Month: July 2018

By Marie Torres

Beginning on September 22nd, 2017, a modern colony of the “greatest country of the world” went into complete darkness with no connection to the rest of the world. The small island of Borinquen (Puerto Rico) with its 3.4 million citizens suffered in isolation while Hurricane Maria ravaged the entire country, slowly traveling at about 10 km per hour. As category 5 storm, Maria was the most intense storm the island has experienced in over 100 years. It was not until day 4 or 5 that the millions of anxious Boricuas living in the states were able to hear any information about their loved ones on the island. This powerful storm wreaked havoc on the island, but the real atrocity has been the lack of U.S. response to help its colony.

In the months following the hurricane, the daily reality for Boricuas on the island and those in the diaspora has been horrendous. Since the storm, Boricuas have been crying out from help: jobs, money, food, water, medications. Yet, massive shutdowns and lack of supplies left hundreds to die in hospitals. Some Boricuas literally suffocated to death for lack of oxygen tanks, others have died for lack of common medicines, and countless other have been lost to diseases linked to lack of proper sanitation. Over the past 7 months, the average Boricua suffered 84 days without electricity, 60 days without access to drinking water, and more than 40 days without cell phone communication. Many in the interior regions and poor working class towns have suffered the most as they have been completely forgotten about by supply distributions. There have also been massive school closures, pension cuts, job loss, and austerity measures. These conditions have resulted in 300% increases in calls to Puerto Rican suicide hotlines, and a massive increase in suicides and reports of depression. Boricuas are desperately fighting to survive, but they are also crying out for liberation.

While the U.S. Federal Government’s official report only recognized 64 deaths related to the hurricane, the truth is that 4,645 Boricuas have been murdered since the hurricane, according to a study funded by Harvard as well as the accounts of Boricuas struggling on the island . We must be clear about this discrepancy: 4,645 Boricuas died because of US Government negligence and outright racism. Amerikkka will only say that 64 died as direct results of the storm which means they only count the Boricuas who drowned, got caught in mudslides, or were fatally hit with debris in order to maintain their innocence for the 4,581 lives that have been lost. Many are identifying this for what it is: a state-sponsored mass killing and disaster capitalism at its finest.

On June 1st, thousands of Boricuas gathered at the capital to collectively mourn the deaths of their beloved brothers and sisters. Thousands of pairs of shoes of those passed were placed in front of the capitol building with signs that read “ GENOCIDE” and “Decolonize this place.” Just June 18th, a proposal made by Cuba was presented to the UN for Puerto Rican Independence. While this is the 37th proposal given to the UN for Boricua Liberation, it shows that Boricuas will never stop fighting. ¡Que Viva Borinquen Libre!

By Shera Phillips

Children are being ripped away from their parents and forcibly taken to concentration camps. It is estimated 10,000 children are now imprisoned.  Trump has said “Immigrants aren’t people. They are animals”. He, his counterparts and their policies blatantly demonstrate their lack of respect for human life. This is how slaveowners justified the genocide against enslaved people in the U.S.

A tidal wave of protests has swept the country against this policy. So Trump issued an executive order that seemed to stop this. That’s a deception. The order calls for building prisons for 20,000 families on military bases; the indefinite imprisonment of families, and no date or plan for family reunification.  On June 19 Trump went to court to ask that the current law banning children from being incarcerated more than 20 days be lifted for immigrants and that these prisons be exempted from current minimal standards for child incarceration, minimal stands that include education and recreation time. ICE admits not knowing where 1,500 children are.

The “Justice” department has repeatedly denied public access to see the conditions which already exist in these for-profit prisons.  U.S. Congress member Jeff Merkley’s multiple attempts to enter the Bronxville, Tx “detention center”, a repurposed Walmart with blackened windows, have repeatedly been denied and he was forced off the property. 

Children, one of the most defenseless groups, can barely stand being away from their parents while they use the restroom, yet they are being kidnapped, held in cages and sleeping on concrete floors. We can only imagine what other traumatizing events they are enduring. The Huffington Post reports that these children are being given psychiatric drugs. 

The fact that we’ve allowed our government to commit atrocities that are reminiscent of previous egregious acts against humanity is shameful and unfathomable. We should be outraged! There should be demonstrations happening all over this country demanding these children be returned to their parents immediately. Many of the immigrants in our country find themselves in circumstances that render them all but paralyzed and we need to stand with and for them. 

As the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would say, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. This monstrosity of justice is taking place every day on our very own soil as we sit idly by consumed with the latest in pop culture. We are a mesmerized, hypnotized audience watching our government perform a magic show of illusions and disappearing acts that we are funding.

On May 25, Kentrell Hurst, a 36 year old mother of five, died in the Orleans Justice Center jail, marking the most recent in-custody death for the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office.

Hurst is the second person in the last six months to have died while on a detox protocol administered by Constant Care Solutions, a private company contracted by the OPSO to provide medical services to inmates. Though a coroner ruled that Dennis Edwards, 41, died on December 15 of natural causes, reports indicate that he died in similar circumstances to Hurst. A nurse who is suing CCS for a wrongful firing in the wake of Edwards’ death, alleged that her supervisors ignored her attempts to alert them of his dire condition. Neither Hurst nor Edwards were taken to the hospital.

Hurst and Edwards’ deaths follow last October’s deaths of Narada Mealey, 32, and Evan Sullivan, 27, from an ulcer and pulmonary edema (or “apparent natural causes”, as OPSO would have it), respectively. Mealey, a father of 6, was jailed for failing to pay court fees in connection with a misdemeanor marijuana conviction. His family reported that he had complained to his jailers about his condition yet had received no medical attention.

Citing an inmate death rate four times the national average, a recent federal monitors’ report described Orleans Parish Prison as “critically unsafe.” Those who have seen and those whose family has seen the inside of OPP know all too well the daily injustices and humiliations of prison life. Those of us on the outside must stand in solidarity with our imprisoned brothers and sisters to demand that the state honor every person’s human right to healthcare.

OUR TAX DOLLARS SHOULD GO TO SCHOOLS AND HOUSING NOT PRISONS

The Geo Group and CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) operate for-profit prisons and immigration detention centers for states and the federal government.

As it was put in a March 10 article for the New York Times, “The worse the news for immigrants and their lawyers, the better it has been for the two companies. When a member of the Trump administration issues a memo or executive order, gives a speech or tweets about the crackdown on immigrants, shares of the two companies rise: Since the election, CoreCivic’s stock price has climbed 120 percent, and Geo’s has gained 80 percent.”

“The deportation crackdown is doing very good things for these companies,” said Terry Dwyer, an analyst with KDP Investment Advisors.

Wall Street is drooling as the policy of indefinite imprisonment is set in place. The same is true for the mass incarceration of “citizens” for which Louisiana and New Orleans are the world’s worst abusers.

By Joseph Rosen

“I was locked up because I was poor.” This is the testimony of Twanda Marshinda Brown, a single working mother of seven who spent 57 days in a Lexington County (SC) jail for failing to pay $100 a month toward traffic tickets. For thousands of poor Louisianans who have been put in jail, their experience has been much the same. The Louisiana Sheriff’s Association has recently admitted that throughout the state, at least 2,181 people have been incarcerated for more than a year without a trial. (The results of a public record request challenging the internal survey of the LA Sheriff’s Association is still pending.) In Orleans Parish Prison, 90% of inmates are currently awaiting trial; of these at least 1400 men and women, more than half find themselves in a position like Brown’s, charged with nonviolent offenses and imprisoned for no other reason that they cannot afford bail and fees.

A recent survey by the Federal Reserve revealed that 66% of Americans  would not be able to cover an emergency expense of $400. The cost of bail or a court fee represents an even greater burden for someone charged with a crime: the median annual income for an incarcerated person (calculated pre-detention) amounts to a mere $15,109. Under these conditions, many people are unjustly doomed to lengthy pre-trial detentions despite their legal right to a “speedy trial” and the legal assurance that these individuals are “presumed innocent until proven guilty in court of law.” As has always been the case in the US criminal injustice system, “equal rights” are enjoyed unequally.

“I have been struggling to find a job, and I have even more bills because I couldn’t work in jail.” Just like Brown, most people lose their jobs during their detention. Many lose their housing. Many suffer from failing health as their conditions go uncared for. Many have families that are thrown into chaos for lack of childcare. These hardships are born by the incarcerated as well as their families and communities on the outside. No one gains from these detentions except for the commercial bail bond companies, the private companies that are contracted to run these prisons, and the corporations whose executives leech profits from the legal wage theft of the imprisoned workers that they exploit.

Reform is being fought for by organizations inside and outside of the prison walls. The courts’ use of cash bail has been challenged on constitutional grounds and has been ended in some jurisdictions. Prisoners continue to mount strikes to demand their labor rights among other basic rights. Reforms to this system of mass criminalization and modern bondage can be won through struggle, but workers who know better will not let up the fight until we rid our society of those who would profit from our poverty.

By Antranette Scott

“Some of them are just born bad…” Those are the words of Ray Kern, the owner of one of the shops in the French Quarter from which a group of boys (14yrs old, 15yrs old and 2 9yrs olds) stole a tip jar and $500.00. Kern told reporters that the boys “looked like pros” and he did not believe that anything could correct the juveniles. Now I want to get something straight before we even start: I am in no way saying that these youth were not wrong, but I believe that there is power (to elevate or to destroy) in how black youth are portrayed in media and also the criminalizing of youth at such a young age. I know that the majority of our readers have at one time stolen items; this false idea that kids are complete angels is used as justification to inject them into our criminal justice system.

In the city of New Orleans where the school to prison pipeline is ever present, it is important that we take a critical look at youth incarceration. We know that mass incarceration is not a solution to our crime problem, especially for youth, yet we are constantly bombarded with the same narrative of criminalization. This is looking at the symptoms instead the cause for a solution. The cause is a lack of quality public schooling, a lack of after-school and summer programs that are open and readily available to our city’s youth. We need summer jobs that pay a reasonable wage for our youth. We also need mentoring programs that pay mentors a living wage and that foster an interest in seeing our youth succeed.

A lot of folks are wondering where we are going to get the funds to operate these programs, and the workers to implement them… These programs are already paid for by our tax dollars. Looking at the 2018 City budget we know that out of $647 million dollars, 63% goes to cops, jails, and other reactionary measures. Only 3% goes to families and children, and only 1% goes to job development. Imagine what our city would look like if those numbers were reversed; if we divested from mass incarceration and invested in our youth. By making our youth a priority instead of pushing the narrative that ours are born criminals with no hope of becoming whole and healthy members of society, we will be taking concrete steps toward a way of living that uplifts us all.

By Enigma E

Abdul Aziz in his SplinterNews article entitled “The Secret, All-White Committee Advising New Orleans’ Black Woman Mayor on the Fate of Confederate Statues” was able to effectively point out how white supremacists always squirm themselves into a seat at the table. His article uncovered the link between confederate monument supporters and racist ideology & big money. It shows how they are validated through political organizations, donations and business ventures. Aziz summed up who the pro-monument people are as “essentially white nationalists masquerading as historical preservationists”. He uncovered their links to White supremacy, but more importantly he summarizes the real tragedy of this city with the line, “white supremacist views have already succeeded in penetrating one of the major institutions of a supposedly progressive, majority-black city”. This line gets at the fact that we are still dealing with identity politics. Mayor Cantrell is the figure in front the curtains, but who’s behind them? Cantrell is supposed to be representing the people that come from systematic generational poverty, which has limited their access to the resources and opportunities in this city, a city that is defined off of Black plight. We know Cantrell voted for a budget that disproportionately favors cops and jails over children and families, several times. We know she meets with white supremacists behind closed doors and concedes to their wishes without public input, even as public property is concerned. So we as the working class people must realize that no one person or position is going to save us, it’s on us to do it. Educate, agitate organize! #AllPower2DaPeople

On May 16, North Carolina became the sixth state to see massive walk-outs by educators and support staff demanding higher pay, increased investment in classroom resources, and improved working conditions. More than 40 school districts cancelled classes for the rally. N.C. Association of Educators (NCAE) President Mark Jewell said teachers were making the case for “stopping the tax breaks for the wealthy and [corporations] and reinvesting in public schools.”

More than 4,600 workers at Google demanded the termination of a company contract with the Pentagon, declaring in a petition that “We believe Google should not be in the business of war.” In March, many workers learned for the first time of Google’s involvement in a Pentagon program known as Project Maven, which sought to harness artificial intelligence technology to automate the operation of military drones. As part of the unending war waged on so many African and Middle Eastern nations, the US military has used its fleet of remotely piloted aircraft, or drones, to kill thousands of men, women, and children. Workers for Google acted on their outrage by resigning in protest and by threatening public protest; on June 1, caving to the mounting pressure of its workers, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, announced that it would not renew its “Project Maven” contract with the Pentagon.

On May 29, Hilton-Riverside workers voted to approve their first contract. The workers organized with UNITE HERE! Local 23 (NOLA, MS, TN), and have gained job security, seniority rights, and some of the highest wage increases the union has won anywhere along the Gulf. Local 23 was founded in 2009 and now has approximately 20,000 members, including workers in fast food, airport concessions, hotel and parking, among other areas of the economy.