Dyett Hunger Strike Enters FIFTH Week: 'We Are Prepared to Die' (School Privatization, Chicago)

[Catherina]

Dyett Hunger Strike Enters Fifth Week: 'We Are Prepared to Die'

By Ted Cox | September 14, 2015 1:49pm | Updated September 14, 2015 5:19pm
@tedcoxchicago


Dyett High School hunger striker Cathy Dale insists, "We are prepared to die."

CITY HALL — ...

Several of the now 15 Dyett hunger strikers returned to City Hall Monday on their 29th day without solid food to call on Mayor Rahm Emanuel to at least have a "respectful conversation" with them over the future of the Bronzeville school in Washington Park.

Since Aug. 17, a dozen hunger strikers have been demanding that Chicago Public Schools accept the proposal put forth by the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School to convert it into a Global Leadership and Green Technology academy.

Ted Cox says the situation is quickly becoming dire for protesters:


They have rejected CPS' move to turn it instead into a neighborhood open-enrollment arts high school.

"A compromise happens when two people come together and they work out together something that's agreeable to both parties," said Jitu Brown, a leader of the hunger strike, Monday at City Hall. "There was no compromise."

According to Brown, he was told about the CPS plan 15 minutes before it was presented by Chief Executive Officer Forrest Claypool. Brown said he asked to continue to negotiate, but Claypool responded, "We're moving forward."

"That's not compromise," Brown said.

Brown said an art school "doesn't make sense," in that "the arts is not a growth industry," while green technology is growing.

"Don't give me crumbs and tell me it's a cake," Brown said. "Why should black children always accept less?"

...


Brown said he has lost 36 pounds on the strike.

"We are prepared to die," Dale added. "We're not going to go away. We're just not going to go away."

"This is a very, very serious health situation for these individuals," said Dr. Peter Sporn of Northwestern University. "Really it's on the mayor now for this to end."

"This is a life-threatening situation at this point," added Erin Raether of Nurses for Social Justice, who has treated some of the hunger strikers during their fast. "They didn't look like this 29 days ago."

...

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150914/downtown/dyett-hunger-strike-enters-fifth-week-we-are-prepared-die#

#FightForDyett

NC For Bernie and 15 others follow
ChicagoTeachersUnion ‏@CTULocal1 55m55 minutes ago

Doctors, nurses ask mayor to step in as Dyett hunger strike hits 29th day #fightfordyett #savedyett #wearedyett http://ow.ly/ScGhX

Aileen K ‏@ak4931 3h3 hours ago

Irish hunger strikers only lasted for 46-73 days. Many of the #FightForDyett hunger strikers are elders and can't go much longer. #edchat
I truly believe @RahmEmanuel will let #FightForDyett hunger strikers die if we don't put pressure on him to do the right thing! #edchat

natalie solidarity ‏@constantnatalie 3h3 hours ago

.@ChicagosMayor opens a north side school addition while #Dyett12 are facing death by starvation for public school resources #FightForDyett

Journey 4 Justice ‏@J4J_USA 5h5 hours ago

"School closings are a #hatecrime" Are the Dyett hunger strikers on the verge of a victory? http://bit.ly/1UQ5MxS @dailykos #FightForDyett

Black Agenda Report ‏@blkagendareport Sep 8

Time to stand against school privatization #FightForDyett #WeAreDyett Call Rahm 312-744-3300.
http://www.blackagendareport.com/dyett-hunger-strike-20150909

DenisePouchet ‏@DenisePouchet 7h7 hours ago Burbank, CA
DenisePouchet retweeted Teachers for Justice

Teachers and parents should not have to die for decent schools for their children! #FightForDyett

Teachers for Justice ‏@TeachForJustice 3h3 hours ago

RT! TOMORROW 9/15! TWITTER STORM FOR DYETT! Help us get #FightForDyett trending from 7pm - 9pm Chicago time!

Sept 11
Alderman Burns is confronted and flees.

The #FightForDyett hunger strikers and supporters confront the man who could have honored their proposal for the Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology...

[Katashi_itto]

1. K&R! Down with 3rd Way.

[Catherina]

3. Down, down, down, down, down, down, down with all this corruption n/t

[Catherina]

2. Please don't let these brave people down. CALL RAHM now and hound him!

Call every last rotten complicit official and please, FIGHT PRIVATIZATION

[azmom]

4. This is horrible. Thanks for letting us know.

I will make some calls.

[Catherina]

7. Thanks. They have a lot of support from mostly local little people

but Rahm and his cronies aren't budging and the national media are ignoring it.

[Recursion]

5. Art is not a growth industry? (nt)

[slipslidingaway]

6. kick for tomorrow, thx n/t

[Catherina]

8. Thanks slipslidingaway! n/t

[slipslidingaway]

32. My pleasure, meant to come back sooner though! n/t

[roody]

9. knr

[Recursion]

10. I'm missing the part where the school is privatized or closed

It looks like this is about it being a green tech magnet school (what the protestors want) and it being a neighborhood art-focused school (what the district wants).

[ancianita]

11. As a few Chicago Jewish friends have told me, Rahm's got a lot to atone for next week.

[Catherina]

16. It's a good thing I'm not in charge of the forgiveness

I don't get how people like that even sleep at night

[ancianita]

18. Heard THAT. Maybe he consults his rabbi.

[JDPriestly]

12. K&R.

[LiberalElite]

13. K&R

[daleanime]

14. K&R....

What kind of nation are we if we are not willing to invest in our children?

[Catherina]

17. Yes. +1000. The weakest among us

whose eager brains are eager to learn, explore, invent and what are we giving them?

GO Bernie. With every passing day my resolve to see that man in office grows so strong I don't know if it's possible to grow any stronger.

[ancianita]

19. Have to, cuz it's a long road ahead. Haters start their engines, I hear them gearing up...

[Catherina]

29. It's going to get ugly. But I don't see us backing down. Not an inch n/t

[ancianita]

30. DU should know they are the heart & soul of the badassedness of AFT Local #1.

[Enthusiast]

15. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

Stop this damned school privatization effort! It benefits no one but a few profiteers!

[Catherina]

21. They closed ~50 schools in the 2013/2014 academic year alone displacing more than 12,000 students!

So many scoundrels selling their souls for profit, they deserve to spend the rest of their lives in jail and the profits they stole put back in the communities they're destroying.

It's crime like this against the poor that convinced me there's no choice but Bernie this election. What he wants to do with education can start undoing this mess.

Of the more than 276 schools initially considered, 50 had their doors shut for good for the 2013-2014 school year, despite citywide protests and school occupations by parents. The impact fell heavily on Chicago’s African-American students—and teachers. Of the 49 closed elementary schools, 90 percent had a majority African-American demographic, while 71 percent had a majority African-American staff of teachers, according to the Chicago Teachers Union. All in all, the closings amounted to shuttering 25 percent of all CPS schools that had majority African-American students.

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/16804/CTU_report_CPS_chicago_closing

[Enthusiast]

22. Emanuel turned out even worse than I thought he would.

[Catherina]

25. It takes a special kind of evil to shut privatize Schools, Mental Health Clinics & other city assets

Me too. And I'm a cynic who expected bad things from him.

[ancianita]

20. Burns, a Rahm sellout who SHOULD be confronted,votes with him 87% of the time in city council. Ugh.

[Catherina]

23. Amen! Is there even anything left to privatize in Chicago?

They're moving full speed ahead with privatizing city assets. Burns ugh. Brother Malcolm had choice words for that kind of person.

[ancianita]

24. The public schools of the largest district in Illinois are still hanging on. Repub gov Rauner is

scrambling for strike delay and more money the state owes. Rahm is on the DL about charters but his proxies in the appointed board, political bureaucratic patronage machinery and PR offices, are in place.

In Chicago the fight against corporate insurgency of public assets never ends. Not for over 100 years.

For all his sins, history will not view him well.

(Found out he was once in the Israeli military, so intel still flows.)

In the meantime, we are so fucked.

[Catherina]

28. We've reached a point where it's either Bernie or pitchforks

I think the powers that be know this which is why they thought they'd entertain us with a Bernie run. They didn't realize how serious we were. The UK realized it with Corbyn's win which only energizes.

I totally agree with you. If we don't find a way to clean house and reverse this, we're totally fucked and for a long time.

[ancianita]

26. K & R! Thank you for the national exposure!

[Vinca]

27. I'm going to take flack for this but . . .

I think hunger strikes are the absolute stupidest form of protest. Most people who hear about it won't care one or the other whether the person decides to starve themselves to death. You will do zero for your cause if you're dead, but you might accomplish something if you are alive.

[ancianita]

31. Context that's real.