It’s their Internet.
(Source: tastefullyoffensive)
On April 22, 16-year-old Kiera Wilmot was arrested at her Polk County high school for conducting a science experiment. The teen, who has no criminal history and maintained good grades, suddenly found herself trapped in Florida’s insidious school to prison pipeline; which has continually funneled mostly youth of color out of Florida’s schools and into the criminal justice system.
According to a report by Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice, over 57% of the state’s 96,515 youth incarcerated in 2012 were Black and Brown. In Kiera’s home of Polk County, Sheriff Grady Judd has presided over a system in which youth have continually been cycled through county jails in which severe abuses have been alleged including the use of pepper spray and the holding of juveniles in cages.
During the 2013 Florida Legislative Session, Dream Defenders worked with allies in the Florida Campaign for Juvenile Justice to reform Florida’s broken juvenile justice system. Despite repeated community visits to the state capital, briefings and press conferences by advocates and sponsoring legislators, the 2013 Legislative session closed with no action on critical bills such as SB 1374/HB 1039 which would have reformed Florida’s Zero Tolerance law at play in this case.
While Kiera navigates the legal ramifications of her unjust case Polk County Superintendent John Stewart has made the decision to place Kiera in an “alternative school” as he considers expulsion proceedings. Dream Defenders find these actions by Superintendent Stewart reprehensible. Dream Defenders demands that Stewart drop all expulsion proceedings against Kiera Wilmot and allow her to return to her enrollment at Bartow High School.
Dream Defenders calls upon all local, state and national allies to TAKE ACTION to ensure Kiera does not become another casualty of the school to prison pipeline.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
- Sign the petition to get Kiera back in school
- Spread these images by tweeting them, reblogging them and posting them on instagram.
- Contact Polk County Superintendent John Stewart by calling: (863) 534-0521
Sample Script:
Superintendent Stewart,
My name is _____________ and I am calling to express my concern about the expulsion proceedings against Kiera Wilmot. Florida has been among the national leaders in furthering a school to prison pipeline; with zero tolerance policies being used to lock up, expel and divert youth from their right to an education. Ms. Wilmot’s case is another example of the state and your office criminalizing and derailing the future of a girl of color. Your handling of her case has been irresponsible and reprehensible. Ms. Wilmot’s actions and intent simply do not warrant expulsion or placement in alternative schooling. I am calling on you to immediately drop all expulsion proceedings against Kiera Wilmot and allow her to return to her regular enrollment at Bartow High School.
In order to make an impact in this case we will need the support of thousands.
Please share this message with family and friends. Let’s ensure there is
#JusticeForKiera
On Thursday, hundreds of students from the University of Indiana walked out of class and joined a march to the ‘School of Education’ where the IU Board of Trustee’s were having a meeting.
The students were protesting low wages for the support staff at IU, high tuition for students, a population of minority students that has not doubled from 4 percent as previously promised by school officials and more.
Follow IUonStrike on Tumblr for updates.
(via stfufauxminists)
Atlanta today: Rally and march for a comprehensive and just immigration reform and against mass deportations!
(via sol-paints)
Most undocumented immigrants work, attend school and must drive to do these tasks. When pulled over, an undocumented immigrant could face YEARS in jail or even be deported!
NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL! GIVE US OUR LICENSES, NOW.
Please sign and share this petition so we can keep on working towards equality for Undocumented immigrants and have the State of Florida provide them with drivers licenses.
(Source: havefunchord, via imicki)
Women Power- Dream Defenders
Women Power
Now more than ever, women have begun to recognize the intersection of gender and class oppression. We have a name for it: patriarchy. Now we can study it, strategize, and make it bow to our magical vaginas.
I chose three women of particular importance in my life, and used their photography to represent our struggle. Not only do I identify them as women, but also as artists, workers, students, and inspiring activists in the state of Florida. They each give us an example of what a strong, empowered woman looks like. They use their power to inspire allies and demand JUSTICE FOR ALL.
I also used a newspaper called “Fight Back Florida.” This paper features women on every page fighting for human rights. They resist foreclosures, organize strikes, advocate for the victims of racism, and call attention to the ways our governments and corporations try to silence activists.
I started with just a recycled sign from a 9/11 anti-war protest that took place here at USF. It read “This Jewish woman stands in solidarity with her Muslim neighbors,” and the back still reads “Free speech, No more hate.”
Paint, newspaper, recycled signs, and photos come together to give life and meaning to this piece. If you look closely, you can see an immense history of the work of empowered women and their allies. We need women like this to make our voice loud enough for everyone to hear. They bring to the masses messages of equality, freedom, the right to self determination, and justice for farm workers. I could go on and on, but I’ll end with an excerpt from what the Dream Defenders sang at Rick Scott’s State of the State address on May 2012:
“We who believe in equality cannot rest,
We who believe in equality cannot rest until it is won”
(via muhrissriss)
Close corporate tax loopholes, not public schools
April 2, 2013Chicago public schools are facing a $1 billion deficit. The corporate media would like you to believe it’s due to excessive spending and that Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposal to close more than 50 schools, most of them in low-income neighborhoods (mostly black & Latino), is the only solution. But the state of Illinois loses $4.8 billion annually in federal tax dollars due to corporate tax loopholes that shift profits overseas. It doesn’t take a math genius to see that simply closing these excessive loopholes would save the schools that so many kids in Chicago depend upon for their education.
These corporate tax loopholes cost us over $100 billion a year in federal tax dollars, which results in state and local budget cuts and tax hikes due to a decreased allocation of federal funds. The corporations most known for complex offshore tax avoidance schemes get these loopholes by spending millions on hiring armies of lobbyists and in campaign donations to chairmen and ranking members of tax-writing committees in Congress.
The lobbyists submit draft paragraphs of new gimmicks and loopholes to those committees. The campaign donations continue to flow toward reelection campaigns with the understanding that those who are making the donations get what they want out of their sponsored politicians. Thanks to this corrupt process, the tax code grows longer and more complex year after year, the most recent version topping out at roughly 72,000 pages.
There is already legislation on the books in both the House and Senate to close most of these loopholes and rein in roughly $60 billion a year. A small sales tax on Wall Street transactions would raise roughly $150 billion a year, more than enough to offset the cuts that are closing 50 schools. These aren’t radical solutions; they’re based on the simple premise that if you hire Americans, sell to Americans, use American public services and infrastructure and make the bulk of your profits in America, you should pay the American corporate tax rate of 35 percent.
Ever since Brown vs. Board of Education, there has been a coordinated right-wing attack on free education. The latest plot is an attempt to close public schools and turn them into low-performing, for-profit charter schools funded by Wall Street bankers and hedge fund managers. The attempts to do this are disguised as “reform,” but are really little more than an effort to bust teachers’ unions and cede public education over to the authority of big corporations.
Public schools to educate our children aren’t a burden to the state, they’re an investment. If you want more kids to grow up into responsible, successful adults who contribute to our society, and if you want lower crime rates and prison populations, investing in good public education makes sense. We need our kids to help row the canoe down the river, not throw them out while ignoring the gaping hole in the boat. It’s time to stop making our kids pay for their crisis.
Read the statement from the Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools to Rahm Emanuel here.
(via america-wakiewakie)
