Page 18 - Florida Sentinel 3-15-16 Edition

National
Picture Of Lynching Embedded In Tables At A Joe’s Crab Shack Near You
Inmates: ‘Brutal Treatment By Guards Leads To Alabama Prison Riot’
Alabama prisoners post on Facebook that the riot was a buildup because of brutal treatment by guards.
Two employees from the William C. Holman Correc- tional Facility in Alabama were stabbed by inmates after an in- mate fight broke out. The in- mates started a riot and small fire in the hallway of the prison Friday evening, AL reports.
Police claim the riots began at 9:15 p.m Friday and were calmed down by 5 a.m. The in- cident began when a correc- tional officer responded to a fight between two inmates in the prison dorms. Once the of- ficer reached the men, he was reportedly stabbed nine times. Warden Carter Davenport was also stabbed after bringing more officers into the dorms to restrain inmates.
The inmates who reportedly started the riot were detained, Horton added. Atmore police, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office and Alabama Law En- forcement Agency were also called to the prison to ensure no possible escapes.
Inmates with access to Face- book claimed the riots took place due to brutal treatment from guards.
12 Dead After Armed Gunmen Open Fire At Ivory Coast Resort
Hotel employees place bodies into van.
ROSEVILLE, MN ---- Ty- rone Williams and Chauntyll Allen said they went to Joe’s Crab Shack in Roseville, Minn., on last Wednesday night for a friend’s early birthday dinner when they looked down at their table and saw it: a photograph, em- bedded inside of the table, de- picting the public hanging of a Black man.
“It had a cartoon character saying, ‘All I said was “I didn’t like the gumbo,” in a joking manner,” Williams said at a news conference last week. “I’m appalled,” Allen said at the news conference, organ- ized by the Minneapolis NAACP. “I don’t understand why they think this is some kind of joke, the trauma we en- dured on our Black body.’’
Williams snapped a photo of the image titled “Hanging at Groesbeck, Texas on April 12, 1895′′ and contacted the Minneapolis chapter of the civil rights organization.
Ignite Restaurant Group, Joe’s Crab Shack’s parent company, has since apologized for what it described as an of- fensive photo.
“We take this matter very se- riously, and the photo in ques- tion was immediately removed,” Ignite Chief Operat- ing Officer David Catalano said in a statement. “We sin- cerely apologize to our guests
who were disturbed by the image, and we look forward to continuing to serve the Ro- seville community.”
While pleased that the photo was removed from the Ro- seville restaurant, Minneapo- lis NAACP president Nekima Levy-Pounds said in an in- terview Friday that “there are broader concerns about whether that type of racist decor exists in other Joe’s Crab Shack locations.”
“We have not seen a com- mitment from Ignite Restau- rant Group that they will examine the decor in all of its restaurants and remove racist material,” Levy-Pounds told The Washington Post.
The scene depicted in the Joe’s Crab Shack table was the public hanging of Richard Burleson, a Black man, who was convicted of murdering J.G. McKinnon, a white man.
During the 1800s and early 1900s, it was common practice to produce postcards of public lynchings and executions. They were considered sou- venirs of public violence, and horrifying images carried jok- ing captions such a “You missed a good time” or “This is the barbecue we had last night.” The Postmaster Gen- eral in 1908 finally banned sending the postcards through the mail service.
GRAND-BASSAM, Gunmen have killed at least 12 people at a beach resort in southern Ivory Coast, reports the BBC.
The assailants reportedly fired on beach-goers in the town of Grand-Bassam, about 25 miles east of capital city Abidjan.
The Daily Mail reports that footage from a hotel balcony showed people running from their lives as the shooters tried to gun down unarmed vaca- tioners. Graphic images showed seven dead bodies scat-
tered across the beach of the resort.
Several French nationals may have been killed in the deadly attack, with witnesses describing how the gunmen ar- rived on the beach via a boat armed with machine guns and hand grenades.
A witness of Sunday’s attack told AFP news agency that “heavily armed men wearing balaclavas” had opened fire near the L’Etoile du Sud hotel, which was full of expats in the current heatwave.
Bowie State The First To Offer Hip Hop Studies Minor
BALTIMORE, MD ---- The oldest HBCU in Maryland, Bowie State University will offer a new academic minor program in hip-hop studies and visual culture in the fall 2016 semester, according to BSYou, a weekly newsletter from the school.
The program’s curriculum will draw on the arts, technol- ogy, media, history, and liter- ature to expand opportunities for critical discussion, collabo- rative research and creative projects. Students will engage with hip-hop scholars, artists and pioneers through guest lectures, hands-on workshops and field trips, notes the newsletter.
“We are trying to encourage critical research. Hip-hop is not just music: it’s a culture,” said Associate Professor
TewodrossMelchishua, coordi- nator of Bowie State’s visual communication and digital media arts (VCDMA) pro- gram. Melchishua is a member of the Universal Zulu Nation, founded by hip-hop pioneer AfrikaBambaataa and an award-winning filmmaker. Since 2008, he has taught hip- hop visual culture at Bowie State, the university’s only hip- hop-based course.
There are new courses cur- rently being developed by Bowie State faculty: a course on hip-hop’s roots in African and African-American culture and its societal impact; a hip- hop studio course focused on visual arts design; and a course exploring black con- temporary music and its im- pact on society.
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