Expect to have your marijuana misdemeanors and felonies expunged and reviewed if you ever got caught up after 1975 in San Francisco, California.
A new law backed by District Attorney George Gascon promises to give those affected by the War on Drugs a second chance. According to WaPo, DA Gascon said at a news conference on Wednesday,
“We want to address the wrongs that were caused by the failures of the war on drugs for many years in this country and begin to fix some of the harm that was done not only to the entire nation but specifically to communities of color…”
Don’t be jelly if you’re not a San Fran resident. Hopefully, this is only the beginning of poppin’ provisional laws to come as new marijuana legalization laws come into effect. This is a reason to celebrate with a fat one.
Still, it will be brolic to petition the courts in regard to getting bagged for the loud. The Drug Policy Agency said, there have been 500,000 arrests for marijuana offenses in California in the past 10 years, and it estimates up to a million people have reviewable convictions on their records.
That’s a lot of cases to review, but DA Gascon and other officials are working hard to ensure the petition process is stupid light for those who have not seen the provision publicized in lower income areas.
So far, since the provision went into effect in November 2016, 4,500 people have petitioned to have their convictions changed and DA Gascon is starting to automatically change and review thousands of cases at no cost.
San Francisco Supervisor Malia Cohen told WaPo, “There are thousands of cases that are going to be dismissed at no cost.”
It’s already wild tough to cop a loan to start your own business. Imagine trying to start your own dispensary but you can’t because you got bagged for selling the haze in 1994. It just makes no sense.
Suicide is currently the second most common cause of death among college students according to the American College Health Association (ACHA).
This time it took Washington State University quarterback, Tyler Hillinski, who was found dead in his apartment from what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
It was after Tyler didn’t show up for practice Tuesday (Jan 16th) when officials were sent to his apartment looking for him. The 21-year-old was found next to a rifle and a suicide note when they arrived to the scene, according to ESPN.
Washington State coach Mike Leach said in a statement:
“We are deeply saddened to hear the news of Tyler’s passing. He was an incredible young man and everyone who had the privilege of knowing him was better for it. The entire WSU community mourns as thoughts and prayers go out to his family.”
Experts estimate over 4,000 Americans between 15-24 commit suicide every year and according to an ACHA study in 2002, 1 in 12 college students has actually made a suicide plan.
College is the perfect breeding ground for all the symptoms of suicide — students are young, away from home for the first time, they’re living with strangers, far from their support systems, and working under intense pressure – especially when you’re an athlete.
Hilinski was projected to be the starting quarterback going into next season. He started Washington State’s Holiday Bowl loss to Michigan State and played a significant amount in the loss to Arizona.
Interim athletic director John Johnson said,
“The tragic news today surrounding Tyler Hilinski is devastating to all. Tyler was a tremendous individual, great friend and teammate, and he will be deeply missed. Our hearts go out to his family and friends.”
He continued,
“Earlier tonight, the football team was brought together and informed of the tragedy. There, they were met by campus and department counseling and psychological services, including athletics’ on-staff clinical psychologist and a licensed mental health counselor, along with WSU Athletics medical team. The university will continue to coordinate and provide ongoing counseling care for all student-athletes as long as needed.”
“We are deeply saddened to hear the news of Tyler’s passing. He was an incredible young man and everyone who had the privilege of knowing him was better for it. The entire WSU community mourns as thoughts and prayers go out to his family” – Coach Leach regarding Tyler Hilinski
The suicide rate among young adults, ages 15-24, has tripled since the 1950s but that doesn’t mean those numbers have to stay that way. There is help, like that from Mental Health America, that offers services, advice, and encouragement for students just like Tyler.
The grief of a death is indescribable, one can only hope for peace for his family in this time of loss.
Lena Waithe is a name that emerged in 2017 and looks to dominate 2018’s television landscape.
Waithe is best known for becoming the voice of a trifecta conglomeration of under-represented and discriminated demographics: She is Black, she is queer, and she is a woman.
Growing up in Southside Chicago, Waithe wasn’t allowed to work as a teenager, so she spent a lot of time in front of the television. She’s stated in many interviews that she’s known what she’s wanted to do for a long time: write for TV.
When she hit the spotlight, she had already been prepared for the bombardment of ignorance and stigma surrounding her reality. But Waithe saw this as a positive, as opposed to a more restrictive quality. Her focus was to turn that ignorance into an opportunity to teach, using her artistic creativity.
She works with Aziz Ansari on the Netflix series Master of None. She plays the main character, Dev’s, best friend, paving the path for her character’s story line. In the episode “Thanksgiving”, her coming out scene proved to be more impactful that she originally believed.
She didn’t believe that her story was “interesting” enough to be told, but using a sequence of time-lapse events that switch from her Thanksgiving in 1995 up until the present moment, Waithe is able to capture the poignant realities of being Black and gay, how her mother, (played by Angela Bassett) breaks down into tears not due to her daughter’s sexuality, but by recognizing how difficult it would be to be accepted in society now, and how throughout it all, her friendship with Dev prospers, reminding us that there is hope for all those going through Lena’s experiences.
The scene reflected Waithe’s real life process of coming out, though she didn’t believe her experience was “interesting” at first, sure enough, the audience loved it, and it landed her an Emmy, making her the first Black woman to ever win “Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series.”
“We still have a long way to go to really show the breadth of what the queer community is. There are people out there like me who exist and we deserve to be on screen as well.”
Lena immediately took on other projects; writing and directing The Chi, which shows the “human” side of Chicago that no one outside of the city seems to believe exists.
But it was anything but easy for her. The Chi had many rejections before being picked up by Showtime.
From an interview with Larry King, Lena says she understood the hesitation,
“It’s a multi protagonist story…. It’s a character study. And I think sometimes it’s difficult to see, particularly when it’s people of color.”
Showtime’s president and CEO David Nevins referred to Waithe as one of the industry’s “next generation voices,” writes Salon.
Waithe shares her inspiration for having such a raw series come to life on the screen.
“I just wanted to feel a human story that, even if you’re not from Chicago, and if you’re not Black, you can still look at it and see the humanity in it. A big thing for me was to [show] there’s a real a sense of community there. I totally understand why people don’t see it, because it’s not something that anyone’s ever portrayed on television.”
The Chi has had nothing but positive reviews so far, with the first episode available on YouTube for your streaming pleasure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjVKsFVgvqY
Waithe hopes to become a voice for Black people everywhere. Though she was the first Black woman to win an Emmy for Comedy Writing, she hopes she will not be the last.
In an interview with Q, she talks about how she plans to stay a relevant voice for people of color and how the change starts within us all. Staying focused on making a change will drive change, otherwise, it will never work.
“Its up to us as a society to make sure were staying focused on our task and that our agenda is clear… Where would we be if MLK said you know what, ‘I’m over the civil rights movement thing’?”
Lena is encapsulating everyone with her cutting perspective and shifting the tide on the traditional outlook we have in our media. Lena’s projects have only just begun, and her reign is sure to extend beyond her past experiences, but onto other enterprises.
Stay tuned for this risk taker, she’ll be sure to maintain her ingenuity in all of her projects.
During his pilgrimage, Mensa had a firsthand look at the mistreatment of Palestinian civilians by the state of Israel and highlighted the victims of said mistreatment he met over there.
In no way, shape or form are his words “an attack on the people of Jewish faith,” said Mensa.
Mensa detailed several different accounts of inhumane treatment. One story that was extremely heart wrenching to read was that of a woman named Nora. In his powerful essay, Mensa described his encounter with her. He wrote,
“Her eyes looked like she’d been crying for 30 years. Hearing her impassioned pleas for freedom beneath the flaking walls of her home in the Old City of Jerusalem, I don’t doubt that she had. Nora has been embattled in a tortuous legal struggle for her family home since the 1980s. Oftentimes carrying children, in her arms and in the womb, she labors in and out of Israeli courtrooms. She was born in this house. Her children were born in this house. Now just holding on to it has been the fight of her life…”
As you read through the rest of the harrowing stories, which include Mensa witnessing a boy who was imprisoned for throwing rocks, it’s easy to see how comparable the Palestinians plight is to that of Black Americans.
There were certain moments that Mensa witnessed that reminded him of the scars Black people have endured while fighting white oppression in America.
Worm-infested water tanks in a refugee camp in Aida refreshed Mensa’s memory of the horrible water crisis in Flint Michigan.
The “separation wall” brought him right back to Southside Chicago as he compared the economic disparity to that of The Hunger Games. In his memorable essay, Mensa said,
“Staring into the worm-infested water tank on top of a dilapidated house in Aida refugee camp, I can’t help but think of Flint, Michigan, and the rust-colored lead-poisoned water that flows through their faucets. As I gaze over the 25-foot “separation wall,” the economic disparity is acutely transparent; the Israeli side of the wall looks like the Capitol in The Hunger Games, while the Palestinian side reads like a snapshot from a war photographer. It’s as if the South Side of Chicago’s most forgotten and disenfranchised neighborhoods were separated from the luxury of Downtown’s Gold Coast by a simple concrete wall.”
In the Fall of 2014, as I was exiting a Yoga to the People class in Williamsburg (where all millennial lead-ins begin), a fellow practitioner approached me with advice for how I could improve my practice. This friendly sage of yoga tips was a United Nations Advisor named Vandana Hart.
At the time Vandana was focused on her career with the UN, but had also begun exploring promoting human rights through dance and movement. Though she did not realize it at the time, those initial exploratory bursts of imagination and conversation would manifest themselves 3 years later as her Netflix series, We Speak Dance.
Vandana, along with director Chris Keener, traveled from Indonesia and Vietnam, to France, Nigeria, and Lebanon to uncover how dance is being used as a political weapon.
I attended a screening of We Speak Dance on Wednesday night, hosted by The Lightning Society in Bushwick. As a community of artists and changemakers, TLS’s mission is to:
“Engage with each other in immersive experiences designed to foster passionate individualism and collective expansion by hosting celebrations and thought leadership events throughout year and sharing the results of those collaborations with the world at large.”
This was certainly true of the event I attended last night.
From Alvin Ailey dancers to architects to UN advisors, the room boasted figures from all professional and creative walks of life. After a brief and humble introduction, during a screening of Episode 2, “Vietnam,” for the next 22 minutes you could hear a pin drop.
WE SPEAK DANCE Screening @ The Lightning Society, Bushwick
The rolling of “Vietnam’s” credits were accompanied by an uproar of applause followed by a Q&A session. I attempted to ask few questions, but was never called on—most likely because I had already peppered Vandana with questions for this piece. I sat down with her last week to discuss the origins, current state, and future hopes for We Speak Dance. Each episode explores a different aspect of value that dance provides to its local communities. Vandana shared how she built each narrative around this framework,
“We would follow the news cycle and the dance vibes. France, for example, had a recent close election between an extremist neo-Nazi party and a more forward-thinking globalist party. So we decided to ask the dance community how they felt about the French identity and how dance was a reflection of current affairs. That really resonated with people.”
Goku, Parisian Hip Hop Dancer (@goku_artist)
The more we spoke, the more I realized that Vandana must’ve drawn massive inspiration for the project from working for the UN while simultaneously being a judge for Kenya’s version of So You Think You Can Dance:
“Having these responsibilities occur at the same time allowed two worlds that were really important to me to exist at the same level, and it made me realize my work with dance was making the same, if not more, of an impact. At the UN I was working on Women’s Rights and I noticed there was often competition around which social issues got attention or funding. But the beauty about addressing global and local problems through art is that there isn’t competition. Art gets people excited; whatever the issue, time or place, people will want to connect with dance.”
We Speak Dance
This unique separation from the pack goes beyond inspiration. Beyond We Speak Dance, there is virtually zero coverage of dance politics in a TV format and the little that does exist is largely commercialized. Vandana believes showcasing the marriage of dance and politics has been a missed opportunity by the entertainment industry,
“There’s a void. I wanted to create something I hadn’t seen before. Dancers are the most marginalized artists on the planet—we are paid the least and have unhealthy relationships with the business because we are exploited. It’s been rewarding to have dancers talk about using their craft for a greater purpose. The dancers who don’t have experience in activism have really taken to this movement—it has opened up a space to connect their art with issues they care about. It’s a process of awakening when your realize that your body is not just for entertainment, but can be a literal and symbolic weapon for change.”
And for those of you with a creative vision who are looking for a potential partner, she has a recommendation:
“I see Netflix as more of a tech company than an entertainment company. With everything that’s being revealed regarding being a woman in the entertainment industry, it’s nice to have a partner that is a ‘newer kid on the block’ and has a huge global reach. With Netflix, its not about the boy’s club and who you know–it’s purely based on data and metrics. Literally, ‘who is watching? How many eyes are we getting on this content?’”
As for the dances themselves, it is clear from the footage that Vandana tried out every local move she came across and as adept as she is at picking up most dances, a few prove more difficult than others. She told me about the hardest style of dance:
“The Balinese dances, hands down. They spend their whole lives perfecting this and all of the poses are the opposite of ballet. In ballet the spine is aligned perfectly, but in Balinese dance it is completely arched back. The toes are flexed up, the hands are flexed back. And your toes are off the ground, which is also the opposite of classical ballet. I couldn’t get it at all!”
We Speak Dance
Oka Dalem, Balinese Dance Master
“Also, dance everywhere is not just about the technique, its also the energy and the intention behind the dance. It’s about the stories of the dance—in Bali, dance is a prayer and an offering to the gods.”
I also found myself wondering (as I’m sure the readership has as well) …Bali, Vietnam, Paris, Lagos, Beirut — who partied the hardest? Who was the most litty? Vandana said it was a tie,
“Oh man! They all partied super hard. This is tough, but I guess it’s a tie between Lagos and Beirut. I saw sunrises in both places. People take it really seriously [laughs].”
I had a variety of questions, but much like the dancer I was interviewing, I was most preoccupied with her next steps:
“Season 2, more dancers, more cities. Live We Speak Dance events and creating the ‘UN of Dance’ with local and international dancers teaching dance empowerment workshops in the most marginalized parts of the city, building creativity and hope for our next leaders.”
For those of you in the NYC area on Saturday night (1/13), if you’re interested in challenging the We Speak Dance creative team to some friendly battling you can find them at the East Coast Launch Party at Le Bain.
As you’re getting loose to Afrokinetic’s beats, just remember: you may end up catching a glimpse of yourself in Season 2.
The Golden Globes are not usually known for making headlines as it’s just the appetizer to the awards season but this past Sunday at the 75th annual Golden Globes, things went a little different.
For starters, many were sporting black to empower and show support for women’s voices in the #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns, so there was already a different energy about this particular ceremony.
Upon receiving the Cecil B. deMille Award, an honor that celebrates contributions to entertainment, the queen of daytime television and first African-American woman billionaire, gave a speech that was so stirring, it was almost… presidential.
https://youtu.be/fN5HV79_8B8
Back when she was at the height of her legendary career it was a fact said that whenever Oprah spoke, people listened and Sunday night was no different.
Those who were in attendance gave a prolonged standing ovation while those at home rushed to Twitter shower her with praises.
Switched back to the Golden Globes to watch Oprah get her award. Never let it be said that I don’t respect the president of the United States.
— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) January 8, 2018
That’s when it dawned on me: the Trump effect goes far beyond the oval office, he’s completely reshaped how we view the position of president forever.
This is no dig at Oprah, to say she’s one of the most accomplished living Americans is an understatement and she has more than enough resources to make it a race. But to be so inclined to resort to talk show hosts after what we’re experiencing under a reality show star, does not speak well to how we regard our public service offices.
What’s even scarier is that she’s seriously entertaining it.
President Trump: "Yeah, I'll beat Oprah. Oprah would be a lot of fun. I know her very well … I like Oprah. I don't think she's going to run." pic.twitter.com/GPBk9eaGcZ
Monday, two of her “close friends” told CNN she was “actively thinking about it” and Winfrey’s longtime partner Stedman Graham told the LA Times:
“She would absolutely do it.”
The idea that Oprah is the one that will get white women (53% of whom voted for Trump) to come across the aisle to dethrone Trump is inconceivable. Furthermore, many Black women feel that the call for their help is insulting when issues concerning them remain at the back of lawmakers’ minds.
April Rains, who coined the successful #OscarsSoWhite campaign, pointed out such the night of the awards:
“Stop begging strong Black women to be president: Michelle, Oprah, whatever. It’s weird. And Lord knows when Black women try to lead, y’all attempt to silence and erase us. So how would that work, exactly?”
Desus serving scalding hot tea and y'all gonna be mad.
Stop begging strong Black women to be president: Michelle, Oprah, whatever. It's weird. And Lord knows when Black women try to lead, y'all attempt to silence and erase us. So how would that work, exactly? pic.twitter.com/Iu2FOGftDY
What’s most frustrating is that there are Black women already in public service — like Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL), Georgia State Rep. Stacey Abrams — who would be much better candidates and who are more deserving of the spotlight.
Whatever happened to our expectations? Is experience, a deep knowledge of policy, and a law degree asking too much? I’m with everyone else. I want to see Trump out of office, too, but we should be mindful of the culture we perpetuate when we flippantly suggest high government positions be occupied by those lacking the credentials.
It’s highly unlikely that Oprah will run in 2020 but the real objective is to keep this same enthusiasm when it comes time to go out and make our voices heard election day.
Upon the recent news (or speculation) that Oprah might be running for president, comes some more news to tack onto that: You can already buy her merchandise.
There’s every kind of merchandise you can think of; caps, mugs, pencils, pillows, scarves, t-shirts, long sleeve shirts, hoodies, the list goes on and on.
The woman has given one slightly politically-toned speech and “Oprah 2020” is already seen everywhere.
FuckJerry partnered up with PizzaSlime on some #Oprah2020 shirts, hats, and hoodies. Check out some of the pieces in the collection:
Crazy to To think that her run hasn’t even been confirmed and this is going on, imagine when/if Oprah actually runs?
I hope that if she isn’t thinking about running, which seems to be a possibility, she will still consider it, seeing how strongly people are supporting this.
Oprah knew exactly what she was doing at the Golden Globes: Testing her standing as presidential timber. Clearly she’s got it. And she could end Trump’s, and the GOP’s, misogyny and racism like no one else! Although white nationalists and GOP would go all-ugly tizzy. #Oprah2020pic.twitter.com/Vx9YAtGc1V
Donald Trump thinks he is able to beat Oprah as a presidential candidate, but of all the celebrities who have mentioned the possibility of becoming president, this is the most engaging response we’ve gotten from our nation in a while.
You can even find her merchandise on sites like Etsy now. There are even little buttons that say “Winfrey/Hanks, 2020” available.
Still, there are many skeptical people out there. Some don’t believe that a celebrity should be a politician period. Many news outlets, such as the Washington post and Huffington Post, have written about their disagreement with this wave.
“Please let’s not do this again. Liberals want badly to believe they aren’t complicit in the Trump phenomenon, but what else was Trump but an expression of the same skepticism toward the actual work of politics that’s currently fueling the liberal Oprah fantasy? The dream is that Oprah is such a specimen of perfect virtue that she will create consensus wherever she walks.”
Yeah, she brings up a good point. Politicians are scrutinized down to their every move, and Oprah running for president will not shield her of that perusal.
On December 19th, Lena Waithe released the first episode of her upcoming TV show The Chi, as a teaser for the full debut set for Jan 7, 2018.
Waithe, who you may recognize from Aziz Ansari’s Netflix series Master of None, is the creator and serves as one of the executive producers of the show, alongside Common and Aaron Kaplan from Kaplan entertainment.
Normally I cringe when I see a title referring to the Windy City. Despite the citizens’ fortitude against the abundance of odds the youth and people face in Chicago, most pop culture depictions are most concerned with the city’s negatives.
Even Spike Lee, who is regarded as a legendary influencer of the culture, has used his illustrious platform to perpetuate the stigma.
In 2015, the Do The Right Thing director decided to title his Lysistrata-in-Chicago film Chi-Raq — a term used to equate the murder rate in Chicago to the death toll of U.S. soldiers in Iraq — as the movie title for his musical about the city. Not only was the movie just bad, but that name normalizes a toxic state of life for people who live it everyday.
And as recent as January of this year, Trump threatened that he’d send in feds if Chicago doesn’t fix the ‘horrible carnage going on.’ The President of the free world saying that ‘carnage’ in going on in an American city is the very reason Chicago is the scapegoat when there is outcry in the African-American community.
Between Noisey documentaries, drill music, and the influence of media, the perspective of the disenfranchised has been blurred. Chicago rappers like Lupe Fiasco, Chance The Rapper, and Vic Mensa have done tremendous work to bring awareness to what needs to be done but they need help.
Luckily The Chi isn’t cringeworthy.
The Chi is a coming-of-age story of a group of Black students that, through shared circumstance, forges a bond of a lifetime. It’s a new lens into a city that for too long has had too many negative ones.
In January of this year, the project began to fast track when Showtime picked the drama up from Fox 21 TV Studios. A team consisting of Dope writer-director Rick Famuyiwa as director, Straight Outta Compton‘s Jason Mitchell as a lead, and Waithe — who is a native of the city — behind the series, it’s safe to say the stories from the South Side will be in good hands.
If Lena Waithe can do with The Chi what Donald Glover did with Atlanta and Issa Rae with Insecure (shot in L.A.) then there’s hope for how the world sees Chicago. By simply telling an authentic human story, the audience is forced into a new narrative as it pertains to the Windy City.
Beyond the opportunity of putting more African-American actors in a premier spotlight, The Chi should be on everyone’s watch list because Chicago’s story is still untold, and with the cultural influence the city brings, it’s time we hear it.
The move comes after a successful year for the sketch show, which, to their fortune, has had the folly of this administration for endless material.
While some critics of the move say Che and Jost’s absence from the news desk would be going counter to the momentum they built last season, it can also mean new opportunities for talent.
Che being the first black head writer at SNL is a major accomplishment but it wasn’t a position simply handed to him.
The New York native spent years hustling as a stand-up comedian, performing in comedy clubs seven nights a week, often in multiple venues each night until getting his first big break doing a set on The David Letterman Show in 2012.
After his bit on David Letterman, Che’s hard work now had the spotlight to match and as a result, Variety named him top 10 comic in New York and Rolling Stone top 50 funniest people in 2013.
That success led to landing a couple of guest appearances on The Daily Show, which had the legendary John Stewart at its helm at the time.
Though his late night appearances were still few and far between, Che’s performances were enough to land him a guest writing gig at SNL in 2013, which, as we now know, later led to the role he became renowned for on Weekend Update.
To the naked eye this promotion may seem heady and surprising but if you’ve followed Che’s story you’d see that it was the role that he was destined for and deserves to have.
In 2016, he solidified himself as a name to be reckoned when his Netflix stand-up special Michael Che Matters dropped on Netflix.
Che tackled everything from Black Lives Matter, pot legalization, and gun rights in what can be argued as one of that year’s best specials. He had a poised, cool stage presence and a delivery that made you eager for the punchline… sometimes it never came.
If it's tough to talk about, Michael Che wants in. Michael Che Matters, streaming Nov. 25. pic.twitter.com/lvhHcXgZZe
Besides being an instrumental part of why SNL nabbed nine statues at the 2017 Emmys, Che’s brilliance as a writer is evident and makes him more than the right choice to be at the head of the SNL writing team.
The diversity Che immediately brings will inevitably influence the culture of the show and will have his ideas at the top of the food chain.
According to Deadline, season 43 of SNL is the second most-watched season in nine years. With Che as a head writer, it will be interesting to see what new heights the show can reach next season.
Meek Mill continues to be let down by the criminal justice system as the judge in his case has denied bail twice this week. Meek is now formally appealing his jail sentence, according to TMZ.
Meek’s prison sentence stems from a violation of his parole from an encounter with police in 2009. He was sentenced to 2-4 years in prison for riding a dirt bike without a helmet.
TMZ reported that the judge’s behavior is the source of Meek’s appeal:
“In legal docs, obtained by TMZ, Meek’s lawyer laid out the groundwork for asking a higher court to free the rapper, on grounds the judge was unfair and biased against him.”
While denying Meek bail twice in one week, Brinkley asserted that the Wins & Losses rapper was a “danger to the community,” according to Billboard.
Denying bail is reserved for violent offenders or flight risks. Meek Mill is neither. The rapper is heavily involved in the Philadelphia community, mentoring young kids and trying to use his platform to help underprivileged youth from his neighborhood.
Meek’s lawyer responded to Judge Brinkley’s bail denial, saying this was more of the same behavior from the judge:
“We are very disappointed with Judge Brinkley’s decision to deny Mr. Williams bail, which continues her long pattern of unfair treatment of him.”
Meanwhile, Meek Mill hasn’t let any of this get him down. He’s reportedly an exemplary inmate, keeping busy as part of the general labor crew, according to TMZ:
“He’s part of the general labor crew, getting his hands very dirty. A prison rep tells us Meek cleans the cell block, tidies up prison grounds and washes dishes. He also cooks food and serves it up, too! He does it all with a smile, apparently, while earning just 19 cents per hour. The rep says he’s a model inmate who gets some juicy perks due to good behavior.”
Dude who is getting “juicy perks due to good behavior” is a danger to the community? Bet.
Meek Mill is a successful artist who is able to afford top notch legal representation and is still being victimized by a vindictive judge and the criminal justice system as a whole. It’s a disturbing reminder of the state of our legal system, especially for young men of color.
One encouraging result of this whole ordeal has been the outpouring of support for Meek from all over hip-hop and sports worlds, as well as the Philadelphia community.
Colin Kaepernick said Meek’s case was all too familiar.
Sadly there are Black folks going through the same radicalized injustice(s) within the justice system that Meek Mill has experienced for over a decade EVERY SINGLE DAY. This requires more than just gradual reform in laws—It requires a swift overhaul. pic.twitter.com/Mt13BwnIvJ
Philadelphia 76ers owner Michael Rubin, who has become a vocal supporter of Meek’s, didn’t understand the scope of the judge’s behavior until he went to the hearing himself. He told Bleacher Report’s Natalie Weiner:
“Had I not seen it in person, I probably would not have gotten to this point of feeling like I have to stand up for him because he’s being treated so unfairly, and he can’t do this on his own.”
6ers center Joel Embiid went to visit Meek in prison, saying the experience was “scary.”
It’s been inspiring to see how the local Philadelphia community has rallied around Meek Mill, holding a Free Meek Mill rally in November.
Philly came out to support Meek Mill at the #FreeMeekMill rally!
With Judge Brinkley’s conduct under FBI investigation and Meek’s legal team formally appealing his sentence, hopefully this situation is rectified soon. Meek has made mistakes, but there’s no logical reason to keep this man incarcerated for 2-4 years.
Crazy to To think that her run hasn’t even been confirmed and this is going on, imagine when/if Oprah actually runs?