This week our guest was Curtis Acosta who joined us in anticipation of the Western Massachusetts debut of the new documentary PRECIOUS KNOWLEDGE, in which his work as an educator is featured. The documentary highlights disenfranchised high school seniors who become academic warriors and community leadersin Tucson’s (Arizona) embattled Ethnic Studies classes while state lawmakers attempt to eliminate the program. Directed by Ari Palos. Precious Knowledge is a co-production of Dos Vatos Productions, the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and Arizona Public Media. 70 minutes. For more information, or for ways that you can support the effort to defend Ethnic Studies in Arizona, go to: Save Ethnic Studies(dot)org.
TRGGR feat. Curtis Acosta – 12.2.2011
Posted: December 3, 2011 by trggradio in Activism, Curtis Acosta, Ethnic Studies, Film Festival, Tucson Arizona0
TRGGR Radio – The Indigenous Edition 11.25.2011
Posted: November 26, 2011 by trggradio in Beats Beats More Beats, Commentary, Education, Hip-Hop
Visions of a Liberated Future (Film Festival)
Posted: November 19, 2011 by trggradio in Film Festival, New Muslim Cool, Operation Small Axe, Precious Knowledge, Salt of this Sea
VISIONS OF A LIBERATED FUTURE – A mini film festival
Four Films. One Day. Change your life.
Saturday, DECEMBER 3rd 2011 – 12noon – 7pm
HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE – ASH Auditorium
The TRGGR Media Collective and Community Partnerships for Social Change present a film festival to spread awareness about several critical social movements and issues currently taking place in society. We hope that this event will create an environment that fosters dialogue and inspire social action. The selected films will engage a range of issues including police brutality, hip-hop as social activism, oppression through occupation of land, and Arizona high school students fighting for Ethnic Studies.
Scheduled Films
12Noon
NEW MUSLIM COOL (2009)
Puerto Rican American rapper Hamza Pérez ended his life as a drug dealer 12 years ago,
and started down a new path as a young Muslim. Now he’s moved to Pittsburgh’s tough North
Side to start a new religious community, rebuild his shattered family, and take his message of
faith to other young people through his uncompromising music as part of the hip-hop duo MTeam.
83 minutes.
145pm
OPERATION SMALL AXE (2010)
‘Operation Small Axe’ takes a raw and unflinching look at life under police terrorism in
Oakland, California. Through the stories of Oscar Grant, Lovelle Mixon and P.O.C.C. Minister
of Information J.R. Valrey, the film focuses on the occupation of Oakland’s communities of color
and the diversity in resistance to the militarized police forces. 71 minutes.
330pm
SALT OF THIS SEA (2008)
Written and directed by Annemarie Jacir, “Salt of This Sea” features the trials faced by a
working-class in finding love and self-identity. Soraya, born in Brooklyn in a working class
community of Palestinian refugees, discovers that her grandfather’s savings were frozen in a
bank account in Jaffa when he was exiled in 1948. Direct, stubborn, and determined to reclaim
what is hers, she fulfills her life-long dream of “returning” to Palestine. Slowly she is taken apart
by the reality around her and is forced to confront her own anger. She meets Emad, a young
Palestinian whose ambition, contrary to hers, is to leave forever. Tired of the constraints that
dictate their lives, they know in order to be free, they must take things into their own hands.
109 minutes.
515pm
PRECIOUS KNOWLEDGE (2011) — Western Massachusetts Debut
Disenfranchised high school seniors become academic warriors and community leaders
in Tucson’s (Arizona) embattled Ethnic Studies classes while state lawmakers attempt to eliminate the
program. Directed by Ari Palos. Precious Knowledge is a co-production of Dos Vatos
Productions, the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and Arizona Public Media. 70 minutes.
‘Visions of a Liberated Future’ is sponsored by the TRGGR Media Collective, Community Partnerships for Social Change (CPSC), School of Critical Social Inquiry, ProphMC’s, Childhood, Youth and Learning (CYL), Dakin, Merrill, Enfield, and Greenwich Houses, and Council on Community Activities (COCA).
Free and open to the public. Seating on first come, first serve basis. Wheelchair accessible.
Ashanti Alston at Hampshire College, 10/26/2011
Posted: October 30, 2011 by trggradio in Activism, Anarchist Panther, Ashanti Alston, Black Panther Party, Hampshire College
Ashanti Omowali Alston is an anarchist activist, speaker, and writer, and former member of the Black Panther Party. Even though the party no longer exists, Alston continues refers to himself as a Black Panther, and as “the @narchist Panther”, a term he coined in his popular @narchist Panther Zine series. He was also member of the Black Liberation Army, and spent more than 11 years in prison after government forces captured him and the court system convicted him of “bank robbery” (more that 14 years total). Ashanti, like most anarchist freedom fighters, disputes the moral issues of property and terms his activity in the B.L.A. as “bank expropriation”. Alston was the former northeast coordinator for Critical Resistance (anti-prison industrial complex and abolitionist organization) and is a former board member of the Institute for Anarchist Studies. He is currently a Steering Committee member of the National Jericho Movement (to free U.S. political prisoners), a member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. Ashanti draws on decades of experience as a human being struggling for justice and uniquely connects various struggles—from black internationalism to the Zapatista movement, to anarchism, to prison abolition, to queer liberation, to radical feminism, to people of color struggles, to earth liberation—with critical insight and humility.
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TRGGR feat. Alex Morse – 10.28.2011
Posted: October 30, 2011 by trggradio in Activism, Alex Morse, Bay Area, Community Organizing, Holyoke, Local Politics
Peace, on this episode we spoke with Alex Morse, candidate for Mayor of Holyoke. We discussed his decision to run for the position, some of the challenges facing the city, his vision for the future of the city, and got his take on recent political developments on the national level. Enjoy and let us know what you think: trggrfreedom@gmail.com.
Part 1: feat. Alex Morse
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Part 2
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TRGGR feat. Girls Got Kicks – 10.21.2011
Posted: October 30, 2011 by trggradio in Girls Got Kicks, Occupy Movement, Piri Thomas
Peace, on this episode we paid tribute to the life and work of writer Piri Thomas (September 30, 1928 – October 17, 2011); and later in the show we spoke with Lori Lobenstine, founder of Girls Got Kicks/Female Sneaker Fiend about the release of her new book on female sneaker culture and the bonds of friendship and sisterhood.
Part 1:
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Part 2: featuring Lori Lobenstine
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TRGGR Radio 10.14.2011 feat. Sujatha Fernandes
Posted: October 15, 2011 by trggradio in Activism, Close to the Edge (book), Hip Hop Worldwide, Hunger Strike (CA), Mumia Abu Jamal, Occupy Movement, Sujatha Fernandes
Peace, on this episode Chris and REC were joined on the phone by author Sujatha Fernandes to talk about her work exploring the global dimensions of Hip-Hop from Paris to Caracas to Australia. As she writes in her latest book, Close to the Edge (Verso 2011) “The story of the global spread of hip hop is itself one of movement. A movement of ideas, a movement of commodities, a movement of people. If there is anything that marks this moment, it is as much the motion and mobility that bring us together as it is the boundaries and borders that divide us. Hip hop is a force defined by rupture and flow, and it remains to be seen whether global hip hoppers can reinvent themselves in the diaspora and build enduring links with their homelands” (189). We also briefly provide an update on the Occupy Wall Street mobilization, as well as hear commentary from Mumia Abu Jamal. Enjoy & Circulate!
Part 1: featuring Sujatha Fernandes
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Part 2
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TRGGR Radio – 10.7.2011
Posted: October 8, 2011 by trggradio in Activism, Disowning Columbus, Illmatic, Kenyon Farrow, Occupy Movement, Roberto Garcia Ceballos, Sohail Daulatzai
Peace, we had a crazy packed show that you definitely need to get caught up on. Chris, Rec, and Unique were joined by local activist Roberto Garcia-Ceballos, writer and activist Kenyon Farrow, and hip-hop scholar Sohail Daulatzai in conversations about local organizing (Disowning Columbus, Celebrating People’s Resistance), People of Color and the “Occupy” movement, and the staying power of Nas’ ILLMATIC album, among other issues and histories. Enjoy and spread the word!
Part 1: featuring Roberto Garcia-Ceballos and Kenyon Farrow
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Part 2: featuring Sohail Daulatzai
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TRGGR Radio : 9/30/2011
Posted: October 2, 2011 by trggradio in Activism, Bklyn Boihood, Children's Books, Community Organizing, Ryann Holmes, Ty Jackson, Uni.Mical
Peace, on this episode, TRGGR intern Unique Robinson joined Chris in studio to interview Ryann Holmes, co-founder of the Brooklyn Boihood project. Check out Ryann’s thoughtful discussion of her work and the queer community she represents in Brooklyn. In part two of the show, we speak with Ty Allan Jackson, creator of two children’s books centered on the positive perception and financial literacy of children of color. Let us know what you think of it all! And remember to organize as if your life depended on it.
Part 1: featuring Ryann Holmes, co-founder of Bklyn Boihood
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Part 2: featuring children’s book creator, Ty Allan Jackson
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TRGGR Radio – 9.23.2011
Posted: September 27, 2011 by trggradio in Activism, basketball, Grassroots Global Justice, Troy Davis
On this episode: We’re still seething with anger over the Georgia execution of Troy Davis; we get an update from the Grassroots Global Justice Congress in Raleigh, NC by Yuwsuf Bell, and we speak with Terrell Vinson of the UMass Men’s Basketball team. Enjoy!
Part One:
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Part Two:
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