Citizen Hero Recognized

UPDATED: CBC's The Current audio here. (Paul Pritchard, 1st segment)

The citizen hero who filmed Robert Dzianski's violent death was properly recognized for his responsible and commendable actions.

Per the CBC today:

Man who shot Dziekanski video gets journalism award
By CBC News | October 28, 2009

The man who used a digital camera to record the death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver airport says he feels guilty he didn't try to help the Polish immigrant even though others honoured his actions Tuesday with a citizen-journalism award.

The man who used a digital camera to record the death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver airport says he feels guilty he didn't try to help the Polish immigrant even though others honoured his actions Tuesday with a citizen-journalism award.

Dziekanski, 40, died Oct. 14, 2007, following several shocks from a Taser four RCMP officers used to subdue him after he caused a disturbance.

The incident might never have received much attention if Paul Pritchard had not decided to grab his digital camera and start recording the actions of the distraught Dziekanski before police arrived.

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After the incident, Pritchard, who was on his way to his family's home in Victoria and had been waiting in the international arrivals lounge at the time, handed his video over to the RCMP to use in their investigation. The police promised it would be returned in 48 hours.

But when the RCMP's public statements about the incident conflicted with what Pritchard and other witnesses said they saw, Pritchard demanded the RCMP return the video so that he could release it to the public.

When the police refused, saying releasing the video would compromise their investigation, Pritchard hired a lawyer, held a news conference and threatened to use legal action to get it back.

The release of the 10-minute video, which contradicted the police version of the incident, led to widespread public outrage around the world and diplomatic tensions between Canada and Poland. It also resulted in the deepest scrutiny of the RCMP in decades in the form of a special inquiry into the incident, led by retired British Columbia Appeal Court Justice Thomas R. Braidwood.

Citizen journalism award

On Tuesday evening in Toronto, Pritchard's work in documenting what happened and waging a legal battle against the RCMP for the release of his video was honoured by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.

The organization gave Pritchard its first-ever award for citizen journalism, which recognizes the contributions of ordinary people in the field of journalism.

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"I don't consider myself a hero, and to be honest, I'm not completely happy with the fact that I did that," said Pritchard. "Maybe instead of grabbing a camera, I could have gone and talked to him.

"If I feel I did something wrong, or feel I didn't do enough, I think the effort I put in afterwards is enough for me to live with that ? I did everything I possibly could do."

Personally, I consider Paul a hero for what he did.

Without his responsible actions, the whole affair would have been swept under the proverbial rug . . . .


(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Failure to learn stereotypes endangers teen bigot

If this kid was any kind of really serious bigot, he'd have looked past the immediate stereotype of asian immigrants as studious bookworms and looked at the older "all those people know kung fu" stereotype or the even older "godless communists for whom human life has no value" stereotype or the even older "all those people are inscrutable opium-peddling crime lords" stereotypes and steered clear. What is our nation coming to when we can't we even educate our bigots in proper racial stereotyping? I blame multiCULTuralism and LIEbrals and OMIGOD there are ChiComs under the bed! It's Mao and Ho Chi Minh! I think Fu Manchu sent them! Run for your lives!AAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!


Huh? Wha...unhhhh..Where am I? What just happened?
Sorry, I think I was possessed by the spirit of Ezra Levant or Kathy Shaide or Miller Freeman or James Phelan or something for a moment there, I hope I didn't get any bile on you. Where was I? Oh yeah, the ignorant teen bigot who got pwned. I first learned of this story a few days ago and I can't say the subsequent release of further information has done much to change my opinion. The young Korean-Canadian boy should get some sort of medal for showing restraint and not hospitalizing the nitwit bully:

"He had heard his white classmate throw an angry racial slur in his direction after an argument during a gym class game of speedball, and now the student was shoving him backward, refusing to retract the smear.
The white student swung first, hitting the 15-year-old with a punch to the mouth.
The 15-year-old heard his father's voice running through his head: Fight only as a last resort, only in self-defence, only if given no choice, and only with the left hand.
His swing was short and compact, a left-handed dart that hit the white student square on the nose.
The nose broke under his fist, igniting a sequence of events - from arrest to suspension to possible expulsion - that has left the Asian student and his family wondering whether they are welcome in this small, rural and mostly white community north of Toronto, one that has been touched by anti-Asian attacks in the past."

And his schoolmates deserve the same for walking out in support when he was suspended over the incident.

On Monday, 400 of his fellow students, wearing black in solidarity and carrying signs of support, walked out of Keswick High School to rally in protest in front of their school.
Organizer Mathew Winch, a Grade 12 student, said the school has fewer than 10 Asian students, but everyone wanted to stand up against bullying and racism. The story even hit the front page of local newspapers.
After the public outcry, the York Regional Police hate crimes unit reopened the case. Although the other student has not been charged, further charges are possible, a spokesman said yesterday.

And grudging kudos to the York School Board for doing the right thing in the end, even if it took them awhile to get around to it and they were backed into a corner by the students of Keswick High School, their parents and the media. Let just hope the local crown prosecutor sees things the same way.

However, aside from the obvious appeal of the "bully-finds-out-the-hard-way-that-Clark-Kent-is-Superman" angle of the story, there was another aspect of it that caught my eye. This family of recent immigrants clearly understand Canada and the essentials of the Canadian ideal better than a few people around Keswick (and a lot of blogging tories).

The day after the fight, an older cousin of their son's antagonist approached him in the school cafeteria and uttered a similar slur, compounding their sense of despair.
"He said, 'You punched my cousin you Chinese fuck,' " the 15-year-old said. That student was overheard by a teacher and suspended.
His father explains that the easiest course would be to move somewhere else and get a fresh start for his son. But he can't do it.
"I don't want to run away. If another Asian kid comes to this school, what happens to him? Will he run into problems? Will they think they can just kick him out? I don't want to set that example," he said.
"Personally, for my kid, I should move. But as a Canadian I cannot move."

How's that for "Canadian" Raphael?

(quoted material taken from the Globe and Mail)

"This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It To Surrender"

Happy 90th birthday Pete Seeger!

I've had the privilege of seeing Pete Seeger perform twice and as I've often said, I'm glad he's on our side. Give him five minutes in front of a crowd and he can make them do just about anything he wants. Thankfully, he has always used this power for good. While Woody Guthrie was a rambling, gambling, hard-travelling, hard-drinking guy who collected a handful of wives in his time and whose guitar "killed fascists", his travelling partner, Pete Seeger was a teetotalling Quaker Unitarian pacifist who married a Japanese girl during World War Two and did time briefly for refusing to name names to Joe McCarthy. The insigna on his banjo said "this machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender."
As I reckon these things, he's probably one of the greatest living Americans. Happy Birthday Pete!

For a few videos and other material, you can stop by the Woodshed. For more interviews go here,and knowing all his history, if this latest work of his doesn't bring a tear to your eye, then the problem is with you, not Seeger.

For more music tune into Radio Woodshed, where I'll be playing Pete Seeger stuff all day long.