Culture Emission

Activist Erica Garner has died, after suffering brain damage following a heart attack. She was 27 years old.

Her official Twitter account announced her death Saturday morning.

She entered the public eye in July 2014 when her father, Eric Garner, died after being put in a chokehold by a New York City police officer. Eric Garner was seen on video saying, “I can’t breathe” 11 times before he died.

Erica Garner had been in a coma since Dec. 23, when she had an asthma attack that triggered a heart attack, according to the New York Daily News.

“When her son was born in August, she named her newborn after her father,” the newspaper reports. “Garner suffered her first heart attack shortly after the delivery, with doctors saying the pregnancy stressed her already enlarged heart.”

Erica Garner became a prominent figure calling for an end to police brutality, as her father’s last words became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement. She began staging weekly “die-ins” on the sidewalk in front of a beauty supply store in Staten Island, the site where the New York City police officer put her father in the fatal chokehold.

Obviously the world has changed dramatically since you were shooting this film. I can’t imagine you could anticipate the way those themes would resonate …

I did. And the reason why is that I’m Mexican. I’ve been going through immigration all my life, and I’ve been stopped for traffic violations by cops and they get much more curious about me than the regular guy. The moment they hear my accent, things get a little deeper.

I know it sounds kind of glib, but honestly, what we are living I saw brewing through the Obama era and the Clinton era. It was there. The fact that we got diagnosed with a tumor doesn’t mean the cancer started now.

Hopefully one of the things the movie shows is that from 1962 to now, we’ve taken baby steps — and a lot of them not everyone takes. The thing that is inherent in social control is fear. The way they control a population is by pointing at somebody else — whether they’re gay, Mexican, Jewish, black — and saying, “They are different than you. They’re the reason you’re in the shape you’re in. You’re not responsible.” And when they exonerate you through vilifying and demonizing someone else, they control you.

I think the movie says that there are so many more reasons to love than to hate. I know you sound a lot smarter when you’re skeptical and a cynic, but I don’t care.

But you’re not on a mission to change the way people see genre?

These difficult conversations are more important than ever. Here’s how to overcome the roadblocks.

1) Does not hurt rhinos

2) Discolours ivory (BRIGHT PINK) thus reducing saleability

3) Can be detected by airport scanners, even if ground up, thus increasing the chances you will be caught

4) Causes nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea if ingested by humans, thus driving away your customer base

California high schoolers reportedly created a “n*gger kill list” — but no one has been disciplined

At Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, California, every single black student was reportedly put on a “n*gger kill list” created by between six and 10 nonblack students at the school, the Root reported.

Students shared the list on social media, but when those responsible were identified, no one was disciplined, community members say. 

A spokesperson from the school district said that “appropriate disciplinary action” had been taken, according to the Root.

The high school is only 0.1% black, and the black community in Cupertino is still seeking justice. 

Attorney Richard Richardson filed a lawsuit on behalf of one student on the list, who has since left school amid the racial tensions and threats. 

The lawsuit accuses the school’s Fremont Union High School District of violating federal and civil rights claims and state education codes because they did not prevent discrimination against black students nor did they enforce anti-bullying policies. 

Other black community leaders have accused the school of not properly notifying the students or parents about the discovery. Read more (6/15/17)

Biologists at Tufts University in Massachusetts sent a bunch of flatworms to space for five weeks just to see what would happen, and were taken aback by the results.

“This one worm, due to its space travel experience, the cells got confused, and grew a head at the posterior end,” biologist Michael Levin, co-author of the study, told As It Happens host Carol Off.

The researchers sent a group of planarian flatworms — some amputated and some whole — to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX commercial resupply vessel on Jan. 10, 2015, to find out how the experience would affect their regenerative abilities.

One of the dissected worms came back with an extra pair of googly eyes.

Judge orders environmental impact study on DAPL, a last-ditch hope for the Standing Rock resistance

The fight against the Dakota Access pipeline has been a tumultuous cycle of small victories and big defeats. 

But even as oil flows through the pipeline, a federal judge might have delivered one more hope to the Standing Rock water protectors.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg handed down a memorandum opinion Wednesday demanding a new look into the possible environmental impact of the pipeline.

The pipeline has already sprung multiple leaks. 

It won’t stop the oil flow necessarily, but the judge’s opinion is a small victory for the Standing Rock Sioux, who have been taking their fight to the courts since the encampments were disbanded in February. Read more (6/15/17)

School administrators didn’t want Marvin Wright to read his own speech. He did it anyway.

Marvin Wright, 2017 senior class president at SouthWest High School in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, had his diploma withheld for more than two full days, WRAL reported.

SouthWest Edgecombe allegedly withheld Wright’s diploma as retaliation for his graduation speech, the Wilson Times reported.

Wright reportedly worked for more than two weeks on his remarks but was asked at the last moment to not deliver his speech and instead deliver one prepared by school administrators. According to the Wilson Times, the administrator’s speech was just four sentences long.

“To be honest, the speech that they wrote wasn’t me at all,” Wright told the Wilson Times. “I feel like they tried to belittle me in a way because I had more to say. I feel like they couldn’t describe the ways that I felt and the things that I experienced.” 

“There were only four sentences and I was like, ‘I really worked hard on this speech and as senior class president, I think I should read my own speech,’ and they was like, ‘No, this is what you are going to read.’”

When Wright approached the podium, he pulled up his speech on his phone and delivered it his way. Read more (6/15/17)