September 24, 2011
harmreduction: Taken from the Prisoners of the War on Drugs comic book, published by the Real Cost of Prisons Project.


harmreduction:

Taken from the Prisoners of the War on Drugs comic book, published by the Real Cost of Prisons Project.

(via 08-23-47)

This month marked the 40th anniversary of the Attica prison rebellion. On September 9, 1971, prisoners took over much of state prison in Attica, New York, to protest conditions at the maximum security prison.

Then Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered state police to storm the facility on the morning of September 13. Troopers shot indiscriminately more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition, killing 39 male prisoners and guards. After the shooting stopped, police beat and tortured scores of more prisoners, many of whom were seriously wounded but were initially denied medical care.

After a quarter century of legal struggles, the state of New York would eventually award the surviving prisoners of Attica $12 million in damages.

Nearly 3,000 people folks gathered at a Sept. 9 commemoration at Riverside Church in New York City.

Cornel West, professor of religion and African American studies at Princeton University and the author of numerous books, spoke at a Sept. 9 commemoration at Riverside Church in New York City. 

“So, 40 years later, we come back to commemorate this struggle against the historical backdrop of a people who have been so terrorized and traumatized and stigmatized that we have been taught to be scared, intimidated, always afraid, distrustful of one another, and disrespectful of one another,” says Cornel West, professor of religion and African American studies at Princeton University and the author of numerous books. ”But the Attica rebellion was a countermove in that direction.”

Courtesy of Democracy Now

(Source: 08-23-47)

“ The Civil Rights movement is now taken for granted and retrospectively backed by most of the political mainstream. Obama and his hagiographers use it a great deal in explaining the intellectual and political formation of the president. The struggle against segregation in Alabama and Mississippi is now deployed as a pleasing specter from the past, a ghostly presence ritually recalled on Martin Luther King Jr. Day each year. Claiming King’s mantle is all part of a day’s work for Democrats, black and white and every other stripe, helping to create the impression that all good, thinking people once supported the struggle for black rights and desegregation. This was never the case. At virtually every level of the republic, the political culture of slavery continued to permeate most of its institutions. At its 1964 convention, to take but one instance, the Democratic Party refused to seat the pro-Civil Rights representatives from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, preferring instead to back the segregationists representing the lynch mobs. Hardly surprising that many young black activists in those days imbibed the slogan ‘Never trust a white liberal’ at an early age. Denied entry to the universe of mainstream politics and a great deal else, African Americans decided to fight back. It was civil disobedience that won them civil rights.
Tariq Ali, The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad (London: Verso, 2010), p. 17.

(Source: 08-23-47)

September 23, 2011
Particularly in the United States, race has always played a central role in constructing presumptions of criminality. After the abolition of slavery, former slave states passed new legislation revising the Slave Codes in order to regulate the behavior of free black slaves in ways similar to those that had existed during slavery. The new Black Codes proscribed a range of actions — such as vagrancy, absence from work, breach of job contracts, the possession of firearms, and insulting gestures or acts — that were criminalized only when the person was black. With the passage of the Thirteenth Amendments to the Constitution, slavery and involuntary were putatively abolished. However, there was a significant exception. In the wording of the amendment, slavery and involuntary servitude were abolished “except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” According to the Black Codes, there were crimes defined by state law for which only black people could be “duly convicted.” Thus, former slaves, who had recently been extricated from a condition of hard labor for life, could be legally sentenced to penal servitude. In the immediate aftermath of slavery, the southern states hastened to to develop as criminal justice system that could legally restrict the possibilities of freedom for newly released slaves. Black people became the prime targets of a developing convict lease system, referred to by many as a reincarnation of slavery. The Mississippi Black Codes, for example, declared vagrant “anyone/who was guilty of theft, had run away [from a job, apparently], was drunk, was wanton in conduct or speech, had neglected job or family, handled money carelessly, and… all other idle and disorderly persons.” Thus, vagrancy  was coded as a black crime, one punishable by incarceration and forced labor, sometimes on the very plantations that previously had thrived on slave labor. Mary Ellen Curtin’s study of Alabama prisoners during the decades following emancipation discloses that before the four hundred thousand black slaves in that state were set free, ninety-nine percent of prisoners in Alabama’s penitentiaries were white. As a consequence of the shifts provoked by the institution of the Black Codes, within a short period of time, the overwhelming majority of Alabama’s convicts were black. She further observes: Although the vast majority of Alabama’s antebellum were white, the popular perception was that the South’s true criminals were its black slaves. During the 1870s the growing number of black prisoners in the South further buttressed the belief that African Americans were inherently criminal and, in particular, prone to larceny. In 1883, Frederick Douglass had already written about the South’s tendency to “impute crime to color.” When a particularly egregious crime was committed, he noted, not only was guilt frequently assigned to a black person regardless of the perpetrator’s race, but white men sometimes sought to escape punishment by disguising themselves as black. Douglass would later recount one such incident that took place in Granger County, Tennessee, in which a man who appeared to be black was shot while committing a robbery. The wounded man, however, was discovered to be a respectable white citizen who had colored his face black. Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003), p. 28-30.

Particularly in the United States, race has always played a central role in constructing presumptions of criminality. After the abolition of slavery, former slave states passed new legislation revising the Slave Codes in order to regulate the behavior of free black slaves in ways similar to those that had existed during slavery. The new Black Codes proscribed a range of actions — such as vagrancy, absence from work, breach of job contracts, the possession of firearms, and insulting gestures or acts — that were criminalized only when the person was black. With the passage of the Thirteenth Amendments to the Constitution, slavery and involuntary were putatively abolished.

However, there was a significant exception. In the wording of the amendment, slavery and involuntary servitude were abolished “except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” According to the Black Codes, there were crimes defined by state law for which only black people could be “duly convicted.” Thus, former slaves, who had recently been extricated from a condition of hard labor for life, could be legally sentenced to penal servitude.

In the immediate aftermath of slavery, the southern states hastened to to develop as criminal justice system that could legally restrict the possibilities of freedom for newly released slaves. Black people became the prime targets of a developing convict lease system, referred to by many as a reincarnation of slavery. The Mississippi Black Codes, for example, declared vagrant “anyone/who was guilty of theft, had run away [from a job, apparently], was drunk, was wanton in conduct or speech, had neglected job or family, handled money carelessly, and… all other idle and disorderly persons.” Thus, vagrancy  was coded as a black crime, one punishable by incarceration and forced labor, sometimes on the very plantations that previously had thrived on slave labor.

Mary Ellen Curtin’s study of Alabama prisoners during the decades following emancipation discloses that before the four hundred thousand black slaves in that state were set free, ninety-nine percent of prisoners in Alabama’s penitentiaries were white. As a consequence of the shifts provoked by the institution of the Black Codes, within a short period of time, the overwhelming majority of Alabama’s convicts were black. She further observes:

Although the vast majority of Alabama’s antebellum were white, the popular perception was that the South’s true criminals were its black slaves. During the 1870s the growing number of black prisoners in the South further buttressed the belief that African Americans were inherently criminal and, in particular, prone to larceny.

In 1883, Frederick Douglass had already written about the South’s tendency to “impute crime to color.” When a particularly egregious crime was committed, he noted, not only was guilt frequently assigned to a black person regardless of the perpetrator’s race, but white men sometimes sought to escape punishment by disguising themselves as black.

Douglass would later recount one such incident that took place in Granger County, Tennessee, in which a man who appeared to be black was shot while committing a robbery. The wounded man, however, was discovered to be a respectable white citizen who had colored his face black.

Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003), p. 28-30.

(Source: 08-23-47)

(Source: 08-23-47)

“ What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to do with the basic structure of our society than with the language we use to justify it. In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don’t. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color ‘criminals’ and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination — employment, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service — are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: The New Press, 2010), p. 2. (via 08-23-47)
September 22, 2011
theatlantic: In a perfect world, the execution of Troy Davis last night in Georgia would herald a new era in America’s grim history with the death penalty. It would shake the criminal justice system out of its self-satisfied torpor and force government and the governed both to face the ugly truth about capital punishment in the United States in the twenty-first century. It would propel this question to the forefront both of the nation’s political debate and the Supreme Court’s docket: How many exceptions to the rule must we allow or tolerate, how many legitimate questions must linger beyond the death chamber, before we either fix the system or end the experiment? When the state kills those whose guilt is in serious doubt, or when the state kills those to whom it has not given fair justice, it doesn’t just perform an injustice upon the individual, the rule of law, and the Constitution. It also undermines the very legitimacy of the death penalty itself, for its continuing use as a sentencing option derives its civic and moral strength mostly from the fiction that it can be, and is, credibly and reliably imposed. Once our confidence in that credibility is shattered, as it should be now that Davis is gone, all that’s left of the death penalty is state-sponsored retribution and the hangman’s noose. In a perfect world, the haunting execution of Davis would spawn vital reforms to the clemency and parole process in states like Georgia and Texas, where such proceedings routinely make a mockery of the idea of reasoned justice. It would light a fire under local prosecutors to ensure that witnesses in capital cases are not coerced by law enforcement officials. It would cause jurors to think twice about rushing to judgments. It would force a supine Congress to reevaluate its so-called “effective death penalty“ statute, which neuters legitimate post-conviction appeals. And it would at long last shame state court judges to cast off the yoke of their campaign contributors, who push them to be “tough on crime” at the expense of fealty to the Bill of Rights. More…

theatlantic:

In a perfect world, the execution of Troy Davis last night in Georgia would herald a new era in America’s grim history with the death penalty. It would shake the criminal justice system out of its self-satisfied torpor and force government and the governed both to face the ugly truth about capital punishment in the United States in the twenty-first century. It would propel this question to the forefront both of the nation’s political debate and the Supreme Court’s docket: How many exceptions to the rule must we allow or tolerate, how many legitimate questions must linger beyond the death chamber, before we either fix the system or end the experiment?

When the state kills those whose guilt is in serious doubt, or when the state kills those to whom it has not given fair justice, it doesn’t just perform an injustice upon the individual, the rule of law, and the Constitution. It also undermines the very legitimacy of the death penalty itself, for its continuing use as a sentencing option derives its civic and moral strength mostly from the fiction that it can be, and is, credibly and reliably imposed. Once our confidence in that credibility is shattered, as it should be now that Davis is gone, all that’s left of the death penalty is state-sponsored retribution and the hangman’s noose.

In a perfect world, the haunting execution of Davis would spawn vital reforms to the clemency and parole process in states like Georgia and Texas, where such proceedings routinely make a mockery of the idea of reasoned justice. It would light a fire under local prosecutors to ensure that witnesses in capital cases are not coerced by law enforcement officials. It would cause jurors to think twice about rushing to judgments. It would force a supine Congress to reevaluate its so-called “effective death penalty“ statute, which neuters legitimate post-conviction appeals. And it would at long last shame state court judges to cast off the yoke of their campaign contributors, who push them to be “tough on crime” at the expense of fealty to the Bill of Rights.

More…

(via 08-23-47)

The Obama administration is assembling a constellation of secret drone bases for operations in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as part of a newly aggressive campaign to attack al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, US officials said. One of the installations is being established in Ethi­o­pia, a US ally in the fight against al-Shabab, the Somali militant group that controls much of that country. Another base is in the Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, where a small fleet of “hunter-killer” drones resumed operations this month after an experimental mission demonstrated that the unmanned aircraft could patrol Somalia from there. The US military also has flown drones over Somalia and Yemen from bases in Djibouti, a tiny African nation at the junction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. In addition, the CIA is building a secret airstrip in the Arabian Peninsula so it can deploy armed drones over Yemen. The US government is known to have used drones to carry out attacks in at least six countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. The negotiations that preceded the establishment of the base in the Republic of Seychelles illustrate the efforts the United States is making to broaden the range of its drone weapons. The island nation of 85,000 people has hosted a small fleet of MQ-9 Reaper drones operated by the US Navy and Air Force since September 2009. Officials have previously acknowledged the drones’ presence but have said that their primary mission was to track pirates in regional waters. But classified US diplomatic cables show that the unmanned aircraft have also conducted counterterrorism missions over Somalia, about 800 miles to the northwest. The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks, reveal that US officials asked leaders in the Seychelles to keep the counterterrorism missions secret. The drones are described by the military as “hunter-killer” because they can be equipped with missiles and satellite-guided bombs. Courtesy of the Washington Post Image: avenida once, Vancouver, 2008

The Obama administration is assembling a constellation of secret drone bases for operations in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as part of a newly aggressive campaign to attack al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, US officials said.

One of the installations is being established in Ethi­o­pia, a US ally in the fight against al-Shabab, the Somali militant group that controls much of that country. Another base is in the Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, where a small fleet of “hunter-killer” drones resumed operations this month after an experimental mission demonstrated that the unmanned aircraft could patrol Somalia from there.

The US military also has flown drones over Somalia and Yemen from bases in Djibouti, a tiny African nation at the junction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. In addition, the CIA is building a secret airstrip in the Arabian Peninsula so it can deploy armed drones over Yemen.

The US government is known to have used drones to carry out attacks in at least six countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

The negotiations that preceded the establishment of the base in the Republic of Seychelles illustrate the efforts the United States is making to broaden the range of its drone weapons. The island nation of 85,000 people has hosted a small fleet of MQ-9 Reaper drones operated by the US Navy and Air Force since September 2009.

Officials have previously acknowledged the drones’ presence but have said that their primary mission was to track pirates in regional waters. But classified US diplomatic cables show that the unmanned aircraft have also conducted counterterrorism missions over Somalia, about 800 miles to the northwest.

The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks, reveal that US officials asked leaders in the Seychelles to keep the counterterrorism missions secret. The drones are described by the military as “hunter-killer” because they can be equipped with missiles and satellite-guided bombs.

Courtesy of the Washington Post

Image: avenida once, Vancouver, 2008

(Source: 08-23-47)

September 21, 2011
utnereader: Under the influence of characters, setting, and plot, a number of artists have recently taken it upon themselves to recreate book covers of some of the most beloved literature, often with fantastic results. Whether it be through illustration or painting, collage or embroidery, reimagined cover art isn’t limited to the cardboard backings of books, but takes on a life of its own that ranges from extravagant and crafty, with kaleidoscopic-colored thread twirling on the page, to simple but powerful, with bold graphic designs and eerie color pallets. Courtesy of Flavorwire

utnereader:

Under the influence of characters, setting, and plot, a number of artists have recently taken it upon themselves to recreate book covers of some of the most beloved literature, often with fantastic results. Whether it be through illustration or painting, collage or embroidery, reimagined cover art isn’t limited to the cardboard backings of books, but takes on a life of its own that ranges from extravagant and crafty, with kaleidoscopic-colored thread twirling on the page, to simple but powerful, with bold graphic designs and eerie color pallets.

Courtesy of Flavorwire

(via 08-23-47)

latimes: Two police officers have been charged in the confrontation that left Kelly Thomas, a homeless schizophrenic man, dead in Fullerton, a city in northern Orange County, California. Officers approached Kelly Thomas on July 5 at the bus depot in downtown Fullerton while responding to a report of someone trying to break into cars. According to witness accounts, Thomas ran when officers attempted to search his bag. Witnesses allege that Thomas, a familiar figure in downtown Fullerton, was repeatedly shocked with a stun gun and beaten until he was unconscious by officers. On a video, Thomas can be heard over the sound of a Taser calling out for his father. Police have said they were simply trying to subdue Thomas, who died five days after the confrontation when he was taken off life support. The hospital records released showed that Thomas suffered brain injuries, a shattered nose, a smashed cheekbone, broken ribs and severe internal bleeding. He also had been shocked with a stun gun “multiple” times, including in the left chest near the heart, those records showed. Courtesy of the LA Times Image: Ron Thomas addresses the Fullerton City Council hours after the coroner’s report on the death of his son, Kelly, 37, was released to the Orange County district attorney’s office. A small group of masked protesters representing the Anonymous movement stood by but did not speak during the meeting. Photo by Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times.

latimes:

Two police officers have been charged in the confrontation that left Kelly Thomas, a homeless schizophrenic man, dead in Fullerton, a city in northern Orange County, California.

Officers approached Kelly Thomas on July 5 at the bus depot in downtown Fullerton while responding to a report of someone trying to break into cars.

According to witness accounts, Thomas ran when officers attempted to search his bag. Witnesses allege that Thomas, a familiar figure in downtown Fullerton, was repeatedly shocked with a stun gun and beaten until he was unconscious by officers. On a video, Thomas can be heard over the sound of a Taser calling out for his father.

Police have said they were simply trying to subdue Thomas, who died five days after the confrontation when he was taken off life support.

The hospital records released showed that Thomas suffered brain injuries, a shattered nose, a smashed cheekbone, broken ribs and severe internal bleeding. He also had been shocked with a stun gun “multiple” times, including in the left chest near the heart, those records showed.

Courtesy of the LA Times

Image: Ron Thomas addresses the Fullerton City Council hours after the coroner’s report on the death of his son, Kelly, 37, was released to the Orange County district attorney’s office. A small group of masked protesters representing the Anonymous movement stood by but did not speak during the meeting. Photo by Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times.

(via 08-23-47)

futurejournalismproject: Kamaran Najm and Sebastian Meyer recently launched Metrography, a photo agency that now represents the work of 65 Iraqi photojournalists. Speaking to Wired, Meyer explains the agency’s origins: Kamaran Najm, a Kurdish photographer, started Metrography in 2009 while he was working as a photo editor for an Iraqi news magazine. He was looking for photographs and realized there was no central place to go for images from Iraq. So he decided to start one. Kamaran and I had been friends since 2008 and when I moved to Iraq in 2009 he asked me if I’d help him with Metrography. The first year was slow going, mainly because we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do. We dabbled in stock imagery and tried our hand at breaking news, but we eventually realized that we could do something much more important, namely to create a culture of photojournalistic storytelling in Iraq. To that end we’re focusing more on running workshops and trainings so Iraqi photographers can learn how to shoot at the level demanded by Western clients. We leave the breaking news — for the most part — to the wire agencies which do an excellent job and we focus on the features, portraits, and intimate stories. Image: A migrant worker stands in the corridor of the Asia Hotel in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq. Photo by Ahmed Al Husseini.

futurejournalismproject:

Kamaran Najm and Sebastian Meyer recently launched Metrography, a photo agency that now represents the work of 65 Iraqi photojournalists.

Speaking to Wired, Meyer explains the agency’s origins:

Kamaran Najm, a Kurdish photographer, started Metrography in 2009 while he was working as a photo editor for an Iraqi news magazine. He was looking for photographs and realized there was no central place to go for images from Iraq. So he decided to start one. Kamaran and I had been friends since 2008 and when I moved to Iraq in 2009 he asked me if I’d help him with Metrography. The first year was slow going, mainly because we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do. We dabbled in stock imagery and tried our hand at breaking news, but we eventually realized that we could do something much more important, namely to create a culture of photojournalistic storytelling in Iraq.

To that end we’re focusing more on running workshops and trainings so Iraqi photographers can learn how to shoot at the level demanded by Western clients. We leave the breaking news — for the most part — to the wire agencies which do an excellent job and we focus on the features, portraits, and intimate stories.

Image: A migrant worker stands in the corridor of the Asia Hotel in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq. Photo by Ahmed Al Husseini.

(Source: futurejournalismproject, via 08-23-47)

September 20, 2011
theatlantic: One year ago, Pakistan suffered the worst flooding in its history, a slow-moving disaster that left some 2,000 dead and another 11 million homeless. Nearly one million are still without permanent shelter, and meanwhile, the flooding has returned. High water from monsoon rains has killed more than 200 people since early August, damaging or destroying some 670,000 homes and affecting more than 5 million people, according to officials. The United Nations has requested $357 million in international aid. More photos at In Focus

theatlantic:

One year ago, Pakistan suffered the worst flooding in its history, a slow-moving disaster that left some 2,000 dead and another 11 million homeless. Nearly one million are still without permanent shelter, and meanwhile, the flooding has returned. High water from monsoon rains has killed more than 200 people since early August, damaging or destroying some 670,000 homes and affecting more than 5 million people, according to officials. The United Nations has requested $357 million in international aid.

More photos at In Focus

(via 08-23-47)

September 19, 2011
cavetocanvas: Subdivision With Spotlight - James Casebere, 1982 From the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Casebere’s dramatically lit photographs of tabletop sculptures (made from plaster, Styrofoam, and cardboard) show uncannily familiar yet eerily inhuman spaces — from courtrooms and libraries to an empty storefront or a suburban street at night — that belong to everyone and no one, a ghost world of collective memory. Using the camera to question photography’s cherished myths of documentary veracity and transparent objectivity, Casebere virtually invented the tradition of setup photography as it is practiced today.

cavetocanvas:

Subdivision With Spotlight - James Casebere, 1982

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

Casebere’s dramatically lit photographs of tabletop sculptures (made from plaster, Styrofoam, and cardboard) show uncannily familiar yet eerily inhuman spaces — from courtrooms and libraries to an empty storefront or a suburban street at night — that belong to everyone and no one, a ghost world of collective memory.

Using the camera to question photography’s cherished myths of documentary veracity and transparent objectivity, Casebere virtually invented the tradition of setup photography as it is practiced today.

(via 08-23-47)

El sabe, Cosmopolita.

El sabe, Cosmopolita.

(Source: 08-23-47)

“ The news media work with other dominant media to represent a symbolic image of the nation. If particular groups are consistently under-represented or represented in stereotypical ways as abnormals — criminals, unassimilable immigrants, undeserving Others, those who don’t fit the ideal normative standards, and those who do not belong to the nation — then it follows that ruling powers are likely to use these representations as justification for imposing measures that effectively curtail the rights of these groups in entering or remaining within the nation. Representations of racialized minorities in the dominant media of a nation are, then, indicative of how that nation perceives itself and the groups within it.
Yasmin Jiwani. Discourses of Denial: Mediations of Race, Gender, and Violence (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006), p. 37. (via 08-23-47)