Last month, I spent the day at a high school on the West side of Chicago. I was there with my friend the talented Debbie Southorn. Our goal was to document how this particular urban school manages student safety. Debbie is a filmmaker and an organizer. We are both keenly interested in how to interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline. After the Newtown massacre, both of us were concerned that the response might be to add more cops to our schools.

Immediately after President Obama unveiled his gun reform proposals in January, I got to work organizing against more police in schools. With several other people, I launched the Yes To Counselors, No To Cops Campaign. In just a few short weeks, our loose coalition of individuals and groups hosted two community meetings, created a website, launched a petition, letter and postcard campaign, organized a call-in day to our Senators, and more. As part of this work, we also wanted to demonstrate that there are urban schools serving black and brown youth that do not rely on harsh disciplinary policies or law enforcement to achieve their goal of ensuring a safe educational environment. I enlisted Debbie to help and the result is the short film that you can watch below. I have also written a few words about the school as well.

Please share the video with others who might be interested in learning about how we can keep students safe without relying on law enforcement and harsh disciplinary policies. In Debbie’s words, NLCP “cultivate[s] school safety and peace culture in really transformative ways! (Spoiler alert – without cops or metal detectors, with counselors, nonviolence training and political education).”

I am indebted to Debbie for all of her hard work on this film. She filmed and edited it in record time. I think that the film is wonderful and I am grateful beyond all words. Thank you Debbie. Thanks also to our friends at Free Spirit Media for sharing some of their archival footage with us. Finally, a huge debt of gratitude to the administration, staff, teachers, and most importantly students at NLCP for welcoming us (on short notice) and letting us share your story.

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Since I started this blog, I have wanted to feature the voices of the young organizers and activists who I have the pleasure to work with and to know. Today, I am thrilled to feature a post by Michael Johnson who is a community organizer with the Resident Association of Greater Englewood (RAGE). Michael offers his unique take on some of the rhetoric that has been adopted by opponents of Chicago Public School closures in the past few weeks. This blog post originated from a Facebook status that I read on Michael’s page. I was intrigued by his words and asked if he would consider expanding them into a post here on Prison Culture. These words represent Michael’s views.

I have been closely following the latest round of school closings as a community organizer with the Resident Association of Greater Englewood (RAGE).  Throughout the process, I have noticed a tendency by those arguing against the closures to rely on particular arguments to make their case. These arguments usually have several overlapping components. School closing opponents argue that there is a need for quality education for ALL Chicago children and they also emphasize the costs of destabilizing student’s learning environments. In addition to these arguments, some community leaders, parents, and educators have also articulated their concerns about the safety of the children who will have to attend new schools in the fall.  Time and again, the idea of safety has been raised and with it the spectre of gangs as the primary threat has loomed. I worry that by framing the closures as primarily a threat to student safety, we are missing an opportunity to discuss our opposition on educational, civic and economic grounds.

The report backs on the many CPS hearings and CTU press conferences as well as media coverage have leaned towards a very particular narrative that has been emerging as the dominant one. In making the case against closing schools in Chicago, some have suggested (as I mentioned earlier) that this is a bad idea because it puts students at risk of gang violence. Further, the suggestion is made that CPS could not possibly protect these students from the “gangs” in the territory around their new schools (sources 1). 

This argument has been advanced by some youth leaders as well as some community organizers. I don’t dismiss the validity of the real concerns being expressed.  However I find myself conflicted as I listen to some of this rhetoric being used by the opponents of school closures. I fear that they are inadvertently adopting the city and the police’s language and framing around the “gang problem” in Chicago.

I have witnessed opponents of school closures fall into the same problematic terminology framing these communities as “gang infested areas.”(source 2, 3,4).  Whatever good will and sympathy might be engendered by this description of some neighborhoods, these come at a great cost as well.

The very young people who this movement is seeking to invest in end up being demonized instead. Ultimately, it leaves our young people and our communities more marginalized in the long-term.  The “gang” argument plays into the deeply embedded racist fears with the gang (read black youth) as predators that must be cleared out to ensure better educational opportunity. These youth that are so called “infesting” our community are human and worth engaging constructively. They come through the same systems, communities, families and kitchen tables as the current elementary school students that so many are rightly fighting for by opposing school closures.

I worry that an over-reliance on claims of safety rooted in a fear of gang violence is sowing the seeds of further oppression of black and brown youth in Chicago. I fear that any potential victories will purely be a “faux progress” based in the politics of fear. Fear of the “other” and criminalization will only serve to isolate our children further and strengthen the school to prison pipeline. It’s a poor trade off, more policing instead of quality educational opportunities that serve the entire community.  This mode of operating begs for crumbs not seeing a future in our schools or our children beyond just getting them out alive. The nearsightedness of this perspective ignores the common root of violence and educational inequality. It ignores the history and context that has facilitated this environment: where the poorest areas, most violent areas, areas of the highest rate of lead poisoning, foreclosures and school closures are all mostly African American.  This city is entrenched in a socio-economic system akin to Apartheid and the time to address the redistribution of resources is now, not blaming systemic poverty and the failure of institutions on the children they have failed (source 5 6 7).

I also wonder about the organizing beyond just fighting closures. These schools have failed due to mismanagement on the local and national levels. How do we move beyond counter-positioning and move into the offensive, utilizing schools as we see fit, pushing for quality education and  innovation in our own image?  See: Freedom University  Freedom Schools, CFS, Detroit FS These are some of the liberatory questions that I think we need to answer in this historical moment in Chicago.

There has been a positive response to my friend Hadil’s post about the “Ugly Truth” campaign sponsored by End Demand Illinois. I moderate comments on this site (I don’t publish most comments).

Hadil wanted to respond to one particular comment offered below and I wanted to make sure that he/she could do so.

Here’s the original comment:

“Personally, recognizing victims of sexual exploitation and of sex trafficking is of paramount importance to me. I’d rather make the mistake of offering to help someone who, it turns out, doesn’t need it after all, than make the mistake of failing to offer help to someone who needs it because I make the mistake of buying into this article and assuming that it’s their choice.”

Below is Hadil’s response:

Dear Community Member,

Thank you so much for raising such a critical point and for your insight about what is at the heart of the matter. I could not agree more that making sure people can access the support they need, when they need it–is clearly the paramount objective here.

The question I have is about how and with what spirit we make this offer. As someone who has needed sanctuary from violence many times – as a child, then later when I was a runaway teenager and down the line again as a young adult – those who were able to help me most were the ones who believed I was powerful beyond measure and taught me what was in my control to change. Those who helped least? That’s easy- the teachers, social workers and other well- meaning adults who repeatedly told me & showed me through their treatment and messaging that I was a helpless victim.

This messaging matters…Because to be completely frank, there is nothing worse than bad help. The Bad Encounter Line research done by YWEP shows really clearly how misguided attempts to “save the children” actually put young people at higher risk of harm.  In fact, this is one of the main criticisms of youth service providers across the country of End Demand approaches. Which is a whole ‘nother article friend – but you can start here for if you like…

So how do we ally with people with life experience in the sex trade? We get behind the amazing projects that are led by us and for us — the ones that elevate us to real leadership within our organizing. We get behind the amazing survivor-led work that builds community, offers alternative solutions to violence and safety, trains us on how to take hold of what we most want for ourselves and asks us to bring our whole three dimensional selves to the process. I’m thinking here about Different Avenues, Streetwise & Safe, Native Youth Sexual Health Network,  Women with a Vision and Young Women’s Empowerment Project – all women, transgender and youth of color led projects that support literally thousands of people in the sex trade and street economy every year — and never once tell people they are victims. Or whatabout this project in Kolkata, India run by women & transgender people in the sex trade- that started a school for their children, a housing program and a BANK. that’s right a BANK! Look at what people trading sex for money can do!

In the words of Claudine O’Leary– “Rescue is for kittens.” People in the sex trade and street economy deserve more than a label in the spirit of help. We deserve community that reflects our true limitlessness and gives us real opportunity to be in charge of our lives.

I want to end with another amazing quote by Lila Watson:

“If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine- then let us work together.”

in solidarity,

Hadil Habiba

The Lovesong of Emmett Till
by Anthony Walton

More than likely she was Irish
or Italian, a sweet child who knew him
only as a shy clown.
Colleen, Jenny or Marie, she
probably didn’t even know
he had her picture,
that he had traded her cousin
for baseball cards or a pocketknife,
that her routine visage
sat smoldering in his wallet
beyond any price.
He carried his love
like a burden, and devotion
always has to tell.
Hell, he was just flirting
with that lady in the store,
he already had his wife
woman back up in Chicago.
He wasn’t greedy, just showing
off, showing the rustics
how it was done. He had an eye,
all right, and he was free
with it, he knew they loved it.
Hey baby, was all he said,
and he meant it as a compliment,
when he said it in Chicago
the white girls laughed.
So when they came to get
him,he thought it was
a joke, he proclaimed himself guilty
of love, he showed them
the picture and paid the price of
not innocence, but affection, affection
for a little black-haired, blue-eyed
girl who must by now be an older
woman in Chicago, a woman
who will never know
she was to die for, that he died
refusing to take back her name,
his right to claim he loved her.

End Demand Illinois has launched an ad campaign titled the “Ugly Truth.” Messages about the sex trade are appearing on billboards and public transportation across Chicago and perhaps also across the state. I’ve heard from several friends and colleagues who shared their thoughts and feelings about the campaign. One friend agreed to write a post that I am proud to share here on Prison Culture.

The “Ugly Truth:” Ad Campaigns about the Sex Trade Will Always Fail…
by Hadil Habiba (pen name)

I was on the bus a couple of days ago when I saw an ad that stopped me in my tracks.  It read: “Prostitution. There’s nothing victimless about it.”

I felt like I was in a time machine that took me back to 1983 when conversations about the sex trade and pornography meant that no one’s life experience could be complicated- we were all just food for “feminist theory.” You know, when people spent a lot of time talking about ‘prostitutes’ and ‘prostituted people’ vs. ‘sex workers’, and acted like one of these words described everyone that trades sex for money or survival.

Those kinds of messages and thinking did not improve the lives of people in the sex trade then and won’t today either.  I wondered why anyone would offer such a polarizing message. What purpose does it serve? We don’t need to polarize people’s experiences in the sex trade. We need a better understanding of those experiences in all of their complexities. I feel like I get sucked into this debate where I have to argue that lots of different parts of the sex trade exist, over and over again.  What is the investment that these well-intentioned people have in erasing a significant chunk of the people they claim to represent? It’s not like there aren’t voices out there that really disagree with this message. There are many but they are usually marginalized.

I quickly Googled the rest of the ads online and found the slogans “Get rich. Work in Prostitution” and “the average age of death of a prostitute is 34″.

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It’s been a couple of weeks (at least) since I first learned that the NYPD had killed another 16-year old black boy in Brooklyn. His name was Kimani Gray. I admit that I took note of the incident without reading about it in any depth. I’ve been dealing with a lot lately in my work and in my life. I didn’t want to dwell in the grief of another young black life snuffed out in its prime. It hits too close to home.

I tried to avoid any photographs of Kimani Gray. I preferred that he stay amorphous and abstract. Looking into his eyes might mean that I would “recognize” him. I don’t want any more reminders of how precarious the lives of young people in my family and life are.

Then the youth of Flatbush took to the streets for several days to express their anger at state-sponsored violence, in this case police murder. They protested and I was forced to pay attention.

This week, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) released a comprehensive report titled “Operation Ghetto Storm” about the extrajudicial killing of 313 black people by police, security guards, and vigilantes in 2012. One might think that this report would garner significant attention, right? Well, it hasn’t and we should not be surprised.

The report declares that: “Every 28 hours in 2012 someone employed or protected by the US government killed a Black man, woman, or child!” In the preface of the report, Kali Akuno writes:

“Operation Ghetto Storm is a window offering a cold, hard, and fact-based view into the thinking and practice of a government and society that will spare no cost to control the lives of Black people. What Operation Ghetto Storm reveals is that the practice of executing Black people without pretense of a trial, jury, or judge is an integral part of the government’s current overall strategy of containing the Black community in a state of perpetual colonial subjugation and exploitation.”

Reading these words, it’s easy to see why the report wouldn’t be embraced and covered by the mainstream press. It specifically calls out racism and is unapologetically interested in valuing and grieving the loss of black life. I urge everyone to take the time to read the report even though it is emotionally difficult to get through.

I resisted focusing on Kimani as a person: a son, brother, friend. There is something to be said about buffering ourselves against pain. It’s emotionally safer to focus on a symbol than on an actual person. To think of Kimani as flesh and blood is to invite more grief. Then I read a letter written by Kimani’s principal expressing his school community’s devastation at his loss. I had a physical reaction when I read the following sentence: “My hope is that as a community we can agree that the death of anyone so young is tragic.” Why did the principal feel the need to remind people about this? It’s because, in fact, we don’t agree “that the death of anyone so young is tragic.” There is a hierarchy of death and the deaths of black youth are deemed par for the course. They are the casualties of an undeclared war on black bodies that has been ongoing for generations.

I cannot avert my eyes from injustice even as I try to on occasion. I must be a witness. So I searched the internet and found a photograph of Kimani and I made myself look.

Sure enough, I did “recognize” him and the pain of that recognition is real. There is nothing alien, foreign to me about this young man. There’s something about Kimani that I find familiar and I mourn his loss. Next year, when the MXGM puts out the 2013 version of its report cataloging extrajudicial killings of black people, Kimani Gray’s name will appear on the list. I promise to take note and to allow pain and grief to flow through me. I will continue to bear witness…

The National Archives are terrific. I love visiting their site to find interesting artifacts from the past. They pulled together a few primary source documents about Rosa Parks’ 1954 arrest on a Montgomery bus. Below are copies of her original police report and a diagram of where Mrs. Parks was sitting on the bus when she was arrested.

More here.

Poem for May Molina, a Disabled Latina of Ill. who died in police custody on May 26, 2004

Justice Riding on Four Wheels & Brown Fists
(For May Molina)

Activist in Action that was May Molina
Kept police & prisons
In checked
Turning over wrongful convictions

Target on her chest
She drove between institutionalize bullets
in her wheelchair
Like Harriet Tubman, Molina led her people to freedom

Out of the prison system
And into an activist revolution
Help started an organization
For Families of the wrongly convicted & victims of police brutality

Her community, supporters and family
Demands answers about her death in police custody
Although she had diabetes police refused medical care
Thanks to police & mainstream media her background has been smeared

While the names of officers are invisible
Seems like we’ve been here, Cammerin Boyd in San Fran, Annette Auguste in Haiti
Hey Homeland security, am I next in line?
Cause like May Molina, I’m outspoken about systematic oppression

I can see Molina wheeling up to the mic
at the Chicago Police Board
my Latina disabled sister
your spirit has traveled from Chicago to San Francisco
to clear my vision and to rededicate my life to your mission

Time to bring attention
to how the black & blue
abuse their authority
onto my brothers and sisters with disabilities

Forget about internal investigation
Open up politicians & police’s closets all around the world to the public
The community & family is the Juror & the Judge
And we have our progressive, ethnic and activist media

Mother May Molina, your wish has come true
Judgement day is here
The power structure is crumbling
and Justice is riding on four wheels & Brown fists!

By Leroy F. Moore Jr.
Black Disabled Activist
sfdamo [at] Yahoo.com
Rest in Peace Molina. With Revolutionary Love!!!!!!

The Huffington Post did a good job yesterday reporting on the costs of the so-called “war on drugs:”

Despite an increased emphasis on treatment and prevention programs in recent years, the Obama administration in its 2013 budget still requested $25.6 billion in federal spending on the drug war. Of that, $15 billion would go to law enforcement, interdiction and international efforts.

The pro-reform Drug Policy Alliance estimates that when you combine state and local spending on everything from drug-related arrests to prison, the total cost adds up to at least $51 billion per year. Over four decades, the group says, American taxpayers have dished out $1 trillion on the drug war.