"Will you be attending Kick A Ginger Day?"

I just read an article about a boy who was beaten up by a group of kids at his school for being a redhead. The Los Angeles police say that the beating may have been linked to a Facebook event titled "Kick A Ginger Day." There is speculation that the South Park TV series may have inspired it.

During our WWI Civil Liberties presentation, we talked about the Shenck v. United States Supreme Court Case. Justice Holmes referred to shouting "fire" in a theater to illustrate his point; that Schenck was posing a clear and present danger while passing out anti-conscription (conscription = compulsory military service) leaflets.

I began to wonder, does creating a facebook group targeted at a specific group of people that incorporates violent aims pose a clear and present danger? Should pop culture make it justifiable? Should their be a punishment set forth for the creator of this event?

What do you think?

"Hey Hey, Ho Ho. This Genocide Has Got To Go!"

Last weekend was probably one of the greatest weekends of my life. I went to Washington D.C. with the New Trier STAND chapter. STAND is the student-led division of the Genocide Intervention Network. We were there four 4 days; we went to workshops, listened to amazing speakers, asked people to sign petitions on the street, and marched on Capitol Hill. The main goal of the conference was to help us help others learn about genocide and mass atrocities in the world. It was the biggest anti-genocide movement conference to ever take place, with almost 1,ooo people (mostly students) coming together to share ways to educate, fundraise, and advocate. Coming back to school, I'm so excited to tell everyone everything I know about Darfur, Congo, and Burma, along with ways to help. 

Layla Amjadi, the STAND student director and senior at Harvard University, mentioned an inspiring experience at a previous conference. Someone had asked about Darfur fatigue, which is when your efforts seem too little and your impatience takes over, and you don't even feel like trying to help before. It's a pretty common feeling - it was addressed quite frequently during the conference. In response to that question, a Sudanese man on the panel stood up and said "The only people that should be having Darfur fatigue are those that are in Darfur." 

How true!! If you're reading this, there are so many little things you can do, and we can stop Darfur fatigue together/forever!

You ready?

Call 1-800-GENOCIDE

Join.

Donate.

Come to the club meetings room 301 on Thursdays after school and Friday mornings before school!

We're going downtown on Thursday so we can canvass and get a bunch of people's signatures together so we can pressure politicians and let them know that we want them to address what is going on.

I thought that with a class of almost 40 blogging people, we could all raise awareness easily and efficiently. Not only do more Americans need to get involved, but our age group absolutely needs to! High school and college kids need to step up if anyone is going to listen. We have the resources, the blogs, the facebook, time, school clubs..everything. 

We have learned about how our American civil liberties have been molded in times of pressure and stress; imagine not being able to live because a harsh military regime was being encouraged to kill your tribe. Or imagine the leader of your political party of choice being under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years. 

"They was going to take me to court, and I was going to lose"

While browsing the news, a title of a story interested me, mainly because it seemed like it pertained to lots of class discussion. The topic of race, laws, free speech, and civil liberties has been quite a popular one (in my French class, too!), so when I saw Louisiana justice who refused interracial marriage, I knew I had to read it.

What struck me the most at first was the fact that Keith Bardwell felt his actions were justified because he felt he wasn't being racist, but was just worried about the future of the children and marriage itself. 

But, when it said that he was advised, "that I needed to step down because they was going to take me to court, and I was going to lose," I began thinking about something else entirely.

Obviously, there are laws and acts such as the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment and the Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia that foreshadowed his loss, but this statement got me thinking about the Crucible and inevitably of "judicial" outcomes. 

This may be a stretch, but it's kind of like the Michael Jackson example. He was never convicted of molestation, but he was associated with it nonetheless. I'm sure his career was affected, as well as Bardwell's. Or if any of you watch Grey's Anatomy, the threat of a malpractice suit looms over the O.R. during hard times.

Does public opinion have too great a hand in determining the fate of your career and reputation? Without everyone knowing about our "mistakes", would our lives be more secure?

"Mary Warren, with greater impatience with him: I told you the proof. It's hard proof, hard as rock, the judges said," (Miller, 55).