RAISING THE FIGHT TO STOP MASS INCARCERATION
TO A NEW LEVEL
Friends,
The
past months have seen important advances to develop resistance to mass incarceration. There has been further work done to expose the horrific
injustice that mass incarceration inflicts on so many in society.
Organizations fighting this battle have come into existence and some of
those that already existed have grown and developed. It is important to
note the activity that has developed among students around mass
incarceration. And there have been
important examples of determined
mass resistance to this problem. Especially important have been the
several hunger strikes by prisoners in California's Special Housing
Units (and the statements of support for the strikers issued by
prominent voices of conscience) and the civil disobedience campaign in
New York aimed at stopping "Stop & Frisk." But much more needs to be
done. When it comes to mass incarceration, the reality in US society remains horrific:
· more than 2.4 million people, most of them Black or Latino, remain warehoused in prisons across the country;
·
Black and Latino youth are treated like criminals by the police and the criminal justice system, guilty until proven innocent, if they can
survive their encounters with police to prove their innocence;
·
former prisoners wear badges of shame and dishonor even after they serve their sentences-discriminated against when applying for jobs,
denied access to government assistance, not allowed in public housing,
denied the right to vote. On top of this is the plain fact that many
people in the country still don't know about this ugly reality and most
of those who do know about it feel it is the result of criminal activity
by those in prison and that it helps to keep them safe from crime.
THIS
IS NOT TRUE! MASS INCARCERATION RESULTS FROM THE SYSTEM HAVING
CRIMINALIZED GENERATIONS OF YOUTH! WE HAVE THE FACTS TO MAKE THE CASE
ON THIS. AND WE MUST STEP UP OUR EFFORTS TO DO THAT!
There
is great urgency to do this. As the presidential election approaches and the terms of debate around what issues are to be discussed in determining the future direction of the country get set, mass
incarceration isn't being mentioned as a problem by any of the major
candidates-not by Obama and not by any of the Republicans vying to
challenge him. On the
contrary, we are getting the kind of ugly racism
that goes with and reinforces the whole program of mass incarceration...
and conciliation with that racism. This must be transformed. Mass
incarceration, what leads to it and its consequences have to become
something that people across the country are aware of and feel compelled
to take a stand against. And many more of them need to join the
resistance to it. Only our efforts can make that happen!
To advance our
efforts to do just this, we propose:
1) A day of national action in April.
On this day, demonstrations, rallies, teach ins, and other actions
would be held focusing on bringing out the reality of mass incarceration
and calling on people to join the resistance to it would beheld in
cities across the US. These actions need to draw in many different
institutions - especially schools and churches - and different sections
of people in society. A special focus of this activity should be college campuses and high schools.
2) A national conference
drawing together the forces working to build resistance to mass
incarceration. Such a conference could bring together organizations and
individuals working on different fronts of this battle; discuss and
debate the cause of and solution to this outrage; develop a comprehensive approach to this battle and a plan of action going into the fall. THIS CONFERENCE SHOULD AIM AT NOTHING LESS THAN RADICALLY
CHANGING THE NATIONAL TERMS OF DISCUSSION ON THIS.
3) A statement of conscience
that sharply and concisely lays out the harsh and unjust reality that
mass incarceration inflicts on millions. This statement would be
circulated for signature among prominent voices of conscience, published
in various significant publications and publicized nationwide.
4) A major concert or other cultural event opposing mass incarceration, featuring a broad spectrum of artists. We urge people to respond to
this proposal, including with additional ideas for how to advance this
fight in this critical time period.
The list as of April 14, 2012:
All-African
Peoples Revolutionary Party (GC); Gbenga Akinnagbe, Actor;Rafael
Angulo, Professor of Social Work, USC; Edward Asner, Actor; DaveAtwood,
Houston Peace and Justice Center; Lawrence Aubry, Convenor, Advocates
for Black Strategic Alternatives; Hadar Aviram, Associate Professor, UC
Hastings College of the Law*; Lucy Bailey, Independent, LA Ca; Nellie
Bailey, Occupy Harlem; Carissa Baldwin-McGinnis, Director of Peace and
Justice, All Saints Church. Pasadena, Ca.; Jared Ball, VOXUNION Media,
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement; Social
Justice Committee, Berkeley
Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists; Rev. Dr. Dorsey O. Blake,
Presiding Minister, The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples; Blase
Bonpane, Ph.D., Director, OFFICE OF THE AMERICAS; Herb Boyd,
Harlem-based author, educator, journalist and activist; Bob Brown,
co-director, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) Institute; Elaine Brower,
World Can't Wait, Military Families Speak Out; Richard Brown, Former
Black Panther Party; John L. Burris, Civil Rights Attorney; Rev. Richard
"Meri Ka Ra" Byrd, Senior Pastor, KRST Unity Center of Afrakan Spiritual Science; California Coalition for Women Prisoners; Kendra Castaneda, Prisoner Human Rights Activist with a family member in CA
State Prison Segregation Unit; Denika Chapman, mother, and Marco Scott,
uncle, of Kenneth Harding, Kenneth Harding Foundation; Eric Cheyfitz,
Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters,
Cornell University; Solomon Comissiong, Executive Director, Your World News Media Collective (
www.yourworldnews.org);
Community Futures Collective, Vallejo CA; Drucilla Cornell, Professor,
Department of Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers University; Colin
Dayan, Robert Penn Warren Professor in the Humanities, Vanderbilt
University; Oscar De La Torre, Founder/Executive Director, Pico Youth
and Family Center, Santa Monica, CA; Emory Douglas, Black Panther
Party/Alumni; Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist, co-initiator of
Campaign to Stop "Stop and Frisk"; Kevin Epps, Independent
Filmmaker/Activist; Glen Ford, executive editor, Black Agenda Report;
Dr. Henry Giroux, Department of English and Cultural
Studies, McMaster
University, Ontario, Canada; Rebeca Guerrero, Los Angeles, CA; Jeff
Haas, Civil Rights Attorney, Activist and Author of The Assasination of
Fred Hampton: How the FBI and Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther;
Kelley Lytle Hernandez, Professor of History,
UCLA; Nicholas Heyward
Sr., October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Parents Against
Police Brutality, and father of Nicholas Naquan Heyward, Jr., killed by
NYPD; Jeremy Hiller, Education Not Incarceration; Mike Holman, Executive
Director, Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund*; Interfaith
Communities United for Justice and Peace (ICUJP) members Mary C.
Singaus, Douglas MacMillan, Margaret Hutchinson, Stephen L. Fiske, Susan
Anderson, Ed Fisher, Anthony Manouses, and Andy Griggs, Los Angeles CA;
The International Coalition to Free the Angola 3; Melvin Ishmael
Johnson, Director of Dramastage-Qumran Workshop; Mesha Irizarry, Idris
Stelly Foundation; Tom Kleven, Professor, Thurgood Marshall School of
Law; Cephus 'Uncle Bobby' Johnson, Oscar Grant Foundation; Robin D.G.
Kelley, Distinguished Professor of History, UCLA; Robert King, Freed
Angola 3; Wayne Kramer, Jail Guitar Doors USA,
Co-Founder; Patricia
Krommer CSJ, Pax Christi So. California; Roshanak Kheshti, Assistant
Professor, Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego; Sarah
Kunstler, Esq., National Lawyers Guild NYC*; Laura Magnani, American
Friends Service Committee; Joe Maizlish, Los Angeles, CA; BM Marcus,
Community Director, Comm. Advocate Organization, Brooklyn
NY; Dr.
Antonio Martinez, Institute for Survivors of Human Rights Abuses, and
co-founder of the Marjorie Kovler Center for the Treatment of Survivors
of Torture; Carlos Meza, Occupy Whittier; Rev. Janet Gollery McKeithen
(Unity Methodist Clergy), President, Methodist Federation for
Social
Action, Cal-Pac; Peter McLaren, School of Critical Studies, Faculty of
Education, University of Auckland, New Zealand; Rev. Darrel Meyers, Presbyterian Church USA; Nancy Michaels, Associate Director of the Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation; Aaron
Mirmalek, cousin of Leonard Peltier, LPDOC, Oakland, CA; Gregg Morris,
Assistant
Professor, Journalism, Department of Film and Media Studies,
Hunter College; Khalil Gibran Muhammad, author of "The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America; Rev. Sala
Nolan, National Minister for Criminal Justice and Human Rights, United
Church of Christ; Oakland Education Association Representative Assembly;
Occupy Education, Northern California; October 22nd Coalition to Stop
Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation
(New York Committee); Kelly Phillips, Symple Equazion/ author of "The
Art of Frowns to Smiles"; Laura Pulido, Visiting Professor,
Department
of Black Studies, UCSB; Professor, Department of American Studies and
Ethnicity, USC; Willie and Mary Ratcliff, Editor, San Francisco Bay View
Black National Newspaper; Anthony Rayson, curator of South Chicago
Anarchist Black Cross Zine Distro; Rev. Dr. George F. Regas, Rector Emeritus, All Saints Church, Pasadena, CA; Joyce Robbins, Assistant
Professor of Sociology, Touro College; Dylan Rodriguez, Professor and Chair, Dept. of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Riverside, and founding member of Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex; Stephen Rohde, Chair, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace; Lila Salas, Occupy Whittier; Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, Freedom Church; Dan Siegel, Civil Rights attorney; Jonathan Simon, Adrian A. Kragen Professor of Law, U.C. Berkeley; Ellen Snortland, author, activist, performer; Jahan Stanizui, Culver City Interfaith;
Debra Sweet, Director, World Can't Wait; Heather Thompson, Departments
of African American Studies and History, Temple University; Paul Von
Blum, African American Studies, UCLA; Jim Vrettos, Professor of
Sociology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; Anne Weills, National
Lawyers Guild; Cornel West, author and educator, co-initiator of
Campaign to Stop "Stop
and Frisk"; Tim'm T. West, Community Activist,
Youth Advocate, Hip Hop Artist/Poet; Hadar Aviram, Associate Professor,
UC Hastings College of the Law*; Anita Wills, Occupy 4 Prisoners; Clyde
Young, Revolutionary Communist, and former prisoner;
*For Identification Purposes Only. Update: April 14, 2012
Thurs., April 19th
