Monday, May 29, 2006

Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project

A note from a friend ...

As Project Coordinator for the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, I'd like to bring your attention to a research report recently posted on our web site by an undergraduate at the University of Washington, Jennifer Taylor.

Jennifer did outstanding work looking into the history of the 1965 police shooting of Robert Reese, an unarmed African American, that touched off a direct action campaign of "freedom patrols" that operated as "walking civilian review boards." We recently posted her full research paper about this campaign, along with some scans of associated newspaper articles, here: http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/freedom_patrols.htm

Our web site also features video clips from oral history interviews with two different civil rights leaders-- Bishop John H. Adams, and Judge Charles V. Johnson-- who discuss their leadership of the Freedom Patrols. You can find their interviews (and many more) here: http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/interviews.htm

In addition, you can find a number of other outstanding undergraduate student papers about campaigns for racial justice in Seattle, including one that was reprinted in ColorsNW this past February for Black History Month, here: http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/research_reports.htm

We will be putting much more online in the next couple months, including papers about the Black Student Union, the Christian Friends for Racial Equality, the origins of the internment redress movement in Seattle, desegregation campaigns at Boeing, and new interviews about the local Chicano/a movement and urban Indian movement during the 1970s. Stay tuned,

Trevor Griffey

Saturday, May 20, 2006

The big man Berlusconi

April, 2006. The big man Berlusconi, richest in Italy, is feeling desperate in the days before elections. He tells a crowd of shopkeepers: I have too much esteem for the intelligence of Italians to think that they could be such coglioni as to vote against their own interests.

Coglioni.
Literally, "testicles." Millions of countrymen and women reduced by their Prime Minister to anatomical unmentionables.

Then something happens. In sunlit piazzas, under stone arcades, where old men in knit caps smoke filterless cigarettes, in country towns where Roman ducts still bring the water, in fashion capitals, everywhere, on people’s lips, on buttons pinned to smart sportcoats, on t-shirts, on stickers adorning the bums of small cars, above the din of motor scooters and factories and loud insistent conversation, the same phrase stands out, steps up, everywhere and everyone together says WE ARE ALL COGLIONI.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Stephen Colbert's guts and glory

I can't think of any other moment in Bush Jr.'s presidency when anyone criticized him to his face for more than 30 seconds. Here, he is seared, roasted, basted, turned on the spit and served with an apple in his mouth. A very satisfying counterpunch to the years of murderous lies.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

The truthiness hurts | Salon.com

Stephen Colbert's brilliant performance unplugged the Bush myth machine -- and left the clueless D.C. press corps gaping.