Received this from Antwi on Saturday morning — it’s being circulated all over the place anyway, so here it is in full:

Greetings Everyone,

I am up. Awake. Meditated. Eating right. Exercised. Disciplined.
Dedicated. Committed. Focused. Alert. Conscious. Ready.

Every morning. Every Evening. Every Afternoon. Every minute of the day starts and ends with thanking all of you for all of your support. Every morning. Every Evening. Every Afternoon. Every minute of the day starts and ends with a prayer for those less fortunate than me left behind bars. I am blessed. We are blessed.

SO GOOD MORNING EVERYONE!!!!!

I am wide awake!!!

I wanted to wish all of you a good morning and hope that the glorious rays of the sun greet you as you rise….along with the quote of the day:

So here it is…the quote of the day sent from one of my Grad student friends (rida/soldier for truth) at U.C. Santa Barbara who stands in solidarity with all of us….

“In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation, they must perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform” (Paulo Freire 1970).

So time to get to work.

Get organized/Stay unified (That’s the theme for today in my mind)

Questions I’d like to have answered (I’m sure you all have questions you’d like to have answered as well):

1. Why did neither the security guard or police officers ask to see my faculty i.d.?
2. Why weren’t other people approached and asked to put their hands behind their backs? Why only me?
3. For the administration (What do you think Racial Profiling looks like in the 21st century?) Clue: Do you think it has something to do with following/and harassing people of color?
4. Why was I arrested? On what grounds? What crime did I commit? Is it a crime to go to your office? To go to work to serve your students and community? My children would love to know that answer to this question.
5. Why wasn’t anything done last year? In other words, why wasn’t a policy put in place when I reported racial antagonism and racial profiling on the part of the SFSU PD to our Dean (who forwarded the message to the Police Chief last year)? Why did no one address our concerns?
6. Why can’t I (and perhaps other faculty and students of color, and perhaps other faculty and students period) feel safe in their own offices or on their own campus? Why isn’t the administration supporting the creation of a safe work/campus environment? Shouldn’t the police and professors/students/staff/administration be working together not against one another to create a safe work environment?
7. Why haven’t all the charges been dropped? Why hasn’t the University written a letter to the District Attorney’s office asking for the charges to be dropped immediately?

Truth be told, this situation has already taken something from me that can never be replaced. That is, I as a Black male have gone for over 35 years with my name and finger prints out of the criminal justice system (That is close to impossible to do in our Apartheid like system). When the police at the SFPD saw how clean my record was they were shocked. They couldn’t believe that I was never in the system. I have lost my innocence (Both physically and metaphorically). Now I am forever in the Matrix. My name and finger prints are in the criminal justice system all across American and the World.

I greet the day with this knowledge. I also greet the day knowing that there is an exit. There is a way to transform!

Holla if you hear me…

In solidarity,

Brotha Akom

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Lots of e-mail messages going around (my colleague Matthew Shenoda tells me it’s nationwide now), but I will instead post some excerpts from messages from Antwi Akom himself, on “evidence of a pattern of racial antagonism, criminalization, normalization of racial profiling that can no longer be tolerated.” (To be strip-searched, forced to wear the orange jumpsuit, his hands and feet chained and shackled, and placed into the violent offender ward — “a jail cell covered with piss and shit with 11 other men who had to use toilet paper as a pillow” — it boggles the mind.)

I am up at 4:00am. I cannot sleep. Because I am deeply disturbed by the institutional racism that is plaguing our campus, communities, and country.

…

This is straight fuckin’ harassment that must be collectively resisted before the campus police seriously injure or kill one of us for simply working in our own offices. We do not live in a police state.

Or do we?

…

I cannot sleep. Those less fortunate than me are still in jail. I cannot sleep. This is so much bigger than me. Institutional racism is straight destroying our youth, our communities, our future. … The pain and suffering that I witnessed has shaken me to my core. I am a changed person.

And I cannot sleep the same again. I am wide awake.

I thank you all for your support.

But I want to remind everyone:

“This could have happened to any of us…and every day it happens to many of us….”

On behalf of the College of Ethnic Studies, the Dean formally delivered the college’s request to SFSU President Robert Corrigan to have the charges dropped — in essence, asking Corrigan to “encourage” the District Attorney to do so.

Later this afternoon, a memo from Corrigan was released, referring to, with characteristic — ah, what’s a good word — caution, “a suspension of judgment until a full, clear picture emerges and rumors can be replaced by facts” and stating that he “will take no further action until their review is completed.” The said review will be conducted by a two-person team — former City Attorney Louise Renne and former SF mayor Willie Brown.

Meanwhile, a link to a .pdf file from the ACLU (provided everyone by my colleague Andrew Jolivette) on a racial profiling report, produced by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, that was buried by the DoJ.

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Found on Ktrion‘s blog (finally met her the other day) — Google your name, plus the word “needs,” so in order of Google appearance:

1. Benito needs a varsity girls track and field head coach.
2. Benito needs more HUGS!
3. Benito needs to pull his head out of his Bush.
4. Benito needs to stay hot for SF to win.
5. Benito needs a boa constrictor.
6. Benito needs to fill this position immediately.
7. Benito needs another trip to 1987.
8. Benito needs an additional $840 of monthly disability income insurance coverage.
9. Benito needs to be kept in a controlled environment in Nashville.
10. Benito needs to do this… and you must let him.
11. Benito needs a serious bath.
12. Benito needs a place in the funny pages of a major newspaper.

I’m not tagging anyone — but the V-Monster really really needs to google “Veronica needs.”

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I wasn’t planning on writing about this just yet, but now that the news has been more widely circulated: here’s the SF State’s Golden Gate [X]Press‘s story on my colleague Antwi Akom’s arrest.

You can, I’m sure, imagine the anger and frustration we’re all feeling here. At the College of Ethnic Studies meeting described in the article, it was mentioned that (and I’m operating on hearsay here, so I’m being careful) that the police did not ask Antwi for identification. Had the police done so (I’m guessing), and had they at least looked up while they threw Antwi to the ground and handcuffed him, they would have at least seen the name on the door of the office from which he came out: Dr. Antwi Akom.

Many faculty members thought to themselves — as did I — that could have been me. But at the meeting, one student spoke up and said that if it had happened to a student (and not a professor), the meeting probably wouldn’t be taking place. Ashamed, I — and so did some faculty members, I’m sure — didn’t completely disagree.

I’ll post more details as they’re made more public; things are zipping around, at least internally on campus, via e-mail, but the very real legal ramifications require me to be more circumspect and opaque about this. One thing, at the very least, is clear, though: all charges must be dropped.

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It’s all about torque and enjambment.

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