The Seattle Times has a recap of last night’s mayoral forum:
Wednesday night’s Juneteenth mayoral forum in the Central District drew answers from the candidates on some tough questions about education and race. Once again, someone in the audience laughed out loud at one of Charlie Staadecker’s earnest answers, librarian Joey Gray told Frisbee stories, and Bruce Harrell referred to himself in the third person.
Former City Council member Peter Steinbrueck, still the subject of some head-scratching over his reading selection at a library forum this week, was not at the forum. He is out of town.
The candidates who were there had some tough talk for Seattle Public Schools. State Sen. Ed Murray said if he were mayor, he would forge a new partnership with the school district to increase the graduation rate.
To read the full story, click here.
Harrell earned big points with me over that answer. Honest. The rest danced around it.
Thanks for the report. I appreciate it.
Why would anyone be opposed to NOVA coming back? It’s a school, for God’s sake. I used to think it was sort of goofy, but I’ve met some really fine people who graduated from NOVA, so they must be doing something right.
The whole neighborhood is crawling with “community centers” – surely some of them have some extra space they could cough up for the “community”
THE OBSERVATION THAT THE COMMUNITY IS “IS CRAWLING WITH COMMUNITY CENTERS” IS CORRECT. THE PROBLEM IS ALL OF THEM ARE EURO-CENTRIC EUROPEAN COLONIAL SETTLER “JUDEO-CHRISTIAN” CONTROLLED “PLANTATION” INSTITUTIONS TO DISTRACT, CONFUSE AND CONTROL THE DESCENDANTS OF THEIR KIDNAPPED “ENSLAVED” (VICTIMS OF EUROPEAN SETTLER TERRORISM) COLONIZED AFRICANS??????
THE ONLY ONE CONTROLLED BY AFRICANS AND ADDRESSING THE IN YOUR FACE YOUTH / POLICE / “GENTRIFICATION” PROMOTED VIOLENCE IS THE AFRICATOWN CENTER AT THE FORMER HORACE MANN BUILDING????
SOME CANDIDATES AT YOUNG VOTERS LEAGUE MAYORAL CANDIDATES FORUM AT THE AFRICATOWN CENTER AT THE FORMER HORACE MANN BUILDING SAID “JUST FORGET ABOUT”THE 400 YEARS AFRICANS SUFFERED UNDER EUROPEAN COLONIAL SETTLER HITLER TERRORISM (CHATTEL SLAVERY / APARTHEID) “AND JUST MOVE ON”. TELL THIS TO THE GERMAN VICTIMS OF NAZISM THAT SAY, “NEVER AGAIN” OR THE 3 WOMEN IN CLEVELAND KIDNAPPED, HELD AND RAPED IN CLEVELAND FOR 10 YEARS NOT 400 YEARS???? IS IT TRUE THAT “THOSE WHO FORGET HISTORY ARE BOUND TO REPEAT IT”????
Omari Tahir, FOUNDER, VICE PRESIDENT AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE MUSEUM AND CULTURE CENTER AT THE FORMER COLMAN SCHOOL SITE23RD AND MASSACHUSETTS. THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES FOR “AFRIVATION” (ELEVATION AND LIBERATION OF AFRICAN CULTURE)
So your group’s need to be relocated from a taxpayer owned facility is akin to the Holocaust, or 400 years of slavery, or the ten year rape and torture of a groups of women?
Do you ever listen to yourself? Or are you just used to people smiling and nodding when you talk because they know you’re nuts?
Here’s an idea: have some fundraisers. Apply for some grants. Attempt to converse rather than bloviate, which means you have to listen, not just babble on with your bag of buzzwords. Maybe you’ll actually accomplish something and get a center of your own.
Lol…. all of them white and judeo christian huh….. seems to me pretty easy to find others – Seattle Japanese Cultural and Community Center, Ethiopian Community Center, Horn of Africa Services, CADA, Casa Latina, CAYA, Sea Mar, POCAAN, Indochina Refugee Association, Comite Pro Amnistia Y Justicia Social and your very own Umoja to name just a few….
I am still waiting for my Mel Brooks jewish indian center to open.
I would be happy if they would take down the event signs they put up around the neighborhood. I figure if you put them up, it is your responsibility to take them down.
So this great event and very empowering to see….it was also cool to see a school being used for the development of african american culture heritage and history….i do have a couple questions….why was this school empty? why did they close meany to house nova? what happened to all those students? and now why are the coming around to finally remodel the school? why did they sale mlk jr to a church group who is not using it at all for less money when they are broke? isn’t the school district notoriously racist? wouldn’t this project help (minimally) counter all the damage caused by gentrification? why were the police there intimidate local residents and members of the community? why did bruce harrell refer to a community school and cultural center as the “crumbs”? why was McGinn so late and disrespectful? why are all the community centers listed a product of colonialism and/or neoliberal foriegn policy and or complicate is massacares and neoliberal colonialism?
and lastly why is any of this funny to anyone? this is about a displaced community trying to regain and empower itself in a model directly pulled form other peoples/community in this same city albeit contextualized to fit that specific community…..
in the end this seems to be a positive move/response to gentrification and settler colonialism that plagues this “post” racist colorblind metropolis that serves as a beacon for neo liberal capitalism… Why not have an Africa Town?
1.) They didn’t close NOVA. They moved it. Now they want to move it back.
2.) The school district sure has a lot of non-white instructors and staff for being “notoriously racist” (This isn’t 1955, when that accusation held a lot of truth. That boat has largely sailed, and where it hasn’t the are mechanisms to change it)
3.) That “notoriously racist” school district sold MLK to an African-American church group for arguably less money than it was worth, which is a violation of policy. (I personally don’t care about that, if they are going to use it for the good of the community). That same district also “gave” the old Beacon Elementary to El Centro de la Raza, and sold the old Colman School to the African-American Museum at an extremely good price (800k), once some stable management had been identified.
All of this information is easily found on the Internet, which you obviously have access to. Maybe if you used this resource for educating yourself and becoming engaged in your community, you wouldn’t be so “displaced”
Simply amazing how little a tolerant society can tolerate. Weekness abounds here.
What is the weakness, and where is it abounding? Since when does tolerance mean no accountability, and having to let dubious arguments go unchallenged? We’re all adults, what’s the matter with trying to have an adult conversation?
Fine. Hide your lttle mind.
“why are all the community centers listed a product of colonialism and/or neoliberal foriegn policy and or complicate is massacares and neoliberal colonialism?”
Again… perhaps some research on your part is necessary…. while a few of these associations may serving refugees, a good number of them are not… POCAAN serves people with AIDS, JCCCW – is a place that shares Japanese culture with everyone, CADA- a business association, CAYA is a youth sports association….. just look some of them up… and that is by no means any sort of comprehensive list… there’s plenty of other good folks and good works going on in this community – like Coyote Central, CAMP… and even horrible judeo-christian organizations like the detestable YMCA and horrendous Boys and Girls club….
Garfield Community Center I believe has space for programming.