{"id":3210,"date":"2015-02-05T14:19:43","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T14:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/?p=3210"},"modified":"2015-02-05T14:20:14","modified_gmt":"2015-02-05T14:20:14","slug":"garments-garner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/2015\/02\/garments-garner\/","title":{"rendered":"Garments for Garner"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"garner\"<\/a>
Ocean Gao (VI) presents her t-shirt to daughter of Eric Garner, Emerald Garner. Photo by Yang Hu.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Ocean Gao (VI) first saw the video depicting the violent choking death of Eric Garner, she was \u201cshocked to the point of speechlessness,\u201d she said. Later, when it was announced that the man responsible, Daniel Pantaleo, would not be indicted, \u201cthat mortification turned to anger and rage.\u201d To calm herself, Ocean lost herself in art, resulting in a portrait of a high school-age Eric Garner.<\/p>\n

Ocean was unwilling to sit by as this indisputable racism appeared over and over again. She knew that it was time for change, and thus began the \u201cGarments for Garner\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cGarments for Garner\u201d was an effort instigated by Ocean in which T-shirts were sold to raise money for Garner\u2019s family after his death. She managed to raise roughly $3,282 for the family selling T-shirts, $2,182 of which came from the Fieldston community (the remaining amount was a product of a variety of sales).<\/p>\n

On January 12, Ocean presented T-shirts to Esaw Garner, Eric\u2019s widow. Gao described this as \u201can incredibly moving experience,\u201d saying that \u201cin tears, Mrs. Garner expressed her gratitude to the Fieldston community.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about the future of \u201cGarments for Garner,\u201d Ocean pointed out that it was not just a fundraiser.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the purposes of \u2018Garments for Garner\u2019 was to raise money for his family,\u201d she said, \u201cthe fight for racial equity is not about one man, but about structural racism. I don\u2019t know what is in the future of \u2018Garments for Garner,\u2019 but I hope that the institutionalized racism that Eric Garner\u2019s case made apparent is not forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGarments for Garner\u201d is an event that continues to move forward, and the opportunity still exists to buy a T-shirt. For Ocean, \u201cGarments for Garner\u201d is not only a way to make an effort in our community, but also to move our nation forward and away from racist ideologies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are born into a society where racism is as prevalent as the air that we breathe,\u201d Ocean said. \u201cWe cannot help but internalize racist thinking, including stereotypes, assumptions and judgments about others and about ourselves. However, we can decide whether or not we challenge this hegemonic thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hope is that this decision will serve as an exemplar, and that the communities around us and the communities around others striving for change will spark a chain reaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot forget Eric Garner,\u201d Ocean said, \u201cand we cannot forget the lives lost at the hands of racism. It\u2019s a bumpy road ahead of us, but we must continue the fight for racial equity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Ocean Gao (VI) first saw the video depicting the violent choking death of Eric Garner, she was \u201cshocked to the point of speechlessness,\u201d she said. Later, when it was announced that the man responsible, Daniel Pantaleo, would not be indicted, \u201cthat mortification turned to anger and rage.\u201d To calm herself, Ocean lost herself in art, resulting in a portrait of a high school-age Eric Garner. Ocean was unwilling to sit by as this indisputable<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":3211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"coauthors":[239],"class_list":["post-3210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slider"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Garner-Cover.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3213,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210\/revisions\/3213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3210"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}