One World * One Dream * Free Tibet

The world's attention has turned to China in anticipation of the Summer Olympic Games to be held in Beijing in 2008. This has reignited the passions of the Tibetan people for independence and had led to worldwide protests of China's policy/practices of occupation in Tibet.


Here is Reuters coverage of student protests in Beijing.

The Olympic Torch has started its journey around the world, which will culminate with lighting the large flame at the Opening Ceremony in Beijing this summer. It was blown out three times in France, and has been met with protests everywhere. The Free Tibet Torch and the Olympic torch are currently in San Francisco (the only stop for the Olympic torch in the US). The city Board of Supervisors passed a resolution to greet the Olympic torch with "alarm and protest."


Here is some news coverage of the protests all over SF in response to the Torch. The organizers sneakily changed the route mid-way to avoid massive protests. However, protesters were all over the place and somewhat unavoidable.


Yesterday three activists climbed up the Golden Gate Bridge and unfurled banners and the Tibetan flag to show support for a free and independent Tibet. (There is no audio for this video)


This video shows the protesters climbing up.




Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Nicolas Sarcozy (the President of France) and others have called for a boycott of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in support of the Tibetan cause.

The Olympics were originally intended to be a time when war and violence ceased, and everyone focused on nations coming together in friendly athletic competition. There have been some acts of violence or attempted violence directed at Olympians or teams for political reasons (such as the murders of the Israli team at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972). And there have been some Olympic hosts and participants whose countries commit war crimes, even while the games occur (not the least of which is our own US of A).

Are there some atrocities that cannot be ignored for the sake of the Games? Or is ending violence and oppression part of the spirit of the Olympics that is served by using the event to focus the world's attention on ending human rights abuses?

Violence, Crime, and Economic Poverty

Bayview-Hunter's Point


Oakland

Straight Outta Hunter's Point

These two video excerpts are from "Straight Outta Hunters Point", the award-winning Hip Hop documentary by Hunters Point filmmaker Kevin Epps.

It is a stark cinematic portrait of a community struggling to stop the forces of gentrification -- denial of jobs, police brutality, environmental racism and more -- that have pushed 23 percent of San Francisco's Black population out of the City in the past decade. It has won the acclaim of critics and audiences at independent film festivals around the U.S., including Sundance and the Santa Fe Film Fest, where it was described as "a gritty, uncompromising film about the evolution and perseverance of a black culture in the shadow of poverty, race riots and gang-related rap wars."

These next two videos are excerpts from the film. They begin with some common footage/narration, but they diverge to address different issues: the first focuses on the history of Hunter's Point and the second focuses on recent problems with gang-related violence.




This is a music video by RBL Posse ("Ruthless By Law"--a gangsta rap group from Hunter's Point) for the film. It's kinda heavy on the chorus (which is kinda heavy itself), but the verses bring up topics like crime, drugs, and violence in the neighborhood: