Just in case most of you missed Interrupting Criminalization's virtual program last week on 1MillionExperiments I'll provide some highlights. Marieme Kaba and Eva (sorry I forgot her last name were talking about how the project started so long story short:
if you want something different from the status quo which keeps people locked under the oppression of the police, then you have to build something else.
1/3
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2) If you are going to build something new, be prepared to fail. Not everything will work and many things won't. You have to keep thinking and creating and trying until you can get something to stick. It will be a process, not an event.
safety and security are not the same thing. Safe communities are what people are trying to build. Security is what you have to rely on when safety is missing. The police are security, not safety. 2/3
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4) Get used to the fact not everyone will agree. Even abolitionists don't all agree on tactics. AND you may not get big grant $$ because what you are trying to do actually attacks the systems grant funders are trying to tinker with but essentially uphold.
Be bold...be visionary...be community connected and orientated...stay in for the long haul. 3/3
Today in Labor History December 2, 1867: British author Charles Dickens gave his first public reading in the United States at Tremont Temple in Boston. He described his impressions of the U.S. in a travelogue, “American Notes for General Circulation.” In Notes, he condemned slavery and correlated the emancipation of the poor in England with the abolition of slavery abroad. Despite his abolitionist sentiments, some modern commentators have criticized him for not condemning Britain’s harsh crackdown during the 1860s Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica. During his American visit, he also spent a month in New York, giving lectures, and arguing for international copyright laws and against the pirating of his work in America. The press ridiculed him, saying he should be grateful for his popularity here.
Today in Labor History December 2, 1859: The authorities hanged abolitionist John Brown in Charleston, Virginia for his leadership of a plot to incite a slave rebellion. Victor Hugo, who was living in exile on Guernsey, tried to obtain a pardon for him. His open letter was published by the press on both sides of the Atlantic. His plea failed, of course. On the day of his execution, John Brown rode in a furniture wagon, on top of his own coffin, through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers, to the gallows. The soldiers included future Confederate general Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth. Walt Whitman described the execution in his poem “Year of Meteors.”
The governor of a women’s prison where senior correctional officer Wayne Astill raped a number of inmates extended his tenure in the role even after she was made aware of “serious allegations” by inmates that she said she believed.
Today in Labor History November 9, 1851: Kentucky marshals abducted abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. They took him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape. Fairbank was an activist on the Underground Railroad. He spent over 17 years in prison and was lashed 35,000 times. He was pardoned in 1864. He was believed to have helped at least 47 people escape slavery. Fairbank wrote a memoir in 1890 called “Rev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times: How He "Fought the Good Fight" to Prepare "the Way." He died in near-poverty, in Angelica, New York, in 1898, at the age of 81.
Today in Labor History November 3, 1793: French playwright, journalist and feminist Olympe de Gouges was guillotined during the Reign of Terror (1793–1794) for attacking the regime of the Revolutionary government and for her association with the Girondists. Her writings on women's rights and abolitionism reached a large audience in many different countries. She was also an outspoken advocate against the slave trade in the French colonies. In her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen (1791), she challenged the practice of male authority and the notion of male-female inequality.
New South Wales police are looking to replace a program designed to provide “person-centred, trauma-informed care” to people with severe mental health challenges despite the police minister describing it as “so successful”.
Under the Police, Ambulance, Clinical, Early, Response (Pacer) program, mental health clinicians employed by NSW Health are stationed with police to ensure police powers are only used when necessary in responding to mental health crises.
While the police minister, Yasmin Catley, has lauded the program, the force has disclosed it is looking at alternatives to the scheme in its response to a landmark Law Enforcement Conduct Commission report.
The LECC’s report found almost half of the people involved in critical incidents with NSW police over the past five years were experiencing a mental health crisis. Critical incidents were defined as those resulting in serious injury or death.
Today in Labor History September 14, 1843: Lola Rodríguez de Tió, Puerto Rican poet, abolitionist, and women's rights activist was born. She and her husband became active in the movement against Spanish colonialism on the island. In 1889, the Spanish authorities banished them for their political activities. In exile in New York, she worked with Cuban revolutionary, Jose Marti, for Cuban independence from Spain. She wrote the lyrics for the anthem, La Boriquena. Many believe that the Puerto Rican flag came from her idea of having the same colors as the Cuban flag, but reversed.
Today in Labor History September 3, 1838: Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland to freedom in the north, where he became a leader of the abolitionist movement. During his lifetime, he wrote 3 autobiographies and became a best-selling author. He also fought for women’s suffrage and was the first black man nominated to run for vice president. Douglass opposed colonialism and segregated schools. He was the most photographed American of the 19th century, never smiling once for the camera so as to not play into the racist myth of the happy slave.
Today in Labor History August 30, 1800: Gabriel Prosser postponed his planned slave rebellion in Richmond, Virginia. The authorities still arrested and executed him, along with 20 others. While the revolt never occurred, it was the one event that most directly confronted the founding fathers with the enormous gulf between their ideal of liberty and their sleazy accommodations to slavery. It led to a rash of new legislation curtailing the rights of free African Americans, as well as laws prohibiting the education and hiring out of enslaved black people. Richmond, at the time of the planned revolt, was a black-majority town, with 39% of its residents being enslaved. There was a community whipping post, where people were brutalized publicly. There was also a growing number of free black people in Richmond, due in part to the influence of abolitionist Quakers and Methodists, as well as numerous refugees from the Haitian Revolution, a few years prior. The goal of the uprising was to completely end slavery in Virginia by holding Virginia's Governor, James Monroe, hostage to negotiate for their freedom. In 2007, Governor Tim Kaine informally pardoned Gabriel.
Arna Bontemps, a member of the Harlem Rennaisance, wrote Black Thunder (1936), a historical novel based on Gabriel's Rebellion. Alex Haley mentions it in his book, Roots. Barbara Chase-Riboud writes about it in her 1979 novel, Sally Hemings. And "Gabriel, the Musical" was produced in Richmond Virginia in 2022, with libretto by Jerold Solomon, Foster Solomon and Ron Klipp, and Music & Lyrics by Ron Klipp.
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I didn’t throw up a post last week because I didn’t want it to be lost among the clown show theatrics. This week’s thread is a little different but definitely on point and related. Many POCs born and raised here in the US don’t normally pay a great deal of attention to what is happening to our people in other parts of the world (my apologies if you do, I am not talking about YOU), unless we have family there. 1/8
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When things are bad here (OK, when are they not bad?) we can feel isolated and unsupported. But it may help you to know there are international treaties and bodies at the United Nations that specifically deal with our situation here. I mentioned one previously, CERD, when I was talking about the violent and corrupt police chief in Chicago named, John Burge. 2/8
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CERD stands for the Convention for the Elimination All Forms of Racial Discrimination. It was the CERD review committee that demanded the US do something about Burge and the racist and violent Chicago police. That was why Burge finally got prosecuted. The UN directed the Justice Department to report back on what they were doing about him. The UN also has a treaty on discrimination. against women, CEDAW. 3/8
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Today I attended a meeting entitled “ Rebuilding A Pan African Global Policy Agenda” sponsored by AdNA (Advocacy Network for Africa) where the first part of findings and conclusions from of Forums’ meetings were discussed. There will be two more sessions, one in October and one in November.
Many of the issues I discuss in the abolition thread were discussed as part of the Forum’s preliminary research. 5/8
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State terror against People of African descent, lack of resources devoted to health and safety of our communities, reparations and the GLOBAL movement supporting them. You may have seen recently Guyana, and Barbados said they were due reparations. And the situation of Haiti was discussed in the context of reparations. The need for mental health services to address generational trauma was also raised. 6/8
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The speakers stressed that these are truly global issues caused by colonialism and predatory capitalistic systems. We are not in this fight by ourselves although it may seem so at times. Here’s the link for AdNA is you want to check out their work or learn how you can become part of a Pan African movement. https://adnaubuntu.com/ On Guyana :https://adnaubuntu.com/ 7/8
@msquebanh@BigAngBlack@BlackMastodon@blackmastodon This is true. But for clarity...I was not offended nor did I think it condescending. I'm all for old folks staying active but it isn't as easy as it may look. Shameless plug: see #abolition series on lack of access to neighbor amenities.