Youth Radio - Topic: Justice

"Suspension Stories" Brings You Personal Narratives

rgee — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:58:59 -0600

Suspension Stories, a youth-led project by the Young Women's Action Team and Project NIA, produced a series of written, audio, and video testimonies about students getting suspended. The project intends to highlight the school-to-prison pipeline and show how school discipline policies often seem premature, too extreme, or unfair to students.

Below, Adeola M. shares her story of getting suspended. If she had been guided to talk out her conflict with her classmate, she says, she would not have missed a week of school, including a test.

Ana Mercado discusses why she thinks schools should be using "restorative justice" methods instead of suspensions. To see how "restorative justice" is working in San Francisco's public schools, check out this article from the Center for Public Integrity.

Justice For Who?

denise — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 11:59:53 -0500

The following originally aired on KCBS.

By: Bianca Brooks

I remember elementary school mornings reciting the Pledge of Allegiance saying, “Liberty and justice for all.” But lately I wonder who is the justice system working for?

I arrived in Oakland from Atlanta in 2010 and saw Oscar Grant on city walls and windows, but his story was a mystery to me. I saw videos of this unarmed man being shot in a BART station by a police officer. The officer spent only a year in a private cell, and I wondered if he served time for Grant’s death, or embarrassing California’s justice system.

I had the same feelings when Casey Anthony was acquitted on charges of murdering her daughter. I imagined if my family was murdered --who would pay the price?

I grew up believing cops would protect me, and good guys always win, but these cases are changing my mind. I wanted to believe in America’s judicial system, but I’m growing up in a world where
instead of jail time, criminals get book deals and Lifetime movies. No doubt it’ll take more time and money the US doesn’t have to reform the justice system, but if we don’t how can I honestly recite “justice for all”-- in a “justice for who” nation?

2010 Brower Youth Awards: De'Anthony Jones in San Francisco

rgee — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 08:51:26 -0500

As the awards ceremony approaches, Youth Radio is profiling each of the six 2010 Brower Youth Award winners. The Brower Youth Awards go to six outstanding environmental activists between the ages of 13 and 22. The awards ceremony takes place in October in San Francisco.

De’Anthony Jones, 18, San Francisco, CA
Fostering Service Learning

Through the group Environmental Service Learning Initiative (ESLI), an organization that works in seven public high schools in San Francisco, De’Anthony has worked to connect social justice and global climate change at the forefront of education. De’Anthony’s engages youth of color in the environmental movement through integrating community learning, environmental service, teacher-student partnerships, collaboration with community-based organizations, and hands-on learning. He is helping to create a new youth culture that takes environmental stewardship as a given.

In the fall of 2008, during my first year at Mission High School in San Francisco, as a junior, I met some people who became my mentors, including Jay Pugao and Dave Room. I had just finished a summer in the CORO Exploring Leadership Program in SF, where I learned about the energy crisis. That’s when my passion was sparked. Jay Pugao started the ESLI program at Mission High, and I got involved then.

I didn’t have a passion for the environment at first, but when I started learningg about what it meant for me, for my generation, and for my future, I changed my mind.
I was appointed to the citywide board of ESLI and I met the people at Global Exchange. They mentored me as well. Everyone was on my level. They understood how to talk to me. I’d also really like to thank all my Youth Advisory Board members.

While I was in the ESLI program, we planned 10 events to educate youth about environmental justice.
We planned the annual EcoFest in San Francisco, which turned out to be the largest planned youth-led environmental justice event in SF.

We also brought together teachers from all the ESLI schools to discuss integrating environmental justice into their curriculum.

We are organizing the Green Festival which will take place in November in SF. Global exchange and Great America are working together on this project.

At Mission High, we organized a Dance for the Earth. In this event, we wanted to paint the Earth as a woman, because in society we are trained to respect our women, and you need to respect Mother Earth. We had student performances of all kinds: spoken word, music, and dance.

We also organized EcoWeek at Mission High. This was a week when students learned about global warming. We brought in many speakers, including the co-founder of Global Exchange and Paul Freedman, the founder of Rock the Bikes, a company that makes electric bikes.

We also organized a Green Prom. It was the only Green Prom in SF. It was powered by electric bikes! People in their prom dresses took turns pedaling the bikes - it was great. We held the event in the Presidio National Park. We used compostable plates and we recycled everything.

I’m going to Sacramento State University, getting a double major in government and sociology. My first passion was violence prevention, and being on the youth commission for two years made me want to study government. Now, I’m passionate about environmental justice as well.

I’m very excited to receive a Brower Award, and yet humbled. This is just the beginning for me. It’s an affirmation of work done, but a call for more work. It doesn’t mean I stop here. I have to push harder. I think it’s especially important to educate youth of color in the issues of environmental justice. They don’t know about this issue, and yet we see the effects of pollution in our communities the most.

All Mixed Up

ahowell — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:36:17 -0500

"I'm Bi-racial. My father is black, and my mother is light skinneded." -King Anyi

At a young age, several women in my family use to tell me... "You better not bring home no white girl!" That was before I even started dating. Their comments had the opposite effect on me. I have dated several white women. I've also dated black, Latina, Asian, and mixed race women. I can say I don't have a racial preference. But I can say that some of my relatives wouldn't be too pleased with my dating history. And I find that puzzling, considering that these same relatives are light skinned. They are the children of interracial dating.

Recently in Louisiana, a licensed justice of the peace refused to grant an interracial couple a marriage license because he didn't feel races should be "mixing." In fact, Justice Keith Bardwell told the press, "There is a problem with both [racial] groups accepting a child from such a marriage." The justice's actions, comments and beliefs are so audacious in this day and age. I mistook the story for a joke when I first heard it. How such ignorance can survive in today's current social climate is not a surprise to me. What is shocking is how such ignorance can still exist so openly in such a public sector of society. You would think that even if someone did harbor such prejudicial feelings that they would keep a lid on it. Think about the countless moments of negative press and condemnation against executioners of such rhetoric that have cost them and their organizations countless millions. Bardwell's public stance not only encourages such ignorance, it undermines our progress as a society. More importantly it undermines the people of Louisiana by making them vulnerable to legal action and misrepresenting the citizens of the Creole State. Creole is a term used to refer to the descendants of Louisiana's early French settlers, African-Americans, and Native Americans who have been mixing in the state since before 1803, when Louisiana was purchased from France. In fact, I am a descendant of Louisiana Creoles.

Many of my bi-racial friends have struggled to fit in. They deal with questions about their ethnicity and which "culture" they should belong to. Reservations about race held by folks like Judge Bardwell do not help the situation. My family's view on dating hasn't helped me. I'll spare you all the made for Lifetime channel "Love and Tolerance" speeches. Truth is, I think it's ok for people to decide what racial preferences they have in a mate. I'd even go so far as to say you have the right to decide which race of people you DON'T want to date. When you get in the way of other people's preferences, however, you become less of a human, and more of an obstacle.

I am pleased that Louisiana State Justice, Elbert Guillory told CNN in an interview that there is a "good probability that corrective action will be taken" against Justice Bardwell. But I doubt it will push such ignorance back into the corners of society. It certainly won't stop my aunties from asking me "would it kill you to date a sista!?"

Toxic Schooling?

kara — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:39:38 -0600

This story has been republished from its original April 2006 publish date. Youth Radio will be bringing you more on this story as we work with Cal Academy of Sciences regarding its new study about air quality and school. For more on this story go to USA Today's coverage.

By Sophie Simon Ortiz

Where you live can have a significant impact on your health. Youth Radio’s Sophie Simon-Ortiz grew up in West Berkeley near a steel manufacturing plant, and still has vivid memories of the smell that poured regularly from its smoke stacks and permeated the neighborhood. The smell is still there. So Sophie decided to find out why, after so many years and complaints by nearby residents, not much seems to have changed at all.

During World War Two, West Berkeley became a center of industry in the Bay Area, and if you walk along the train tracks that still run through the western edge of my childhood neighborhood, you’ll still pass dozens of warehouses and rusted smokestacks. The sound of the train whistle is so much a part of my childhood memories, that when I hear it now, it’s still comforting to me. There’s something else that reminds me of that time. The best way to describe it is the smell of a burning pot handle that’s been left on the stovetop too long.

Katri: "I don’t remember what it smelled like as much as I remember my dad and me being outside."

That’s one of my oldest friend Katri Foster who also grew up in West Berkeley.

Katri: "We would go for walks every now and then around the neighborhood and every now and then he would start complaining about the smell in the air and be really grossed out by it and I didn’t really know what that meant…I think I thought that was just what the neighborhood smelled like, like what are gonna do?"

Katri’s house is only a few blocks from one of the few remaining factories in West Berkeley - Pacific Steel Casting. Now that we’re in our twenties, Katri and I talk about the pollution in the neighborhood. Her little brother Joe is ten. He developed asthma as a baby, and had to go to the hospital often. The asthma got better for a while, until last October, when he started having headaches.

Katri: "And he wasn’t eating a lot and he had been throwing up and they found out he had a brain tumor and for a ten-year-old that’s just not obviously very common and it was really I mean there’s no history of this in the family."
Katri says the first thing that popped into her head to explain her brother’s condition was the pollution.

Katri: "I mean of course there’s always a possibility that it was a coincidence and there’s so many things that could cause this happen but it just seemed really weird and given that he developed asthma so young I don’t think it’s that far off to think it’s a possibility."

Katri’s family is convinced of the connection, although they don’t have any direct proof that pollution is what caused Joe’s health problems. But there are some frightening statistics about our zip code. The most recent city of Berkeley health reports show that the West Berkeley zip code has the highest asthma hospitalization rates in the city.

Beatriz: "What I have seen an increase in children with asthma."

That’s Beatriz Leyva-Cutler. She’s the director at the childcare center I attended before kindergarten.

Beatriz: "Whereas before 1 child out of 62, now 2-3 children in any one classroom showing asthmatic symptoms. Coughing, wheezing."

That’s Beatriz Leyva-Cutler. She’s the director at the childcare center I attended before kindergarten. The center is right up the street from the steel plant, and not far from the freeway and the city’s bus yard. While her observations make it seem like Katri’s family has legitimate concerns, to be fair, there are two sides to every story. So I went to the plant – the source of the distinct smell in my neighborhood – to get their perspective.(Trucks, industrial sounds/clanging.)

Even though I lived just a few blocks from Pacific Steel Casting, I had never been inside until now. The PR people at the plant don’t deny the smell. Elizabeth Jewel is a consultant for the company and says the odor is a product of the manufacturing process. She also says production has increased in recent years making the situation worse.

Elizabeth Jewel: "And so the neighbors have been upset about the smell, understandably so, and the company has responded to them by coming up together with a proposal to install a 2 million dollar filter that the company is confident will address all of if not the majority of the odor problems."

As the neighbors see it, getting rid of the smell doesn’t necessarily take care of the toxins in the air. They want the plant to stop using toxic products in the first place. But the company isn’t planning on stopping their business. And Elizabeth Jewel points out that the neighborhood was industrial before it was residential.

Elizabeth Jewel: "It’s an age old problem where you have industry, freeways..and housing. You know housing has grown up around Pacific Steel and so we have understandable conflicts where you have people living next to an industrial site."

What complicates the situation is that many of the employees for Pacific Steel live in the neighborhood and it’s one of the biggest employers in Berkeley, with union wages. And for many people who depend on those paychecks, it’s more of a health risk to be unemployed than exposed to bad air. But David Schroeder at the West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs says everyone is entitled to clean air.

David: "We’ve done a bit of research on the toxics on what’s in the air and there’s all sorts of stuff you wouldn’t want to be anywhere near if you had the choice about it."

David points to a test his organization conducted of levels of formaldehyde, a known carcinogen.

David: "And there the levels of formaldehyde were about twenty-four times the threshold for EPA region 6 and so that’s kind of scary to us."

And those fears are real for neighborhood people like my friend Katri. For now, it looks like her brother is going to be okay when he finishes chemotherapy and her family plans to stay in West Berkeley. Meanwhile, the conversations between community groups and Pacific Steel continue, and people keep moving into the area.

"Now there’s a new generation of children falling asleep to the sound of the trains passing. And I’m sure they’ll grow up to love this neighborhood like I do, because it’s rich in a strong working class history, shared among many different kinds of people."

My hope is that they don’t have to hold their breath when they go outside like I had to.

Sophie no longer lives in West Berkeley, but she’s still in touch with many of the families in her old neighborhood.

TEACH YOUTH RADIO: Jena 6 Protest

lucyk — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:36:41 -0500

News Break:

JENA 6 PROTEST

What's the story?

At the beginning of the 2006-07 school year, nooses in school colors hung from a tree at Jena High School in Louisiana. District administration characterized the incident a harmless prank. Racial tensions flared throughout the semester. By December, a fight broke out, with one white student hospitalized and released later that evening in time to attend a school function. The young black male students involved were charged with attempted murder. As their trials caught media attention, they came to be known as the Jena 6.

In this month’s News Break, Jiarra Jackson is reporting back from a demonstration in Jena, LA protesting the unjust treatment of the Jena 6. She describes the surroundings and the sentiments of the protestors in an unscripted report. Interestingly, for an issue that is so racially charged, the point that stands out to Jiarra is the fact that the protest has attracted people of all different backgrounds. This observation gives her hope for a positive result in the end.

To create this month’s News Break, Teach Youth Radio has teamed up with Kai Crowder, Shantel Alicea, Cory Butler-Wilson and Akira Chin from Berkeley Technology Academy’s hip-hop journalism class. B-Tech is the continuation high school for the Berkeley Unified School District in Northern California.

The B-Tech students began their curriculum design process by studying the Jena 6 curriculum, Revealing Racist Roots created by the Network of Teacher Activist Groups (TAG). They wanted to add their voices to the national educational dialogue by offering lesson ideas linked to a Youth Radio story produced by a Louisiana-based correspondent named Jiarra Jackson, who reported on a protest that took place in Jena in September.

The students felt it was important for their generation to know about the situation in Jena and to take a stand against injustice. Students felt that the hardships that black youth in Jena are facing relate to black youth in all corners of the country who are criminalized and discriminated against. Their class participated in a rally at UC Berkeley to show their support for the Jena 6. We hope you will use this News Break and also check out the Revealing Racist Roots curriculum, which encompasses language arts, history, math, Spanish, music, media literacy and other subjects.

Read this Script!
Listen to this Commentary!

Teach this News Break!

SCRIPT

Jena 6

By Dawn Williams and Berkeley Academy of TechNology

The city is crowded. You’re pretty much wall-to-wall with people. You really can’t move too far. Young people that were here definitely support the amount of adults that were here. Of course, many of them were led by a lot of adults.

I saw a young child. He was three years old, named Darion from Baton Rouge, and he was here with his parents. He knew why he was here. He was saying, “Oh, I am here because of the injustice and I am here because of the Jena 6.” He had a valid understanding of why he was here and he wasn’t just going on a road trip.

You could also see here in Jena, all the local businesses were closed. You could see a few citizens of Jena that were in support. Two young ladies, Caucasian, they were actually holding up a sign that said, “We are not racist” and they were actually embraced by many of the protesters. Many people got off the bus and took pictures with them. It gave a welcoming feeling to know that not all people may have certain feelings about different races or different things like that.

The mood is pretty much just to make sure that injustice is not done so people are ready to fight. People are pretty much falling down, having heatstroke. I saw a lady, she fell out, got some more water, stood right back up, and said she wasn’t going to move. So I would say the mood is very, very persistent.

One of the things that was really prevalent, they were saying, “Free Mychal Bell now!” You know most of the time you might hear protestors say, “do this, do that,” but they were stressing the “now” part, saying that they want it done now.

And actually, sometimes, when different people would get up on stage to speak, the mics would get cut off during certain segments when they would say different things. They were surrounded by state troopers. It was a very, very, very aggressive scene. People were getting mad, shouting, people were actually in the trees, and when I actually saw that I thought of the song by Billie Holiday, when they was talking about Strange Fruit, and it was just so many people just in trees, just so they could see on top of people on top of people.

Many times, you would see the crowd get kind of rowdy, so you kind of brace yourself and hope that nothing will happen or that you won’t have to run, because there was nowhere to run. People were behind you, in front of you, on top of you, over your head in the trees pretty much. I was very, very afraid for my safety. However, I knew that this was a monumental experience, and also a historical experience that I needed to experience for myself and not be told by others.

I actually heard the Rev. Jesse Jackson speak, also the Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin speak. The Rev. Jesse Jackson was more of a spiritual type speech, more of a prayer. He asked the audience to hold hands a lot and just to bow their heads, and he gave a few words of encouragement. He also explained the story to the audience, you know, how some people may have misconceptions about what happened. He broke it down from the day that it started like the shoe that Mychal Bell was using, that they used it as a sign of a weapon, and it was just like different loopholes that you may have not known. The Rev. Jesse Jackson definitely provided that.

The Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans, he definitely spoke about different injustices in Louisiana. He brought up Katrina of course and just spoke about how we as individuals in America need to stand together to support different things and to help everyone out regardless if it’s black, white, red, Hispanic, Asian, or anything, like just mainly just sticking together to fight any cause regardless of their race. I think the thing that really struck me the most is that it’s not just African Americans that are out here. There are Asians, there are Vietnamese, there are, you know, Caucasians. There are so many people from so many different races and ethnic backgrounds, that it’s not just a black fight as many would say. It’s so many people and I think it will have an effect.

I think that any person who does something wrong needs to be punished. However, the severity of the punishment also needs to fit the crime. I don’t think that a fistfight needs to be attempted murder. I think that some people, all parties involved, should definitely pay for what they have done. However, I think that it should go according to what act they did.

TEACH YOUTH RADIO

Use the script and audio of the commentary in this Newsbreak to inspire students to explore these skills and themes:

Language Arts:
• Compare genres of journalism and writing.
• Create news reports.
Health:
• Debate the cause and effect of choices made based on “principles.”
Social Science:
• Explore the history of US protests and social justice actions through “eye-witness” accounts.

For this month's feature, you can access to these strategies and resources:
1. Ideas and Suggestions for lesson plans
2. Toolbox handouts
3. Synthesized Standards
4. Reporter Bios
5. Resources and further research
6. Youth Radio’s media production techniques

1. IDEAS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR LESSON PLANS:

LANGUAGE ARTS:
Acting out: To put Jiarra’s account of the Jena 6 demonstration in perspective, students can form groups and act out what Jiarra describes. Students can be assigned to play different roles, such as specific protestors, state troopers, and featured speakers. Have students draw on the ways that Jiarra uses words to paint a picture of the event she describes. After having students enact how the demonstration actually played out, have them go deeper. You might invite them to say out loud what key characters might be silently thinking. You might have them introduce individuals who were central to the Jena 6 story but not present at the protest: school administrators, teachers, students, parents, etc. You might have your students imagine and enact ways that one participant’s actions could have radically changed the way the protest played out.

Personal stories: Jiarra offers specific descriptions of particular people in this report to convey the sentiments of the protestors. She talks about meeting a three-year-old boy who attended the protest with his parents, seeing a woman who was suffering from heat exhaustion, people watching the events from the treetops, and people taking pictures with local Jena residents. How do these descriptions contribute to the effectiveness of her report? What other perspectives would you like to hear?

Speaking vs. Writing: Jiarra’s news report is an example of a piece that was spoken, without a script, and only later transcribed by Teach Youth Radio. What are some other examples of both improvisational and scripted spoken texts? How are these texts different from texts that are meant primarily for reading, and not listening? What, if anything, from the spoken version would you change for a written version?

*MEDIA LITERACY
In protest: Talk to students about their experiences with civil disobedience. Have you or your students ever participated in a protest? What was the purpose of the protest? What was the result of the demonstration? Were the demands met? What is your position on whether and how teachers should talk about their own personal politics with students? What do your students think?

In the news: Students can do research on the coverage of the Jena 6 protests. How does Jiarra’s piece compare to other reporters who have covered this topic, from various mainstream and alternative news outlets? What is different about her report?

Whose fight?: Jiarra says, “it’s not just a black fight.” Although much of the Jena 6 coverage has focused on how this issue has affected the lives of black youth, to what extent do your students believe that a multi-cultural dialogue is crucial to having an effect on the ultimate decisions in this and other cases? Why or why not?

Microphone check: Audiences at the Jena protest complained about microphones going in and out during the speeches- a technical problem that can also be “read” as a metaphor. How can the mainstream media control what the public hears? What can members of the public do to find and distribute the information they want and need? (This is a good place to plug Youth Radio as a distribution resource for your students’ stories!).

SOCIAL SCIENCE:
Protesting history: Students can imagine that they are journalists covering U.S. protests across various historical eras. Have students research some especially noteworthy public demonstrations in U.S. history matched to the time period you are covering in class. Have them create a character for themselves: What kind of journalist? For what publication? Reaching what audience? Negotiating what personal and professional tensions raised by their news assignments? Then have them create a report like Jiarra’s. How do they draw on “eye witnesses,” multiple perspectives, and telling details to characterize the sentiment of the event and the goals of the action?

Our country: Jiarra concludes her report with her own opinions on justice: “I think that any person who does something wrong needs to be punished. However, the severity of the punishment also needs to fit the crime.” Have groups of students create their own countries. What are the laws of their countries? What kinds of symbols represent their country on a flag? What does their national anthem sound like? What do citizens of their country look like? By creating countries and constitutions, how do they show their visions of justice? If something like the Jena 6 story took place in their country, what would happen next?

HEALTH:
Risky Business: Jiarra says she “was very, very afraid” for her safety at the protest, concerned that at any point the crowd could get “rowdy.” However, she says, “I knew that this was a monumental experience, and also a historical experience that I needed to experience for myself and not be told by others.” Jiarra wasn’t the only one on the scene thinking about her personal health and safety: “People are pretty much falling down, having heatstroke.” She describes a woman who seemed to grow dehydrated and fall down, only to get some water and then rejoin the protest. Have students reflect on discuss what causes, if any, they’d be willing to suffer for? To die for?

2. TOOLBOX HANDOUTS:

Use these to help students focus and extend understanding...Coming Soon!

3. SYNTHESIZED STANDARDS:

Subject: LANGUAGE ARTS
Reading: Comprehension
Reading: Connections
Reading: Response
Writing: Process
Listening & Speaking: Discussion
Media Literacy: Comprehension
Media Literacy: Analysis
Media Literacy: Evaluation

Subject: SOCIAL SCIENCE
Course: Modern World
Course: US History
Course: US Democracy
Lens: Citizenship
Analysis: Connections & Patterns
Analysis: Problems & Solutions
Analysis: Interpretations & Debates

Subject: HEALTH
Influence: Family, Peers, Community, Culture, Media & Technology
Decision Making & Goal Setting

4. Meet the Youth Radio REPORTER who produced the story:

Jiarra Jackson is a New Orleans native and college student at the University of New Orleans. She hosted Youth Radio’s hour-long Generation Katrina special, which aired on Public Radio International stations nation-wide.

5. RESOURCES AND RESEARCH related to the story's themes:

•The Jena Times
•Thousands Protest Arrests of 6 Blacks in Jena, La. (The New York Times)
•Vietnam War: College Protests (eMints National Center)
•Civil Rights Timeline (Infoplease)
•March 18-20: The World Says End the War! (United For Peace & Justice)
•Drop all the charges! (A.N.S.W.E.R.)
•REVEALING RACIST ROOTS - Jena 6 Resource Guide for Educators (Teachers & Social Justice)

6. MEDIA PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES:

Guides and inspiration for creative media-making projects: conducting interviews, writing commentaries, and producing features.

• MAKING AUDIO NARRATIVES •

For many more hands-on resources and behind-the-scenes accounts of youth media production, check out the new book, Drop That Knowledge: Youth Radio Stories. Written by Youth Radio's Research Director and Senior Producer, Elisabeth Soep, and San Francisco State Professor Vivian Chavez, it's being touted by media experts as a "landmark contribution to our understanding of media and youth movements in the US."

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