The packed gymnasium erupted on Tuesday night with applause as the Oakland High School varsity boys basketball team ran onto the court for the first home game of the season. But their usual blue and white Wildcat jerseys were replaced by cerulean T-shirts with the message “NO H8” printed on the front, and a single name printed on the back, “Sasha.”
That name refers to Sasha Fleischman, a high school senior at nearby Maybeck High School in Berkeley, CA, who was badly burned after being set on fire while sleeping on a city bus. Sasha, who identifies as agender, was wearing a skirt at the time of the attack, leading police to investigate the incident as a hate crime. A student from Oakland High School has been apprehended and charged with assault with a hate crime enhancement.
Blog
December 17, 2013 - 5:56pm
The air in Leith, ND is an uneasy mix of relief and anxiety, as citizens nervously wait for the trial of the white supremacists who were trying to take over their town.
Craig Cobb and Kynan Dutton are scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 13, after being arrested in November for threatening Leith residents with guns during an “armed patrol,” according to a report by the Bismarck Tribune. The felony charges of terrorizing could land the duo in prison for up to 35 years.
December 13, 2013 - 4:26pm
Originally published in One Voice, the official blog of the National PTA.
By Becki Cohn-Vargas, Not In Our School Director
You could hardly blame me for thinking of the past two years as proof that humanity is doomed and deserves it. That’s what I told myself as I thought back on some of the recent horrors: schoolchildren massacred in Newtown, Connecticut. Movie watchers mowed down in Aurora, Colorado. Sikh worshipers murdered in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Gang rapes in broad daylight. Not to mention that after the bombings in Boston, people are afraid to go out to cheer for a marathon. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
December 12, 2013 - 2:47pm
By Becki Cohn-Vargas, Not In Our School Director
Recently, a group of Not In Our School student leaders in Soledad, California shared with me an anti-bullying video they made to show at their high school. The video dramatized a fictional girl who was cyberbullied and ended up stabbing herself to death in the nurse’s office.
I asked them why they felt they needed to highlight suicide when they were appealing to their peers to stop bullying. “Kids today are used to high school drama,” they told me. “And besides, they won’t listen to us if we just talk about ‘not bullying’.”
December 9, 2013 - 4:55pm
This post originally appeared on the ACLU of Northern California's Blog.
By Jory Steele
Like many people around the world, Nelson Mandela is one of my greatest heroes. I was incredibly fortunate to move to South Africa several months before he was elected the first democratic president of South Africa. I was coming of age, just as South Africa was transforming itself. It was a magical, hopeful time, and Nelson Mandela was at the center of it. His smile had the power to light the world, and he used his gentle, yet unbending strength to bring down an unjust regime and build a democratic nation in its place.