LA Unified’s BSAP:
A Tide to Lift All Boats Resource Fair at Dana Middle School to Feature Jobs Training, Mental Health By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
From left to right: Robert Daniels, founder of The Do Good Daniels Family Foundation, Gregory Sims, school climate advisor for Dana Middle School and Assistant Principal Jewel Brown. All three participate in the school’s Black Student Achievement Program. Photo by Raphael Richardson
Walker’s Cafe sold to buyer who intends to change nothing p. 2
The Good Life: A quiet place filled by loud food p. 10
By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
Carnival Cruise Lines recently celebrated its 50th anniversary of presenting itself as an affordable, carefree kind of experience for the masses. But Jim Walker, a former cruise line defense attorney — who switched sides to represent cruise ship crime victims (including 125 rape/sexual assault victims) after being asked to defend against a rape lawsuit — sees a much darker legacy. He sees Carnival as more like a pirate ship line, deliberately intended to evade the law as much as humanly possible — be it U.S. labor law, or tax law, criminal protections for victims of rape, sexual assault or molestation, or environmental law protecting the seas it travels. Its corporate parent, Carnival corporation, owns nine cruise lines — all of which “committed criminal environmental violations from 2017-2021” according to Friends of the Earth’s 2021 “Cruise Ship Report Card” — with nearly 100
ships. One line, Princess, sails out of the Port of Los Angeles, while Carnival sails out of Long Beach, home to the Queen Mary, retired from the Cunard line, also now Carnival-owned. Random Lengths News interviewed Walker to shed light on Carnival’s record of lawlessness, from how it started to where it stands today. Ted Arison, father of the current chairman, Micky Arison, started Carnival Cruise Lines in 1972. “He had a vision of having what I characterize as like a Walmart on the seas, a mass, family-oriented, funship. They’re still using the funship mantra in their marketing,” Walker said. “To do so he was the first to perfect the model of basing their companies in foreign ports, foreign incorporation,” he explained. “Carnival Cruise Lines is not an American-based company. It’s registered and incorporated in Panama. Why Panama? Because it lets Car-
nival do whatever they want to do. It’s not a country that cares about minimum wage or overtime laws, or the issue of pollution, employment rights or safety and security. So he created a cruise corporation, in the eyes of a businessman, without any of the limitations of the American government that has wage and labor laws.” It also avoided U.S. income taxes, “Which is considerable, considering that Carnival in the first year before COVID-19, collected over $20 billion and had profits of over $3 billion,” Walker added. But there’s more involved than just saving Carnival money. “It’s always considered itself its own entity and its own government, so to speak. When a crime occurs there’s no U.S. police forces on the ships,” Walker said. As a law firm that only handles [See Carnival, p. 8]
March 31 - April 13, 2022
Gatekeeper of Philippine culture: Linda NietesLittle to receive Banaag Award p. 9
Carefree Cruise or Pirate Ship? Carnival Celebrates 50 Years…of What, Exactly?
[See BSAP, p. 4]
Real People, Real News, Really Effective
On April 2, there will be a resource fair hosted at Richard Henry Dana Middle School, hosted by that campus’ Black Student Union Center which houses the Black Student Achievement Plan program. The fair is intended to connect students and their families to needed resources addressing job training and food insecurity, but primarily mental health services. Essentially, this fair is intended to address issues affecting the student’s home life, and not just the student. “We want to get the parents something, we want to get the kids something, and at the same time,” explained Gregory Sims, the school climate advisor. He creates a rapport with students, helping inspire them to reach academic and personal goals. To Sims, the objective of the resource fair was to help the students’ home life. He noted that a lot of resources and money are directed at the student via school and after-school programs, but if the students’ family struggles are front and center every time they go home, those resources are rendered ineffective. “If the parents at home are still struggling, it’s kind of hard to really change the environment for the student because he has to go back to that,” Sims said. “So we have resources for the student, [and] we have resources for the parents.” Sims was particularly happy with the Port of Los Angeles which will have a booth at the fair, especially after announcing this past January it was building a Goods Movement Training Campus. In a released statement, Port Executive Director Gene Seroka said the campus will train those with the aptitude to work in a fully automated goods movement future and retrain the current workforce by seniority. Assistant Principal Jewel Brown says this will be the first time the nearly century-old middle school has hosted a fair of this kind. Brown explained that the resource fair is intended to shed light on mental health, which she believes is impacting students more than it’s credited for. “We’re not having enough conversations about the mental health of kids and we’re addressing it,” Brown said. “Like in the Olympics with Simone Biles and other athletes coming out and being honest about [their struggles].” Brown, who is in her sixth year as one of Dana Middle School’s assistant principals, explained that the fair is also intended to open its doors to the community to be more
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