The message of S.T.O.P.P.

These are some of the songs and raps that S.T.O.P.P. performed and the messages that were delivered. This is a powerful message and I am happy that I was apart of this group and greatful for the opportunities that came out of it. It was an amazing and life changing experience for many like myself and I will never forget my highschool years because of this group.




S..T..O..P..STOP the fighting. C..O..M..E, can't you see them crying? We are all one nation. Let's all just take a stand. Why don't you stop the fighting, we can. Why don't you stop the fighting, we can.


Here's a rhyme that better run through you mind, take the time and don't cause no crime. See the exploitation not to mess the segregation. All across the nation let's stop the hesitation. Life is like an integer, negative or positive, don't deny my voice just make the choice.


Stop the violence, keep the peace. I'm tired of our little brother's dying in the streets. Stop the racism so whites and blacks can interact. All the nations coming together like a sensation. I know this is a crazy earth for what it's worth cuz everytime a man dies a woman gives birth.So please put down the guns, please put down the knives, forget about the crips, bloods, gaters and tribes. It's just a colour, it don't give you the right to kill another. Put up your fists cuz we got days to reminisce. People killing each, killing all of our bothers, what's the main point of us even having a mother. I know we can come up with an immunity even though we living in the same community. Let's come together, live life in unity, lets stop the V.I.O.L.E.N.C.E.

Photo Documentary

In class we got the opportunity to do a photo documentary on a topic of our choice that relates to migration or culture. I used this as a chance to share with the class a special dance group I was apart of back in high school. The name of the group is S.T.O.P.P. (Student's Triumph Over Peer Pressure) and what we do as a group is cultural dances that deliver a message. This group was started a little over a decade ago after one of our first members lost a brother due to gun violence. S.T.O.P.P. does cultural dances including African, South Asain, Carribean as well has step dancing, hip hop, modern and contemporary dances to deliver the message to young people. This message is to stop the violence, the racism and the hatred towards one another. In today's society, we are losing many of our young people to gang violence and everyone young and old is affected by it. As a group S.T.O.P.P. would go from school to school all across Ontario and other provinces including Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Quebec, etc. to perform these dances. In additon to these dances, we would sing and act as well. This class basically brought together a bunch of kids with different cultural backgrounds to use these cultutal differences to deliver the same message. The way I felt about this class was, if we can put aside our differences to do something positve then why can't everyone else? This class opened my eyes to a major issue that we still face many years after I've been in the class and I feel that it is about time people focus on what's important in life rather than focusing on the negative. No one should have to die from violence, racism or hatred and if people were more open minded to sloving problems in a more positve way, we wouldn't have to worry feeling safe in our own surroundings.

What's Going On

Taking this class has taught me to look deeper into what’s going on around me. I have also been looking deeper into the tragedies of the past, then I remembered a song that came out a couple of years ago that delivers a powerful message that I thought I should share. The name of this song is called "What’s going on” which is sung by all-star celebrities. This song was initially released as a benefit single to help tackle the AIDS crisis but after the horrific 9/11 tragedy, this song took on a whole other meaning. All the profits raised were split to help out AIDS and 9/11 victims and to me “what’s going on” just says that we need to look at the bigger picture and realize what’s really going on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyTy9ns894M&feature=fvsr

[P Diddy:]What's Going On

[Jermaine Dupri:]
Tell Me

[P Diddy:]
People Dying
People Crying
Lord help us

[Bono:]
Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying

[Gwen Stefani:]
Oh, brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying

[Jermaine Dupri:]
That's Right

[Aaron Lewis:]
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today

[Nona Gaye:]
Oh my father, father
We don't need to escalate

[Backstreet Boys:]
You see war is not the answer

[Nona Gaye/Backstreet Boys:]
For only love can conquer hate

[Christina Aguilera:]
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today

[Britney Spears:]
Barricades, can't block our way

[J-Lo:]
Don't punish me with brutality

[Destiny's Child:]
Talk to me
So you can see

[Destiny's Child/Britney Spears:]
[First Chorus]
Oh what's going on
What's going on
Yeah what's going on
Ahh what's going on

[Ja Rule:]
What's going on in a world filled with pain
Where's the love for which we pray
What's going on
When our children can't play
Homeless can't eat
There's got to be a better way
What's going on
When we politically blind
Can't see the signs of endangered times
What's going on

[Nelly Furtado:]
Ah tell me
What's going on in the world today
I'd rather be dead
Than turn my head away
We gotta first world vision to complete, to lift our
Hands in the air and cry for a switch

[Michael Stipe:]
Father, father

[P Diddy:]
Father help us, come on

[Michael Stipe:]
Everybody thinks we're wrong

[Alicia Keys:]
Oh, but who are they to judge us
Together we can all be strong

[P Diddy:]
United we stand, Divided we fall

[N'Sync:]
Oh you know we've got to find a way

[Mary J. Blige:]
To bring some understanding here today

[N'Sync:]
Barricades can't block our way

[Darren Hayes (Savage Garden):]
Don't punish me with brutality

[N'Sync:]
Baby talk to me
So you can see
[Second chorus]
Yeah, what's going on
Hey, what's going on
Somebody tell me what's going on
I'll tell you what's goin' on-uh

[Nelly:]
What's going on 'cross seas
Every minute a child dies by this disease
In record numbers indeed
Got momma's crying out please
My baby hold on
My child ain't done nothing wrong
Still I want to holler
Ask them why they don't bother
Oh no, oh no
Make me turn to my father
And ask him why they all got a trapped soul

[Nas:]
I can feel what was bothering Marvin
Why his words forever remain
Dealing with these modern day problems
'Cause of ignorance surrounding me and my constituents
Too many infected
Too many lives diminishing
Nobody say Protestants, Jews, Blacks, and Whites, Latinos and Asians
Pray together
Less fight
We better unite
As genocide chemical war
And the rich and the poor
Know that God delivers a cure

[Eve:]
It's a shame our reality is devastating
People praying for a cure
Dying while they're waiting
Ask the Lord for the comfort and strength to face it
All the kids with dreams
Won't get the chance to chase it
Makes me sad
Think about the lives they would've had
Think about the orphan babies got no moms and dads
How can we sit back and not try to make it right
We gotta come together
We gotta fight for life

[Fred Durst:]
Somebody tell me what's going on
(what's going on)
We got human beings using humans for a bomb
But everyone wanna live
Don't nobody really want to die
You feeling me right
I can't be watching people die
(die)
And watching people cry
Let me break it down for a minute
If there's enough room here for you and me
There's plenty of room for some humanity

Somebody tell me what's going on
(what's going on)
Somebody tell me what's going on
(what's going on)
Somebody tell me what's going on
(what's going on)
Somebody tell me what's going on
(what's going on)
Somebody tell me what's going on
(what's going on)
Somebody tell me what's going on
(what's going on)
Somebody tell me what's going on
(what's going on)
Somebody tell me what's going on
(what's going on)

We are One Culture

This is a spoken word piece that I found on YouTube that I found very interesting. The name of this piece is "We are One Culture". I feel that this spoken word piece is saying that we are all basically living the same lives yet we live in a world of hatred and selfishness. We all go through the same struggles yet we feel as though our lives are so different when in reality, it isn't. The only thing that separates us in life is our backgrounds. In a world where everything is changing with time, we still seem to live in the past. We are all following the same laws of the government and no one will stand up for what's right. When it all boils down, we really are one culture but we fail to realize it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6ZwJy3VGbM

His Journey to Today

 
These are pictures of Omar Khadr at 15 and and him 10 years later. This just shows that he grew up a prisoner which is very sad in my opinion. He didn't have a normal teenage life like any regualr teenager.

Just my thoughts on Omar Khadr

After hearing about Omar Khadr being held prisoner I felt very sorry for him because he was just 15 years old and had to witness many people around him getting killed. He is the last westerner being held and what surprised me the most was reading that the Canadian government has yet to ask for his return. I personally feel that at 15 years old he shouldn’t be treated so poorly by these people because he hasn’t done anything wrong in my opinion. 10 years later and he still has no freedom and he is in isolation which can mentally damage a person. After getting shot 2 times, the medics were treating his wounds and he told them to shoot him which is something someone should never have to tell another person, especially at 15 years old. I feel that Omar Khadr was deprived of his childhood and deprived of the opportunity to grow up as a regular teenager without his family. In Guantanamo Bay he was treated as if he wasn’t human and its very sickening to read and hear about the things that have been done to him. I could never imagine being treated the way he is being treated and no one deserves it. Everyone deserves the right to live normally and they have deprived him of his rights and his freedom.

Canadian Prisoner in Guantanamo

This is an article that I found about Omar Khadr, a Canadian who has been held prisoner in Guantanamo Bay since he was 15 years old.

 

The last westerner in Guantanamo

 

The last westerner in Guantanamo

Canada's government refuses to call for the release of a young Canadian held at the US prison.

A drawing by artist Janet Hamlin, reviewed by the U.S. military, shows young Canadian captive, Omar Khadr, attending a pre-trial session at the Guantanamo Bay naval base Dec. 12, 2008. (Janet Hamlin/Reuters)

TORONTO — On the morning of July 27, 2002, American Special Forces soldiers were pinned down by an outnumbered handful of suspected Al Qaeda fighters in a compound south of Kabul. Two F-18 warplanes proceeded to drop 500-pound bombs.
When the smoke cleared, Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer went to survey the rubble. The Denver, Colo. native never saw the grenade that landed at his feet, killing him. A U.S. soldier says he then saw an injured fighter lying in the debris and shot him dead. He saw another — later identified as Omar Khadr — sitting on the ground, and pumped two bullets into his back.
Khadr survived. As an army medic treated the gaping exit wounds on his chest, Khadr whispered, in English, "Shoot me.”
He was 15 years old. He was also a Toronto-born Canadian citizen.
Today, Khadr is the last westerner languishing in America’s notorious Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. Other western countries have demanded and secured the release of their citizens. But successive Canadian governments have steadfastly refused to even ask for Khadr’s return. That fact alone challenges Canada’s self-image as a standard-bearer for human rights and international law.
Khadr was a child soldier. International conventions signed by Canada consider child soldiers victims who should be rehabilitated, rather than prosecuted — in Khadr’s case, if he ever gets a trial, for Speer’s murder. Yet the Canadian government continues to wash its hands of him, even after U.S. President Barack Obama announced the closing of “Gitmo” within a year.
Canada's current conservative government stands virtually alone among western countries in supporting the Guantanamo prison, despite the discredited legal contortions used by the previous U.S. administration to justify its existence and the “enhanced” interrogation techniques its inmates have suffered.
One example used on Khadr is described in “Guantanamo’s Child,” a well-documented book by the Toronto Star’s national security reporter, Michelle Shephard: “The guards left him in the interrogation booth for hours, short-shackled with his ankles and wrists bound together and secured to a bolt on the floor. Unable to move, he eventually urinated and was left in a pool of urine on the floor.
“When the MPs returned and found the soiled teenager, they poured pine oil cleaner on Omar’s chest and the floor. Keeping him short-shackled, the guards used Omar as a human mop to clean up the mess. Omar was returned to his cell and for two days the guards refused to give him fresh clothes.”