Michigan struggles roundup

Justice for Aiyana Jones

The Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality and the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice held a joint demonstration outside police headquarters on May 27. The action was in response to the police killing of 7-year-old Aiyana Jones during an early morning raid on May 16.

About 30 people protested outside prior to the weekly Board of Police Commissioners meeting where Detroit Police Chief Warren Evans was present. A delegation from the protest addressed the community concerns directly to the board. Chief Evans dismissed them as unsubstantiated and unfounded but agreed to meet with DCAPB.

The demonstration demanded justice for Jones and the enforcement of two federal consent decrees mandating reforms involving the use of lethal force and detention facilities. Speakers included Cora Mitchell, whose son was tazed to death; Ron Scott from DCAPB; Abayomi Azikiwe from MECAWI, who pointed out that Detroiters need jobs, not police terror; and Rich Feldman.

Detroit police have maintained that the shooting was an accident. However, these law-enforcement actions have drawn protest and condemnation throughout the country.

Separate and unequal

Wayne State University student Abeer Afana and seven other students in a summer study-abroad program got an unscheduled lesson at Ben Gurion Airport in the settler state of Israel. On May 16 Afana was interrogated for hours and put on a return flight to Detroit. Afana is U.S.-born and travels on a U.S. passport. Nonetheless, she was refused entry by the Israeli authorities because she is of Palestinian descent and her family is from Gaza.

A May 27 Detroit press conference called by the Palestine Cultural Office and supported by the National Lawyers Guild, MECAWI and Michigan Coalition for Human Rights condemned the outrageous treatment of a young woman whose education was denied. An Associated Press report exposed, “The U.S. Department of State’s consular affairs website warns travelers that Israel will ‘consider as Palestinian anyone who has a Palestinian identification number, was born in the West Bank or Gaza, or was born in the United States but has parents or grandparents who were born or lived in the West Bank or Gaza.’

“It says such Americans must travel to Israel using their Palestinian passports, regardless of their U.S. citizenship, and that they ‘may be barred from entering or exiting Israel, the West Bank or Gaza.’” (tinyurl.com/22vt9ye)

Statewide fight for quality education

On May 24 the Michigan Federation of Teachers and Michigan Education Association said, “Enough is enough!” Thousands of their members, students, parents and community mobilized to protest the budget cuts hitting 80 percent of the state’s school districts, both urban and rural. In Detroit, teachers, paraprofessionals, bus drivers, school support workers and other opponents of education cuts rallied at the Detroit Federation of Teachers office. The two unions plan more actions in June and throughout the summer. (mea.org/Enough/index.html)

Detroit resistance to education cuts continued on May 27 when Cass Tech High students marched more than a mile, led by the school’s marching band, to the School Board meeting at Spain Middle School. A plan by state-appointed financial manager Robert Bobb proposes to eliminate public funding for any surviving music and fine arts programs in individual schools; close scores of schools; lay off an undetermined number of teachers; and cut summer school from five days to three days for severely disabled children, endangering their progress. Two thousand layoff notices have been issued. Bobb’s six-figure salary is partially underwritten by private foundations promoting charter schools.

Michigan violates treaty rights for mining giant

On May 27 heavily armed Michigan State and local police arrested Keweenaw Bay Indian Community members Chris Chosa and Charlotte Loonsfoot to clear the way for international mining giant Rio Tinto to extract copper, nickel and sulfide at Eagle Rock in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In a self-serving insult to Indigenous people, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality denied that Eagle Rock deserved special protection as a “place of worship” because “Eagle Rock is not a building used for human occupancy.” (tinyurl.com/23pku53)

The battle to preserve Native rights and the environmentally sensitive water source for both Superior and Michigan great lakes goes to the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing at 11 a.m. on June 3. For more information, visit standfortheland.com.