cook book

laurelove:

Assata: Exile since 1979
On May 2 1973, Black Panther activist Assata Shakur (fsn) JoAnne Chesimard, was pulled over by the New Jersey State Police, shot twice and then charged with murder of a police officer. Assata spent six and a half years in prison under brutal circumstances before escaping out of the maximum security wing of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey in 1979 and moving to Cuba. 

Assata: In her own words
My name is Assata (“she who struggles”) Shakur (“the thankful one”), and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of  government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government’s policy towards people of color. I am an ex political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984. I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I  joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program. because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar  Hoover called it “greatest threat to the internal security of the country” and  vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.

Source: monalomax

theramenchronicles:

zami:

str8nochaser:

spokenbeats:

Black Mother Jailed For Sending Kids to White School District 

 

An Ohio mother of two was sentenced to 10 days in jail and placed on three years probation after sending her kids to a school district in which they did not live. Kelly Williams-Bolar was sentenced by Judge Patricia Cosgrove on Tuesday and will begin serving her sentence immediately.

The jury deliberated for seven hours and the courtroom was packed as the sentence was handed down. She was convicted on two counts of tampering with court records after registering her two girls as living with Williams Bolar’s father when they actually lived with her. The family lived in the housing projects in Akron, Ohio, and the father’s address was in nearby Copley Township.

Additionally, Williams-Bolar’s father, Edward L. Williams, was charged with a fourth-degree felony of grand theft, in which he and his daughter are charged with defrauding the school system for two years of educational services for their girls. The court determined that sending their children to the wrong school was worth $30,500 in tuition.

….

Secondly, it’s interesting how courts find it convenient to make someone into an example when they happen to be poor and black. I’d love to see how they prosecute wealthy white women who commit the same offense. Oh, I forgot: Most wealthy white women don’t have to send their kids to the schools located near the projects.

This is quite a disgraceful act of so called “justice.” Why should a mother be jailed for wanting better educations for her daughters? The real crime is not that of Mrs. Williams-Bolar, but that of the racial divides in our education system. Not only does the system remain segregated, but virtually exclusive as well. When one thinks about how the mother even ended up in court is shady. Obviously someone found it suspicious that two black children were attending a predominantly white school. 

What about the harsh actions of the judge? Prosecutors were fine with probation, however with the felony charge of simply ten days in jail, the mother is ineligible to teach in the state of Ohio. Which, she took on to improve the lives of her children. 

This is absolutely disgusting and I’m more disturbed by the lack of outrage or leadership by civil rights group. Where is the NAACP? Where is the ACLU? 

This is ridiculous and sickening. The system is inherently set up to be unfair. Its why organizations like Teach for America, the Teaching Fellows and City Year exist. They’re trying desperately to level and inherently un level playing field. 

I experienced both and can tell you that truthfully there is a difference between the QUALITY of education available in poorer and wealtheir districts. And the difference is independent of the teaching staff. I’m talking about resources.

Living in my wealthy WHITE suburb, I got to take Japanese, Genetics with the Wistar Institute at UPenn and had enough AP credits to skip a semester of college. 

Teaching in St. Louis, I was a lab science teacher… without a lab. I didn’t even have enough books for each of my students to have a copy. Just a classroom set. I poured about 30% of my check BACK into my classroom, to supplement things we needed, but weren’t in the budget. And of course, they wanted us to “teach to the test” since poor scores meant less funding. 

This mother was trying to do the best she could by her children. She wasn’t deliberately attempting to defraud the system, which my nature is fraudulent. Yet she was “made an example of” in order to maintain the status quo. 

Herr children are only entitled to a quality education if she can afford to live in a wealthy district. 

WOMP. 

what a glorious society we live in where a mother goes to jail for wanting to afford her children a better education and where color lines dictate educational power. that’s just sick!

Real life is afoot. My mother should most definitely be locked up, black women have forever been prosecuted for giving their children better lives. Black women can’t catch breaks, this shit is revolution. Fuck what y’all talking bout. SHE IS REVOLUTION.

Source: spokenbeats

theramenchronicles:

so beautiful. 

sapphrikah:

zami:

• carrying the weight of his world by saddi khali

Source: saddikhaliphoto.com

thecrochetkingpin:

me and @oranything love, i cant wait to see you in a few weeeeeeeksssssssss!

the most!

Source: thecrochetkingpin