How many deaths does it take til we know that too many people have died? In prison, it’s not Covid that kills, it’s prison.

August 19, 2020 by 57 Comments

On April 28, Andrea Circle Bear died in federal custody, becoming the first woman to die of Covid-19 while in federal custody. Andrea Circle Bear was convicted of a minor offense and should never have been in prison in the first place. When Andrea Circle Bear was sentenced, she was five months pregnant; she should never have been in prison. You know what killed Andrea Circle Bear? Prison. On Saturday, August 15, Wendy Campbell died, of Covid-19, in federal custody. You know what really killed Wendy Campbell? Prison. Both Andrea Circle Bear and Wendy Campbell died in FMC Carswell, in Fort Worth. Wendy Campbell is the fifth woman to die at FMC Carswell. You know what killed all five women? Prison. FMC Carswell is a Petri dish of inhumane conditions. So is Coyote Ridge Corrections Center, in eastern Washington state, according to a nurse who works there. From sea to shining sea and beyond, you know what’s killing inmates? It’s not Covid. It’s prison. And thus far we have done absolutely nothing to change that situation. Instead, we blame “the pandemic” for the constructed environments we have built.

Day after day, we `discover’ that clusters have formed in prisons, jails, immigration detention centers. We claim to express shock that overcrowded toxic spaces are overcrowded and toxic. In India, we `discover’ that overcrowded toxic prisons and jails are overcrowded and toxic. In Malawi, we `discover’ that overcrowded, toxic, far from home jails are overcrowded and toxic. In Mexico, we `discover’ that overcrowded, toxic, famously lethal prisons are overcrowded, toxic, and deadly. In Namibia, we `discover’ that overcrowded, toxic prisons and jails are overcrowded and toxic. We also `discover’ that inmates know the situation and are terrified.

In North Carolina, we `discover’ that a pregnant woman, in this instance eight-month-pregnant Brittany Cowick, has to organize, got to Federal court and more in order to be released to house arrest from a local jail that has reported high rates of Covid-19 infection. 

These `discoveries’ all occurred within the last 48 hours. They will recur in the next 48 hours. After a half century of mass incarceration, the time for discovery is over. How often must we `discover’ that the largest prison clusters are in jails and prison? Where is the outrage at this repeated farce of innocent discovery? Six months into the pandemic, why must pregnant women and their allies struggle so hard to be released from deathtrap jails, prison, detention centers of all sorts? What is the point of a word like “vulnerable” or a phrase like “compassionate release” in this landscape? You know what killed Wendy Campbell? Prison. And you know who put her there? You did, I did, we all did. Stop discovering, release them now. How many deaths does it take?

 

(Photo Credit: The Guardian/Tannen Maury/EPA)

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In a matter of 10 days, 6 family members, including myself and a 4-month old baby, all got COVID-19

August 16, 2020 by Leave a Comment

In a matter of 10 days, 6 family members, including myself and a 4-month old baby, all got COVID-19. Six people got COVID from ONE non-family member who had not been following social distancing—that’s all it takes—one person to infect five adults and one baby. Thankfully, my family has been doing things mostly correctly in terms of social distancing, limiting how often we left the house, wearing masks (!!!), and just overall being smart in these weird times. Because of this, our points of contact post-exposure have been minimal to non-existent.

As our family was grappling with the terrifying thought of being exposed to COVID, getting tested has been an added nightmare. I got tested last Sunday at a CVS in the area after being told of our potential exposure and experiencing symptoms. The test I took was self-administered and had promised results within 6-10 days. 6-10 days to wait for a test result is completely mind boggling to me. What happens if I feel better by day 5? What happens if I get worse? Our family was on edge for 6-10 days, waiting for results from different family members. I finally got my results on Friday—after most of my symptoms had already subsided. It was negative. 

However, after a phone call with a contact tracer (arguably the only thing our government has done right in terms of this pandemic), they suggested I get retested somewhere because I “have too many COVID symptoms and too much exposure to be negative”. And yesterday, I lost my sense of smell, which pretty much means I have COVID. I’m still getting tested on Tuesday, this time it will be done by a medical professional, just to confirm I have it. At this point, there are 3 family members who have tested positive, and 3 people who are presumed positive (we all know we have it, but we’re not an official statistic yet).

To put it bluntly, this experience has been hell for our family. Our government’s response to the pandemic has been terrible. Tests shouldn’t take 6-10 days to deliver results, tests shouldn’t be self- administered (I think my false negative was because I didn’t hear the directions clearly). Testing with rapid results needs to be more accessible—I have called so many different testing sites, looking for appointments that aren’t weeks away, looking for test results that won’t take 6-10 days, and looking for sites that are “approved” by my primary physician.

Thankfully, we are all getting better—slowly, but we’re getting better. I’m lucky (?) that my only real symptom now is no smell. At some point this week, all of us, including the baby, will have had a COVID-19 test. Testing is important–especially when you can get results in 1-2 days.

And to make this even longer, to those people—especially my age, that are still going out and having sOOoooOOOo much fun going out to bars, getting meals in restaurants, taking trips, living like life is normal, I envy you. I WISH I could pretend that life was normal, but it’s hard to do that when you have to google “COVID and babies”, “COVID survival in babies”, “COVID survival rates in adults”, “chances of needing a ventilator”.

 

(Image Credit: Inside NOVA)

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New international students should not be barred entry this fall

August 15, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Just as university administrators, faculty, and students breathed a sigh of relief from the panic created by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) July 6 directive barring international students from the United States if their university chose to go online-only in the fall, ICE issued a new one on July 24:

“Nonimmigrant students in new or initial status after March 9 will not be able to enter the U.S. to enroll in a U.S. school as a nonimmigrant student for the fall term to pursue a full course of study that is 100 percent online.”

New international students who have been through a demanding eighteen-month process of college applications, visa application, and financial arrangements now face the heartbreaking prospect of being barred entry to the United States. DHS was forced to rescind its initial directive after a lawsuit brought by Harvard and MIT (backed by more than two hundred schools and the AAUP) and the attorneys general of twenty states. The new directive feels like a punitive measure designed to force colleges to open campuses in the midst of the world’s worst public health crisis since the 1918 flu.

While no logical reason was given for this policy announced a month before many campuses start their fall semester, right-wing twitterati have hailed it as a good step; after all, they say, if courses are online, why can’t they be taken by students from within their own homes in Nairobi, Seoul, New Delhi, and Shanghai? Why must these students be physically present in the United States?

Education experts in the field have denounced this policy as malicious and foolish. Not only is it xenophobic, it will cause short- and long-term damage to both US colleges and our incoming international students. This harm will be psychological, material, professional, cultural, and economic:

  1. For international students, the difficulty of taking online courses scheduled in US time zones abroad presents a physical challenge. In order to join a virtual class session across the globe, students may have to stay awake through the night. Research has shown this to impact cognitive function, absorption of the learning materials, and subsequent performance.
  2. Further, broadband internet connectivity is an equity and access issue around the globe. With weak or unreliable connections, international students may simply not be able to join your virtual classroom. In turn, this prevents access to the full educational benefits of class lectures and discussions available to their US-based classmates. Connectivity challenges may prevent students from submitting assignments or posting on discussion boards, especially if the school’s platform crashes (as one of my students this summer, based in China, experienced with Blackboard). Connectivity also impacts students’ access to library and online learning materials, as many items may be restricted for download or purchase abroad (as my students based in Paris and Karachi reported this summer). I regularly teach films available on Google Play, Vudu or Amazon for $3.99; however, these rentals are often restricted or unavailable internationally. Without access to required library resources like textbooks, articles, films, and research databases, how can students abroad achieve learning outcomes?
  3. For many international students, summers offer opportunities for professional career growth and applied learning through internship or work experience in the United States. However, strict rules govern internship access and eligibility for Curricular Practical Training visa status (CPT) requires students on F-1 visas to have completed one year of study in the United States. DHS has not clarified how this new directive will impact CPT rules so preventing international students from entry this fall deprives them of future opportunities to gain crucial professional experience. Limited learning and professional growth opportunities make the US a less attractive destination for international students to pursue dreams of higher education than countries like Canada and Australia.
  4. Layoffs, furloughs, and closures of American colleges and universities are announced daily. International students bring $44 billion into the country annually. This new policy, along with the government’s failure to bring COVID-19 under control, could result in a 63 to 98 percent reduction of international students next year compared to 2018 –2019 levels. Campus administrators are by now hoarse from explaining that the lost revenue from international students on campus will only exacerbate financial crises as housing occupancy and room and board revenue fall. Each year’s loss of international student enrollment will cascade into subsequent years, diminishing long-term financial health.
  5. For campuses, the long-term harm is cultural as well as economic. International students bring an invaluable and immeasurable dimension to campus culture: their talent and diverse perspectives from other nations expands both the vision and learning of domestic students. To reduce their presence on campus as this new order intends is to damage the learning experience of domestic students, who benefit greatly from the knowledge and experience of their international classmates.

In other words, the United States and its institutions of higher learning simply cannot afford the harmful consequences of this misguided and xenophobic policy. All faculty, administrators, and students must stand up and continue to fight back against DHS’s divisive overreach, and advocate for a more international and diverse community of students. Our international students bring incredible talent, energy, and joy to our communities. With them, we forge global connections and imagine a new world order. We are lucky to have them in our midst, and we must forcefully challenge policies that harm our communities and our students.

 

(Photo Credit: Eric Henry / The DePaulia)

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In New Jersey, it’s a fight between the DOE and teachers: Teachers Are Poised to Win!

August 13, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Several weeks ago, my sister and I had a rather uncomfortable conversation with our mother about her return to school in the September. Leading up to it, the state had been adamant that students be in the classrooms learning—even in the middle of a pandemic. Jersey City and other schools seemed poised to bring my mother and other teachers back into overcrowded and severely underfunded buildings with no safety protocol and no clean water. So, we had the conversation. 

I should not have to have a conversation about what we should do, as her daughters, if my mother got sick. Does she want to be resuscitated or put on life support if she is deteriorating? How long does she want to be on a ventilator if her lungs get that bad? Has she got her will in order? She didn’t sign anything from the school district, did she?

We had this conversation because we knew that social distancing cannot take place in a school where my mother teaches nearly thirty students a day. Kids would not have been required to wear masks, but mother would have had to. They needed to be six feet apart. Can rooms handle thirty kids separated by six feet? Or what about if the classroom was split, and fifteen students attended in the early morning and fifteen attended in the afternoon? Teachers would still be interacting with 30 students, possibly spreading COVID to students from the first half of the day to the other. 

The absurdity of the school district for going through hoops to try and open cannot be ignored. Parents in poverty who cannot afford to keep their children home because they have work will be forced to risk their children’s health while parents in the increasingly gentrified city can. The demand to bring students back is only a demand to return their parents to exploitative work without policies in place that would have helped those families to begin with. New Jersey is the fifth wealthiest state in the country. In certain neighborhoods of Jersey City alone (Liberty Park), the median income level for residents is $139,750; 2.54x times the national median. We could have funneled the wealth of our state into funds that New Jerseyans could have used to stay home with their children: universal basic income, cancelling rents and mortgages, and funding mutual aid programs for those in need; we could have thoroughly cleaned and updated old school buildings and taken over electrical grids to give people power and free internet access. I bet, we could even have created a model of universal healthcare so that residents didn’t fear going to the doctor if they exhibited the symptoms of COVID, or the hospital if it were too severe. Instead, we did the bare minimum and are angered when people want to demand that they have to go back to work—and then blamed everything on the people who were getting an extra six hundred dollars from unemployment, even if they were laid off. And we’ve asked the business in the state to foot the bill, as philanthropic. I wonder how much tax write-offs they’ll get. 

I heard Bon Jovi opened a third Soul Kitchen in the state. Well, Bon Jovi wouldn’t have had to open a third soup kitchen if we taxed Bon Jovi relative to his income and spent that money on creating policies that address food insecurity. 

I watched as Senator Stephen Sweeney, a Democrat that helped shape Christie’s tax breaks during his administration while demonizing teachers for asking too much from the state, being hailed as a hero of New Jersey Public Schools during the pandemic. Was this the same man? Yes. But his collective amnesia is striking given everything he did to make sure the schools didn’t have what they needed to face this crisis. What a hero. 

I, as I’m sure many children of teachers are doing right now, am watching in horror as the fears of the faculty and students are consistently being ignored for the rush to return to school. The push to have in person classes, the desire to go back to normal. And this is not just the great state of New Jersey, which has worked hard in being one of the very few states to limit the amount of exposure to COVID on their citizens (though our rate of transmission is on the rise yet again). This is everywhere: from New York City, to Los Angeles and Chicago. 

And while city council’s and politicians demand schools reopen, teachers won’t go down without a fight. 

The most militant organizing is coming from the teachers and their unions over the safe return to the classroom. In New York, teachers brought coffins and a guillotine to the NYC DOE in protest to the city’s reopening plan. Educators and parents were appalled by De Blasio’s insistence that it was safe the open the country’s biggest school system amid the pandemic. 

In Chicago, Mayor Lightfoot and the Chicago Public Schools announced the decision to begin the school year with fully-remote learning, with the tentative goal to get students, “back to class, at least part-time by November.” The decision was, maybe not so coincidentally, came as the possibility of a possible strike vote from the Chicago Teachers Union began and as COVID-19 cases in Chicago trended upwards. 

These trends of teachers’ organizing is not an anomaly, it has created a storm. What I have been arguing with my mother is the fact that she—and her fellow teachers—have power in the union and the decision to keep her students and herself safe. Educators have always understood that the withholding of their labor can create positive changes in their lives and the lives of their students. Now their turning their power on making sure children in low income areas remain safe and healthy, with no risk of getting sick:

In New York City, parents, students, and teachers will be marching from their union headquarters down to the Department of Education. In Los Angeles, activists are organizing a car caravan, first outside the LA Chamber of Commerce and then around the Los Angeles Unified School District building. “We’re kicking it off at the LA Chamber because even during Covid, this is a time when a lot of corporations and Wall Street are making record-breaking profits,” explained Sylvana Uribe, a spokesperson for Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a progressive group participating in the protest. In Philadelphia and Baltimore, teacher unions are calling on Comcast to improve the quality of its service and make it more affordable for families. In Phoenix, activists are planning to demonstrate outside their state capitol building, where educators can write letters to their elected officials about how they feel going back to school or, if they want, write their imagined obituaries.

Immediately after the stirrings from teachers unions across the country, the superintendent in Jersey City voted on August 6, 2020, to move to remote learning for the month of September; I am relieved that my mother will not have to face her potential mortality for her job. And I wonder if it is because we’ve woken a giant in red that the superintendent even backed down. 

Teachers and their unions are waking up and ruffling their feathers, ready for a fight. And this is a fight that educators are poised to win. After all, it is between life and death; why should students and educators die for Trump and DeVos? 

 

(Photo Credit 1: NY Post / Dan Herrick) (Photo Credit 2: Al Jazeera)

 

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Just not (speeches and elections)

August 10, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Just not (speeches and elections)

Just not 
speeches and elections
our own Women’s Day is
a radio fellow expounds 
like he needs to convince
someone out there

Just not 
though most 
to be heard is 
often same old story 
often same old song

(and for some reason
a bigwig male-head
does an official advert
saying “all racial groups” 
were at that historic March)

Just not 
politicians politicking
preying on the moment
feeding on the moment
angling for a sound-byte

Are we all talk 
the world over
at a time of a pandemic
and Gender-Based Violence

and SA’s Women’s Month
where women are free
where women are not
where women are not yet

Are we alone
unique at that

See, too: “OPINION: What are we really celebrating this Women’s Day?”

(Photo Credit: Sune Payne / Daily Maverick)

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NOZIZWE

August 9, 2020 by Leave a Comment

NOZIZWE 

Dead words tumble off 
stilted tongues
like time-singed paint 
flaking off walls that crumble
from the unbearable 
weight of hollowness

I search for Nozizwe
on democracy’s streets
I wanted to ask if she’d seen 
her hopes hanging
on ramshackle street-poles
and podiums on stadia filled 
with zombie-arms reaching
for air they cannot inhale

But she was Busy:

In the kitchens 
scrubbing indelible marks off 
grease-mantled dinner tables
slippery floors and 
corroded psyches

Baking bread 
for tables she lays but does not sit on 
’n grooming roses whose thorns 
she tames but who’s sweet scents
she has no time to smell 

In hospitals, society’s sick halls
sewing surface wounds 
and reaching for the ones 
she knows must be healed
for the nation to live 

In the streets 
trading bananas ’n 
bite-size chunks of kindness 
for a promise

In the bedroom
performing intimacy
with the ghost that hides
behind the mirror 

In the classroom 
painting futures she wishes 
to bestow as homage to the living
even as she fears 
time’s fist will crush into dust 
like so many before

Crawling in and out of her skin
weaving webs as pre-emptive strike 
because survival in this society’s 
hunting games is mastering 
the art of the spider 

In laboratories whipping the magic 
of her Afro into lanterns to shine 
the nation’s path out of history’s dungeons 
creating paths to new civilisations 
where her name is the music 
that calls the spirits home

Mothering the nation’s orphans
for if children must raise the dead
not haunt the future
they must know tenderness
before storms come down
to drown their innocence

But when witching hour comes
and her world has stopped swirling
Nozizwe can hear the music of the stars
rehearses the steps of her new routine
because she knows struggle is a dance 
where womxn does not greet a new day
with yesterday’s steps

Nozizwe. In my language, this name means She/Her of nations. There is so much I want to say to her, about her, hear from her. And yet, I too should shut up, which I shall henceforth do. But before rushing off, for a long time, perhaps…

I wrote this on May day, 2019. It feels like a century ago since CountryZA held its 6th national elections. And yet, it’s only been 15 months. As elections go, it was the same predictable, humdrum. Deafening noise. Promises falling from the skies. Nauseating, corny political theatre. Political parties competing to give us free t-shirts. Service delivery done. Click. Big men in party regalia and shiny shoes with their entourages pour out of zooty cars onto Alex’s heaving streets like volcanic lava, marking territory long after they’re gone. Communities are divided into little squares, marked in party flags. War zones really, with all that violent contestation for party political interest. This kind of grabbing at a piece of the soul of communities over time must explain, at least in part, the fading colour in the eyes of so many of our communities, why so many are no longer able to in fact be communities. Click. Gogo in a shack spills the guts of her life at the man’s knee and the blinding gaze of the camera. Click. Political party builds her and her grandkids a house. Click. Politicians visits overcrowded clinics in Soweto. Click. Click. Click. Song and dance we…Click. 

Of course, far away on some dusty streets where the cameras are not, womxn, party foot-soldiers knock on doors in the name of the party. We know how womxn labour to build these parties, but even far away from the cameras, it is still the big man showing up. After all, it is his face on the t-shirts they wear. And so, the machine rolls on, reproducing the symbolism, political leadership is a man. Yes, sisters in politics, this is not to erase you, I know you are all there being powerful and working hard to change this image/shift this norm. Its fantastic so many of you, younger and younger, are breaking the doors and occupying this space too. Even as I am yet to see politicking differently because often I struggle to see how we’re not borrowing the tired ways of maledom politicking, I see you. Yes, I see you! And of course some of you have chosen to play the game, and I hope you reflect on that deadly choice. Is conceding patriarchy is hard to break, that politics is a man’s game and to survive in it we must play their game really the only choice? Ayikho hlambi enye indlela? Masithethe boodade. I still see you kodwa ke, all of you, and ndiyanibulela for the small shifts that do occur because you are there. Kodwa kuyafuneka sithethe. 

So, yes, the silly season rolls on. So many men talking at us, about us, for us, around us, through us,talking even when they’re not talking. Appropriating our dreams, turning them into melodic hymns that lift us to the heavens. We fly so high we forget the music will soon fade and we will need to return to earth. That there is no cushion to catch us on landing, at least some of us. So we pray on the way down for the gods to let us land last so we land on top of the others. Those dreams, when not sung in glorious melodies, they are painted in gloss only to be sold back to us at the price of our ballot concession, like the new Gucci fashion item. Yes, it’s the name of the game but gosh its violent. And sidikiwe uxelelwa izinto esizaziyo sibizwa emaralini kwiztadium ingathi sizobukela imatch yechiefs nepirates kodwa sizoxoxa iindaba zomzi owonakeleyo. We know politics is spectackle, kodwa yhu ha ah!


So many men’s faces. Plastered on street poles, public walls, private walls, highway billboards. Whole streets lined from top to bottom with the faces of the men of our politics. It feels like a kind of haunting, months long daymares and nightmares. From head to tow I feel bloated with maledom. The symbolism of it winds my psyche so vigorously if it were a clock the dial would break. Yet something in me does breaks. Because this is a story of something in the heart of our society being broken. All the talking has sucked the life out of us, deafened and zombified us. 

After months of this assault on our ears, I wish they could all just shut up. Change up the game, take off the suits, ditch the entourages, get off the stage, if visiting gogo leave the cameras at home and don’t spend 5 minutes with her and then go capitalise her story for 5 million campaigning rands or the priceless imagery of yourself as a man of the people. If you visit her, maybe sit and just listen, or maybe help her prepare lunch for the 10 biologically orphaned kids she has to look after and cook for everyday. Or maybe spend a day with the Counsellor at Rape Crisis centre who goes home with boulders on her back and then comes back the next day because the war on womxn and children claimed more casualties last night and someone must soldier on. 

Anywho, amidst all this noise and being crowded out by men’s faces I begin to be obsessed with the question of the invisible bodies. My mind needs to find her. We Nozizwe, uphi? Why are you not lining my street and polluting my ears with delicious promises?. 

Then I remember that in a patriarchal society, when you do not see a womxn, it means she is somewhere busy working. The reality is that womxn are everywhere, all the time, working. I begin to think of the many ways this thing called work hides her from the “public” sphere. How systems of male domination thrive on this invisibilisation. Whipping up or letting social chaos reign so that someone has to do something about it, most likely it will be her. Orchestrating state failure to run countries well, showing up properly to supplementing the social reproductive capacity of societies so womxn have to step into the gap because well, somebody must. How this exiling of womxn from the public space and view through keeping them busy is how systems of male domination entrench themselves in society. 

More importantly, but for the work she does, no society gets to stand. Often unpaid, unrecognised, but without which society would not be able to reproduce itself, capital would not have free labourers to extract value from without ever having to even know them, political parties would not have numbers and “foot-soldiers” to win elections, and of course without her nations fall. No, please stop calling her effing mother of your nation. This instrumetalisation of womxn’s identities to con us into believing we matter when we really are just tools to be used to prop up maledom, male power and male interests in society is so transparent. We see it, how even in politics patriarchy has caught on with iys co-opting ways, send the “powerful” womxn to deal with the difficult situations and have them clean up your big men mess, but of course, see no irony in coming back and saying, well, they are not ready to lead. Mnxm. Like, iyabora maan legame. 

Anywhowho, bendingekho kulonto ingaphezulu apha…I’m just here to say hail to the workers of the world, the ones in the visible and invisible working spaces, keeping the sky from falling. 

And lastly, with all the respect for real poets, uxolweni kuni nonke ngalecorruption yobizo lwenu nina zimbongi zomthonyama. Bendisazoshwaqa nje apha ndibhiyozela nina nonke because umntu uzathini ngeSunday yonke engena ndawo yokuya egoli (hides face)? 

As for ooComrade bhuti bam, ndiyanithanda maan va, qha ngaske nipheze uthetha gqithi khe nimamele niqaphele instead hlambi nizofunda something! If lento ndiyithethileyo iyakucaphukisa, iske wenze isMalaika Mahlatsi, thumela ewallet ndizakunika inombolo, I promise you will feel better afterwards. Or, lets have a drink and laugh on it, it is after all just a game, right! You must understand, I’ve seen all 6 elections now. For the 1st one, I wrote a non-poem about holding hands with an old men I was helping get to his voting station, but who in fact was holding my hand to enter a future as the child of democratic South Africa, I imagined unfolding very differently from what we have today, but for whom I remain hopeful because even when all is lost we must hold on to hope or we die. So, yabona mos neh, andikho so so I’m just qhubaring incoko. 

Nam ke, starting now, I begin my 3 years (or is it forever I don’t know anymore) of silent retreat, being guilty of the things of maledom and polluting people’s ears all these years, silence will be how I apologise for my own crimes of contradiction…Bahlali, let’s hope sizobonana in 2022, or not. Niberight. 

With gratitude to Nozizwe, who is all the womxn out there, young or forever young like Kota nomfanelo, old, or whatever age you are, who keep inventing new steps in this dance of struggle! This is how I love you. May you hear the music of the stars tonight. Here’s to you!!!

 

(Photo Credits: Siphokazi Mthathi / Facebook)

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Another woman casualty: Catherine Sauvage killed her torturer, was sentenced for that, died prematurely

August 7, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Recently in France, a woman named Catherine Sauvage died at the age of 72. Why did I feel it necessary to write about her death? Because her death carries the sad hallmarks of violence and abuse, too often being called “marital abuse,” making the damage a non-issue.

As for Catherine Sauvage, she was considered the murderer after she killed her husband in 2012. She had had enough after years of being subjected to his violence and rape. Because she had been assaulted for 47 years, she shot him in the back. Her son, also a victim of his father’s violence, committed suicide the same day. Her three daughters had also been sexually abused. A torturer wielded his authority in the home, and yet the public sphere took no heed of the situation.

Despite the circumstances that spurred this killing being revealed, the court sentenced her to 10 years in prison. Her two women lawyers pleaded that she was acting in self-defense, her daughters described the ordeal her family went through to the court and the jury, and still, it was not enough to shield Catherine from more suffering. The sentence triggered a wave of protests by feminist organizations. After listening to her daughters’ plea, Francois Hollande, the president of France at the time, fully pardoned her; she was immediately released.

This quick summary of her ordeal cannot transmit the effect of this complete Injustice on her mind and body. Her premature death is no surprise; she didn’t get a medal for killing a torturer as a soldier would have. She was stuck in the private sphere, where women work for free, are abused, and have to be kept meek and submissive. There are various ways of torturing women, physically or mentally. Due to the utter disregard for their lives both in the private and public spheres, women are led to commit suicide. The behavior of their partner dehumanizes them, makes them feel ignored or neglected, and reduces them to be silenced or remain submissive. In any of these cases, women are locked in the private sphere where they are muted. While many women live in a constant sentiment of fear and injustice, for Catherine Sauvage, it was aggravated by remorse, the remorse of having lost her son, which took its toll on her mental and physical health.

Nonetheless, some voices, including women’s voices in the leftist newspaper Liberation, condemned Francois Hollande for intervening in the affair of justice and changing a sentence confirmed by the court of appeal. Similarly, Emmanuel Macron, the current president, is also accused of interfering with the justice system for acknowledging Catherine Sauvage as a symbol for battered women. The claim is that the independence of the judicial system is at stake. On the other hand, dehumanizing more vulnerable women who cannot even count on the law and order system to seek protection while being privately tortured doesn’t count. This is the ultimate irony. What is surprising is that women on the left who stand for justice for all would have such little compassion for a woman soldiering on despite the battering and ultimately defending herself and her children.

In contrast, when New York congressmember Alexia Ocasio Cortes responded to the obscene language of Florida congressmember Ted Yoho, her cutting challenge to pervasively abusive patriarchy appealed to many women. She used her voice and the language that gave women a sense of dignity and the courage not to remain silent. We cannot accept abusive men; this is never healthy, and silence, as she said, is a form of acceptance.

Catherine Sauvage died because our society has remained silent, not her; she was just walled up in the invisibility of the private sphere that offers more violence and dehumanization to the world. The disgraceful society of lies and innuendoes has killed yet one more woman!

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The struggle to end the shaming of Black girl students in schools continues

August 2, 2020 by 10 Comments

In the past three days, a Black 15-year-old girl student was finally released from juvenile detention in Michigan. She had been incarcerated for 78 days for the crime of not having completed her homework. At the same time, a 7-year-old Black girl student in Jamaica was informed by the High Court that when, as a 5-year-old, she was told to cut her dreadlocks or be forced to leave school, her Constitutional rights had not been violated. At the same time, England’s Department of Education reported that, in many regions, Black students face three times as many fixed term exclusions as do White students. Girls are particularly targeted for their hair, or at least that’s the official reason. This is the world of Black Girl Education today, a world that believes that Black girls pose a particular danger to themselves and, even more, to `the world’. 

In Michigan, a Black 15-year-old girl student known as Grace was sent to juvenile detention for having violated probation. Her `violation’ was not having completed her online school assignments. According to her mother, when Grace’s school went online, Grace had trouble keeping up. The Judge decided that Grace’s difficulty, as well as her learning disabilities and other issues, constituted a threat to the community, and so sent her to juvenile detention, where she would “thrive” and the community would be saved. This all happened in the Oakland County court. Over the last four years, the Oakland County Court adjudicated around 4800 juvenile cases, of which 42% concerned Black youths. 15% of Oakland County youth are Black. After a major campaign, Grace has been `released’ to home detention.

For Black girls, the assault on their integrity is even more intense. Four years ago, girls were being forced into the juvenile `justice’ system at an alarmingly increasing rate, largely because girls were arrested more often than boys for status offenses and were more severely punished for those offenses. Those `offenses’ are not crimes. That’s what makes them `status’ offenses. If the girls were older, there would be no offense, no crime. But they are girls, and they must be protected from themselves. This is the vicious cycle that has been constructed in exactly the same period that has witnessed girl power on the rise: “In a 2010 national census of youth in custody, girls comprised 16% of all detained youth but 40% of those were detained for a status offense. At one time and in some states, girls comprised more than 70% of youth detained for status offenses.” This is the United States’ program of no girl left behind. This is girls’ education in the United States, and, in the past four years, the situation for Black and Brown girls has only grown worse. Despite activists’ great work, the school-to-prison pipeline has not only grown but is sucking in Black and Brown girls at a faster and faster rate. In that context, there’s no surprise that a judge would say that sending a young Black girl student to prison is the best thing for her, for her wellbeing and her education. Boys will be boys, and girls will be jailed, especially Black girls. 

Meanwhile, on Friday, Jamaica’s high court ruled that a school was within its rights to tell a 5-year-old girl student that she must cut her dreadlocks or leave school. The girl student, identified as Z, and her parents have challenged the school for two years. Z is now 7 years old. By all accounts, she is an excellent student. By all accounts, she has not in any way prevented others around her from pursuing their education. To the contrary, she is described as an ideal student and learner who helps her fellow students. Z’s desire to learn must give way to the politics of hair, of Black girls’ hair, and that’s Constitutionally fine. Z’s parents have sworn to challenge the ruling and to continue the struggle.

Meanwhile, in many parts of England, Black students are disciplined three times as often as their White counterparts. Their offense, other than Being Black? “Black hairstyles, kissing teeth and fist-bumping.” “Black hairstyles” can send a child student, more often than not a Black girl student, into isolation or expulsion. An assistant head of school remembers a Black girl student who was told to cut her Afro because other students “couldn’t see the board … These may be small, micro things that you are doing to change yourself, but after a while it really wears you down. It’s the message that you are almost not good enough. You are having to tame your hair, tame your blackness, and it’s happening from when you are a child.”

This is happening in the same year that Ruby Williams won an out-of-court settlement of £8,500 for the abuse she suffered, for her hair, for Being Black, from the age of 11 years old on. It’s happening when you are a child, when you are a student. What is the child student learning, what is Black girl’s education in this world? 

Four years ago, almost to the day, Liepollo Lebohang Pheko wrote about a similar situation in South African schools: “Black Girl – you MATTER. Your HAIR matters, your LANGUAGE matters, your CHOICES matter and your VOICE matters. In case I haven’t told you today – you are valuable, loved, precious and powerful. Speak even if your voice shakes and fight even while you are scared. I LOVE you Black Child, Black Girl, and I stand with you. You give me such hope and courage. #Racism and imperialism ARE falling #Afros and Dreadlocks are Rising.”

Four years later, from the United States to Jamaica to England and beyond, say it loud, say it proud: “Black Girl – you MATTER. Your HAIR matters, your LANGUAGE matters, your CHOICES matter and your VOICE matters.” The struggle continues.

(Photo Credit: Detroit Free Press)

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Crossing

July 26, 2020 by Leave a Comment

 

Crossing

Rose Petals on a bridge.

Where is the voice of “our” President?

Watching “the last crossing”

With 21st century technology 

Under conditions similar to a medieval pandemic

In death John Lewis is still crossing the Edmond Pettus Bridge 

And so must we all.

 

(Photo Credit 1: Al.com) (Photo Credit 2: WLRN)

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The Police State Has Come Home to Roost

July 24, 2020 by Leave a Comment

As the massive uprisings have shocked a (white) nation, centering the injustices and abuses that black people face at the hands of the police, a disturbing trend is emerging from the Trump administration: bringing in federal agents to literally kidnap protestors off the streets and “arrest” them for protesting. 

Later announced as Operation LeGend, these squads of Gestapo militarized jocks have eschewed whatever Constitutional Oath they were probably sworn to take, have tear gassed peaceful protestors, Moms, Dads, and an army Vet who came to the streets of Portland to call them out on their hypocrisy—and are making their way to Albuquerque, Kansas City, and Chicago. The (mostly white) American people are shocked by the fascist tactics of Trump and his last desperate re-election bid as a tough on crimes president. 

Where is the crime? I don’t rightfully know, honestly. Is destroying federal property and taking down racist monuments violence in the face of the constant murder of black and brown people? Is setting fire to police stations violence when those same police have beaten and tortured those protestors? Is destroying buildings violence when it was the ancestors of those black people, laboring as less-than-human and enslaved, that built those buildings to begin with? 

“Crime” aside, these tactics are not new, and they should not be surprising. Activists, organizers, black and brown communities have been raising this alarm for years. This is not simply the symptom of a Trump candidacy in a spiral as he desperately attempts to hold on to the last shred of power in the final months of a cataclysmic re-election campaign. This is not simply his desire to reallocate attention and energies away from the rising cases of Covid-19 and the preventable deaths that are on his hands (will he care? No. Probably not, but it might hurt his bottom line once he leaves office). This is not merely his want to push the story away from the millions of people laid off, unable to access unemployment benefits in a spiraling economic downturn the likes of which none of us have lived through. 

And this did not start with Trump. 

We are reckoning with the consequences of allowing Trump free reign of a terrorist organization that has been steadily developed and trained, militarized and weaponized during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administration. Yes, a bipartisan expansion of the police state that has diverted funds away from our education, our public transportation, our healthcare and so much more into the hands of the Pentagon and weapons contracts and military equipment. 

We’ve perfected a machine that a monster like Trump will use with absolute glee.  

For years, we’ve watched ICE and DHS officials sweep men, women and children into immigrant detention centers, deny them their rights and deport them back to countries they might not have lived in for decades; Trump’s deportation policies are a continuation of the Obama Administration’s own. We’ve listened to stories of constant monitoring of our Muslim brothers and sisters post-9/11 by the FBI and CIA, with the blessings of Democratic and Republican Representatives-the Patriot Act is supported in Congress with little blowback while it increases constant military surveillance of ourselves, our neighbors, and black and brown communities.

During the Obama Administration, police in military garb clashed with Indigenous protestors at Standing Rock, who were fighting against the contamination of their water source, resulting in indigenous people being pelted with tear-gas, rubber bullets, arbitrary arrests and trumped up charges. All protestors faced the same violence that Portland is facing now. Nearly four years later. 

We’ve watched the budget for our Defense Department balloon into a money guzzling force of chaos, and little remorse for whatever constitutional barometers it was meant to hold. Whatever the Pentagon couldn’t use anymore was bankrolled into the police; we’ve decked out our men and women in uniforms with tanks, machine guns, and weapons like long range acoustic devices that is capable of causing hearing loss. 

And if people weren’t affected by the violence faced at the hands of poor communities, of black communities, of undocumented communities, they didn’t care. What use was there? The police were still there to protect them! 

We were white! 

As more federal agents are deployed around the country, as more Moms and Dads speak out—and this is not negating the black mothers who have always been there, at the front of the protests—as veterans come out of retirement to put their bodies on the line, we must come to the conclusion that the full force of our ignorance, our purposeful blinders will lead the police to turn on us. 

To put it simply, it has come home to roost. Are we prepared to meet it? 

(Photo Credit 1: AP / WUSA9) (Photo Credit 2: Reveal)

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