More information about the planned, nonviolent arrests that happened yesterday in Los Angeles is available on KPCC's website in a story by Adolfo Guzman Lopez, "LAPD Practices New Crowd-Control Techniques at Rally."
The "new"ness of the LAPD approach is newsworthy enough. This newness is that the LAPD gave the orders to disperse in both English and Spanish. The brilliant new approach was learned when LAPD gave dispersal orders in English only on May 1st 2007 at a Macarthur Park protest. In that situation, not everyone dispersed presumably because they did not understand English. Adults made this conclusion. Who have LAPD training and the responsibility to carry billy clubs, tazers and guns.
The irony here is not lost by any one who has observed a kindergartner spontaneously translating for their parents because they understood that translation between English and Spanish was in order. I always enjoy the perspective and reporting of KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman Lopez.
I am interested in more information about the March 25 Coalition, the organizer of yesterday’s planned nonviolent event and arrests. March 25 Coalition. In addition to their website, they feature a blog. Wikipedia features a list of their members.
Also, if I am not mistaken, there is a federal detention facility where immigration violators are processed and the protest took place at the corner of Alameda and Aliso. I would like to know if there was something specific that was happening to precipitate this protest on this Tuesday or if it is just the place in general that attracted the event. Were the protesters making a statement about conditions there related to recent deaths of ICE detainees? Was this related to the Dream Act (HR 1545), which has been mentioned by CHIRLA and others recently? Who are the nonviolent trainers for this group? Were those who were arrested properly out-processed by LAPD? Where they interviewed? What did they have to say? [Adolfo, if you have auto-googled and found this, I hope you have the opportunity to address some of these questions in future broadcasts.]
Because of the importance of nonviolent civil disobedience in the civil rights and human rights struggles of the past, I believe that this could be extremely important today.
Often, more news about this kind of story is available from local TV affiliates of Univision and Telemundo. I did watch a few minutes of these news broadcasts but they were covering the breaking Peru earthquake news.
Because I do not have time to do more research, I sometime think I won't post. At the very least, some important topics are introduced and one of my faithful readers will do the research and move it forward. [Kyle, I plan to do a post about Chiquita, stay tuned.]
Thanks for reading. Your voice matters here, I hope you leave a comment.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
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5 comments:
Very little is commonly known about the theory and practice of nonviolence. I have a Google Alert that picks up news and blog articles that have nonviolence and immigration together (and by the way, it didn't pick up this post of yours, does anyone know of a better way to aggregate news). I daily get news articles that include people invoking the term nonviolence to talk about middle class, white, nativist, American, values. It is usually invoked by people arguing for deportation and criminalization and militarization.
Civil disobedience is also not well understood. I read an article recently where people were described as being civilly disobedient--and oh by the way--thank goodness they didn't break any laws. ???
But of course, you know my thoughts about the use of nonviolent civil disobedience within our movement: it is the method that will advance immigrant rights because it has the power to touch people's hearts and change people's minds.
Let's hope this was a legitimate act of nonviolent civil disobedience, with training and planning and press involvement, because of it was, it will change our movement.
Many of the google alerts that I subscribe to come a day or more later.
I am finding most of the news I see by subscribing to the RSS feeds of certain bloggers who are aggregating the news stories for me--especially ImmigrationProf Blog. I heard this story on the radio and then went directly to the stations website for more information.
I was talking about our previous conversation with a student at Cal Berkeley, the son of an immigrant friend of mine, and he asked if nonviolence/civil disobedience was really viable tool for getting anything done "these days." I responded by saying that if it is not, I am not sure anything is.
I am willing to disobey the civil authorities in a limited number of circumstances. I am also willing to express the reasons and strategies behind such actions to that they have maximum impact.
I believe that it is an essential element of a successful action that the meaning of the event is articulated clearly for those who observe. This may have been a missing element for the event in Los Angeles here. If I have time today, I may send my inquiries to the reporter (I think I have his email) or to the organizers (I haven't found their contact information yet).
Thanks for visiting my blog. I like what you are doing here and have added you to my RSS feed.
I just dont undersand the immigratin broken system...separating families and leaving us behind. As usual always people of color.
Great posts. Civil Disobedience should be mandatory reading for all US citizens...its amazing that such a political tool has never really been discuss in public school. That is, a more analytical and thoughtful manner. Hmmm...blame me if you like as being conspiratorial but this all looks like it wouldn't be in the best interest if young US citizens learned the teachings of King which really derived from many great teachers of the past. I think Ghandhi said it best "Nonviolence is as old as the hills."
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