I’ve written about Dollree Mapp here in the past. Today, I wanted to share more of her prison writing.

No Way Out [Source: Off Our Backs, February 1979]

On entering Bedford’s prison, she sought an interview with the Warden. After knocking lightly on the door which read”ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE” — and answer, she cautiously turned the knob and the door opened to another door which read, “RIGHT” or “LEFT.” Believing in righteousness, she chose the door marked “RIGHT.” Through that door there were two other doors which read “WARDEN” or “ASSISTANT WARDEN.” Wanting to fully understand what she would be confronted with while in prison, she naturally chose the door marked “Warden.” Upon entering that door through dismay, she ran smack into two more doors which read “PUNITIVE” or “REHABILITATION.” Now, thoroughly confused, and stopping to distinguish between the two doors, she reluctantly chose the door marked “REHABILITATION” as she remembered the pompous judge telling her she needed to be rehabilitated.

WOW! she thought, “At last, I’ve made it, no more doors.” When she entered the “REHABILITATION” door, feeling that the Warden would let her know what her “RIGHTS” were, there were once again two more doors which read “BLACK” or “WHITE.” EUREKA! she shouted. Being Black, she hurried to the door marked “BLACK” thinking that all her questions would be answered and she would let the Warden know what she wanted. Upon entering the door marked “BLACK,” she fell thirteen stories to her DEATH!

by dollree mapp

“While their men were forced to return to the Pribilof Islands to harvest seals for the Government, the Aleut women remained at the Funter Bay Evacuation Camp. They petitioned for better conditions, which were so poor that disease and other causes resulted in a 10-percent death rate.”

Petition Protesting Conditions, Aleut Women,
October 10, 1942
Pribilof Island Logbooks
Records of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Record Group 22 (National Archives Identifier 2641505)

Read the transcript of the petition here.

Yesterday was Audre Lorde’s 80th birthday. I didn’t plan to write anything about her work. I have nothing interesting to contribute. [You can stop reading here.] I came to Lorde in graduate school. Since then, I’ve read and re-read her essays and poetry countless times. Her work still feels slippery to me because she writes about life: its challenges, beauty and most of all its complexity. So my understanding changes as I grow older and experience more of life. I return to her in particular when I find myself losing hope. She has a way of making me feel less defeated by the vagaries of living. It’s not because her work provides me with “answers” but rather that she seems to be searching and uncertain too. She remains above all, profoundly human and so flawed like all of us. It’s comforting and she always makes me feel less alien and alone.

“I do not even know all their names.
My sisters deaths are not noteworthy
not threatening enough to decorate the evening news…”

In 1979, after twelve Black women were murdered in Boston over the course of just a few weeks, Audre Lorde was moved to write “Need: A Chorale For Black Woman Voices.” She explained:

“I wrote Need: A Chorale for Black Woman Voices because I felt I had to use the intensity of fury, frustration, and fear I was feeling to create something that could help alter the reasons for what I felt. Someone had to speak, beyond these events and this time, yet out of their terrible immediacy, to the repeated fact of the blood of Black women flowing through the streets of our communities — so often shed by our brothers, and so often without comment or note. Or worse, having that blood justified or explained away by those horrific effects of racism which we share as Black people.”

Unfortunately the assaults against Black women are unrelenting. Black women continue to be beaten, stalked, raped, imprisoned, disappeared, and murdered. We are still fighting for our lives. Marissa Alexander is one such black woman and this past Sunday, over 30 people gathered to make art in her name.

by Sarah Jane Rhee (2/16/14)

The idea for an art party was suggested by my friend Sarah Jane Rhee after we organized a dance party fundraiser for Marissa’s legal defense fund last December. I agreed to find a space to host the party and then I reached out to members of the Chicago Alliance to Free Marissa Alexander (which formed out of a teach-in I facilitated in September) to organize the event. So many people came through to support the effort; it’s heartening.

Free Marissa Art Party by Sarah Jane Rhee (2/26/14)

Early last year, I wasn’t feeling as hopeful. Instead, I found myself consumed by low-grade fury that Marissa Alexander was getting insufficient attention. I’ll admit that I was particularly angry at black men who organized for Trayvon Martin while passively sitting by as Marissa was railroaded by a racist, sexist, and heterosexist system. Then came #31forMarissa launched by Esther Armah and me. Suddenly, black men were contributing to lifting up Marissa’s struggle. I felt… relieved. The fury lessened. Maybe Black men wouldn’t take leadership in fighting for Black women’s lives but they would join the struggle if invited to participate. And this, for the moment, offered some solace and affirmation. It takes so little, really.

“I dream of your freedom
as my victory
and the victory of all dark women
who forgo the vanities of silence…”

Women activists responding to the murders of black women in Boston in 1979 marched in the streets in protest carrying a banner with a line from a poem by civil rights organizer Barbara Deming which read: “WE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT OUR LIVES.” In the preface to Need, Lorde cites this as her “lasting image of that spring, beyond the sick sadness and anger and worry.”

Boston, 1979

On Sunday, I sat in circle with friends and new acquaintances laughing, crying, listening and sharing thoughts. We spoke our disappointments, our fears, and our hopes. We spoke Jordan Davis. We spoke Marissa. We spoke loss and love. Our speaking was resistance against the murders, the violent erasures, and the dehumanization of black people.

For many years, I focused primarily on banding with others to yell “NO.” I was saying no to the status quo, no to the way that the world currently is. This was an important form of protest. It saved my life in many ways. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more interested in joining with others to build the world in which I want to live. That has meant embracing “YES.” Yes to practicing compassion, yes to learning forgiveness, yes to doing more listening, yes to simply being. Sitting in circle with others, creating art, sharing stories, these are an embrace of the “Yes” of movement-building. We must find new ways of living together. For me, circles are a good way to practice building trust and community. We desperately need each other if we are to live fully and we cannot live without our lives; Audre consistently reminds me of this.

It’s that time of year again. This time, I am asking that you support two Senate bills that are intended to address school discipline issues in various ways. One focuses on school-based policing and the other on data transparency.

Sen Lightford- SB 2760 — FILE A WITNESS SLIP IN SUPPORT TODAY HERE.

Amends the School Code. Provides that (i) prior to being asked any question or being requested to make any statement while in the presence of a police officer, a student must be informed of the right not to answer any question or to make any statement in the presence of a police officer; (ii) prior to being asked any question or being requested to make any statement while in the presence of a police officer, a student must be informed of the right to have a parent, a guardian, or an attorney present during such questioning or request for a statement; (iii) prior to being asked any question or being requested to make any statement while in the presence of a police officer, a student must be informed that any information given in the presence of a police officer may result in an arrest and in the issuing of a summons and may be used in school discipline and in criminal prosecution; (iv) prior to the presence of a police officer during the questioning of a student or of a request for a statement, the school principal shall approve the presence of the police officer during the questioning of or while making a request for any statement from the student; and (v) prior to the presence of a police officer during the questioning of or while making a request for any statement from a student, a parent or guardian of the student must be given notification of the opportunity to be present during the questioning. Sets forth provisions concerning the notification, school principal and police officer consultation, and tracking and reporting data. Effective July 1, 2014.

Sen Hutchinson- SB 2793 Please file a witness slip in SUPPORT HERE.

Amends the School Code. As part of the annual school report card, requires every school to provide (i) data on the issuance of out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and removals to alternative settings, disaggregated by race and ethnicity, gender, age, grade level, limited English proficiency status, length of exclusion, reason for exclusion, and whether alternative educational options were provided; (ii) data on the use of arrests or criminal citations, disaggregated by race and ethnicity, gender, age, grade level, disability status, limited English proficiency status, and alleged criminal offense; and (iii) data on student retention during and between academic years, disaggregated by race and ethnicity, gender, age, grade level, disability status, limited English proficiency status, and the reason for the student’s departure. Sets forth requirements and exemptions concerning the data, including requiring the State Board of Education to analyze the data on an annual basis and determine the top quartile of school districts for specified metrics. Requires certain districts identified by the State Board to submit a school discipline improvement plan identifying the strategies it will implement to reduce the use of harsh disciplinary practices or reduce the disproportionality evident in its disciplinary practices; sets forth other requirements.

If you’ve never filed a witness slip before, it’s simple and only takes two minutes:
1. Go to the House Judiciary Hearing website HERE
2. Click on the right icon under the “Witness Slips” column for SB 2760 and 2793 to create witness slips.
3. Under Section I, fill in your identification information.
4. Under Section II, fill out your organization if you are representing one or write “self” if you are representing yourself. You can also just fill out N/A.
5. In Section III, select the “Proponent” button.
6. In Section IV, select “Record of Appearance Only.”
7. Agree to the ILGA Terms of Agreement
8. Select the “Create Slip” button.

Slips can be submitted until tomorrow, February 18 at 12:30 p.m.

It’s sad really, this ghastly ritual. Black people waiting for the courts to deliver some justice for our murdered children. Tick, tock, tick, tock. The jury deliberates. Tick, tock, tick, tock. We stand vigil demanding that the law affirm our humanity. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Anxiety rises. Words like unbelievable, depressing, angry, and scared proliferate. Tick, tock, tick, tock. If the hoped for conviction comes, what next? Another black child killed? Tick, tock, tick, tock. We hold our collective breath. Tick, tock, tick, tock. The verdict is read: betrayal, devastation, anger, tears, recriminations, quiet acceptance, rage, numbness, tuning out, silent prayer, unmitigated pain… We knew. We hoped for different. But we know…better.

What will we tell our children? The cry rises again. Perhaps this is a question without an answer asked by a person who doesn’t really want one. It’s a question to verbalize helplessness and to convey anguished love.

Read more »

“This 1936 photograph—featuring eight of the nine Scottsboro Boys with NAACP representatives Juanita Jackson Mitchell, Laura Kellum, and Dr. Ernest W. Taggart—was taken inside the prison where the Scottsboro Boys were being held. Falsely accused of raping two white women aboard a freight train in 1931, the nine African American teenagers were tried in Scottsboro, Alabama, in what became a sensational case attracting national attention. Eight of the defendants were found guilty and sentenced to death; the trial of the ninth ended in a mistrial. These verdicts were widely condemned at the time. Before the young men eventually won their freedom, they would endure many years in prison and face numerous retrials and hearings. The ninth member of the group, Roy Wright, refused to pose for this portrait on account of his frustration with the slow pace of their legal battle. (Source: Smithsonian)”

Scottsboro Boys and Juanita Jackson Mitchell (1936)

Brave New Films has a useful short video that was published yesterday to explain the racial disparity in incarceration rates. It’s under two minutes and would be good teaching tool to use with young people.

This is not a poem.
The words simply wanted to be written this way…

For K…
[To be read on your 16th birthday
or maybe never]

The cops
won’t care
that you are
the sweetest
boy.

Any time,
any where,
any way.

I am
a liar.

As I type
these words,
I’m looking
at a photograph
of your
precious
BLACK
face
and so
I’m going
to lie.

I’ve been
trying
to write
a letter.
It’s been
too long
in coming.
It’s futile
so
I’ve given up.

You asked me
about
the police
while we were
eating
hamburgers.

You said
you were
scared
they might
not know
you were
a nice
person
and that
in their
ignorance,
they might
hurt
or
kill you.

Read more »