The following article was taken from Revcom.us
Welcome to the youth wing of the New York City prison system, also known as the NYC system of public schools.
In 1998, the NYPD was given authority to ensure "safety" in the city's public schools. What "safety" has meant in reality is the harassment, brutalization, and criminalization of a generation of youth. Today, more than 5,000 civilian NYPD employees, called "school safety officers" (SSOs), and nearly 200 armed NYPD cops patrol the city's schools. SSOs wear NYPD uniforms and can stop, frisk, interrogate, and arrest students. A federal lawsuit filed in January 2010 by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) documents numerous incidents of students being handcuffed, arrested, and physically assaulted for minor misbehavior or for nothing at all.
The New York Times' Bob Herbert has also documented some of these incidents ("Cops vs. Kids," NYT, 3/6/10):
In March 2008, a sixth-grade girl and boy at a Bronx middle school drew a line on each other's desk with an erasable marker. SSOs seized the two, handcuffed them, an armed cop interrogated them, and the kids were then hauled away to the local precinct.
In fall 2008, an SSO at a Queens high school kicked in the door of a stall in the boys' bathroom. The student in the stall, who had done nothing wrong, was hit in the head by the door and injured. The boy's family sued the city, and a $55,000 settlement was reached.
In January 2008, a kindergarten pupil was acting up. An SSO handcuffed the boy, who was then taken to a hospital psychiatric ward. As Herbert remarks: "A 5-year-old!"
In filing its lawsuit, the NYCLU noted that "The aggressive policing in the city's schools contributes to the school-to-the-prison pipeline, a disturbing national trend wherein students are funneled out of the public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. These children tend to be disproportionately Black and Latino..."
Herbert pointed out that "This poisonous police behavior is an extension into the schools of the humiliating treatment cops have long been doling out to youngsters—especially those who are black and Latino—in the city's streets." ("Poisonous Police Behavior," NYT, 6/2/07)
Young women in these schools are frequently harassed and groped by the police. A March 2007 NYCLU report ("Criminalizing the Classroom: The Over-Policing of New York City Schools," nyclu.org) surveyed women students who said officers touched them in ways that made them feel uncomfortable. Women whose underwire bras set off metal detectors, which now exist in most of the city's schools, were forced to raise their shirts or unzip their pants, supposedly to prove they weren't concealing weapons or cell phones.
The creativity, energy, initiative, and rebelliousness of the youth that this current system crushes could be fully appreciated and unleashed—under a whole different system, a socialist society.
2 comments:
"The human rights abuses charge is used in US propaganda all of the time against anyone they don't like, including communists. But the US held more people in prisons than the USSR ever did, with the exception of the Gorbachev era."
...Well yes that's true. But I wasn't talking about the US. The US has just as much to answer for when it comes to poverty and human rights...But that doesn't lower the mistakes of socialist countries.
"As far as the charges against Stalin goes, sure his repression went a little too far, but the British Fabian Society visited the USSR and found out themselves that his supposed "genocide famine" wasn't actually happening."
- Wrong. The Fabian society was very split...One of it's memembers (George Bernard Shaw) went to the USSR in 1932 and met with Stalin it is true...(And declared the Ukraine fammine a hoax but his evidence is questionable because he was an open marxist he was evidently biased).
Other members of the society (H.G. Wells) thought that Stalin was a dangerous tyrant...Wells also met with Lenin who declared him a philastine which shows they didn't get on. So it was far from all the Fabian society denying the fammine and going to the USSR.
Fascists are not growing in Euroupe it's just the BNP in England...But from what I hear their a protest vote mainly.
(A popular one).
It won't actually get to a stage were immigrant's are taken to camps and if it does then they can simply form restitance movements against the fascists (BNP at the minute).
Why do you have to take this to the newest post on my blog? Why don't you just respond to the same post I responded to (on your blog)?
The Ukrainian Famine was over-exaggerated and blamed on Stalin. Village Voice posted an article about this in 1988. The Kulaks resisted collectivization and slaughtered animals, hoarded grain, and raised prices because they didn't want to collectivize. Although you might dislike collectivization, that is no reason to act crazy in a manner that will cause a small famine. The Kulaks, with their childishness, caused the famine. Which was exaggerated and blamed on Stalin. Even Trotsky himself admitted that the Kulaks were causing trouble, but he still blamed Stalin without presenting much evidence as to why.
The Famine is propaganda originally dreamed up by the Nazis and their Ukrainian Nationalist collaborators during their war (with bullets and propaganda) against the Soviet Union.
Fascism is growing in Europe, and yes, outside of England. Far right groups were elected in other parts of Europe as well. Hitler started off small, and people like you ignored him until it was too late. Don't repeat history.
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