Good morning. Texting now w/ a friend & colleague who advocates for people in solitary confinement in Michigan (solitary capital of the U.S.). I needed a reminder about one of the people we're working with on the inside. "She’s the one who didn't know her age when she came out."
Facts: There are over 3000 people in solitary in Michigan. No restriction on length of stay. 47% of people in solitary have been in over 2 years. Longest serving have been in over 40 years. Black men are 7% of MI population. 54% of prison population. 65-80% solitary population.
Working now with allies in Michigan to get the voices | words | experiences |torture | fear | hope | humanity out of this remote silence to help them end this racist cruelty once and for all. More for you to see & experience soon as possible.
Disobeying a direct order
Yelling
Cursing
Arguing
Fighting
Too many alcohol swabs, toilet paper, toiletries
Too much medication or food
Asking to speak to a superior officer
Standing up for vulnerable prisoner
Refusing meals
Filing grievances
Requesting protection
Some thoughts on the intersection between media/politics/social justice policy I've learned from people way smarter than me: People think social justice policy-from crime to education to health to housing, etc.--is made by elected officials. It's not. It's made by media.
Technically, social justice policy is made by elected officials. But really, policy is made & influenced by their *perception of their electorate & what they want. Not what is best for them. But what their constituents believe is best for them. What they believe they want.
And what people believe is best for them, what they should want, is unfortunately informed primarily by what they see on TV, what they read, what "news" tells them. But what theyre told is not what would actually make any of us healthier, safer, more productive, smarter, richer.
HUGE NEWS TODAY: 24 people were assaulted by NYPD last spring during #BLM protests in the Bronx. Public defenders at @BronxDefenders are demanding a reparations fund for the people & communities subjected to police violence in the South Bronx. gothamist.com/news/protester…
Last spring, Mott Haven Bronx was Ground Zero for some of the NYPD's most brutal, violent tactics against BLM protestors. I watched those videos. Batons. Suffocating. Plastic cuffs. Poisonous spray. Atrocious human rights violations. Now the survivors are speaking out.
Human Rights Watch (@hrw) recently came out w/ horrifying investigation. The brutal NYPD attack on hundreds of protestors in early June in the Bronx wasn't just criminal & unconstitutional. It was *planned*. NYPD used the curfew to trap, assault, & arrest.hrw.org/news/2020/09/3…
Proud to be a signer on this letter to Biden. “We write to you as attorneys, judges, advocates, & Americans, urging you to begin w/ an act of mercy to carry our nation closer toward justice: immediately commute sentences of all those on federal death row.”static1.squarespace.com/static/5c894b6…
“In the last six months, we bore witness to the execution of thirteen people — more Americans put to death in those months than in the last six decades of this nation’s history. These thirteen deaths stand as an affront to the very legal system we operate in every day.”
“Obama halted federal executions, but did not commute sentences of all on federal death row, leaving the door open for Trump to pursue a death spree that hasn’t been seen in well over a century. The very existence of death row leaves many susceptible to the machinery of death.”
Happy inauguration day. But right next door: Maryland incarcerates more Black people than any other state in the country. Also condemns children to die in prison. 83% of juvenile lifers are Black. Tomorrow this could change. Legislation would end juvenile life sentences. More:
70% of the Maryland prison population is Black. Even though only 30% of the Maryland population is Black. Juvenile life sentences disproportionately affect black defendants. All of Maryland's neighbors have abolished life w/o parole for juveniles. But Maryland hasn’t.
The Juvenile Restoration Act (JRA) would end life sentences for juveniles in Maryland. The legislation is based on the belief that no child is born bad. Tomorrow (Thursday) there is a hearing on the bill.
On MLK Day, I always share this. Want people to know this as well as the “I Have A Dream” speech. Speechless at his wisdom and truth. "No other ethnic group has been a slave on American soil. And then color became a stigma." Transcribed remainder below.
“America freed slaves in 1863, but gave them no land or nothing to get started on. Emancipation for the negro was really freedom to hunger. Freedom to the winds & rains of heaven. Freedom w/o food to eat or land to cultivate. Therefore it was freedom & famine at the same time.”
"When white Americans tell the negro to lift himself up by his bootstraps, they don’t look at the legacy of slavery & segregation. We ought to do all we can to lift ourselves up, but it’s a cruel jest to say to a bootless man he ought to lift himself up by his own bootstraps.”
"After 17 years w/o a federal execution, the Government has executed 12 people since July." Last night Dustin Higgs became the 13th. "The Federal Government executed more than 3 times as many people in the last 6 months than it had in the previous 6 decades." Justice Sotomayor:
Sotomayor names them: "Daniel Lee, Wesley Purkey, Dustin Honken, Lezmond Mitchell, Keith Nelson, William LeCroy Jr., Christopher Vialva, Orlando Hall, Brandon Bernard, Alfred Bourgeois, Lisa Montgomery, Corey
Johnson. [Just last night] Dustin Higgs became the thirteenth." Justin:
"This unprecedented rush of federal executions has predictably given rise to many difficult legal disputes. Against this backdrop of deep legal uncertainty, the DOJ
did not tread carefully. It scheduled five executions; eight would follow in the months to come."