Streetwise and Safe

Its 5am. My room is shrouded in darkness, but the light of my humming laptop shines like a mirror in the desert. It is within this deserted hour, free from judgmental glances and insurmountable expectations, trapped with my rapid fire thoughts and rampant feelings, that my mind is most vivid. This is also the hour when the mask that Paul Lawrence Dunbar and I still share comes off. When I take it off, tear wells began to swell. Then a great flood came washing away Trayvon and Ramarley and Danroy and Duane and Gene and Jasmine and Elizabeth and all the people whose bodies have been claimed momentarily and forever through persistent profiling.

In 2008, change was a keyword used to split the nation for maximum donor contributions and maximum votes. 3 years and a week after the inauguration of the spokesperson for change, there is still a raging debate on how to create that change beyond strategic sloganeering.

A few miles away from D.C, in the oft forgotten city of Baltimore, members of the LGBTQQ community united to deconstruct change at the Creating Change Conference. From what I learned at the conference, real change is achieved through legislative and judicial victories. By changing and thus owning the conversation about issues that impact us then using the power of social and community networks to organize and fight for justice- the world can be a less tricky obstacle for the LGBTQ community, specifically the youth of color that SAS represents.

by Chris Bilal
 
Many readers across the nation are understandably shocked and rightfully appalled at the NYPD’s excessive response to the youth-led Occupy Wall Street movement. But the false arrests, well documented police brutality and constant surveillance that have dogged participants and enraged spectators alike have been a fact of life for millions of people of color in the city- so much that our presence is noticeably absent from a movement that should benefit us the most. While these reemerging tactics of intimidation and mass arrests deployed from Zucotti Park to Oakland have just starting uniting people across the country, these practices have ripped apart communities of color like Bed-Stuy, Brownsville and Washington Heights for years. The two month old Occupy movement has led to over 3,000 questionable arrests nationwide, but in the first three months of 2011 alone, 160,000 people were stopped and frisked by New York City police officers. Halfway into the year that number rose to 362,150, putting the department on cruise control to beat its 2010 record of 600,000 stops. 52,000 of those stops took place in a single 8 block area of Brooklyn where only 1% led to arrest.