Activist group might be trying to help itself

BY FRED GRIMM

fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com

It could be that the rallying cry needed work. ``Restorative justice feasibility study now!''aren't words to ignite a multitude.

But for some reason, Wednesday's demonstration of Miami Edison High School students was notably shy of actual Miami Edison High School students.

The demonstrators gathered just three blocks east of Edison High School to protest the arrests of 19 students last Thursday during a campus melee. Out of perhaps 35 protesters, more than half were from Power U, the Overtown-based social activists. The turnout didn't do much to counter charges from school officials that Power U was churning student acrimony for its own ends.

STREET THEATER

When it came time for a bit of street theater, it was Power U organizer Travae Brown who led a handful of protesters to the entrance of the Miami-Dade school police headquarters. With TV crews and newspaper photographers crowded behind him in the doorway, Brown demanded the school cops turn over that elusive restorative justice feasibility study.

The school cops, of course, had no restorative justice feasibility study handy. I don't think Brown was surprised by the news.

Brown, 19, is not a student at Miami Edison High School. Not even a grad. But Power U has been the organizing force behind the student protests since last week's arrests. Power U had been best known, previously, as an activist group mostly concerned with affordable housing and gentrification issues. Their demonstrators came to Wednesday's rally in green T-shirts emblazoned with ``Our land. Our people. Our community.''

STUDENT DEMANDS

Best I could tell, the handful of actual Edison students at Wednesday's gatherings mostly wanted their principal fired or their assistant principal jailed -- simple, unlikely stuff you'd expect from disaffected high schoolers.

But a few months ago, Power U demanded that the school district adopt a program using student peers to oversee student discipline. The district promised to deliver a restorative justice feasibility study.

District spokesman John Shuster said Wednesday the now-infamous study was not quite complete. But the mass arrests last Thursday gave Power U an opportunity to rev up its new pet issue. (Power U's former cause, gentrification, may have crashed along with the housing market.)

FRAGILE ENVIRONMENT

The problem here is that Power U has insinuated itself into a fragile environment. Edison, 90 percent black, mostly Haitian, with daunting language and cultural problems, has long been one of South Florida's most troubled schools. But after five consecutive ''F'' school ratings, Edison students rallied to a ''D'' last year. It was, for this school, something of a triumph.

The student disaffection, exacerbated by Power U, comes at a particularly inopportune time. FCATs start Monday. Edison ninth-grader Marklinda Joseph told me that there was talk Wednesday of students boycotting the tests. ``I actually think we should take them but . . .''

Power U director Denise Perry said that her group was only interested in protecting minority students from roughshod treatment by the school district. District officials, of course, don't think much of Power U. ''It's pretty obvious that they're taking advantage of the situation to further their own cause,'' Shuster said.

At the demonstration, Brown tried, futilely, to lead the crowd in a feasibility study chant. Power U either needs a catchier slogan. Or a better cause.