By Manila Ryce
Published Sunday, April 13th, 2008, 5:02 am
Filed under: Human Rights, Videos: Political, World: Asia, Society/Culture: Civil Unrest, Society/Culture: Law/Order, Society/Culture, World Issues, Videos
Majora Carter, a 2005 recipient of a MacArthur genius grant and one of three New Yorkers chosen to run with the Beijing Olympic torch in San Francisco last Wednesday, had her rights violated after she pulled a Tibetan flag out from her sleeve as the flame was passed to her. The South Bronx native said of her decision, “As a civil rights activist in this country, I could not have these privileges and not use them.”
A Chinese paramilitary squad immediately snatched the torch and flag from Carter’s hands. The squad of Chinese guards escorting the flame are elite members of the People’s Armed Police, a 660,000-strong internal paramilitary force deployed to crush dissent in Tibet, and now in countries which are hosting the torch. Rather than protect Carter and her rights, American police officers then shoved her into the crowd.
Carter said she was in Memphis last week to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s death when Students for a Free Tibet asked if she would make a statement with her torch run.
She kept her plan secret, telling only her husband, James Chase, who helped her practice using a water bottle as the torch.
Born in the South Bronx, Carter is a 1988 graduate of Wesleyan College and received a master’s degree in fine arts from New York University in 1997.
She dreamed of being a writer and filmmaker, but began focusing on environmental issues in the mid-1990s when she led a fight that stopped Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s plan to build a waste facility in Hunts Point, the Bronx.
“I realized the things about the community that made it bad were brought there by an antiquated system, and I became politicized,” Carter said.
One of Carter’s fellow New Yorkers, a firefighter who used his time with the torch to honor those killed on 9/11, hypocritically said that Carter’s attempt to draw attention to a cause during her time with the torch was “disgusting and appalling”. The third New Yorker, a police officer, agreed that Carter’s act brought shame upon America. Coca-Cola, a worldwide sponsor of the Beijing Olympics said, “It’s unfortunate that Ms.Carter used an invitation to participate in the torch relay as a platform to make a personal, political statement.”
Yeah, politics have no place in our day-to-day lives. Why can’t we all just have a coke and stop worrying about who sponsors what? Ironically, Coca-Cola actually chose Carter to be an Olympic torch runner because of her work as an activist.
7 Responses to “Free Speech Extinguished by Chinese Forces on US Soil”
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“Yeah, politics have no place in our day-to-day lives. Why can’t we all just have a coke and stop worrying about who sponsors what? ”
I couldn’t help but wonder if you were thinking of my recent comment stating that the Oly
04/13/08 at 7:44 am
“Yeah, politics have no place in our day-to-day lives. Why can’t we all just have a coke and stop worrying about who sponsors what? ”
I couldn’t help but wonder if you were thinking of my recent comment stating that the Olympics should not be politicized. I think that people should be free to express themselves as they choose. What happened in this instance is particularly despicable.
However, there should be no more controversy over the Olympics being held in China than there was 12 years ago when the Olympics were held in Atlanta. Or even when they were held in Sydney, as Australia has its share of dirty deeds as well.
The Olympics happen to be sponsored by a load of dodgy companies, including the likes of Coca-Cola. So does that mean by watching the Olympics you are supporting those companies? Hardly. I certainly am not going to purchase any products from any of those companies just because they are Olympic sponsors. So let them waste their money on ineffective advertisements.
So actually, my beef with this is twofold. First, it seems absurd to boycott/contest the Olympics from a political perspective because every country has its list of dirty deeds so therefore every Olympic would have to be boycotted.
But second, it seems equally silly to boycott/contest the Olympics because of the companies that sponsor it. On the contrary, it seems that watching and supporting the Olympics but refusing to buy any of their products would be a much more effective protest. Because not only would the company be losing all of the money they spent on ineffectual advertising, they would also lose any money they hoped to get from you in the future.
04/13/08 at 7:56 am
Long before George W. Bush and his gang of thugs rolled into the White House I had already been using a word to describe him and them for which I was chastised, called a fool and shunned by other Americans. That word was and is “FASCIST”.
When will the people of this nation stand up to the U.S. government, all three branches, and say “this is it… this BS from you is going to stop NOW?” If the spirit that lived in the hearts of a great many of us back in the 1960’s and 1970’s were yet alive in the population there would be massive marches on Washington. The politicians of both the Democrats, the Republicans and that major domo whack-job Joe Lieberman of the Senate would be receiving thousands upon thousands of emails daily telling them that this CRAP is going to change NOW or they had better go ahead and accept the job from the lobbyists or their client firms that you were supposed to be regulating. Failing that they would be told to sell their DC lodging, load up and head out to wherever they wish to go…but go you will if you do not start representing your constituents rather than the monied, crooked corporate interests who are the de facto government of the U.S. today.
Additionally, absolutely corrupt Bushite koolaid guzzlers like Kevin Martin (among others at various and numerous key positions in the Bush/Cheney regime) at the FCC would be hung in effigy and hounded by emails, letters and phone calls and demonstrators in the streets demanding that he resign forthwith so that he can officially assume the job he’s already been doing for his corporate puppet masters of Big Media rather than staying on the public payroll accepting payment of taxpayers’ hard earned dollars under false pretenses. Martin at the FCC is not the only one, just the most egregious and the one who most arrogantly operates his little bailiwick so cavalierly and with total disdain for the interests of the citizens he is sworn to serve.
What more are Americans going to take from the fascist government that allows our citizens to be chastened, chastised and manhandled by the jack-booted goons of China on American soil in an American city? Then, the mindless and gutless police of San Francisco rather than leaping to that citizen’s (Ms. Majora Carter) assistance naturally aided and abetted in this assault on her freedom of expression by shoving Ms. Carter into the crowd that obviously stood by ‘chewing their cuds of complacency” rather than leaping to her defense. Moo y’all! Of course one should not expect too much of a town that produces a mental lightweight like Nancy Pelosi (and this nit-wit is just two heartbeats away from the Presidency - that ought to scare the hell out of you).
We are living in a full-blown fascist state and have been for years and years. This most recent incarnation, i.e. the Bush regime, is just the most in-your-face and blatant example.
Of course, the buffoon in the Oval Office has stated that he will attend the opening ceremonies of the Chinese Olympic Games “…to support our athletes…”. Well of course he will. This dim-wit has been a athletic supporter (i.e. a jock strap) all of his miserable life. The fact that he and our athletes will even be at the opening ceremonies of an Olympic Games in China while that same repressive government oppresses and murders Tibetans demonstrate the limits of Bush’s perceptions about anything more than his personal comfort and entertainment. If he had the integrity of the average shade-tree used car dealer the U.S. athletes would not be going to the Olympics. Of course, George Bush and integrity are mutually exclusive terms and should never be found in the same sentence except in an example of his total lack thereof.
This incident is just one highly public example of what has been allowed happen by your so-called representatives in Washington, DC while George Bush, Dick Cheney and the merry band of neocons and assorted nut-jobs of his “administration”. Let’s see now, there were the Patriot Act, The Military Commissions Act of 2006, the Protect America Act and so on and so on…
STOP THE INSANITY my fellow Americans! Tell Obama, Clinton and the McCain that this crap ends here. Do not vote this year in such a way as to assure more of the same. The Second American Revolution should begin here and now.
To Ms. Majora Carter, on the part of real Americans everywhere I extend to you an abject apology for the assault on your freedoms in San Francisco. Were George Bush a decent person, which he is not, he would be extending this apology to you rather than a broken-down old guy like me.
04/13/08 at 8:05 am
They set her up to knock her down.
Personally, I don’t touch the bloody froth of Coca Cola or any of the other contrived so called ’soft-drink’ conglomerates whose only concern is their own bottom line. Exploit and abuse; yep, it’s the ‘real thing.’ And not only in America, eh.
04/13/08 at 8:07 am
@Andy
“I couldn’t help but wonder if you were thinking of my recent comment stating that the Olympics should not be politicized.”
No, I wasn’t making a passive aggressive swipe at you. If I wanted to call you out you’d know it. Ha
“However, there should be no more controversy over the Olympics being held in China than there was 12 years ago when the Olympics were held in Atlanta.”
I agree completely. I’ve stated several times that we shouldn’t be hypocrites by denouncing China for occupying Tibet while we’ve got nearly the entire world under occupation. As long as we’re aware of the atrocities of our own government, and protest them even more heavily, there’s no reason we can’t have enough outrage for all tyrants and stand in solidarity with all oppressed peoples. There are certainly more posts condemning our occupation of Palestine and Iraq on this blog than China’s occupation of Tibet.
“First, it seems absurd to boycott/contest the Olympics from a political perspective because every country has its list of dirty deeds so therefore every Olympic would have to be boycotted.”
Yes, every superpower should be boycotted if they hold the Olympics. International law should apply equally to all rather than not applying to anyone.
“On the contrary, it seems that watching and supporting the Olympics but refusing to buy any of their products would be a much more effective protest.”
That’s exactly what we’ve been advocating. Every company profiting from atrocities should be boycotted. That’s not to say you can’t watch the games, but simply that you will boycott the sponsors. It might mean that Canada will be the only safe place to hold the Olympics for awhile, but a global boycott would send a clear message to multi-national corporations that the entire world is in agreement with what is and isn’t acceptable.
04/13/08 at 8:55 am
@Manilla
Thanks for clarifying. I guess we’re not in disagreement after all. Actually, I think this is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to atrocities otherwise ignored by most of the world. Boycotting the companies that sponsor the Olympics and expressing outrage over the atrocities committed by whichever country the Olympics happens to be held in is a good idea.
It’s the call for athletes to boycott the Olympics that I disagree with, but I guess no one here was even calling for that.
04/13/08 at 8:06 pm
Well, as stupid and atrocious as this is, it actually explains quite a lot. Namely, why the US doesn’t take a firmer stand against China’s human rights record. I mean, we don’t want to be viewed as hypocrites, do we?
That would be just wrong….
04/13/08 at 9:09 pm