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Category: Journalism

Mic Checking Arne Duncan

Posted in Austin, Occupy Wall Street, and SXSW

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at ACC, moments before being mic checked.

Today I participated in a ‘MIC CHECK’ confrontation with Arne Duncan, the US Secretary of Education, at a town hall meeting at Austin Community College. Duncan is criticized for many reasons, but he came under fire from Occupy Austin for his support of charter schools and privatization which puts teachers out of work, puts taxpayer money and our students in the hands of 1% corporations with little accountability.

Occupy AISD (a.k.a. Occupy Education) is one of our most effective working groups. They’ve engaged in amazing outreach to schools, teachers, parents, and activists. They led a successful rally earlier this month, bringing many non-occupiers on the march. They’ve also had a real effect on our schools, supporting the efforts to oppose IDEA Charter that resulted in only 5 students asking to attend the controversial east side charter school.

I felt honored to support their efforts today with the help of four other occupiers who attended the town hall meeting. Here’s what our mic check sounded like:

Because we did not know how many we had present to support us, we read it more as a speech than a traditional call & response, but near the end you could hear students & others joining in. The crowd applauded and many came up after to ask us questions or thank us. As for Duncan himself, he’s obviously used to being mic checked and responded calmly with a stock answer about the importance of the “public-private partnership.” The campus police lined up but when we sat down again left us alone.

Later, during the question & answer session, the last question was a pointed one from another occupier:

After the meeting, we had a pleasant & positive chat with Brette Lea, a member of ACC’s Public Information & College Networking department. We talked about how the occupation supports efforts by colleges like ACC to educate the disadvantaged, but opposes the 1% infiltration of education. We also heard from Timothy John Tuten, Director of Special Projects for the US Department of Education. He thanked us for being nonviolent and urged us to contact him to share our concerns. But not everyone reacted calmly, as James explained in a brief interview:

Participating in such a successful action thrilled me — and then I got another thrill to see my video on the Washington Post.

If you’re coming to Austin for South by SouthWest, (SXSW) be sure to check out Occupy Austin’s

The full text of our mic check, written by Amanda Michelle of Occupy AISD, is below.

Originally published on Approximately 8,000 Words.

United Streamers Roundtable 2-19

Posted in Archive, and Occupy Wall Street

One topic of discussion was WillyFoReal, a citizen journalist who just traveled to Syria. Photo by mpeake.

For the past few weeks I’ve participated in an online discussion for citizen journalists and livestreamers working within the Occupy movement. It’s been an enlightening experience — the topics are almost always interesting, dealing with everything from how to stay safe during police violence to the ever tricky balance between the need for transparency and the need for personal privacy.

Just as Occupy itself highlights how our problems are global, conversations like these show the common ground we all share as citizen journalists. All groups are struggling with the pull between transparency as a core value & the rising call for “security culture” and hiding our actions from the police & government agencies who monitor us. And everyone is looking toward Chicago this spring, and wondering what the state’s unconstitutional laws against recording public officials mean for us.

Below the cut you’ll find my tweets from the meeting, which form a sort of minutes. You can also download a recording of the roundtable.

 

Last week, Crumbelina from the Tyranny of Beauty online radio show interviewed me about Occupy Austin. Tune in to the program today, which starts at 1pm, to hear my interview.