Colin Firth and Brightwide Team with Bianca Jagger meet Robert King, Gordon Roddick, Vadim Jean
Bianca Jagger, Robert King and Livia Firth
Media Justice and the Crime of Poverty
--An interview with Tiny from POOR Magazine
By
Tiny (aka Lisa Gray–Garcia) is a poverty scholar, revolutionary journalist, PO' Poet, spoken word artist, welfareQUEEN, lecturer, Indigena Taina/Boriken/Irish mama of Tiburcio and daughter of Dee and the co–founder and executive director of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork. POOR is a grassroots, non–profit, arts organization dedicated to providing extreme access to media, education and arts for youth, adults and elders struggling with poverty, racism, disability and border fascism locally and globally. Tiny is a teacher, multi–media producer, and author of Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America, published by City Lights.
She has innovated several revolutionary media, arts and education programs for youth, adults and elders including the first welfare to work journalism program in the US for poor mothers transitioning off of welfare, PoorNewsNetwork — an on–line magazine and monthly radio show on KPFA, and several cultural projects such as the Po' Poets Project, Youth in Media, welfareQUEENs, and many more. She is also a prolific writer who has authored over a hundred articles on issues ranging from poor women and families, interdependence, and the cult of individualism to gentrification, homelessness, police brutality, incarceration, art and global and local poverty. For more information see www.tinygraygarcia.com.
Tiny: POOR Magazine is a poor people led/indigenous people led grassroots, non-profit, arts organization dedicated to providing revolutionary media access, education and art to youth, adults and elders locally and globally
POOR the magazine was launched in las calles, welfare offices, social security lobbies, and shelters in 1996 by an Indigenous Raza mother and daughter team who barely survived homelessness, extreme poverty, disability, criminalization, racism and survived on underground economic strategies. We began with community journalism workshops focused on telling our own stories, reclaiming our own scholarship and redefining in and of itself what media even is and who controls it.
We practice eldership, ancestor worship and interdependence as a resistance to the destruction of capitalism, imperialism, colonization and white supremacy.
POOR Magazine defines indigenismo within an urban indigenous context of shared identities and shared struggles. We are landless African, Taino/ Boricua, Mexicano/Mexica/Raza, Iroquois, Pomo, Cherokee, Choctaw, Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, Celtic, Hawaiian, Samoan, Jewish, Arabic, South Asian, Oaxacan, Guatemalan, Salvadoran and many more, We are Elders, Youth, Children, Mamaz, Fathers, Grandmothers, Grandfathers, Families and Individuals brought together through the shared struggle of poverty, survival and ‘thrival.
To this end, POOR Magazine has implemented the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples as a revolutionary resistance document. This is one of the ways we practice redefining the capitalist systems of oppression, philanthropy, the prison industrial complex , the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC), and systems of controlled and stolen resources, land and information.
In 1999, while my Mama and I were still "in the life" and while I personally was being told by my welfare worker that I needed to realize what a waste of taxpayers resources I was, taught myself how to write an RFP for a welfare to work grant to teach poor mamas like me and my mama how to be journalists, writers, and media producers.
I successfully mastered the linguistic domination skills necessary to reclaim those stolen government resources and give it back to the people. With it we were able to start our indigenous news-making circle (which up-ends the hierarchy of both independent and corporate media), our KPFA radio show, our on-line news service and our media training classrooms.
In 2002, we lost all of the government dollars when they saw that we were teaching people how to write about the very systems that were oppressing all of us (ie, the welfare to work locus of control).
This almost killed us—but we are not sorry that we reclaimed those funds. It would elitist and illogical. But that government-sponsored inquisition still almost killed us. And when the government dollars left, so did all of the philanthro-pimped private donations.
This tragedy led us to not only fight harder, but to build a curriculum around the myths of philanthropy, and launch The Race, Poverty, & Media Justice Institute as well as a completely new concept we call Revolutionary Giving.
A3N: How is POOR Magazine different than the corporate media? What kinds of stories will readers find?
Tiny: First of all, POOR Magazine is not just a media organization, we are a family of poverty scholars teaching on and speaking on issues of poverty, racism, disability, border fascism and indigenous resistance. To this end we have launched:
As far as media, POOR Magazine aligns ourselves with other poor people led/indigenous people led movements such as the Shackdwellers Union in South Africa, POCC, and the MST (landless peoples movement in Brazil) who actively reject the ideas that someone else has to tell our stories for us, perpetuating the 21st century missionary/default kkkolonizers position that just because you have access to a computer, a micro-phone or a camera, our stories suddenly become your stories, your property.
We also resist the myth of objectivity and how if an author or media producer writes in the "I" voice it automatically takes away its legitimacy.
How do you ensure that the silenced voices of people in poverty are heard? By addressing the subtle and not so subtle ways in which our voices and research and scholarship is separated out and suppressed. We teach on our forms of media revolution and media justice at the Race, Poverty, & Media Justice Institute and PeopleSkool.
We redefine media as art, hip hop, graffiti, spoken word, poetry and talk-story.
All of our media, whomever makes it includes the lens and voices of the writers who have experienced positions of poverty and oppression first-hand. For our allies who have different forms of academic privilege, we also ask for the same inclusion of “I” voice and personal scholarship.
A3N: In regards to the issues of homelessness and poverty, what do you think are the biggest lies propagated by the corporate media?
Tiny: That we, houseless folks, are a tribe that walks the earth, rather than people who need a roof; That we are all criminal by design; That our voices are irrelevant and our solutions un-informed.
We at POOR no longer use the NPIC term, “homeless” because it is another way to turn our problems into profit for NGO's and NPIC's across the globe.
A3N: How does the struggle to abolish the prison industrial complex (PIC) relate to issues of poverty and houselessness?
Tiny: It completely relates. It is why I was incarcerated in Amerikkka and why I wrote the book Criminal of Poverty: Growing up homeless in
Throughout my childhood - my poor mama of color and I were houseless and living in our car, and I was eventually arrested for those "crimes." I am light-skinned and look white even though my mama is Boriken, Taina and Afrikan. I look like my kkkolonizer dad, so I could lie to a landlord about being a single adult with a job and the landlord would accept it rather than that my mama was a hard worker who was responsible.
But it isn’t just houseless folks. Its migrant workers, youth of color, people in poverty living with a mental disability, micro-business people, foster youth and on and on. Our struggles against racism and criminalization are linked.
A3N: What are the most recent projects that POOR Magazine is working on?
Tiny: We just completed the very beautiful anthology, Los Viajes/The journeys, which is a beautiful compilation of peoples crossing over false criminalizing borders across pacha mama.
We are trying go to the US Social Forum and the Allied Media Conference in
Also, we are gearing up for a new session of PeopleSkool in Summer 2010, and we launched the equity campaign to raise funds or acquire land for HOMEFULNESS- in 2010/2011.
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The case of the Angola three first came to international attention following the campaigning efforts of the Body Shop founder and humanitarian Anita Roddick. Roddick heard about their plight from a young lawyer named Scott Fleming. Fleming was working as a prisoner advocate in the 1990s when he received a letter from Wallace asking for help. The human tragedy Fleming uncovered had the most profound effect on him. When he qualified as a lawyer, their case became his first. "I was born in 1973," he says. "I often think that for my entire life they have been in solitary."
Through Fleming, Roddick met King and then Woodfox in Angola. Their story, she said later, "made my blood run cold in my veins". Until her death in 2007 Roddick was a committed and passionate supporter of their cause. At her memorial service King played two taped messages from Wallace and Woodfox. In the congregation was film-maker Vadim Jean who had become good friends with Roddick and her husband Gordon during an earlier film project. "Anita's big thing was, 'Just do something,'" says Jean. "No matter how small an act of kindness. Listening to Herman and Albert's voices at her memorial was like having Anita's finger pointing at me and saying, 'Just do something'." And so he decided to make In the Land of the Free, a searing documentary, released later this month.
Read the full article here.
Angola 3 News: Your article, "The Racialization of Crime and Punishment: Criminal Justice, Color-Blind Racism, and the Political Economy of the Prison Industrial Complex," was published in 2008 by American Behavioral Scientist. What are the key arguments that you make along with co-writer Rose M. Brewer?
Nancy A. Heitzeg: Dr. Brewer and I argue that that the prison industrial complex is the latest in an historically uninterrupted series of legal and political machinations designed to enforce white supremacy with its economic and social benefits both in and with the law - "all domination is, in the last instance, maintained through social control strategies" (Bonilla-Silva 2001:103).
As movements for Abolition and Civil Rights worked to end the institutions of slavery, lynching and legalized segregation, new and more indirect mechanisms have emerged for perpetuating systemic racism and its economic underpinnings. In this era of "color-blind racism," there has been a corresponding shift from de jure racism codified explicitly into the law and legal systems, to a de facto racism where people of color, especially African Americans, are subject to unequal protection of the laws, excessive surveillance, extreme segregation and neo-slave labor via incarceration, all in the name of "crime control." The prison industrial complex is the current manifestation of the legal legacy of the racialized transformations of plantations into prisons, of Slave Codes into Black Codes, of lynching into state-sponsored executions...
(ABOVE PHOTO: Convict tied for punishment at a Georgia prison in the 1930s. The photo is from www.slaverybyanothername.com)Letters to Angola from joseph sharp on Vimeo.
Letters To Angola—An interview with filmmaker Lauren Muchan
By
In February, filmmakers Lauren Muchan and Joseph Sharp (from the
Lauren Muchan: My mum actually found out about the
A3N: Why do you think the case of the
LM: It is so important because it highlights the draconian nature of the
A3N: When did you first start writing to Herman Wallace?
LM: I started writing to him in 2005.
A3N: How would you describe him as person?
LM: Herman is the strongest person I know. He has a fantastic sense of humor, and is very clever. He has a big heart. It takes a truly remarkable person to be in his situation and not only maintain some level of sanity, but in fact be an inspiration to so many people.
A3N: What are you communicating with your movie?
LM: The film is essentially about the human spirit. I wanted to tell the story of the
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Remembering Safiya Bukhari—an interview with Laura Whitehorn
By
Former political prisoner Laura Whitehorn has edited the new book, The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison, & Fighting for Those Left Behind (The Feminist Press, 2010). The War Before features the writings of the late Safiya Bukhari, who was born in
A preface by Wonda Jones (Bukhari’s daughter), a foreword by Angela Y. Davis, an afterword by Mumia Abu-Jamal, and an introduction by Whitehorn are also featured alongside Bukhari’s writings. Just released this month, The War Before has been reviewed by Lenore J. Daniels, Dan Berger, and Ron Jacobs. The website www.safiyabukhari.com states: “The War Before traces Bukhari’s lifelong commitment as an advocate for the rights of the oppressed. Following her journey from middle-class student to Black Panther to political prisoner, these writings provide an intimate view of a woman wrestling with the issues of her time—the troubled legacy of the Panthers, misogyny in the movement, her decision to convert to Islam, the incarceration of out spoken radicals, and the families left behind. Her account unfolds with immediacy and passion, showing how the struggles of social justice movements have paved the way for the progress of today.”
(photo: Safiya Bukhari)
Laura Whitehorn: I met Safiya in the visiting room of the Federal Correctional Institution (for women) in
A3N: What can you tell our readers about who Safiya was as a person?
LW: Safiya lived her politics, exuded solidarity from every pore and in every fiber of her being. She acted on her beliefs—and she was constantly questioning, refining and developing those beliefs. When you read her book, you will see that fighting for justice was a necessity to her. Resolving the inequitable, brutal situation of Black people and other oppressed groups was her bone-deep desire. She spent every ounce of her being trying to figure out how to proceed, evaluating past actions, pushing others to revitalize dormant work and struggles. And she loved her comrades behind bars in the most revolutionary way—by refusing to let them be forgotten.
She took all political exhortations very personally, trying to apply them in practice, and trying to submit them to scrutiny and honesty, to bring them from the realm of the bullhorn to the arena of what you do when you get up every day. Safiya was not just a revolutionary during the revolutionary times of the 60s and 70s. She struggled to live as a revolutionary woman during the non-revolutionary times that followed and persist.
A3N: Can you please tell us more about the role Safiya played in the movement supporting political prisoners? What role have women in general played in this movement?
LW: Some of the answer to this question is contained in the previous answer – she worked hard, and gave leadership through her work. But more than that, Safiya applied a ruthless honesty to her own practice. She did not merely educate people about what COINTELPRO was; she spent much attention (and anguish) examining how she and others of us in the movements of the 60s and 70s had, through our own weaknesses, enabled COINTELPRO to destroy our work. She didn’t only talk about the devastation prison causes for the families of political prisoners; she felt it in her heart and expressed it by being always available to the prisoners and their families.
Safiya, along with women like Yuri Kochiyama, set the standard very high for what it means to refuse to abandon our imprisoned comrades. She led with creativity and commitment. In her writings you see the depth of what it meant for her to be a woman who led in creating support for political prisoners. She grappled constantly with how to do that, and some of the answers she found will surprise many of us who try to continue her work.
In The War Before, you will read of her attempts, over the years, to build a viable support and advocacy system for the prisoners. Safiya led (as many women do in this work—and everyone comments on how many of the people involved in supporting political prisoners are women) because she not only did the work, she also figured out what political principles underlie that work. I guess what I am trying to say is that it has often been assumed that men provided the ideological and strategic thinking, and that women lead by doing the work. But Safiya’s book shows that women did the ideological and strategic thinking as well as the work—and that, by providing a unique, flowing-both-ways combination of theory and practice, women have contributed to a more vital political framework for this and other radical work for social justice.
A3N: When did you first begin working on this book?
LW: I began working on the book four or five years ago, when Wonda Jones, Safiya’s daughter, made a very important decision: In our grief at Safiya’s way-too-early death, we should not allow her work to be lost. It was a big project, as it turned out, because Safiya didn’t spend much time (none, in fact) planning for a book—she was too busy organizing. In my introduction to The War Before I describe the process of creating the book.
A3N: How has it been received so far?
LW: So far the reception has been warm and enthusiastic, but it is a bit early to tell how far this will go. Wonda and I did the book largely in order to get Safiya’s work and thinking, and the question of political prisoners, to people who have yet to learn of the wonderful men and women from our movements who remain behind bars.
A3N: What do you think are the central messages of the book?
LW: I think there are several, and different readers may draw different ones. Mumia Abu-Jamal, who wrote the afterword, says that by reading Safiya’s words we get an infusion of strength and spirit, enabling each of us to fight more creatively for justice. Angela Davis, in her foreword, says she hopes the book will encourage readers to join the fight for freedom of political prisoners, and to fight for prison justice. I think both of those are central messages of Safiya’s writings; I think another is that the quest for justice is worth working on with all one’s might—and with honesty, lucidity and clarity, so that we can create social justice among ourselves, renewing our own humanity as individuals and as a group while we fight against the system that promotes instead capitalist, inhumane values.
A3N: What else can activists today learn from Safiya's life?
LW: We need to understand, embrace, and feel in our core beings the values we fight for—and to apply those in practice. Safiya lived as she spoke: If you say you want justice, then you can do something to achieve it. She also shows why and how the battle to win release for political prisoners is completely fundamental to achieving justice as a whole.
Safiya’s collected writings also help us to understand that the revolutionary movements of the mid-20th century do not belong in a box marked “history.” The tenets that underscored that era continue, in different forms, today. What made the period revolutionary was not just the levels of struggle in which we engaged, but the understanding we had that a fundamental change of the system of imperialism was necessary. I hope that recognizing the holistic view of political history Safiya depicts will help us agitate among Left groups throughout the
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Visiting A Modern Day Slave
--An Interview With Nancy A. Heitzeg
By
Nancy A. Heitzeg, Ph.D is a Professor of Sociology and Program Co-Director, Critical Studies of Race and Ethnicity at St Catherine University in
Nancy A. Heitzeg:
I should say that it is surprisingly simple to get a tour at
A3N: What happened during the tour?
NAH: The tour is quite extensive—we were there for 6 hours—and consisted of the following stops/activities:
§ Guard/employee Village: A small “town”—built by inmates of course—house about 200 employees that live and work there with their families. Kids are bused in and out of the prison gates to outside schools. The town sits in the shadow of the Warden’s new mansion atop a high hilltop—built again by inmate labor.
§ The Dog Kennels:
§ Point Look-Out: The inmate cemetery for those whose bodies are not claimed and removed by relatives after death.
§ The Horse Barn:
§ The “Red Hat”: The most chillingly evil place I have ever been. The Red Hat is a
§ The New Death House: Tours do not go in, but the new larger death house is further inside the property. There were complaints that it was too close to the gate and outer perimeter. There was an escape from the old death house in the late 1990s where 3 inmates made it out and off the prison property.
§ The Execution Chamber: Tours go right in and stand by the lethal injection table.
§ Inmate “Dormitory”: Tours walk right into and through a “typical” 90 bed dormitory as if the inmates there were invisible. A bed and a trunk for possessions is what you get. Due to state budget crunches,
§ Lunch: For $3, tours can eat what the entire prison eats. The day I was there it was a grease soaked piece of fish, rice in bacon grease, a biscuit, 2 greasy cookies and some sugar flavored drink. Needless to say, we looked at the trays and went without.
§ Visit with the editor of The Angolite: This takes place in the
§ Radio Station: The “Incarceration Station” broadcasts live to all seven prison complexes at
§ Museum/Gift Shop: Here are many lots of displays of Angola’s history—weapons, a section on the Red Hat, the “heeling” incident, and “Gruesome Gertie,” which is the last electric chair, with photos of all executed inmates since 1981—the most recent in January 2010. There is a rodeo display, a section in
A3N: How much do you think things have changed since
NAH: The tours are apparently part of Warden Burl Cain’s efforts to make
But many questions remain about what is unseen or unspoken unless you directly ask. Inmates still try to escape and as many as 1200 inmates—about 20% of the total population of over 5100—are in administrative segregation/lock-down at the notorious
If allowed to, inmates also offer a critique of The World Famous Angola Rodeo, where inmates participate for cash prizes at great risk. There have been several inmate deaths at the rodeo as well as extreme injuries and on-going chronic conditions. Inmates are allowed to sell crafts at the rodeo but the Warden/prison takes a 20% cut. The rodeo makes approximately $1 million each weekend in October as the new arena (built by inmates in short order under Cain’s directive) seats 10,000. This is just one of several money-making endeavors at
Despite the supposedly benign tour, both students and I were horrified. There is a cavalier attitude, a blasé’ acceptance of capital punishment, mass incarceration and of course little critique of the class and race dynamics of the inmate population—80% of whom are black and nearly all of whom were poor, under-educated and dependent on a public defender at trial. There is passive acceptance and even sometimes celebration of
Those who want to learn more should watch the films --The Farm and The Farm: 10 Years Down. A word of caution though: while much is revealed, they do, in my estimation, especially in the second film, over-estimate an inmate’s chances of leaving Angola and “success” of the moralistic program imposed by Warden Cain. The stories of George Crawford and Vincent Simmons are much more typical than those of Ashanti Witherspoon and Bishop Tannehill.
A3N: Many people call
NAH: Absolutely.
My interest in
Slave Codes became Black Codes and criminalized a range of activities if the perpetrator was black. The newly acquired 15th Amendment right to vote was curtailed by tailoring of felony disenfranchisement laws to include crimes that were supposedly more frequently committed by blacks. And, the liberatory promise of the 13th Amendment – “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist in the
The patterns established in the old south have proliferated and expanded throughout the
--Angola 3 News is a new project of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3. Our website is www.angola3news.com where we provide the latest news about the Angola 3. We are also creating our own media projects, which spotlight the issues central to the story of the Angola 3, like racism, repression, prisons, human rights, solitary confinement as torture, and more.
