On February 19th I was contacted by Helen Zia on her way here to do a story for The Women’s Media Center about the 101st soldier being prosecuted for the rape and murder of a 14 year old Iraqi girl and murder of her family. See Helen’s article at:
WMC Iraq Series Exclusive by Helen Zia http://www.womensmediacenter.com/ex/022207.html
Polly Coe and I met with Helen briefly while she was here. She is a very kind and strong person, and she repeated what a great job we are doing here in Clarksville to be connected, aware and active in civil liberties. It was very nice to have someone of such magnitude interested in us and what we are doing. I could see through her eyes that we really are on the front lines so to speak. Anything we do here is a bold new step.
Helen asked me what the group I started; the Clarksville Freethinkers for Peace and Civil Liberties is doing next. I said we are evolving into this website to be connected, informed and entertained.
This site brings essential news and commentaries to us that mainstream media has ignored or stifled. It offers news that we are desperate, and perhaps made uncomfortable, to hear. It brings local news that inspires or calls for our attention. It gives us a voice if we choose to use it; and not the anonymous heckling that seeks to degrade creative and thoughtful thinking. Over 40% of our viewers find us through Google–we are reaching out to the public.
The division in thought in this country that has made parts of America enemies with itself cannot continue to stand up to real communication. Freethinking Americans cannot be dehumanized and discarded when we are able to have a voice and use it. Putting a label on us in order to shut us up will not benefit anyone because we have a voice of reason and we honor all life. Blindfolds need to be removed. We are, most of us, in agreement with certain basic principles. Some of those are described and defended in the Constitution of the United States of America. Sense and reason must prevail.I want to thank Bill Larson for doing such a wonderful job on this site. Check out his latest article: Invading Iran? What amazing research and wild video.
Thank you, Clarksville Online readers and the Clarksville Freethinkers for breaking away from the mob thinking. Thank you for standing up for others and your own rights. Thank you for being a part of history. Continue to tell the truth and tell your truth.
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Helen Zia (???; pinyin: Xiè Hànlán) (1952 – ) is a second generation Chinese American and an award-winning journalist and scholar who has covered Asian American communities and social and political movements for decades.
She was born in New Jersey to first generation immigrants from Shanghai. She entered Princeton University in the early 1970s and was a member of its first graduating class of women. As a student, Zia was among the founders of the Asian American Students Association. She was also a vocal anti-war activist, voicing her Opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and a firm believer in feminism.
She entered medical school in 1974, but quit in 1976. She moved to Detroit, Michigan. She went to work as a construction laborer, an autoworker and a community organizer, after which she discovered her life’s work as a journalist and writer.
She is the author of Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People, a finalist for the prestigious Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize. President of the United States Bill Clinton quoted from Asian American Dreams at two separate speeches in the White House Rose Garden.
She is also co-author, with Wen Ho Lee, of My Country Versus Me, which reveals what happened to the Los Alamos scientist who was falsely accused of being a spy for the People’s Republic of China in the “worst case since the Rosenbergs.”
Zia is former Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine. Her articles, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, books and anthologies. She was named one of the most influential Asian Americans of the decade by A. Magazine.
Zia has received numerous journalism awards for her ground-breaking stories; her investigation of date rape at the University of Michigan led to campus demonstrations and an overhaul of its policies, while her research on women who join neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations provoked new thinking on the relationship between race and gender violence in hate crimes.
Zia has been outspoken on issues ranging from civil rights and peace to women’s rights and countering hate violence and homophobia. In 1997, she testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on the racial impact of the news media. She traveled to Beijing in 1995 to the United Nations Fourth World Congress on Women as part of a journalists of color delegation. She has appeared in numerous news programs and films; her work on the 1980s Asian American landmark civil rights case of anti-Asian violence is documented in the Academy Award nominated film, “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” and she was profiled in Bill Moyers’ PBS documentary, “Becoming American: The Chinese Experience.”
Zia received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the Law School of the City University of New York for bringing important matters of law and civil rights into public view.
External Links
* Bio used from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Zia
Thank you Debbie for your contributions and for you kind words both about the site and about me!