This is Dan Falcone’s letter to a teacher named Marilyn Zuniga. Zuniga’s students apparently wanted to write Mumia Abu-Jamal “get well” letters after learning he had fallen ill. The students knew of him from a Black history lesson on the topic of civil rights. Zuniga was disciplined for the activity and suspended without pay. Since the suspension, the students’ rights to be facilitated by the instructor has received support from the dean of the University of San Francisco’s School of Education, Kevin Kumashiro; world-renowned public intellectual Noam Chomsky; professor and social commentator Marc Lamont Hill; and Baruch College history professor Johanna Fernandez.
Dear Ms. Zuniga,
I wanted to thank you for your thoughtfulness, creativity, courage and careful attention to detail in theprocess of having young co-learners write get well cards to Mumia Abu-Jamal. The story of the fallen officer Faulkner is undoubtedly horrible, awful and sad. I have incredible sympathy for him and his family. I have close friends associated with members of the Philadelphia police and it is a truly sensitive and delicate matter.
Of course your sympathy, knowledge and foresight to help students actively participate and engage with goodwill to an activist who lives a life of resistance is noteworthy. I was saddened to see that you were suspended and removed from the classroom. Your school officials may have impressed certain cultural managers in Saudi Arabia, North Korea and China, but this should not happen in the United States, where expression rights are in fact unique in the world. I do realize that since the 2005 Supreme Court case of Garcetti vs. Ceballos, school employees have seen their unpopular speech rights gradually dismantled.
Across our nation’s schools I see students exposed to tremendous amounts of admiration for militarized law enforcement, politicians, veterans and members of active duty. The fascination with technology that lends itself to privatization and incarceration is also stunning. Other students join ROTC and have a fondness for military sacrifice and stories of valor including an affinity for the recent film, American Sniper.
The financial outpouring, educational support, and intellectual investment devoted to such thought exercises and entertainment formats involving aggression, invasion, occupation and killing is unflinching, unwavering and alarming in this country. It is all aided and abetted by adults. As a separate and asymmetrical issue, if students were to write letters to Taya Kyle to express sympathy forthe loss of her husband, for example, no school should ever be allowed to punish that teacher either.
At the same time, it is illiberal, immoral and hypocritical for schools, generation upon generation, in allowing military recruiters to enter and recruit a certain demographic of students. This is often done while falsifying how much money for college a person will get coupled with a second lie – where you will go after basic training. In actuality, the Enlistment Contract Sheet Section (C. h.) has the words that give the service rights to apply assets where duty is needed.
I find it sad but telling that simple yet profound letters to a sick individual could reach such violent opposition. Mumia Abu-Jamal was essentially detested by the local politicians and the police chief for years. He was ultimately failed by the legal system and he never received his basic rights of due process. Aside from not being Mirandized properly, no effort was made to establish a neutral jurisdiction. Abu-Jamal, deeply versed in law, was able to document and clearly identify perjury, doctored evidence and the coaching of witnesses. Yes, Officer Faulkner should not have died, but Abu-Jamal should not die nor decay in jail without a legitimate trial either. It’s rather simple.
Writing to Abu-Jamal is at best a chance to seek a better understanding for the legal ramifications, political phenomena and socio-historical contexts of the case and similar current affairs. For young people to start searching for these answers does not attempt to justify the death of a police officer, nor show insensitivity to his family.
At the very least, writing to Abu-Jamal is a chance for younger students to do what they often do best, empathize and intuit.Judith Butler recently wrote that the slogan “Black Lives Matter” [too] is something that should be obviously true, but apparently is not.
In short, I thank you for following your educational mission and engaging in this humanistic endeavor while valuing “intelligent dissent [over] passive agreement,” to quote Bertrand Russell.
Sincerely,
Dan Falcone
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy