Geoff Gilson's blog
I try now to write sparingly in OP about matters pertaining to our local grocery co-op, Weaver Street Market, where I attempt to be an active worker-owner.
But the WSM management are currently proposing changes to the WSM Board Policy ‘Treatment of Staff’ which dramatically diminish the few remaining co-operative and economic rights WSM employees still retain, and we workers need the support of the some 18,000 WSM consumer-owners in rejecting these changes.
We workers learned of the proposed changes only this past Friday (October 16), and we have until October 26 to register objection.
WSM Employee Policy (as of two years ago) now prevents me reproducing the text of the proposed changes publicly. In what one local newspaper editor has described as an anti-whistleblower whistleblower policy.
I'm sorry, but it is never too early to be discussing lessons. Especially not in the current world of ADD, where folks move on as soon as the headlines disappear. For me, the two primary lessons to learn are: own responsibility and get involved.
What. No rant about Muslim-haters, police cover-up, irresponsible media reporting? No. Well, some about the latter a bit later. But, no. Why? Because you can't change what you can't change. What you have to do is own responsibility for what you can change, and get involved to change it.
No-one has, or will ever have, the slightest notion of what goes on or was going on in the head of Craig Stephen Hicks. Almost nothing is served by trying to find out now. Of course it was a hate crime. The man hated. Does it really change one dot, tittle or iota of anything to have a long. unseemly, pointless debate about whether it was parking he hated, or Muslims?
You can not legislate the way people feel, including hatred. What you can do is legislate the way they demonstrate their feelings. And this man had been demonstrating feelings for yonks.
I'm going to be a little awkward. There is already a thread about the recent Carrboro and Chapel Hill Police Forums. I will be linking this post to that thread. But I want to set out (at boring length) what I have been advocating for since those Forums. And I don't want to clutter up the entirety of that other thread with my meanderings (as fascinating as I know you will find them!).
As the above link to the forums make clear, a number of us in Carrboro want the establishment of a Citizen's Task Force, to be given the responsibility thoroughly to review policing in Carrboro, and, if thought necessary, make recommendations. I have my own thoughts about what I would like such a Task Force to address. But my main purpose is to help to create the space where citizens of Carrboro may have the opportunity to ensure that the policing approach in their community has their consent.
I set out in more detail here why I think we need a Citizen's Task Force.
We - I've lived in or near Chapel Hill, NC now for almost ten years, I can say 'We.' We are not some two-bit hokey college, out in the sticks. We are the oldest public university in the United States, and one of its largest. We have made great play of our focus on student-athletes. If our esteemed coaches did not know, they should have done. Period. But that, for me, is not the real issue.
Young people come to our university to train to be doctors. To train to be engineers. To train to be stockbrokers. Take a trip through the hallways of our business departments. Our medical facilities. There is no attempt to pretend that students are being made to study other than their chosen vocation. There is no attempt to hide the fact that the best are being recruited, even while at college, for professional berths after college.
This coming Saturday (October 4) and next Monday (October 6), Chapel Hill Police and Carrboro Police respectively, along with representatives from their funding agencies, will be holding Public Forums, at which citizens will be invited to offer thoughts on the way they wish to be policed. I will be unable to attend the Carrboro Forum as I will be working. But I have written a letter to the organizers, a letter which is (amazingly) quite self-explanatory:
"Dear Carrboro Alderpeople, Chief Horton and David Andrews [Carrboro Town Manager],
I understand there is to be a Public Forum on Policing in Carrboro, held on October 6, at 7.00pm. I will not be able to attend, as much as I have expressed interest in this subject.
I am a shift worker, and like most shift workers, I need at least three weeks notice to be able to accommodate events to my work schedule.
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