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Gawker 
04/21/09
i'm from new orleans, so don't think i'm some upper class manhattanite asshole pitying the poors and being a blanket apologist while sitting on my own ass and benefiting from my immense priviledge. and certainly don't think that somehow i'm isolated from this kind of fucked up violence- some guy got shot in the face on my block over the weekend, i've been robbed, i've had friends shot, and all sorts of layers of shit. my city is fucked the hell up, and is basically a failed state with the same horrible nuances and too many people with shitty opinions as to what's the cause and what's to do. so i think about WHY this kind of shit happens a lot. and i didn't at all say we should let him go, i said that we should never think that imprisioning a person should be looked at as an opportunity for them, because it's not. prison in this country is not about reform, education, or enlightenment. so whatevs.
04/21/09
implying that this kid should be happy that he's most likely going to be in federal prison for the rest of his life because prison in america is obviously better than life in somalia is a really fucked up assertation, and smacks of the type of colonialist bullshit that white people have always used not just in places like somalia, but here in the US in regards to dividing and conquering the native populations. somalia is a fucked up place and there's a lot of root causes as to why, and this kid has most likely had a horrible fucking life so far, but the idea that PRISON is better than either A. the way his life was before or B. some sort of solution or alleviation from a life of deprivation and violence is a shitty way to think. that's the same line of thinking that lead the british to imprision most of the kikuyu when they were conquering kenya- their lives sucked enough, so putting them in internment camps and let some good british culture rub off of them and they will inherently be lifted up and appreciate that their cages were better than their own social organization.
and that's practically how we treat the black urban poor in america, so hahaha.
also, that joke about him winning the boston marathon because he's a skinny black african was pathetic.
04/21/09
04/21/09
He'd prefer an American prison to being a free man (or boy, really) back in Somalia with his family, in a place where, you know, he speaks the language and is familiar with the food and climate and way of life?
That just sounds like some arrogant America-first type shit. Even our prisons are better than that shithole you came from!
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really?
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04/21/09
If they did I guarantee they would be in prison for a long time.
04/21/09
And that's not even including commandeering a vessel.
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04/21/09
I believe there's a more recent U.N. treaty that actually says any country can arrest and try a piracy suspect for a crime in international waters, no matter whose ship was attacked or where the attack occurred.
So bringing this kid to NYC would appear to be kosher. Of course, the kid is 16. And he's from Somalia. And he doesn't speak English and probably wasn't the ringleader, so I kinda doubt he's gonna get a life sentence.
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04/21/09
Pirate Law FTW!
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