Australia is “shocked” by the routine torture of women and children asylum seekers

October 11, 2015 by Dan Moshenberg 9 Comments

Australia routinely throws asylum seekers into prisons, mostly in remote areas or, even better, on islands, “an enforcement archipelago of detention … an archipelago of exclusion.” The gulag archipelago didn’t end; it became the intended end-of-the-road universe for asylum seekers and refugees. Last year, Australia was “shocked” by reports that children represent the greatest percentage of self-harm and suicidal behavior. Now, Australia is “shocked” once again to find that sexual violence against women asylum seekers and refugees occurs. Australia is shocked … but not shamed.

The incidents this time involve three women, two Somali and one Iranian woman. The Iranian is in hospital. One of the Somali women is pregnant as a result of the rape. It took the police four hours to arrive, and then … pretty much nothing happened. None of this is new or surprising. In July, the Immigration Department heard again of rampant violence against women and children, and then … pretty much nothing happened. Advocates Pamela Curr and Daniel Webster know that these three women are “the tip of the iceberg.” Despite the State trying to keep the media away from its penal colonies, none of this is secret or surprising. A week ago, the mother of the Iranian woman, despondent at the entirety of the situation, attempted suicide. Apart from placing under surveillance, under the guise of a suicide watch, nothing changed.

Pediatricians in Melbourne are organizing, refusing to send children back to detention centers, because the situation is so dire. The situation was always dire. It was meant to be. Study after study suggests that the problem of health care for asylum seekers in detention is not inadequate health care. The problem is detention. Study after study shows that children in detention breathe sadness and fear, trauma, that will stay with them, for many forever.

The news this weekend is that the Somali woman may be brought to the mainland to receive an abortion … and then what? Nauru said it would process everyone within a week and now backtracks on that. Australia is planning on moving some or all of the asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island to the Philippines, and none of the refugees or asylum seekers has a heard a word about this from the State. Across Australia, many marched this weekend to protest the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.

This is democracy in the current world order. To ask for help is to give up citizenship. If you are a woman and you ask for help, you give up your humanity. The gulag archipelago never left. It became the democratically elected global archipelago.

(Photo Credit: The Guardian)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: asylum, Australia, Christmas Island, Dan Moshenberg, Haunts, Manus Island, Nauru, prison, rape, refugees, women

Welcome to Yarl’s Wood, the UK’s special hell for pregnant women

October 9, 2015 by Dan Moshenberg 3 Comments

We have been here before … too often: “The Home Office has offered a formal apology and will pay compensation to a pregnant asylum seeker who was unlawfully arrested and detained at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre.” The woman, known as Ms PA, is Congolese. The horror of Ms. PA’s story is that there is no horror in the familiar. Ms. PA was one of 99 pregnant women held in Yarl’s Wood last year. The Home Office has apologized to Ms. PA. The other 98 women must just wait. The horror of Ms. PA’s story is that it is typical.

On February 3, 2014, Ms. PA was arrested, without notice, held for ten hours and then shipped eight hours to Yarl’s Wood. She was four months pregnant at the time. She told the officials she was due for her 20 week scan, and nothing happened. During her month in Yarl’s Wood, she was seen, once, by a midwife, and that was the sum total of her health care.

None of this was hidden. The Guardian interviewed Ms. PA while she was in Yarl’s Wood: “I am very worried about what is happening to my baby. I feel like I am being treated like a criminal here although I have not committed any crime.”

What crime did Ms. PA commit? The crime of being immigrant, African, woman, pregnant, each and all of these combined?

Now the Home Office says what it must. It apologizes. It will investigate. It will … do absolutely nothing.

Worse than nothing, it will continue to imprison pregnant women in open violation of its own policies, and with complete impunity. Last year, Richard Fuller, a Member of Parliament, inquired as to the situation of Ms. PA and three other women. Here’s what happened: “December of last year I had a letter from the Immigration Minster saying that he had asked Serco who were then in charge of Yarl’s Wood to look into these four case and he was assured that an independent health assessment said that there was no problem with their healthcare, that has now been contradicted in court.”

He was assured. Despite reports from the Chief Inspector of Prisons; Medical Justice; Channel 4; and testimony after testimony after testimony after testimony by current and former Yarl’s Wood prisoners, he … was … assured.

Many are now calling for the Home Office to apologize to all the pregnant women it has thrown into Yarl’s Wood. While a good call, that would not begin to arrive at the zero point of justice. Compensation to the women and to their children would also be a good move, and would also leave the nation, and justice itself, in the hole. The threat of Yarl’s Wood remains as long as Yarl’s Wood remains open. The pain of Yarl’s Wood remains as long as Yarl’s Wood remains open. Shut down the whole enterprise and apparatus now. Otherwise, he will always be assured, and she will always suffer harm and injustice. #SetHerFree #ShutYarlsWood Shut it down … now.

(Photo Credit: Socialist Worker / Guy Smallman)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Dan Moshenberg, Haunts, Ms. PA, pregnant women prisoners, women, women prisoners, Yarl's Wood

Radio WIBG: Emilie Paumard: Women’s oppression and the debt work together

October 6, 2015 by Brigitte Marti Leave a Comment

Emilie Paumard

Emilie Paumard opened the plenary session of the 4^th summer University of the CADTM. She presented the debt crisis in only 12 minutes. She used cynical humor to explain how seven years ago in the North neoliberal capitalists realized that the subprime crisis was also an opportunity to dismantle social protections that had emerged in Europe over the past 50 years. These countries’ labor and sexual and reproductive laws went too far; they had to be put back in the ranks. They just had to rewrite history.

And so it came to pass.

It was not deregulation of the finance economy or financial derivatives products that caused the mess. It was the people, the women, the workers! They lived beyond their means, they should return to the “traditional” oppressive way of life! It was not 30 years of neoliberal politics!

Emilie explained that the experience of the South, ravaged by Structural Adjustment Programs, gave her the necessary insights into the system of debt and creditors to become active in the North. In addition, as a woman and as a lesbian woman, she is subjected to a system of oppressions and restrictions.

She sees the citizens’ debt audit as an important public tool that can be vector of grassroots organizing to lead to transformative initiatives. That is most needed to face this cynical and dreadful system that dispossesses the population of their rights.

The secretive functioning of the financial speculative market pulled apart necessary regulations to protect the public system. This allowed the derivative markets to become 10 times the world GDE while political discourse bragged about controlling the banks. Emilie

Paumard believes that the citizens’ debt audit allowed the oppressed population to comprehend and then organize the struggle against these opaque mechanisms that serve the neoliberal elite.

This is a feminist struggle. Now, listen to Emilie Paumard:

For a longer interview with Emilie, in French:

(Interview and photo by Brigitte Marti) (Video interview by Brigitte Marti and Marie–Hélène Le Ny at 50/50)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Brigitte Marti, CADTM, debt, Emilie Paumard, Marie-Hélène Le Ny, neoliberalism, Resistances, women

“My rape was awful. But the way the police handled it was even worse.”

October 4, 2015 by Dan Moshenberg 2 Comments

On Sunday, February 27, Buzzfeed reported at length on the story of Lara McLeod. It’s a devastating, all too familiar story. In brief, Lara McLeod was raped by the fiancé of her sister, Hera McLeod. Hera had given birth two weeks earlier. Traumatized, Lara went home and, the next day, told her parents. They immediately went and retrieved Hera and Prince, the two-week-old. To do that safely, they called the police in. That’s where the awful became the unbearable.

The police called Lara in, interrogated her, compelled her to file a complaint and then arrested Lara for filing a false complaint and charged Hera with aiding in the deceit. From there, it just gets worse. You can read the Buzzfeed account for yourself. The rape and arrest occurred in 2011. Using the charges against Hera, her fiancé won unsupervised visits. Three months later, Prince was found unconscious on his father’s apartment floor. The fifteen-month-old died the next day. The fiancé’s trial on murder is coming up soon. Hera has moved on, as best she can. Lara is struggling.

This story occurs in the leafy well-to-do suburbs of Prince William County, in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC, but it could as easily occur in the leafy suburbs anywhere. Every step of the way, every single time the State was called in, from the police to the courthouse, the State did more than merely fail these two women. It assaulted them. A French report on this case notes that in France, of women who report being survivors of sexual violence, only 4 percent have reported the crime formally. In the United States, the situation is the same. In South Africa, according to the Medical Research Council, one in nine rapes are reported to the police.

Why are the numbers so low? There are many reasons. Here’s Lara McLeod’s answer, “The night I was raped, I said I wanted to be left alone. People say rape is serious and you should report it, but look what happened to me: I reported my rape, and they told me it never happened.”

Buzzfeed and others have described the police investigation as “botched.” It wasn’t. Virginia, and beyond it the State, got exactly what it wanted, what it pushes strenuously to get: a woman living with trauma, agony and pain who has learned to silently absorb injustice directed at her as a woman. To botch means to clumsily repair or to bungle. No one clumsily repaired or bungled the investigation. No one cared enough to botch the investigation. How do I know?

Every year, on Prince’s birthday, Hera McLeod sends a letter to the two Prince William County police officers whom she holds responsible for the death of her son: “This year, she included a photo of Prince with his two front teeth in, smiling and sitting on a red truck — with his birth and death dates printed above. `On July 1st, 2015, I would have turned four,’ the card said. `May you always remember how the decisions you make impact the lives of innocent people. I will never forget you. I pray you will never forget about me.’ This year, Kimberly Norton, one of the two officers who charged the McLeod sisters, put the card in a new envelope and mailed it back to Hera unopened. She rewrote her return address in block letters. Not Detective Norton, as Hera had written, but “SGT K. NORTON.” She had been promoted. So had Detective Cavender.”

The State got what it wanted. It’s time for us to get the State we want.

(Image Credit 1: Buzzfeed) (Image Credit 2: Slate.fr)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Dan Moshenberg, France, Haunts, Hera McLeod, Lare McLeod, Prince William County, rape, South Africa, Virginia, women

Georgia did not listen: They killed her.

October 2, 2015 by Brigitte Marti 1 Comment

Kelly Gissendaner at her theology graduation ceremony

They did not listen; they killed Kelly Gissendaner at a state prison in Jackson, Georgia, Wednesday, September 30, early in the morning.

She is the first woman executed in Georgia since 1945. Her execution was postponed after the lethal liquid was declared improper for killing because it was too cloudy. This decision was made after a series of botched executions, that left the condemned to death screaming and shaking for too long before dying. Just a reminder that the death penalty is first a violent act committed by the state.

All her appeals for clemency based on numerous testimonies that she changed her life were denied and early Wednesday morning Kelly Gissendaner received shots to die.

Now it is the turn of Richard Glossip in Oklahoma. His execution was stayed just before he was going to be executed by lethal injection. He was accused of a hired murder. Many elements have been assembled to assert that Richard Glossip is most likely innocent and was set up by the actual murderer who denounced him for a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty for himself.

None of this matters. The sentence was confirmed, and the delay is only due to the fear that he was going to be another botched execution because of the injection.

Everything was arranged so this little dirty business could go on, they even turn off the microphones, which is allowed since the last incident, so the torture-victim will not be heard.

They want blood at all price, and as Sister Helen Prejean explained, “The system in our criminal justice system, and particularly the administration of the death penalty, is so corrupt, it is so messed up.”

The eye for an eye law outweighs innocence or rehabilitation; that is not justice!

This cynical game must cease. No technology or protocol will change the fact that the death penalty is nothing other than a violent and arrogant form of oppression and has nothing to do with crime reduction or with reparation for victims’ families. It exacerbates violence in society and reinforces the process of dehumanization, adding to economic, racial and gendered forms of dehumanization. As some states are abolishing the death penalty, others are accelerating a kill-them-all policy.

It is time to stop the death penalty!

(Photo Credit: Ann Borden / The Emory Wheel)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Brigitte Marti, death penalty, Georgia, Kelly Gissendaner, Oklahoma, prison, Resistances, Richard Glossip, Sister Helen Prejean

Day 4 of #‎LiveTheWageVA: This has been an entirely humbling experience for me

October 1, 2015 by Tram Nguyen Leave a Comment

This is “Live the Wage” week, an effort to highlight what it’s like for working women and men making the minimum wage of $7.25/hour. (Find out more at www.livethewageva.org. or, on Twitter, at #‎LiveTheWageVA.) If the question is whether or not people CAN live on minimum wage, many folks would probably say yes. In fact, 1.2 million American workers live on minimum wage. But it takes a lot of planning, sacrifice, and hard choices to make it work. Sometimes that choice boils down to which bills you will pay this month, how much food you can put on the table, or whether or not you can visit a doctor.

The question is whether or not people SHOULD HAVE TO get by on $7.25/hr. If you are working hard and playing by the rules, you should be making enough to support yourself and your family. No one is guaranteed success in America, but everyone deserves a fair shot to succeed and make enough to pay their bills.

Truth be told, I’ve been there. My family has been there. I don’t have a lot of vivid memories from my early childhood, but one that sticks out for me is from a time that my dad took me to visit my mom at the end of her work shift, cleaning tables at a local McDonalds. She gave me some French fries, and oh my god, they were so tasty! Seeing me happy made her smile, but underneath that smile, was a woman who knew that this wasn’t the American dream. My parents both worked low-wage jobs. My dad also worked in the food industry as a line cook at Skillagalee in Richmond.

My dad ended up taking out a bunch of loans so that he could get a bachelor’s degree, since none of his academic or military background in Vietnam translated to a meaningful job in America. For years, my dad lived and studied in Connecticut, while my mom continued to make things work in Virginia. He graduated and still couldn’t find a job. So they borrowed more money and opened up a restaurant. A successful restaurant. By my fourth grade year, they were able to buy a house in the West End of Alexandria, Virginia. The American dream!

But success came with sacrifice. They worked around the clock, and closed the restaurant between 2 and 4 every day so that they could race home and spend at least some time with my sisters and me as we came home school. Often, they were so tired, they would nap during this break. Who could blame them?

I share this more as a reminder to myself. Because I have forgotten what it’s like to have to be consciously aware of my spending habits. As challenging as this week has been for me, I know that it is nothing compared to the reality for people who are actually living on minimum wage. I get to end my challenge at the end of this week. But my fight for economic and social justice will never end.

(Photo Credit: Facebook / Ralph Northam)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: #LivetheWageVA, food, hunger, justice, labor, Live the Wage, minimum wage, New Virginia Majority, Tram Nguyen

Radio WIBG: Christine Vanden Daelen: Fighting the debt system is a feminist struggle!

September 29, 2015 by Brigitte Marti Leave a Comment

Christine Vanden Daelen

The CADTM summer university was articulated around five themes, one of which was Feminist Struggles. Christine Vanden Daelen was the coordinator of the workshops on feminist struggles in a time of debt and austerity.

According to Christine Vanden Daelen, debt is a dictatorial system over states, first in the South and now in the North, that oppresses populations. The system is supported by a network of international institutions that purport to work for the development of these states while imposing constraints and controls over their sovereignty.

For Christine, becoming aware of these mechanisms is key.

CADTM’s motto reads, “Create alternatives that free humanity from all forms of oppression: social, patriarchal, imperialist, racial…”

Christine Vanden Daelen joined the CADTM eight years ago after becoming aware that a social movement that intends to work against this system must have a feminist approach. The CADTM is also a feminist network as declared in its charter.

The structural adjustment programs in the South and the austerity measures in the North have impacted the most precarious populations. 70% of these populations are women. Women are the most dependent on social protection and public services, and so are the first ones to be dismantled by this system of debt. Thanks to work distribution, women comprise the vast majority of the public sector workers and the reproduction/care unpaid workers without which the society would be scrambling.

Christine says women have no debt to repay. It is the state that works in liaison with all the instigators and actors of the system of debt that should be paying them.

Let’s listen to Christine who launched with her colleagues a feminist audit of the debt:

For a longer interview with Christine, in French:

(Interview by Brigitte Marti) (Photo by Brigitte Marti) (Video interview by Brigitte Marti and Marie–Hélène Le Ny at 50 / 50)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Brigitte Marti, CADTM, Christine Vanden Daelen, debt, women

Assessing Misogyny in Candidates Battling for the 2016 U.S. Presidency

September 28, 2015 by Pramila Venkateswaran Leave a Comment

It is disheartening to see the rampant misogyny and racism that has surfaced in the current U.S. Presidential election speeches, debates, audience reactions, and media coverage.

None of the Republican candidates running for President have shown any concern for women’s health. In their denunciation of Planned Parenthood and threatening a shutdown of the government if funding Planned Parenthood is included in the budget, we see their failure to connect with women, especially poor women, rural women, and teenagers, who need organizations like Planned Parenthood for their overall reproductive healthcare.

One would think a woman candidate would speak up for women in the electorate. Carly Fiorina is more ferocious than any of the male Republican candidates in her denunciation of Planned Parenthood, basing her argument on a dubious video created by an anti-abortion group. In the attention paid to the Republicans’ heated exchanges about Planned Parenthood, Hillary Clinton’s support of women’s reproductive rights has been drowned out while the uproar over her email server is driving her views of women’s health to the periphery.

Earlier this month, candidate Donald Trump deliberately failed to stop an audience member making anti-Muslim comments about President Obama and Muslims in the country. Since Trump is very much in the thick of creating the argument that Obama is not American, he let this comment feed into the larger Birther controversy. The racism that is ladled out by the Republicans is plentiful and the crowd that is swallowing it has a voracious appetite, having bought into the equation of illegal immigration and the devaluation of America both economically and culturally. Since the racism is so palpable and coming from the mouths of “authority,” the crowd feels very comfortable about ensconcing itself in it.

The media plays into the frenzy of the Republicans. Journalists use language that seem to celebrate the candidates, by calling them “bold” and “delivering change,” and for being “outsiders” and not succumbing to Beltway politics. An alien who walks into this media reporting would think he/she is hearing about someone progressive who has uttered profound truths for the betterment of humanity! Why is the media so fascinated by candidates like Trump, and why aren’t there more intellectual debates about the flaws and lack of historical understanding in the Republican debates?

Paralleling the Republican denunciation of illegal immigration is the crisis in Europe of migrants and refugees crossing the borders of Syria and Turkey into Hungary, Greece, France and Germany. Republicans are not addressing the refugee crisis for they have built a wall around their position. While part of the public in European countries is advocating porous borders, many Republican candidates are exploring the aesthetics of walls that can be built on the borders with Mexico and Canada.

Since Carly Fiorina is the only woman standing for elections among the Republicans, and Hilary Clinton among the Democrats, both women had to deal with their opponents’ comments that had nothing to do with their political positions. Trump commented on Fiorina’s “face,” saying her appearance would not inspire people to vote for her. When Hillary was First Lady in the 1992, some people remarked that she should be baking cookies instead of designing healthcare legislation. Today, she faces remarks about her age. Neither woman can escape comments about their clothes and hair. Hillary faces the additional demand to convey emotion, talk about her personal life, and periodically shed a few tears, so she can garner more votes.

Are we still at the stage of having to prove that women can run for office and be accepted for who they are in terms of their personalities? Do women running for office have to subscribe to stereotypical notions of gender? Will immigrants of color continue to be an anomaly in the Republican Party? Will Republicans ever recognize that while the U.S. is using global resources, it is hypocritical to talk about “walls” to prevent people from coming across its borders? Will the Republicans ever acknowledge that our economy is supported on the shoulders of “illegal” and “legal” immigrant women’s labor, from farm to factory to our dinner table?

(Photo Credit: Coalition of Immokalee Workers)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: misogyny, Pramila Venkateswaran, U.S. Presidential elections

Hamba kahle Nomthandazo Loliwe. Walk in peace.

September 25, 2015 by Dan Moshenberg Leave a Comment

Nomthandazo Loliwe died last week, although perhaps she died much earlier. The story of her death, barely told, is covered in silence. Only one news venue reported it, and only once.

Here is the story of Nomthandazo Loliwe’s death in its entirety, as reported last Friday: “A Western Cape woman facing two assault charges dropped dead in the holding cells of Cape Town Magistrate’s Court after reporting she had not eaten for three weeks. The Independent Police Investigations Directorate (Ipid) opened an inquest into the mysterious death of Nomthandazo Loliwe‚ 26‚ of Delft‚ on Friday afternoon. Ipid said Loliwe died whilst in the court cells after she appeared on two separate charges of assault. She was arrested and detained at Woodstock Police Station. Spokesperson Langa confirmed the incident‚ saying Loliwe was brought (on Friday morning) to the court and‚ at about 10.30‚ she complained to the police of feeling sick. `The ambulance was called and paramedics examined her‚ but didn’t find anything wrong with her and left. She appeared and after her appearance was taken back to the court holding cells where she collapsed at about 12.30 and was later thereafter declared dead by paramedics‚’ she said. Langa said their investigation has not suggested any foul play. She said Loliwe’s fellow detainees confirmed the deceased collapsed and died in the cell. `She also allegedly reported to them that she hasn’t eat anything for about three weeks‚’ she said.”

That’s it, 192 words. That’s the value of a woman’s life these days. Nomthandazo Loliwe told her sister detainees that she had not eaten for three weeks. She probably told others as well. Whether or not Nomthandazo Loliwe had actually not eaten for three weeks or two weeks or one hour is irrelevant. What matters is that she said she hadn’t eaten for three weeks, and that should trigger something, something called compassion or concern. But no one listened, though many heard.

No one listens to the women who talk of hunger, pain, desperation, despair, fury, rage, love, shelter, vulnerability, illness. The Daily Maverick today reports, “If there is a state all human beings understand it is that of hunger. While those of us with the means and access to food often glibly remark “I’m starving”, there are millions in the world who literally are and who find themselves in regions where food security, due to a variety of environmental, political and socio-economic issues, is critical or non existent. This month a food producer accredited by the United Nations Children’s Fund, a partnership between Norway and South Africa, officially opened in Cape Town, revealing that while hunger may take from some, it gives to others.”

No one gave to Nomthandazo Loliwe, and that is a shame we all share. Hamba kahle Nomthandazo Loliwe sala kahle. Go well; stay well. Go gently. Walk in peace. Perhaps in your next journey you will find humans who care, who offer food and shelter, because you certainly did not on this earth.

(Image Credit: Robert Motherwell / MOMA)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Dan Moshenberg, Haunts, Nomthandazo Loliwe, South Africa

In Louisville’s West End, Walmart wins and guess who loses?

September 24, 2015 by Paul Seltzer 4 Comments

After months of delays, protests, and legal wrangling, Walmart’s arrival on the border of West Louisville’s California and Russell neighborhoods looks increasingly likely. Some residents praise and are eager to hasten the construction of the big-box store in an empty lot in the West End. What lead to this pro-Walmart attitude?

The empty lot at 18^th and West Broadway was leftover when Phillip Morris left Louisville, laying-off thousands of workers in its West End plant. The city government acquired the former factory and used the excuse of having this surplus land to embark on various neoliberal economic redevelopment schemes to turn a profit.

Phillip Morris’ exit from Louisville is part of a long history of deindustrialization that leaves Black workers in the lurch and many residents of West Louisville neighborhoods in precarious situations. For many, daily life is about survival through conditions of violent State-sanctioned economic disinvestment that mostly targets Black people. In fact, Louisville is the tenth worst city for Black poverty. This high rate of Black poverty directly correlates to the high rates of health problems that Black communities in West Louisville neighborhoods face, from staggering levels of infant mortality to stroke to cancer.

Politicians in the West End often characterize the need for economic revitalization as “desperate.” Desperation can drive these same politicians to reckless actions, “regardless of risks or consequences.”

Walmart wants to build a brand-new supercenter in an empty lot in the California neighborhood. The company promises 350 new jobs and economic progress. These promises alone were enough for some church leaders to hold a prayer vigil in support of the big-box store.

However, supporting Walmart as a way to decrease poverty in the West End ignores some key facts: the fact that Walmart has a tendency to exploit workers and the environment, as well as a tendency to actually increase poverty in many areas.

Another key fact ignored is that Walmart has a special relationship with harming its women workers. Whether it’s exposing pregnant employees to dangerous chemicals, buying clothes from factories that massacre women workers, or routinely discriminating against women workers in pay and advancement, Walmart is always in the business of hurting women—always. How can a company that participates in the degradation and murder of women be expected to improve a neighborhood?

The State does not care about the women workers of Walmart in Louisville or globally, nor does the State care about using tax revenue to improve working-class Black women’s lives in Louisville. It plans to reward Walmart for maintaining about 100 fewer jobs than the company promised to create in the West End, and spent millions to buy up land around the building site. One Louisville councilmember who mentioned Walmart’s low pay rates rationalized it by the need for economic development. Another councilmember who actually stood with Louisville labor groups against Walmart was demonized and later voted out of office.

Organizers and activists are fighting back in the streets and in the courts. Groups like Women In Transition and labor unions are mobilizing bodies and putting forward alternative plans. A lawsuit has been filed over the proposed design of the store and surrounding landscape, which has at least held up the process for now.

The capitalist developers who want to bring in big-box stores like Walmart like to appeal to a sense of place, community, and home (see picture below). But this sense of place, community, and home is built on the exclusion and death of poor women of color. These women are the surplus population that pays the price of “economic development.” These women are also the ones who fight back, specters of the living and the dead that haunt redevelopment projects around the world.

(Photo Credit 1: WDRB.com) (Photo Credit 2: Paul Seltzer)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Louisville, Paul Seltzer, Walmart, West End, Women in Transition