this was the front page news story from yesterday’s new york daily news. i believe the accompanying headline was “DISGRACE”. personally, i am torn on this matter. on the one hand i find honoring cop-killers and terrorist bomb-makers reprehensible, but on the other i tend to believe in a near absolute freedom of speech and expression.
my real interest is in the multi-cultural/post-structuralist appropriation of personalities and images. the perfect example, and my biggest pet peeve, is che guevara. nevermind that he had a hand in bringing a totalitarian dictator to power, ran a notorious Cuban prison and oversaw numerous show trials and subsequent executions; he looks really cool on a t-shirt. then, there is everybody’s favorite death row inmate, mumia abu-jamal. i’m willing to wager that majority of those who support his case know almost nothing about the facts of that case. what they do know is that he’s got dreadlocks and radical sounding name, so he must have been framed by those evil white pigs.
it’s the same thing at city college and it doesn’t much shock me. the facts of the case and the moral issues don’t seem to interest some. what does matter is the perception of shakur as “a hero to most of the people in her community”. the fact that she probably shot a cop and is now a fugitive living in castro’s cuba… well, that’s just extra street cred.
according to today’s daily news, the offending sign has been ordered down.
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