Three arrested for protesting Wake School Board decision
Submitted by scharrison on Wed, 03/24/2010 - 11:56am
Unfortunately, their efforts failed to stop the resegregation train from leaving the station:
At the Wake school board where a historic vote to end busing for diversity in the county is expected, police removed around 20 people, many of whom appeared to be in their teens and early 20s, who refused to quiet down after they started loudly chanting in the hallway outside the board meeting room.
Dante Emmanuel Strobino, 28, of Raleigh was charged with second-degree trespassing, according to police reports, and transported to the Wake County Jail.
Police also charged Duncan Edward Hardee, 21, of Asheville, and Rakhee Shirish Vasthali, 20, of Fayetteville, with one count each of resisting, delaying or obstructing a law enforcement officer. They were transported to Wake County jail.
Okay, I'm going to deviate a little from the subject of regressive policy efforts by those who want to roll back the clock to the days when people "stayed in their place", and take a look at what I'm tempted to call "professional protesters". I also know that many here may take umbrage at my observations, and that's cool. I just want to get some thinking going on.
While reading this article, I noticed this:
The protesters included some of the same people who were removed from a state legislative hearing earlier this month on college tuition. They were also among the same people who held a protest earlier this month at N.C. State University over Pope's funding of a speaker on campus.
Which led me to search for some other references to these (arrested) protesters, like this 2007 incident:
Charges were dismissed against six Univ. of North Carolina students, Laura Bickford, Ben Carroll, Alisan Fathalizadeh, Sara Joseph, Dante Strobino & Tamara Tal, who visited the office of Rep. David Price on Feb. 16 to urge him to cut off funds for the Iraq War. They were charged with first degree trespass. However, Rep. Price wrote a letter requesting that the charges be dropped.
And this 2009 incident:
A ninth person was also arrested during the civil disobedience action on August 31, but, strangely, not charged. Duncan Hardee of North Carolina was pepper sprayed at point-blank range the next day; footage of his assault in Terrorizing Dissent was later played in the trial of Montana medic Sean McCoy, after which an SPPD commander admitted the use of mace was inappropriate. Hardee appeared on Democracy Now! and seemed a likely person to file a civil suit, though he has not. He was also wrongly cited by the SPPD as a "leader of sector 5," in the affidavit for what turned out to be a bungled raid on a Macalester College dorm earlier this year.
And these actions by the third protester:
Five years later, a similar protest is brewing in response to the December firing of former Rams Head Dining Hall cashier Angela Vargas, who said her termination for “unacceptable personal conduct” was retaliation for a series of complaints she lobbed against her managers.
Rakhee Devasthali, a member of Student Action with Workers, said petitioning will be followed at the end of the month with a protest outside Aramark’s offices in Lenoir and delivery of the petition.
Rakhee Devasthali from Feminist Students United at UNC-CH and Raleigh-Durham FIST speaks at rally at Freedom Corner in the Hill neighborhood in Pittsburgh.
From the G-20 in Pittsburgh to the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, on campus and off campus in the Triangle, these same folks are drawn to protest a variety of issues.
I'm sure many reading this admire their bravery and devotion, but where do you draw the line between spontaneous activism spawned from a perceived injustice, or a personal need for action or notoriety looking for a cause to get behind?
Is that what we've become? A mostly complacent society that relies on a small and radical subset of the population to voice the outrage we should be feeling? If more of us could remember how to "feel" again, and then spoke out about those feelings, would we need these "freelance" protesters anymore? Have they (somehow) been "cursed" to bear more than their share of the outrage, because we've lost our ability to feel it?
That's enough questions for now. Please have your answers on my desk by Monday.
My children
went to Wake County Schools. I'm so glad they are grown. Are we back in the 50s? I hope the feds get involved, because this is really bad.
Lovex7
Professional Protesters
I would say that Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and many others could also be called professional protesters--well maybe not because they were not PAID for their labor. I think that young people who are fearless and willing to fight for issues that the mainstream and many "so called liberals" ignore OR or unwilling to address are important allies in our movement for justice and equality. Fredrick Douglas said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand, it never has and it never will." We need young folks to keep up the pressure and hopefully inspire others push harder for the type of North Carolina we want to see.
That's part of what I'm talking about
But this shouldn't be just for the young folks, it should be all of us pushing. We're not talking about running a marathon, we're talking about figuring out what's wrong, coming up with ideas of how to fix the wrong, then talking about it.
Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe banging on walls, chanting slogans and getting arrested for trespassing is the best way.
I don't know.
protest is necessary when your locked out of a process
I think that they have left all of us AND the young people few options. We have presented facts, we have provided testimony, we have sent letters to the editor, we have had town hall meetings, we have had many many many many people present public comment, we have threatened litigation and so on. They have not listened. In fact, they have demonstrated animosity for our perspective and for the board members that share it.
We are in a marathon. We are in a long term struggle and every tactic is on the table. Protest alone never works. Many underestimate these students. You assume they are not planning, thinking, and strategizing about how to best move forward. This movement has united the x and y generation toward a common cause. They are also reaching out to others to build relationships. I think it's a testimony to the existing policy that so many youth and WCPSS Alums are against what is happening.
I am watching the media spin the story- but the truth is that students were from Broughton, Raleigh Charter, Martin Middle School, Ligon Middle School, Wakefield, Southeast Raleigh and Enloe. A majority - 95% at least- of the college students were Wake County Public School Alums. We are united against what's happening to our community. We do want a quality education for all.
We will never go back.