Goldtent TA Paradise

Having been a woodworker most of my life, I’ve known Rick

1. Fullgoldcrown says:

   June 14, 2020 - 2:58 pm at 2:58 pm

   Rick Williams was walking through Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone when he stopped to read a sign, held by a person sitting near the entrance to Cal Anderson Park. The sign listed names of those killed by law enforcement officers in Washington state – more than a dozen on the cardboard.
   “There he is,” Williams said Saturday night, pointing to the third name from the top. “There’s my brother.”
   “John T. Williams,” the sign detailed, “killed by Seattle police.”
   Thousands have descended on the CHAZ (also referred to as Capitol Hill Occupied Protest), the six-block area around the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct taken over by demonstrators for the past week. John T. Williams’ name is brought up often, in conversations, chants and cardboard signs.
   Ten years ago, the First Nations woodcarver was shot and killed by a Seattle police officer at Boren Avenue and Howell Street. The Seattle Police Department’s Firearms Review found the shooting unjustified.
   Rick Williams has spent several days in the CHAZ. On Saturday evening, he marveled at the way it had expanded since he first arrived.
   “To see this, I am honored,” he said. “If John were here, he would be honored. All my heart and soul show this will work. The government is listening, that we have had enough. I’m proud of this.”
   He, like his brother, is a woodcarver; he and his son are carving a totem pole under a tent set up at Cal Anderson Park. People recognize him often, which he wasn’t expecting, because the demonstration “is about what happened to George Floyd,” not his brother. He was stopped multiple times on a walk from one side of the park to the other, as others recounted meeting him at various anti-police brutality protests over the years.
   During a round of speeches, a man with a megaphone asked him to come up and speak to the crowd. Williams had to leave, “because it hurt my heart” to hear everyone chant his name and his brother’s name.
   At one point, he said, he saw a group of young men react in pain after being exposed to tear gas, and so he went over to try to help them. Somebody said he knew him as “John T.’s older brother.” One man said he felt honored to meet Williams, and bent down as a sign of respect.
   “No kid, get up,” Williams recalled saying. “That’s the only way you are going to make a difference in the system. By standing up together.”
   Paige Cornwell: 206-464-2530 or pcornwell@seattletimes.com; on Twitter: @pgcornwell.
   Sometimes the media gets it
   -> Posted by Steins1 @ 10:52 am on June 14, 2020 :: Edit post No Comments
   on Sometimes the media gets it

   Inspired by the 1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade, Seattle Children’s March draws on rich history of youth protest
   June 13, 2020 at 7:45 pm Updated June 13, 2020 at 9:55 pm

   It was here, at Garfield High School in 1961, that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech on his only trip to Seattle.
   So it was only logical that on Saturday, nearly 60 years later, the school would be the starting point for the Seattle Children’s March, a milelong protest inspired by the 1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade, when thousands of kids skipped school to protest racist institutions and segregation.
   “It is not about us adults,” said Toyia Taylor, an educator and motivational speaker who spearheaded the event with youth. “We cannot lead the way because we have already tried and we have already failed.”
   The children at Saturday’s march, which wove through the city’s once predominantly Black Central District, did not face violent reaction from police while they demonstrated, unlike like their counterparts in 1963 Birmingham, Alabama. But they were connected, through the ages, by the same urge to start a revolution after bearing witness to racism and police brutality.

   Fist raised, Marriam Midamba, with her daughters Zayyan, 5, and Zewenah, 10, responds to a speaker at the Seattle Children’s March on Saturday. (Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)

   Desi Maher, 13, who’d been out protesting late last month, said kids belong in this movement because they can face violence at the hands of police, too. The police deploy pepper spray and tactics to disperse crowds, they do so without knowing if children might be present, he said.
   “If my Blackness is threatening, I will never truly be unarmed to them,” said Desi.
   Desi and other youths read 10 demands to the large crowd gathered at the start of the event.
   Along with police accountability reforms, many of the demands are what Seattle’s civically engaged teens have spent years calling for: more Black teachers, an end to the King County youth jail, equitable school funding and a stronger youth voice in government decision-making. (Demand eight, for example, asks the city of Seattle to create a paid youth council that would work with local governments to inform decisions about youth criminal justice and more racially inclusive curriculum in schools.)

   Toyia Taylor, who with youth spearheaded the Seattle Children’s March, speaks at Saturday’s march. (Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)

   Speeches and performances focused on the wisdom of community elders. The protest’s logo was a Sankofa bird, a symbol from the Akan people of West Africa, a reminder to look to the past while moving forward.
   As they made their way to Bailey Gatzert Elementary School, the march endpoint, students weighed in on what needed to change.
   “The police need to be nicer and nonracist,” said Luella Ducksworth, 10. “We need to be heard so that when we get older, we can live in a safe community.”
   For parents like Faiza Mohamed, the protests are serving as a teaching experience in the middle of a pandemic when schools are closed. Mohamed said she wants her sons, who are Black, to know how to advocate for themselves and fight injustice.
   Her 3-year-old son Zahir, seems to be picking up those lessons already. He stood on a corner on 14th Avenue, holding a mini megaphone, leading dozens of adults in “Black lives matter” chants.
   Dahlia Bazzaz: 206-464-8522 or dbazzaz@seattletimes.com; on Twitter: @dahliabazzaz.