NOW PRESENTING: A *short film festival* right here on Twitter for New Year. A collection of some short films & other story-telling projects my team & I produced in support of our local allies. Range of justice issues. All over country. First hand accounts. Thread w/ selections:
Still in Prison: On how a law passed by the KKK 80+ years ago to maintain white supremacy keeps disproportionately Black people locked up in Oregon. How a jailhouse lawyer got the case to the Supreme Court. And how to topple this monument to racism. Watch:
More on the ongoing fight for fairness in Oregon and what you can do to help in this thread and on the campaign site: stillinprison.org.
“In Louisiana”: After every natural disaster another disaster for justice awaits: people lose their right to public defense. Louisiana funds defense near entirely off fines/traffic tickets of those who cant afford a lawyer. Disasters dry up those funds.
For more on how to help the ongoing fight to fund public defense & end the racist & outrageous “user pay” system forcing people who can’t afford a lawyer to pay for their public defender w/ unaffordable fines read this thread and visit the campaign site: forthesixth.org.
“Need to Talk”: Put up a billboard in the heart of Times Square. Across from NYPD station. Message: “Hey NYPD. It’s us. NYC residents. The ones who pay your salary. We paid $300 million to settle your lawsuits. You paid nothing. We need to talk.” Watch:
For more on the project and how to promote the limitless better investments we could make that could actually improve public health & safety instead of policing, read this thread and visit the site: need-to-talk.com.
“Silenced”: 100 people caged in Michigan solitary confinement wrote letters to share their experiences. Allies in Michigan collected them. Artists interpreted them. Coders organized & filtered them. The result: A digital archive of first-hand accounts. Overview video:
For more on the horrors and torture of solitary and what you can do abolish it, please read this thread, bear witness to the stories, and visit the site: silenced.in.
“Gasping.”: “I have a disease. But it’s not like I volunteered for this.”
Fiona Apple is one of over 60 advocates, artists, academics who got the courageous, painful words of dozens suffering in PG County, MD jail to be heard. GaspingForJustice.org
For more on how you can volunteer to CourtWatch in PG County, MD to hold power to account and more from people in pretrial cages who risked retaliation to share their stories read this thread and visit: GaspingForJustice.org.
“132 Calls”: Thats how many times Cassandra called a Chicago jail to try to save her husband. No masks. Soap. Crowded. Others coughing on food. He got sick. She was ignored. He died. “Morning never came for my husband.” More: 132Calls.com.
“To me ya'll the same in this jailhouse." What a guard told Willie while assaulting him. Caged pretrial in Texas for *over 3 years.* Tortured. Denied medication. Just 1 of 90 audio accounts w/ @TxJailProject in digital archive: sheddinglight.in.
“Witness”: Charles Hobbs was suffocating in a cell infected w/ COVID in a Miami jail. Other men tried saving his life. Guards ignored them. He died. Those men spoke out. “I went to sleep w/ tears in my eyes. Grabbing my bible.” These are their voices:
So many people & so many organizations put so much into these films. Artists. Social justice organizations. Defenders. Teachers. Civil rights lawyers. Organizers. Currently & formerly incarcerated people. Here’s a running & ongoing list of organizations you need to follow:
@TxJailProject
@theRAMOSproject
@CivRightsCorps
@Dreamdefenders
@releasemd
@courtwatchpg
@BwayAdvocacyCo
@endmoneybond
@AFSCMICJProgram
@ACLU_OR
@ColorOfChange
@svdebug
@MediaTankFilm
@VariantStrateg1
@Cactus_Is
@OpenMIDoor
@UnlockTheBoxNow
@ChiBondFund
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