Author: Workers Voice

By Sanashihla, an educator

Our Black children deserve more in our city and our schools. 60% of New Orleans residents are Black. The schools are made up of at least 80% Black children. Nearly 50% of children in New Orleans live in poverty. 96% of all juvenile arrests are of Black children.

New Orleans is a city where the rich ruling class acquired generational wealth on the enslavement of African people, whose descendants now fill the jails and prisons, or many of whom work low wage jobs without workers’ rights.

We cannot just accept this. We must DO SOMETHING to change these conditions!
We should make EQUITY a priority for our children, not just in words but in ACTION.

What does investment into children, of money and resources from the city and schools like now?

1. For an 180 day school year, Louisiana tax payers pay $11,000 per child, which results in an investment of $61 per day.

2. However, for 180 days in juvenile prison, Louisiana tax payers pay $50,400 per inmate, because it cost $280 PER DAY to keep kids locked up in juvenile prisons.

3. Imagine if we flipped the invest to invest $280 per day into the proactive education of children, how much of a difference it could make?

4. Out of the $647 million dollar city budget, only 1% goes to job development, and only 3% goes to children & families, while a
whopping 63% goes to cops, jails, and reactive programs.

All of the above adds up to an intentional investment in mass incarceration.

There are at least three ways the city and schools could prioritize equity for New Orleans’ children:

1. FLIP THE BUDGET so that 63% of the resources proactively go to job development, and children & families. Invest in children rather than criminalize them. Mass incarceration only impoverishes families. Yet, we can meet children’s immediate material and emotional needs, rather than hire more high paid administrators. Hire culturally competent social workers, therapists, and nurses.

2. Rather than invest in test preparation materials and programs, proactively invest in reading and math interventionists/specialists to collaborate with teachers to help children learn how to think, not merely what to think. There is not a sensible educator in any school that believes the current overabundance of testing is healthy for kids or teachers. Testing is a for-profit industry, stealing educational funds.

3. Enable and welcome parents to have a larger role in decision making. This means making extra accommodations that consider the hectic schedules of working families. A strong school parent partnership allows children to feel mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically safe & cared for in their journey to learn.

OneApp Discriminates

Realize that the idea of “choice” can either be about expanding opportunity or limiting options on the sly. Choice is a nice way of saying that every school is NOT equal. And, although the public has been conditioned to “accept” that certain schools have specializations, such as Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and or ART, the real question is: shouldn’t all schools invest in science, technology, engineering, math, art and other areas of education? Why can’t schools of every neighborhood offer the opportunities that the rich ruling class demands be available in their children’s schools? The answer is: THEY CAN, when our priorities are in order and child centered. The OneApp does not solve equity issues in New Orleans, it exacerbates them when a parent is responsible for selecting up to 8 schools, and gets number 6, 7, or 8. What kind of choice is that?

So how do we get equity for our children, in our schools and beyond?

We don’t get it by sitting in silence or waiting for change to happen on its own. Strategic unity is key. We cannot allow public officials to support laws, policies, or budgets that promote white supremacy and maintain exploitation and oppression. We must educate, agitate, organize! Join us in doing so!

The Black Alliance for Peace faces many challenges and attacks because of its principled stance of opposition to US imperialism. But some people may be surprised to learn that the BAP has recently come under attack from people on the left who call themselves socialists. One of the leaders of Black Alliance for Peace, Ajamu Baraka, was specifically targeted when he was a featured speaker at the annual Left Forum in New York City.

Members of the Democratic Socialists of America and the International Socialist Organization openly lent credibility to the lies and demonizations of other countries that the US uses to justify its military interventions and bloody wars across the globe. They accused Baraka of being an “Assadist”– a meaningless term borrowed from the U.S. State Department which is used to slander those who demand that the United States military withdraw from Syria. Socialists should be protesting actual enemies like the military industrial complex, not radical black leaders like Ajamu Baraka.

Quest Riggs of New Orleans’ Students and Workers Against Racism and Militarism (SWARM) writes, “we stand in solidarity with Ajamu Baraka and the Black Alliance for Peace. We know that these attacks will do nothing to deter them from their committed struggle against US imperialism.”

Learn more about the Black Alliance for Peace at www.blackallianceforpeace.com

Immigrants risk everything to come here because U.S. imperialism and Wall Street policies have destroyed their economies or installed military governments that guarantee profits for U.S. corporations. 10,000 children ripped from their families and imprisoned shows there is no limit to what U.S. capitalist rulers will do. Immigrants come here as refugees but they are not recognized as such because that would mean admitting the imperialist US government’s role in their displacement.

Take two examples: Mexico and Honduras. When the U.S. put in place the North American Free Trade Agreement, US agribusiness firms flooded Mexican markets with corn, the longtime staple economic crop of Mexico. Corporations reaped a windfall of profit while more than two million farmers lost their livelihoods and were stranded, hungry and homeless.

In 2009 the people of Honduras elected a government that wanted to enact some measures to help the people. The U.S. under Obama/Hillary Clinton financed and orchestrated a military coup against that elected government and put in place a repressive regime that has murdered and imprisoned thousands while impoverishing the masses.

Here in the U.S. workers and oppressed people are seeing low wages and all our public services gutted, while the for-profit military machine loots the treasury. Profit making prisons mean mass incarceration for immigrants and working class people, especially the Black community. The rich are getting much richer but we are not. They are taking it all and still come back for more.

To carry off this robbery of the people, the government, which represents Wall Street, is whipping up racism and homophobia, attacking women’s rights, and scapegoating immigrants. They want to divide the working class and turn our attention away from their thievery.

The reality is that whenever any group of workers, whatever their status or nationality, race or sexual identity, is unequal, it lowers the livings standards and rights of all workers.

Capital–that is, money accumulated from the sweat of our labor but owned privately by a few individual capitalists– can cross all the borders in the world to exploit people’s misery for profit. There are no laws preventing U.S. capitalist corporations from running away to other countries, no laws preventing them from hiding their profits offshore, no laws ensuring a good job or income for all. But human beings, our class sisters and brothers and children, are imprisoned.

We as workers are linked together globally. If the U.S. installs a dictatorship to pay workers $1 a day somewhere, it lowers our wages. There are no borders in the workers struggle. The government comes up with all sorts of lies to justify their wars for private profit. They can’t openly say they are trying to dominate the world to fill their bank vaults at any cost, no matter how many lives are taken.

In our fight to free the children and families we recognize that these crimes are not new to US policy but a continuation of the kidnappings that ripped apart families under slavery and that tore Native children from their homes. Every day, throughout this land of for-profit prisons, thousands of families, especially Black families, suffer under the US system of mass incarceration. Just as sheriffs originated as catchers of enslaved people, today ICE plays this role.

We must stand up for all the children, free all the families, abolish ICE, win equal political and economic rights for immigrants, and put an end to for-profit prisons and mass incarceration. These aims are in the interest of “citizen” and immigrant workers alike.

Yemen, which has a population of nearly 29 million people, is being devastated by a long and bloody war. For nearly 3 years Saudi Arabia has bombed the people of Yemen, destroying their access to essential goods. Moreover, Saudi Arabia has enforced a devastating blockade of the nation’s main air and sea ports through which Yemen imports almost 90% of its food and the majority of its medicine. This has caused a food crisis that has starved millions of Yemenis including 50,000 children in 2017. Malnourishment has resulted in the worst cholera outbreak that the world has ever seen, with a million recorded cases last year. On June 11 the Saudis stooped so low as to bomb a cholera treatment center operated by Doctors Without Borders, knowing full well the purpose of the facility.

If you’re lucky, you might have heard this much on the news. But what the corporate media never reports is that this is being done with American planes, ships, rockets and military intel. Trump and his crew are supporting the genocide with money and weapons, and they’re also giving a diplomatic shield to the Saudis as they carry it out. As much as they try to distance themselves from it, the U.S. politicians and generals are truly responsible for genocide against Yemen.

Millions of Yemeni workers and their children face starvation, disease and regular bombings. Some of them resist, some of them try to flee to other countries but the majority can do neither. Just like us, they have to go back to work every morning despite these unimaginable conditions. Workers in different countries must build the solidarity necessary to truly support each other and finally bring an end to the scourge of US bombs across the globe.

Get informed and show your solidarity with the people of Yemen!

End the U.S.-Saudi massacre of Yemen NOW!

By Sally Jane Black

The assault on reproductive rights continues. In the last month, Louisiana law-makers have passed a law restricting abortion access, making it a crime for anyone to provide an abortion to someone after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions made for cases of either rape or incest. This law will endanger lives, prevent many women from receiving the care they need, and reinforces rigid ideas of womanhood that only benefit the ruling class.

Democrats Betray the Working Class
Instead of fighting against these attacks, the Democratic Party wrote, sponsored, voted for, and signed them into law. Despite their undeserved reputation of being the more progressive party, they have struck a blow against reproductive rights in Louisiana by passing the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. These laws serve only the interests of the capitalist class (including organizations like the Koch Brothers’ ALEC) that fund their election campaigns. Their motivations are not to defend family values, religious rights, or their own morals, but to opportunistically profit off of women’s suffering.

The Courts Will Not Save Us
The law closely matches one passed in Mississippi which has been taken to court, and it has been tied to that law’s fate in the courts. In Arkansas, a law was recently (passively) upheld in the courts that prevents doctors from providing medical abortions (as opposed to surgical) without a contract with another physician with hospital-admitting privileges. Medical abortions are known to be safer than surgical ones, and it has been shown that hospital-admitting privileges do not noticeably improve the safety of those receiving these pills. The law has shutdown almost all of the abortion clinics in the state. The court system has backed these laws without regard for the consequences to people in need of abortion services, especially poor, working class women.

We Must Fight Back
The legalization of abortion 45 years ago was won not because of the compassion of the unelected tyrants on the Supreme Court, but because of constant struggle from women and progressives in this country fighting for our liberation. The fight against the ruling class’s goal to control our bodies was a mass movement that we must reignite to protect what we have won and further our liberation today.

By Sally Jane Black

In a major victory in Ireland, after a long struggle, the people have voted overwhelmingly to repeal the Eighth Amendment of their Constitution. Despite enormous opposition from conservative institutions (including the church), the Irish people achieved the repeal with over 66% of the vote in favor.

The repealed amendment was added to the Constitution in 1983 as part of backlash against legalized contraception, making Ireland’s abortion laws almost absolutely restrictive. Under these circumstances, thousands of Irish women would travel each year to other countries for abortions. Those who travel risked up to 14 years in jail for taking medication to cause miscarriages. Because of the wording on the amendment, doctors in Ireland would often disagree on what would qualify as a life-threatening risk, which led to many women’s deaths. In recent years, many of these cases, including the death of Savita Halappanavar, an Indian women who died of an infection as doctors argued over her right to an abortion, gained popular attention as organizers fought to repeal the amendment.

A massive grassroots movement under the banner Together for Yes united women from across Ireland including migrant women and trans people affected by the laws. The struggle against the amendment achieved a massive turnout at the referendum and a landslide victory. The victory will be followed by continued struggle, as the repeal only opens the door for new laws and not a complete legalization. This is just the most recent in a long line of victories where Irish women have fought for control over their own bodies and choices in the face of significant repression.

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.