By J. McCallister From New York Daily News

– and others also took aim at the Labor Day festival

Newsweek.com reveals the carnival procession was pelted with “racially charged” and anti-Caribbean comments on a police officers’ website and Everybody’s Caribbean magazine says carnival leadership is out of step

Yes, I said to the parade, not at the parade.

Free of any major criminal acts, the 47th annual West Indian American Day Carnival Parade was instead brutally attacked by inaccurate and misleading mainstream media coverage.

The widely distributed news reports had the annual event “marred” by shootings before it began — falsely linking the carnival parade to crimes that took place up to seven hours earlier, almost 2 miles from the Eastern Parkway parade route.

These bullets of blame gave millions of persons around world the false impression that the Labor Day event is chaotic and even unfit to be held.

These are the facts as reported accurately by the Daily News:

A gunman opened fire into a crowd at Empire Blvd. and Rogers Ave. at 3:30 a.m. on Sept. 1, fatally shooting one man, hitting and wounding another man and woman. This location is 1.4 miles away from the parade’s kickoff point and 7½ hours before the event began at 11 a.m.

In a second incident, a woman was shot in the buttocks on Utica Ave. near St. Johns Place, just two blocks from the parade’s Eastern Parkway route, but still six to seven hours before the carnival procession started.

Finally, a man was shot in the foot at McKeever and Sullivan Places at 4:35 a.m. — 6½ hours before parade time and 1.8 miles away from the route.

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Despite the facts, the venerable Associated Press’ wire service story on the carnival parade, headlined “NY West Indian Day Parade marred by nearby slaying,” was picked up by news outlets around the world, even sparking panicked phone calls from the Caribbean to New York to check on the safety of relatives.

Instead of accurately reporting three Brooklyn shootings as part of citywide Labor Day weekend gun violence which claimed four lives and wounded at least 21 people, the AP, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today.com and scores of websites used phrases such as “before the parade” and “near the parade route” to justify their accusations the parade was marred by violence.

This factless frenzy produced articles that read “. . . the annual West Indian Day Parade, a massive Caribbean celebration that was marred by a fatal shooting nearby before the official festivities got underway” and headlines such as “Barrage of Bullets Before West Indian Day Parade.”

A portion of the AP story read, “. . . the march often kicks off under a shadow of violence, and this year’s was no different.”

At the frenzy’s apex, news outlets, such as gothamist.com , wrongly reported that “this year’s festivities left one dead and four injured by gunfire.” That’s just wrong.

Also clouding the skies over the sun-drenched Labor Day event was a Newsweek.com report of anti-carnival and blatantly anti-Caribbean comments from a website frequented by NYPD officers. And there were some strongly-worded comments for the parade organizers from one of the city’s oldest Caribbean-American publications, Everybody’s Magazine.

Newsweek.com, in an article headlined “NY Cops Make Racist Comments About West Indian Day Parade” reported “racially charged” comments on “Thee Rant, a popular message board for NYPD members.”

According to the Sept. 3 Newsweek article, “Thee Rant, a popular message board for NYPD members (as well as other law enforcement personnel, firefighters and military members), has several threads discussing the parade, and many responses are racially charged.”

Reminiscent of the offensive Facebook postings by NYPD officers in 2011, one parade-related thread, named “Yearly Savage Day Parade Poll,” asked site-goers to project how many murders, shootings and stabbings would take place during the carnival event.

There were also offensive barbs aimed at Mayor de Blasio and his family, the Rev. Al Sharpton, former Gov. David Paterson and others, in addition to anti-parade and barefaced anti-Caribbean statements.

There were also many opinions about the parade within the New York’s Caribbean community and Everybody’s Magazine made its thoughts public.

The publication, founded and published by former West Indian American Day Carnival Association board member Herman Hall, labeled the organization’s leadership out-of-touch in an article titled, “Dinosaur Leadership.”

But the criticism is constructive, says Hall. Congratulating the association, “revelers, masqueraders, steelband orchestras, costume bandleaders and the public for a peaceful and violent-free carnival weekend,” Hall said, “We believe that the WIADCA, an organization that is to some extent funded by taxpayers, needs to be an open organization and to choose young and creative minds to take the carnival to the next height.”

PENAL SYSTEM EXHIBITION

“Self-Determination Inside/Out,” powerful exhibition by incarcerated individuals and their allies touching on incarcerated women, AIDS education, political prisoners, prisoners-as-laborers, the 1971 Attica Prison uprising and other topics, opened Sept. 11 in Brooklyn at 131 8th St. in the Gowanus section.

Film, video, posters, audio recordings and publications to look the history and expansion of America’s penal system and the struggle for reform are used to examine the history and expansion of America’s penal system and the struggle for reform in the exhibit, presented by Interference Archive and organized by Molly Fair, Josh MacPhee, Anika Paris, Laura Whitehorn, and Ryan Wong.

A growing schedule of public programs – running through Nov. 16 – are a part of the exhibition. Events will be held at Interference Archive unless otherwise indicated.

The exhibition events continue on Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. with a walkthrough tour of “Self-Determination Inside/Out” for curators, prison activists, and formerly incarcerated people.

“Shattering Captivity: Struggles of Incarcerated People Against Solitary Confinement, Control Units, and Communication Management Units,” a session including former inmates who experienced control units and solitary confinement, will be held Oct. 2, at 7 p.m.

The struggles of women and transgender persons will be the subject of a talk on Oct. 9 at the City University of New York Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave. (between 34th and 35th Sts.), at 7 p.m.

The film “Control, a documentary portrait of mass incarceration and its impact on households and communities, will be held Oct. 14, 7 p.m., followed by a discussion with the filmmakers and youth criminal justice advocates

On Oct. 30, the session “The Pontiac Brothers and the Rise of New Organizing in Prison,” will be held at 7 p.m. Attorney Michael Deutsch, one of the lawyers for both the Pontiac Brothers and the Attica defendants, will discuss the role of the Pontiac and Stateville prison revolts organizing inside and outside prisons. His talk will include a slide show originally used as an organizing tool around the Pontiac Brothers in the late 1970s.

A screening of Blair Dorosh Walter’s “Out In The Night,” a documentary about the NJ4 case about young black lesbians who supporters say were unjustly imprisoned in New Jersey, will take place Nov. 15 at 5 p.m. Walter’s wlil attend the event.

Educational and class visits will be offered as part of the “Self-Determination Inside/Out” exhibit. Courses or organizing groups focused on criminal justice, U.S. history and politics, public health, policy, race, gender, and LGBT studies are particularly suited for visits. To arrange a visit, send email to [email protected].

For information, visit www.interferencearchive.org or send email to [email protected]

This exhibition is sponsored by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council. Funding for the exhibition also comes from the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute‘s Social Justice Fund.

IMAGES:

There were many pretty scenes on the West Indian American Day Carnival parade route, but too much of the media coverage was ugly – claiming the parade was “marred” by violence from incidents unrelated to the Eastern Parkway event.

It’s just a shame what happened to the Brooklyn’s Caribbean carnival this year. By BRYAN PACE FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Emergency medical personal remove victim from shooting scene at Empire Blvd. and Rogers Ave. on Sept 1. Many media outlets wrongly linked this Brooklyn shooting and other incidents to the West Indian American Day Carnival Parade. This shooting took place in another location — more than seven hours before the carnival procession on Eastern Parkway began — and was not connected to the 47th annual parade. By DAVID TORRES FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

A photo and caption posted on the “Yearly Savage Day Parade Poll” thread on the Thee Rant web page. Newsweek.com reported that the website, which is frequented by NYPD officers and others, had “several threads discussing the parade” and many “racially charged” responses. THEE RANT

Everybody’s Caribbean Magazine, published by former West Indian American Day Carnival Association board member Herman Hall, said carnival was leadership out-of-touch in an article called “Dinosaur Leadership. EVERYBODYSMAG.COM

For more on this story go to: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/media-bashes-carnival-article-1.1938911