[Swprograms] SCA ethnic radio helps spread news of abuse of Haitian children in NYC school

[Joel Rubin <jmrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Perhaps it would be good to have LPFM and serious pirates? (not just
kids playing radio)

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/302866p-259299c.html

E-power to the people

What we are told about elementary schoolchildren being mistreated at
Public School 34 in Queens is horrific and unforgivable. But that we
heard about it at all - and that school officials have been pressured
to react more quickly than they might ordinarily - says something
about the power of outrage spurring action via community radio and the
Internet.

In mid-March, we are told, an assistant principal at the school
decided to punish all 13 Haitian fourth-graders in a bilingual class
after two of them had the kind of scuffle that is typical of fourth
grade - and childhood - everywhere. It was the punishment that was
cruel and unusual.

The kids were made to sit on the cafeteria floor and forced to eat
their lunch using their fingers, even as some of them begged for
utensils and others recoiled in humiliation as other school kids
looked on.

"In Haiti, they treat you like animals, and I will treat you the same
way here," the assistant principal, Nancy Miller, supposedly told
them.

After parents began to piece together the story, they contacted the
school but received no satisfaction for a few weeks. But then some of
them got the word out to people savvy with the Internet.

Francia Devis, an aunt of one of the 13 who were humiliated, helped
organize the protests. "With the E-mail, you send it to 10 or 30
people all together," she says. And, of course, those 10 or 30 forward
that E-mail to their networks.

And so on and so on. I learned about the situation from an E-mail
forwarded to me from a friend who had received it from someone else.
Its origin was from two Haitian radio hosts, Dahoud Andre and Manno
Louizaire, who learned about the PS 34 incident from Ninaj Raoul, the
executive director of Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, when she
appeared on their afternoon show.

Andre and Louizaire's show is broadcast on a subcarrier radio station
called Radio Lakay. You need a special radio receiver to hear the
station at 96.3 SCA.

Within days, well before the politicians showed up, not only
Haitian-Americans in New York City but people across the nation knew
something was amiss at PS 34.

"E-mail was huge," said Raoul. "We're part of other social justice
movements, so we just used our networks for that."

What is happening with the PS 34 protest represents a new level for
people aggrieved by very local problems - especially those who feel
marginalized by those who usually wield power. Too often, we grumble
and go little further than that. The PS 34 campaign demonstrates that
with a minimal investment of time in cyberspace, one can galvanize
people, attract media AND move bureaucrats off the slo-mo speed.

Gary Pierre-Pierre, the publisher of the Brooklyn-based Haitian Times
newspaper, was, like me, surprised at this effective use of
communication tools. "The future is here," he told me. "It makes
activism a lot more accessible."

Whatever the ultimate outcome of this protest drive - and so far the
assistant principal has been reassigned to an office job while the
case is investigated - I applaud the effort. More power to the people!

Originally published on April 24, 2005

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