hill’s Feb. 11 vi^. “We can join the families in their grief and hold them in our prayers and thoughts,” said Safi, according to The Daily Tarheel. “We can take part in fulfilling their dreams: they were all proud Syrian Americans, proud Muslim Americans. Let’s fulfill their dreams — they wanted to change the world. Let’s pray in every language. Let’s pray in action.” As a community, this is our time to come together in support of one another. Let us work to extinguish Islamophobic violence and hate speak, and remember to hold in the light those we have lost. Reflecting Guilford College's core Quaker values, the topics and content of Staff Editorials are chosen through CONSENSUS OF ALL 14 EDITORS AND ONE FACULTY ADVISER OF ThE GuILFORDIAN'S EDITORIAL BOARD. LETTER III EDITOR Disrespected by the Campus Activities Board To my friends in the community, I would like to relay a series of events that has shaken my beliefs about how genuinely we adhere to our stated (^aker values within our institution. As a result of ill-informed and vengeful attacks on the character of myself and my friends, I have been forced to resign from the Campus Activities Board. During ihy upbringing, one lesson my mother drilled in me was that I would have to be twice as good, due to the color of my skin. That lesson never really sank in until I became a member of CAB here. Taking that lesson to heart, instead of confronting them, I worked harder. This year as chair of the Spirit Committee, with my committee, we threw some of the most successful events in the history of CAB and managed to attract a large audience that reached different parts of the community that had previously not even known about CAB. But this run of success, made possible by my team, was not enough to shield me from long-standing prejudice. As a result of a misunderstanding, the administration of CAB unleashed a vicious character assault and accused a committee member and friend of mine of being prejudiced, without even attempting to understand the context. The CAB managers also used this incident to finally unleash their true feelings towards me and punished me by cutting my pay in half, not because of my actions, but because of my inaction and failure to reprimand my friend for his opinion. This would be understandable because I failed to address this situation optimally. However, they never trained me for a situation like this. In this light, perhaps a more reasonable approach would have been to treat this as an educational opportunity instead of adopting a cold and mechanical approach due to their failure to prepare me for this situation. This injustice was exacerbated because this decision was rendered by an all white administration that ignored my perspective, which sounds hypocritical due to the accusations of fostering prejudice. When I confronted them about my unease with the decision process, they promised to have a meeting with me and the Multicultural Education Department, a promise which was left unfulfilled. Despite my discomfort and the advice of my friends and family, I decided to remain and continue the work I did last semester. I hoped for reconciliation and to rebuild the lost trust, but I received acrimony and pettiness instead. Because of an unforeseen academic assignment from my advisor, I knew that I would be unable to do an event and informed, in advance notice, the CAB administrators that I would need some help putting on this event. Because of their petty grievances against me, they declined to help me and attempted to adopt further punitive measures. Since I had enough of this ordeal, I decided to resign. During my time on this board, I was uncomfortable with many practices we had. While other student organizations were starved of funding, we were encouraged to spend money, even wastefully, so we could get even more money next year. I attempted to use my funds to collaborate with other organizations that lacked funding. However, last semester, I was reprimanded for not spending enough money. In political science, one learns that, at their worst, organizations work to protect their own interests not the interests of the people they serve. CAB here is an example of an organization like that. Since most of the members of the board are similar in orientation, the board is subject to groupthink and resists new ideas. As a result, CAB lacks a broad enough perspective to reach the student body and be relevant to most people on campus. Therefore, we had to use high spending to justify even higher funding. Despite my criticism of CAB, I want this organization to succeed and reach more students. However, if it is to succeed, the CAB administration needs to change its ways and learn how to embrace different perspectives while confronting their own prejudices. The leadership of CAB needs to take a long hard look at itself and, perhaps, greater transparency in planning and budgeting would help. Due to my departure, this could be an opportunity for CAB to right its ways and use some of the sumptuous funding for my budget for funding some of the safety and wellness initiatives for Serendipity. I would encourage anyone who is considering joining CAB to heed my warnings and not join an organization that doesn’t have any flexibility for your academic commitments and is ineffective at achieving its objectives. I think that your efforts and creativity would be more appreciated and have more of an impact elsewhere. Alexander Morales Senior Former Spirit Chair of the Guilford College Campus Activities Board
The Guilfordian (Greensboro, N.C.)
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March 6, 2015, edition 1
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