Breaking News Article
May 27, 2011
This is a piece I wrote when I was in the Bronx Ink class at Columbia Journalism School in Spring 2011. It was featured on the graduate school’s homepage.
May 2, 2011
By Camilo Hannibal Smith
On the east side of Melrose, about 10 miles north of Ground Zero, a fading mural dedicated to a fallen firefighter still brightens an otherwise plain brick and concrete corner of Union Avenue and East 152nd Street. Passersby didn’t even glance at the memorial to Peter Bielfeld whose Ladder Company 42, known as La Casa del Elefante is located just a few blocks away. The news of the killing of Osama Bin Laden at the hands of U.S. forces hadn’t shaken this pocket of New York City.
But for one resident, the image of a firefighter and an unharmed World Trade Center deserved a long glance. Elizabeth Alvarez, 48, smoked her morning cigarette as she stared at the mural from the curb. Her skepticism about whether or not Osama bin Laden was really dead didn’t keep her from feeling the emotion that thoughts of September 11, 2001 brought back.
“I didn’t have family in there, and I still can’t watch when they show the repeats,” of the planes hitting the World Trade Center, she said.
“I don’t understand war,” she continued, adding that she loves President Obama but didn’t agree with the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. She was relieved at the news, but didn’t expect terrorism against the U.S. to end. “For every Bin Laden you take out, there’s another one to take his place,” she said.
Mark Johnson, 53, sat outside the bodega next door to the mural. Although he said he believed the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death, he said he felt there was a heightened possibility of another attack on New York. “You cut the head off a snake, the snake still move,” he said.
As the morning rush hour got underway, with young people and mothers making their way to school and to work, there wasn’t much talk about last night’s news. Police presence was minimal in the area, which was just a few feet from the Jackson Avenue subway station.
“All this does is help Obama with his popularity,” said Charles James, 61. He said he worked in the World Trade Center in the early 1980s, but later worked in Alaska during 9/11. He said he was more worried about things like the economy, than retaliation against the U.S. for killing Bin Laden.
Comments (0) | Tags: 9/11 memorials, 9/11 memorials in the Bronx, Bronx New York, osama bin laden death
Cyberbullying Article
May 27, 2011
April 2, 2011
By Camilo Hannibal-Smith
Last month, the White House held a conference on bullying with particular attention paid to an increasingly prevalent form of harassment with sometimes violent consequences: cyberbullying. “Today, bullying doesn’t even end at the school bell,” said President Barak Obama toward the end of his speech. “It can follow our children from the hallways to their cell phones to their computer screens.”
Since about 2007, youth agencies and the U.S. government began following this trend. In 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited research that showed 9 percent to 35 percent of students report being victims of electronic aggression. The CDC considers cyberbullying and other forms of so-called electronic violence an emerging adolescent health issue.
“Cyberbullying has become a hot topic for schools and for parents,” said Thomas Kapp, who heads the Bronx District Attorney’s office that handles Internet crimes.
Within the past year, the D.A.’s office has enlisted personnel to conduct workshops for students and parents addressing cyberbullying. Kapp said that before 2011, most of his technology related workshops dealt strictly with Internet safety, sexting and child pornography.
Comments (0) | Tags: bronx ink, cyberbullying, internet and technology, journalism
Photos from a Bronx Church
May 27, 2011
This photo is from a slideshow I did about an Easter celebration in the Bronx in 2011. Click the picture to see more or visit here.
Comments (0) | Tags: Bronx black church, Bronx religious centers, churches in New York, Gospel churches in the Bronx
Video: Cinco de Mayo
May 27, 2011
Cinco de Mayo: Bronx sonidero scene drives the dancefloors from Bronx Ink on Vimeo.
Comments (0) | Tags: mexican DJs, mexican immigrant, sonideros
Video Work
May 27, 2011
South Bronx passion play in the shadows from Bronx Ink on Vimeo.
Comments (0) | Tags: Bronx New York, Passion Plays, religion, storefront church
Slideshow #1
May 27, 2011
Brooklyn Apartment of Magnus Saethre (September, 2010) from C.H.Smith on Vimeo.
Comments (0) | Tags: News
My Music Writing from Los Angeles Times, 2009
March 26, 2011
Click the photo to read this piece on latimes.com
Mexican rapper Niña Dioz makes her U.S. debut
SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST
March 24, 2009|Camilo Smith
Friday night, as rapper Nina Dioz was making her U.S. debut at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, she slammed her microphone down midsong and started yelling expletives at the sound engineer from the stage, telling the crowd, “This place doesn’t want me to give you the show you deserve.” She had been asking for the bass to be turned up, to no avail.
Nina Dioz, 23, is Mexico’s answer to Grammy-nominated powerhouse M.I.A. or the diminutive rapper Lady Sovereign, and like those multiculti acts, she’s used her innate grit and fire to carve out a spot in the largely male-dominated world of hip-hop in her native country. Now she plans to bring Mexican hip-hop to the rest of the world.
Comments (0) | Tags: female rappers, mexican female rappers, mexican hiphop, rap
BK Gang Reunion
March 23, 2011
Click here, or on the photo to watch an audio slideshow.
Comments (0) | Tags: Biker gangs, gangs, New York City Gang Reunions
The Brooklyn Ink
March 23, 2011
Along the southwest edge of 29th Street and Third Avenue in Sunset Park, cars dart along the shadow cast by the Gowanus Expressway. While drivers may not be able to distinguish the industrial red brick of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Metropolitan Detention Center from the other factories along the route, what’s immediately out of place is the long white concrete barrier that clumsily crosses 29th Street ending atop the sidewalk on the other end.
The barrier has been in place since just after September 11, according to city officials. It’s a security measure meant to protect the 12-story, double towers at 80 29th Street and its adjacent seven-story 100 29th Street building. The structures are respectively known as the West and East buildings that make up the Department of Justice’s MDC: Brooklyn.
Ed Ross, a Bureau of Prisons spokesman in Washington, confirmed that the access to the street in front of the detention center has been blocked for years. But members of Community Board 7 and local residents are saying enough is enough and that 29th Street, a public road, needs to have its concrete blockade removed and returned to public use.
“From a planning standpoint and from a community standpoint, it is something we view negatively,” says CB7 District Manager Jeremy Laufer. “Perhaps there are legitimate security reasons, but they’ve never been explained to this community.”
Read the rest here:
http://thebrooklynink.com/2010/12/16/21970-security-measure-turns-public-street-to-prison-parking-lot-in-sunset-park/