ABOUT Donisha:
Twenty-five year old Donisha Prendergast is the granddaughter of Rita and Bob Marley. She is, at heart, a true artist. Her fresh and vibrant talent spans many disciplines. She is an accomplished actor who has already had a wide range of starring roles in a number of major Jamaican television productions. She has also enjoyed leading roles in a several live stage productions, which have successfully toured the Eastern Caribbean, The United States and the UK.

At 12, Donisha along with a few of her cousins, performed background vocals on theme song for the popular children’s animation series, Arthur, with her uncle Ziggy Marley as the lead. She went on to travel extensively with her mother, Sharon Marley, while she was a member of the Melody Makers; and to Japan, Ghana, South Africa and the United Kingdom with her grandmother, Rita Marley. She recently toured France with Shaggy and Rik-Rok as dancer/choreographer. Donisha plays the piano and African drums.

Donisha and her production partners, Falani Spivey and Serita Stewart of Sumthing F.E.R.T.I.L.E (For Every Revolutionary Truth that Inspired Leaders to Educate) Productions have begun shooting a documentary about the links between Blacks in the Diaspora and Africa.

Africentric school still stirs debate

June 30, 2010

Louise Brown

Education Reporter

How much Africa in an Africentric school?

That’s the roiling debate among Toronto parents whose children wrap up their first year at one of Canada’s most controversial schools.

Over the past 10 months, the 160 students — aged 4 to 10 — were taught African-Canadian history, literature and culture. They took field trips to a black barbershop, black-run vegetarian restaurant and a jazz concert featuring black musicians. Two Africentric scholars from the United States visited the school this spring.

But some parents want more Africa, says parent Rebeckah Price.

“Some parents want the kids to be learning Kiswahili and doing libations every day,” she said. “They want to talk about living in huts and eating with your hands — yet in some parts of Africa like Ghana people live in beautiful homes like you’d see here in the suburbs. Everyone’s understanding of Africa is different.”

The first public alternative elementary school in the country to focus on African heritage opened last fall from kindergarten to Grade 5, as one way the Toronto District School Board hopes to tackle a 40 per cent dropout rate among blacks.

While the school has a waiting list for next fall, a handful of unsatisfied parents pulled their kids out this year.

Thyrza Ogiamien withdrew her daughter from kindergarten last month because she felt the curriculum was still too fuzzy, even though she noticed her 5-year-old was showing new self-confidence in a class where she wasn’t the only black child, and had started colouring her skin brown in self-portraits instead of white.

“There are benefits, for sure, but academically, they’re still playing it by ear,” said Ogiamien. “Teachers don’t seem 100 per cent sure of the curriculum.”

Mary Ann Scott is among a small number of parents who wrote board officials with concerns about the need for more Africentric materials, which sparked a counterpetition among parents who like the school the way it is.

“There has to be more Africentric curriculum,” argues Scott, who nevertheless plans to enrol her third child this fall in the program as it expands to Grade 6 and adds another kindergarten class.

Board officials have been mediating quietly with the handful of disgruntled parents. Even so, more than 500 supporters recently jammed the Jamaican-Canadian Centre for an awards ceremony and gave an emotional tribute to principal Thando Hyman.

Hyman declined to comment on the curriculum.

To parent Afua Marcus, the Africentric question drives the school.

“What is Africentric? Everyone has a different definition because Africa is a continent with so many countries,” says Marcus, whose son did a project on West Africa that he might not have done at a regular school.

“He hates to leave each day. I think they’ve struck a good balance.”

But Price believes some parents expected the school to accomplish too much too fast.

“I think some parents expected it to be a saviour school, but this isn’t church,” she says, noting her son, Jahbril, has learned about the African diaspora, apartheid, Nelson Mandela and other Grade 5 topics he might not cover in a regular school.

“As much as we all want to see this make a difference, some people aren’t patient enough. They’re too critical. Let’s give it time.”

Trustee James Pasternak lobbied hard for the school, and said “we achieved everything we wanted to achieve and delivered the curriculum we said we would.”

source:

A group of about ten people sat outside the temporary detention centre on Monday morning, waiting for people to be released. One woman said she’d been waiting since 1 a.m., and had seen about 20 people released since then, most in groups of two or three. By about 9:30 a.m., about five others had been released, each to a round of cheers.

Keith MacDonald, who said he’d been detained for about 18 hours, said he had just stopped by to check things out when he was arrested on Queen Street West and Noble Street in Parkdale on Sunday.

Wearing dark jeans, a dark t-shirt and no shoes, Mr. MacDonald said he was arrested for obstruction of police, but that he was released without charge. He said he suspects he was arrested for wearing a bandana, but said it was on his head, not his face.

He described the inside of the detention centre as “cages” resembling animal kennels, fitting as many as 20 people into the larger ones.

A 15-year-old boy, dressed in an oversized orange t-shirt and cargo pants, said he was arrested Saturday night on the Esplanade and held for 33 hours. The teen, who would only identify himself as Liam, said that he was only there to watch the protest.

“They surrounded us and told us to leave,” he said, “but how was I supposed to read the situation?” He said police never once told them how to leave or when the last warning would be before arresting him. He was initially arrested for obstructing the police, he said, but released without being charged.

Questions were raised Monday about the way police handled a group of several hundred protesters and innocent bystanders at the intersection of Queen Street West and Spadina Avenue on Sunday evening. The group was boxed in by riot police for at least three hours in the soaking rain. After several were arrested, the rest were finally allowed to leave at about 10 p.m.

Chief Bill Blair said Monday that the incident happened after police arrested “dozens and dozens” of anarchists with Molotov cocktails and other weapons who were heading to a demonstration on Sunday. However, he said some trouble-makers melted into the rolling protest.

“Unfortunately, their criminal activity was made a lot easier by the complicity of the crowd,” he told CP24. “And so we had to contain and control the crowd in an effort to control those criminals.”

He said the protesters “had roamed and ranged back and forth across the city in an effort to spread out our resources” to create opportunities for trouble makers to “attack the vulnerabilities of the city.”

Chief Blair said police asked people in the area to leave the area three times. Among those boxed in and detained were several journalists. Others have disputed claims that they were given the opportunity to leave.

Mayor David Miller defended the police response Monday, saying officers acted with professionalism. He said police had an “almost impossible” job of allowing peaceful protesters to assemble while sorting out trouble-makers who used rallies as a cover to commit crimes.

“In the very big picture, our police did a commendable job,” he told reporters.

Mr. Miller said the city will ask the federal government to compensate businesses that suffered damages or had to close in addition to employees who lost wages because of the summit.

“It’s only fair and reasonable,” he said.

Following the summit’s close on Sunday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper deplored the violence by “certain thuggish criminal element.”

Meanwhile, after a weekend of G20-related disruptions, downtown Toronto began to look like its usual self again Monday morning.

Crews began to remove the security fence surrounding the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, the site of G20 meetings. However, police continued to maintain a visible presence at downtown street corners.

All TTC transit service was running as usual, a spokesperson said, and Union Station, which closed temporarily Sunday night due to flooding, has since re-opened. GO transit has also resumed normal service. An officer with Toronto Police traffic services said were no major traffic delays or road closures Monday morning.

However, a few traffic disruptions remained early Monday around the security fence area, likely due to fence removal, Const. Murphy said. Police allowed motorists to drive through the area.

Police said the 77 CCTV cameras set up for the G20 will be taken down – it’s just not clear when.

Police still have information about upcoming protests, said Integrated Security Unit spokesman Constable Rodney Petroski.

“When they’re confident the security risk is over, the cameras will come down.”

Along King Street in the heart of Toronto’s financial district, there were few signs of the tumultuous weekend. Police remained on some corners and some windows were still boarded up.

By Sunday night, a few stores on Queen Street – which was hit by heavy rioting on Saturday – were still covered in plywood.

With reports from Rick Cash and Anna Mehler Paperny

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Release of G20 protesters

Globe and Mail Update Monday, Jun. 28, 2010 11:21AM EDT

Video of citizens being let go after the largest mass arrests in Canadian history, police arrested roughly 900 people in G20-related incidents during the weekend.
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read more here: SOURCE

Peaceful G20 protest at Queen & Spadina from Meghann Millard on Vimeo.

My heart goes out to my peoples that that faced unwanted police brutality during the peaceful protest. This footage is just a sample of what was really going on the front lines. SHAME!!!

But it could be called the Genoa model, the Pittsburgh model and, after this weekend, the Toronto model.

It refers to police tactics used in Miami seven years ago, during the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit, and, more importantly, the protests erupting on the streets outside.

Manny Diaz, Miami’s then-mayor, called the police methods exemplary — a model to be followed by homeland security when confronting protesters.

Human rights groups including Amnesty International called it a model of police brutality and intimidation.

Protesters were beaten with tear gas, sticks, rubber bullets . . . You can watch police stun cowering protesters with Tasers on YouTube. Last year, the city agreed it had trampled citizens’ right to free speech by forcing marchers back from planned protests and settled out of court with Amnesty International.

What is the Miami Model?

I called Naomi Archer to find out. She is an indigenous rights worker from North Carolina who happened to be giving a lecture on the Miami Model yesterday at the U.S. Social Forum — the G20 for community activists.

Archer, who was in Miami as a liaison between protesters and police, has a 40-box checklist to identify the Model. Here are the main themes.

• Information warfare. This starts weeks before the event. Protesters are criminalized and dehumanized, and described as dangerous “anarchists” and “terrorists” the city needs to defend against.

“Often, a faux cache is found,” says Archer. “They are usually ordinary objects, like bike inner tubes, camping equipment, but the police make them out to look threatening. It lays the groundwork for police to be violent and it means there’s a reduced accountability of law enforcement.”

• Intimidation. Police start random searches of perceived protesters before any large rallies. They are asked where they are staying, why they are walking around. Police raid organizer’s homes or meeting places, “usually just before the summit, so there’s maximum chaos organizers have to deal with,” says Archer.

“All this is meant to dissuade participants. The best way to make sure you don’t have a critical mass of people taking over the streets like in Seattle is to reduce the numbers at the outset.”

This is usually made possible by last-minute city regulations, curtailing the right to protest. In Miami, the city commission passed a temporary ordinance forbidding groups of more than seven to congregate for more than 30 minutes without a permit.

• “They threw rocks.” That’s the line police use after tear-gassing or beating protesters most times, Archer says. Urine and human feces are variations on the theme. But it’s always the protesters who triggered the violence. A popular police tactic is called “kettling.” Officers on bike or horses herd protesters into an enclosed space, so they can’t leave without trying to break through the police line. Take the bait; you provoke a beating or arrest. And of course, there are the famous agent provocateurs, outted publicly two years ago in Montebello. Police officers dressed up like militant protesters to protect the peaceful crowd, they say; Archer says it’s to instigate trouble.

In Montebello, one of the three cops dressed in black was holding a rock.

“It’s the same lies every single protest,” she says. “It’s justification by law enforcement for their violent actions. This is a propaganda war.”

• Job well done. At the end, regardless of the bodies clogging the temporary holding cells and hospitals, the police always congratulate themselves. And by the time the cases go to court, the story is long forgotten and the circus has moved to a new unsuspecting town.

More than 270 people were arrested in Miami during the summit seven years ago . How many were convicted, in the end? I called the American Civil Liberties Union to find out.

“None,” said lawyer Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, who was the president of the Miami chapter back then.

So far in Toronto, the police show has unrolled according to script; we’ve seen the propaganda, the cache, the intimidation, the secretive new regulations, the scary military arsenal. . . .

Next up, rocks. Will we all believe that one too?

Catherine Porter usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: cporter@thestar.ca
SOURCE

One Africa One People One Destiny

Fellow sisters and brothers in the struggle,

We are a collective of black community activists seeking the liberation of all black, indigenous, and oppressed people. From Canada to Palestine, The Congo to South Africa, Latin America to Africa, people of colour continue to be murdered and forced to live in imposed poverty as our natural resources and land continues to be occupied by imperialist nations. These nations benefit from our stolen resources, taking the food out of our mouths starving the bellies of our young. As a global community it is our responsibility to unite our voices to resist these obscene overt forms of colonialism and global oppression. For too long we have organized in small divided groups within Toronto never achieving any local or global change. Through fear tactics, psychological warfare, oppression and violence many people have been forced physically and mentally, to not exercise their right to voice their opinions or their desires to fight against the oppression that they experience. Our people are forced to believe, and later come to identify with, the idea that the oppressor has supreme power and is working in the favour of the people. As a result a culture of quiet, non-resistant and passive people are born. This Culture of Silence is longstanding and continues because the people continue to allow destruction and the oppression to occur, not because they want to, but because fighting against the oppressor seems futile. Oppressed people must unite in one effort to overthrow our common imperial enemy. Our voice can be louder and stronger only if we speak together. We are not representing a new organization nor are we asking for you to join one. We are simply asking you to help us say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and collectively fight to gain justice and the reclamation of our resources and end discrimination for all oppressed and marginalized people in this country. Indigenous people and people of colour will no longer allow the noose to be tightened around our necks and racist arrogance to burden our backs. Unite with our coalition to demand freedom for us all.

On June 19th the One Africa One People One Destiny coalition is planning a rally to unify the struggles of black people in the city of Toronto and around the world. Canada has played a part in the oppression of our people in Haiti, the Congo and many other African nations. The June 19th rally would see the merging of all these struggles for one day of action that would allow our people to see that we are one people fighting the same battle on different fronts. This would also lead to the unification of not only the African community, but all oppressed communities to liberate our people once and for all.

We demand:

Canada:

The immediate dismissal of any officer who murdered or brutalized black people
Reparations to the families of all victims of police murder or brutality
An End to Toronto Anti Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS).
An end to all anti gang initiatives
An end to police containment of the black community
An end to illegal police raids in the black community
End to government imposed poverty that makes black on black crime possible
Economic development for the black community
End to government imposed poverty that made it possible or 29 Somali youth to be killed in Alberta since 2005
Justice in the form economic development or all black communities in Alberta
End to the safe schools act
Afrocentric education for all black students
End to immigration policies that discriminate against black people/ people of African descent.
True reparations for victims of Africville

Haiti:
End Canada’s military occupation of Haiti (2000 or more troop build up)
The Canadian government to expose its involvement in the ousting of Aristide
Return of Aristide to Haiti
An End to the Canadian military and police training of Haitian police
Haitians alone be the ones who determine what reconstruction looks like
Reparations to families of victims killed by Haitian police trained by Canadian forces

Somalia:
All Canadian warships (the real pirate ships) out of Somali waters and an end to criminalization of Somali people as pirates.

Congo:
End of Canadian mining in the Congo
Reparations for the Africans living in the Congo for Canada’s role in the Congo’s mineral fuelled war.

Africa:
End of all Canadian mining in Africa
End to Canada’s theft of African resources mining deals facilitated by neo-colonial puppet leaders.
Reparations to all these nations to return the $21 billion stolen which will be total value of Canadian mining assets in Africa by the end of 2010

On June 19th attend our rally in solidarity with our movement. Protest global oppression by offering solidarity statements attacking global imperialism. If you are interested, please reply by Friday, June 4, 2010 (with flexibility).
]]> http://stolenfromafrica.com/2010/06/black-ralley-sat-june-19-queens-park/feed/ 0 http://stolenfromafrica.com/2010/06/news-tivoli-speaks-lets-pray-for-jamaica/ http://stolenfromafrica.com/2010/06/news-tivoli-speaks-lets-pray-for-jamaica/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 19:11:50 +0000 logikal http://stolenfromafrica.com/?p=3001