Posts Tagged Prisons

It’s Juneteenth 2013. More Black people are in prison than were slaves and Paula Deen wants to bring slavery back

Today is June 19, or Juneteenth. While the Emancipation Proclamation was signed on January 1, 1863, slaves in Texas didn’t find out slavery was over until June 19, 1865, hence commemorating this date as the end of legal slavery in the US.

As Phillipe Copeland points out, the prison system was quickly positioned to take the place of slavery through the 13th amendment:

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” (emphasis mine)

If the architects of the 13th Amendment really wanted to abolish slavery, why make an exception for criminal convictions? Given that slavery at that time ...

Today is June 19, or Juneteenth. While the Emancipation Proclamation was signed on January 1, 1863, slaves in Texas didn’t find out slavery was over until June 19, 1865, hence commemorating this date as the end ...

Video: Watch the trailer for “Gideon’s Army”

March 18th or this year marked the 50th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court decision that insisted all defendants have the right to representation by an attorney, regardless of their ability to pay. Half a century later, we’re still far from fulfilling Gideon’s promise.

The failure of our criminal justice system is impossible to ignore in many communities but practically invisible in the mainstream media. That’s why I was so excited to read at Colorlines about HBO’s July 1st release of “Gideon’s Army,” a new documentary on public defenders working in the Deep South. Check out the trailer below (transcript after the jump) and watch an extended clip here.

March 18th or this year marked the 50th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court decision that insisted all defendants have the right to representation by an attorney, regardless of their ability to pay. Half a ...

Beyonce on the cover of Ms. magazine

Weekly Feminist Reader

Bey is on the cover of Ms., giving the feminist blogosphere another month to police her feminism and then yell at itself for this policing.

Read Kiera Wilmot’s story in her own words.

Advertisers can’t ignore the #FBrape campaign.

Prosecuting Ariel Castro for murdering a fetus will endanger pregnant women.

Kanye raps against mass incarceration and private prisons.

How many times does Jerry Lewis have to tell you that ladies just aren’t funny?

The Sun‘s May interview is with Ai-jen Poo.

Reject anti-trans bigotry from Deep Green Resistance.

Students from four more colleges have filed federal complaints against theirs schools for mishandling sexual violence.

Princess Bubblegum rejects a ...

Bey is on the cover of Ms., giving the feminist blogosphere another month to police her feminism and then yell at itself for this policing.

Read Kiera Wilmot’s story in her own words.

Potts

Weekly Feminist Reader

Three teens have been arrested for raping Audrie Potts, who killed herself in September. Check back in for more on Potts tomorrow from Maya.

Janet Mock is the Racialicious Crush of the Week!

Girls — and later women — decide not to run for office because they don’t want to be unlikeable, not because they are lacking leadership qualities.

Swiss bank punks men on “Equal Pay Day.”

Mia McKenzie of Black Girl Dangerous on “accidental” racism.

The Canadian police have reopened Rehtaeh Parsons’ rape case in the wake of her suicide. And Parsons’ dad demands change in a heartbreaking essay.

India’s anti-rape movement: redefining solidarity outside the colonial frame.

Despite protests of his “violently misogynistic ...

Three teens have been arrested for raping Audrie Potts, who killed herself in September. Check back in for more on Potts tomorrow from Maya.

Janet Mock is the Racialicious Crush of the Week!

This is one father-daughter dance I can get behind

See version with transcript here.

Purity Balls ain’t got nothing on this father-daughter dance.

At TEDxWomen this year, Courtney and I had the pleasure of working with an extraordinary group of women whom we coached for a session we also curated, “The Mirror.” And one of these extraordinary women was Angela Patton, whose work with young girls at her organization in Richmond, VA  is one of the most inspiring — and simply impressive — examples of youth-empowerment and leadership I’ve ever seen. She created Camp Diva after Diva Mistadi Smith-Roane, the 5-year-old daughter of Angela’s friend, lost her life from a firearm accident in 2004, dedicating her life to connecting with and empowering girls since. And out of Camp ...

See version with transcript here.

Purity Balls ain’t got nothing on this father-daughter dance.

At TEDxWomen this year, Courtney and I had the pleasure of working with an extraordinary group of women whom we coached for a ...

Quick Hit: The Dream Defenders call on candidates to address the war on youth

Sarah Jaffe has a good piece at Truthout about the Dream Defenders, a coalition of young activists that formed in Florida after the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Tonight, at the final presidential debate in Boca Raton, they’ll be demanding real answers from both candidates on issues–from the privatization of prisons to the inequalities in the education system–that affect youth but which are too often left out of the political debate altogether. Here’s who they are:

We are the sons and daughters of slaves and farm-workers. We are Dreamers and the products of a generation that had a Dream. We are ‘We Shall Overcome’ and ‘Si se puede!’ We are Phoenix and Selma, the Freedom Rides & the Trail of Dreams, ...

Sarah Jaffe has a good piece at Truthout about the Dream Defenders, a coalition of young activists that formed in Florida after the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Tonight, at the final presidential debate in Boca Raton, ...

MA lawyer plans shackled childbirth in protest of practice in prisons

In my latest article for Colorlines, I write about a Massachusetts lawyer, Rebecca Brodie, who is planning on giving birth to her third child in December, in shackles.

Rebecca Brodie sits in her suburban Massachusetts home, talking on the phone with me while her family member sits nearby, filming the interview. The oldest female correctional facility in the United States, MCI-Framingham, is just a short eight-minute drive away. “When I conceived my third child earlier this year, it really hit home for me because everywhere I go I pass the prison,” Brodie explained. “I have all these choices and opportunities: who do I want in the room with me, do I want a ...

In my latest article for Colorlines, I write about a Massachusetts lawyer, Rebecca Brodie, who is planning on giving birth to her third child in December, in shackles.

Rebecca Brodie sits in her suburban Massachusetts home, talking ...

Appeals court says transgender inmates have right to medical care

On Friday, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a decision striking down a Wisconsin law that banned transgender inmates from accessing necessary medical care while in prison.

Wisconsin is the only state with a law expressly banning medical care for trans inmates. However, according to Injustice at Every Turn, the national trans discrimination survey, 12% of trans inmates in the US have been denied routine health care and 17% have been denied hormones. Dr. Jill Weiss runs through some other cases over at The Bilerico Project.

The 7th Circuit rightly called cutting off an inmate’s hormone treatment “cruel and unusual punishment,” recognizing the severe side effects, including mental health side effects and “muscle wasting, high blood pressure, ...

On Friday, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a decision striking down a Wisconsin law that banned transgender inmates from accessing necessary medical care while in prison.

Wisconsin is the only state with a law ...

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