ACTION: Support Crenshaw Parent Activist - Kahllid Al-Alim To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Cop Watch LA" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 09:43:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: [DopeXResistance-L.A.] URGENT: Letters Needed to Support Crenshaw Parent Leader - Kahllid Al-Alim
URGENT: Letters Needed to Support Crenshaw Parent Leader Dearest Good People: Happy New Year. I hope this finds you rejuvenated, refreshed, and wonderful. Friends, one of our great community leaders needs our help. Many of you know Kahllid Al-Alim (a.k.a., Curtis Gibson). Over the past 6 years, many of you have interacted with him at Crenshaw Cougar Coalition meetings, Coalition for Educational Justice meetings, in Crenshaw High School classrooms where he has been helping, Campaign for Quality Education events, MORE-LA meetings, UTLA community gatherings, rallies for educational justice, Park Mesa Heights Neighborhood Council meetings, etc. Very powerful-speaking, bald-headed, short, muscular man -- you'd recognize him. He is currently in jail, and desperately needs our help. The judge over his sentencing has acknowledged that this is a remarkable case -- and that community voices will help him to make his decision. Please take 10 minutes to write a letter, sign it, and send it to me, as I will be working with Kahllid's attorneys to get the letters to the judge -- my address is 3827 Hepburn Avenue, LA, CA 90008. Our objective is to get the judge to recognize Kahllid's incredible community work, and thereby reduce his sentence as much as possible. An appeal may also be possible. In either case, letters will be centrally important. We are trying to get letters sent to me by January 15, as Kahllid's sentencing hearing is February 1. A sample letter with the judge's name is attached. Use it as you may. A description of Kahllid's case, the history, and his work is cut and pasted below this introduction. Please take a look. It doesn't matter whether it's letters from individuals or from organizations. The important thing is that we get letters. If you don't know Kahllid well, but you know his work, please write. Organizations like CCC and CEJ have already written letterhead organizational letters. Even though that's the case, we need individual letters as well, even if you're from those organizations that have already sent letterhead pieces (like if you're a member of CCC or CEJ, we need your individual letters as well). Kahllid's daughters are at Windsor Hills Elementary and Hyde Park Elementary, both in the Crenshaw/Dorsey area. They're counting on us. Thanks so much. Please let me know ASAP whether you can get a letter done and sent to me by January 15. Yours, Alex Caputo-Pearl Social Studies Teacher and UTLA Chair, Crenshaw HS Organizer, Coalition for Educational Justice Cel - 310-871-7348 Kahllid Al-Alim (a.k.a., Curtis Gibson), an involved parent of elementary-age children, a community and education equity activist, sits in jail today. His track record of positive work as an elected representative of the Park Mesa Heights neighborhood council, an elected leader of the Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ), and an active member of the Crenshaw Cougar Coalition (CCC) and KPFK notwithstanding, Al-Alim faces sentencing on February 1. If community voices are not heard by the court, if your voice is not heard, Al-AlimâEURO(tm)s family could lose a father to the cellblock, and South Los Angeles could have one of its finest activists benched from frontline community work for up to 12 years. On Saturday, June 19, 2004, Al-Alim and his family joined with their neighbors in a Hyde Park apartment complex to throw a Juneteenth party. Though the party was peaceful, LAPD officers entered the complex and intervened in ways that many felt were aggressive and inappropriate. Officers claim a bottle was thrown at them. In the flurry that followed, Al-Alim, who was attempting to intervene to calm the situation peacefully, was taken down by several officers and beaten so intensely that his face was not recognizable to family members and friends afterwards. He was charged with assault on a police officer and resisting arrest. In large part because of the court's recognition of Al-Alim's deep and positive community involvement, and corresponding character references, he was released on his own recognizance. This, combined with the shaky details provided by the LAPD, caused the case to be dropped shortly thereafter. However, when shifts occurred within the District Attorney's office, the case was re-opened, and Al-Alim was found guilty in September 2007. At the sentencing hearing of October 29, the judge acknowledged that he was very conflicted, in fact, stating that this was one of the most unusual cases he had seen in his many years on the bench. In one hand he held the guilty decision, and in the other hand, many letters from organizations and individuals stating the depth of Al-Alim's passion, commitment, and contribution to community work. The judge decided that he needed a 90-day review period before he could sentence Al-Alim. Before February 1, it is critical that the court receive more accounts of the incredible work that Al-Alim has been a part of for the past many years. In the context of the ever-expanding prison-industrial complex, the criminalization of people of color, the Jena 6, and the clear cause and effect relationship for young people between inadequate schools and interface with the prison/parole system, it would be criminal for another of our leaders, another of our strong, male, African-American leaders, another of our leaders who has a critical analysis of the system and possible solutions, to be taken from us. And, in this case, the irony would be overwhelming - Al-Alim having been snared by exactly the forms of injustice he has been helping to battle for years. For example, Al-Alim has been working with CEJ for 6 years - his moral authority in this parent/student/teeacher organization so deep that he was elected for 3 terms to its Steering Committee. In CEJ, he used his own experience of being a parent to children in the Crenshaw family of schools to build a base of South Los Angeles parents around issues of equity and democracy in schools - specifically around demanding equal opportunity to learrn for all students (especially in today's context where students are held equally accountable for the High School Exit Exam). Al-Alim also focused on developing the leadership of the youth in CEJ, contributing mightily to its student-run High School Strategy Group, which consistently used 'education not incarceration' as a conceptual frame. Al-Alim's organizing and leadership skills in CEJ are recognized beyond Los Angeles. He co-authored an article on teacher professional development - specifically, how teachers can connect to their profession through linking to community organizing around educational justice issues - that appears in Teacher Education with an Attitude, published in 2007 by State University of New York Press. He presented on this article, along with the student and teacher co-authors, at conferences in New Orleans and Los Angeles. As the elected representative over youth issues for the Park Mesa Heights neighborhood council, Al-Alim connected these school issues to the neighborhood context. In addition, he connected young people to community activities, events, and service - consistently attemptiing to provide young people with positive opportunities and alternatives to some of the negatives of street life. He provided active support for the Crenshaw High School Academy of Business and Entrepreneurship, specifically around community economic development issues and projects. Al-Alim has been part of the Crenshaw Cougar Coalition - a parent-led coalition of parents, community, teaachers, and students - from its inception on the sidewalk in front of Crenshaw HHigh in April 2005. As such, he was involved in helping to restore Crenshaw High's accreditation - the Statee specifically and formally acknowledged the work of CCC, parents, and community in this critical piece of work. Most recently, Al-Alim has been involved in CCCâEURO(tm)s pathbreaking efforts to explore reform options - through LAUSD's newly-created Innovation Division - that would bring more decision-making and accountability into the hands of parents, community, educators at the site, and students. You name a critical justice issue that people, especially youth, face in Los Angeles, and Kahllid Al-Alim has been there, putting in the time, working towards solutions. Kahllid Al-Alim must not be taken from his family, from his daughters, for years. He must not be taken from his community and his critical work for years. His vision, passion, and leadership must not be stifled. This has happened too many times before. None of us can afford for it to happen again - this time to Kahllid. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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