This is every bodies very last chance before the March 6th event of international blogging. We need to help them by seeing what we can do. Everything in our power should be used and with the many resources we can use them to show us what to do. What we are learning in class we are putting to use because knowledge is power and that power we use might be what save the darfurians. Everyone in the world has the chance to help them but only some choose to take action so we can all be the ones that take action. These blog posts, that at the end of 48 hours, should be filled with thoughtful at least 1 paragraph posts that show how interested we are in the situation. We hope also that the call-in that we will be doing will help the government see what we want to do. So as part of your last chance PLEASE HELP THE DARFURIANS. We need to show our global responsibility and show that we care about what is going on in the world. Little kids that have survived the conflict have drawn these pictures. These show what they went through and what they don’t ever want to go through again.

I just finished reading 2 articles for class that talk about what China is going to  help them. What they are doing is finally they have decided to not stand by them completely buy they their bonds strong enough to get their oil. Since China is going to be holding the Olympics this year in Beijing they are drawing attention to themselves and people will use that to their advantages to get them to help out. Steven Spielberg who was helping with the art design dropped out because they wouldn’t help with Darfur. I think that it is really cool what Steven did because that shows he is taking a stand and he is also trying to get other people to drop and support them which is amazing. This is the first and second article.

In this year so far we have made a lot posts and we made a lot of good especially me. My favorite post is my dreamland post. I really liked this one because it was one of our free writes and those are the most fun to do although we don’t get to don’t them as much anymore. In the beginning my writing was not a good but surprisingly as the year went on it got a little better and more fluent. I wish we could do more free writing because that is where a lot of us actually wanted to write some of our thoughts but other then that we hate writing. So Mr.Mayo we need more free writing to expand our horizons of smartness and educate ourselves.

In this post I am going to describe the 8 stages of a genocide.

1. Classification-What happens first is that the societies aren’t divided into a lot a groups and they are not very diverse. When they don’t show diversity they are more likely tp have a genocide among themselves.

2. Symbolization-This is when the people of the country start labeling people which is what leads to the real problems because the people being labeled get defensive and they start wearing their colors or symblos which gets the other peopl, the labelers, angry.

3. Dehumanization-One group will deny what they are doing. At that point they will go on radios and print newspapers devoted to hating the group of people. We all know hat these radios should be shut down but nobody does.

4. Organization-All genocides are planned from the start to the end. They plan who they want to kill. What we could do is stop their leaders from getting visas and stop arms from getting to them.

5. Polarization-In this stage the groups are divided socially and interracial marriages are illegal and visas are denied.

6. Identification-At this point they divide the groups up into ghettos or concentration camps or famine areas. This is when they need to call a genocide so the US governement and others can help the area where it is going on.

7. Extermination-At the point thats when the killings start and when the US government can get involved and guard or pretect the people. They make safe areas for them to escape to that are patroled by guards.

8. Denial-After the genocide the killers dig graves and burn the bodies in them and deny that they did anything and blame it on the victims. They try to bring those that suffered and died to justice through their families.

These are the 8 stages of genocide and show what happens when nothing is done.

Frederick Douglass was an African-American slave. When he was really young he learned to read and write by himself which as a slave was punishable by death. When he was a little older he helped at his church in Sabbath School with black preachers. When he was 20 years old he escaped to the north with his wife Anna Murray Douglass and they joined the abolitionist movement. He spent his life to help bring justice to African-Americans, women and minority groups. He was the advisor to President Lincoln, served as U.S. Marshal of D.C. and in 1889 he served as to US minister to HAITI!(woot woot) He wanted to open the doors for African-Americans. He was always finding ways to help African-Americans and women. He died in February 1895 after attending a Womens council meeting.

In English again today we had a presentation about the struggles in Darfur. We had 2 people from Blair high school come to talk to us. They told us about what they were doing to help with the conflict in Darfur and they showed it to us in a power point. What they showed us extended our learning about Darfur. We didn’t know all of the things that they knew so it really helped. What they do is some days in school they have call ins. What happens is they set up a table at lunch and give people a script so they can learn what happens. The after they have read it they call the number and ask them to do something. In the office they keep tallies about who called and what they called about. So that eventually they do something about the problem and these call ins can have a really big impact.

Today in English as part of our Exploding Walls project we watched a video on CNN news about Darfur. The US said that there would be no more genocide but whats happening now in Darfur is an example of it. It’s the first one in the 21st century. Darfur is in Sudan in Africa. Some people were rebels to the government so they hired people called Janjaweed, meaning devils on horses, to kill the rebels. In the early mornings they fly helicopters that have no real destination and drop bombs. When the people run from their houses the Janjaweed is outside and they kill the men, rape the women and kill the baby boys. Millions of people were forced to live in refugee camps in the neighboring country Chad. Women that need to cook have to go away from camps and get wood but they are scared to do that because the Janjaweed are right outside the camp and while rape women that go to far. Since Sudan is China’s primary source of oil then China defends them in UN meetings. The oil that is being sold is in Khartoum the country’s capital, so it is rich because of the money but as they get farther and farther away from it the land gets poorer and poorer; and the countryside of Darfur is one of the poorest places in the world. The conflict in Darfur started in 2003 and people knew then that the Janjaweed would go to Chad because that’s where the refugees were going but they didn’t do anything. Now they are in Chad destroying the camps and killing more people. In 2004, every month 6000 people would die in Darfur because the  representatives for Sudan always declined help.  Every meeting the UN holds they try to rid Sudan of the Janjaweed but every meeting they say no and their allies in Russia and China defend them. In 2006, 60 villages were ravaged and the inhabitants were forced to leave, scared that they would be killed or raped. In July 2007, Sudan finally agreed to let 26000 troops go in and help them, but they wanted them to be African and to not unarm the Janjaweed. They planned to send them by the end of the year. The US wants to help Sudan but they don’t want to jeopardize their relationship with China. So a final question: What is our Global Responsibility?