Giving Tuesday (#GivingTuesday2022) is a good opportunity here to raise up some of the amazing local partners I get to work with round the country who fight everyday for fairness, freedom, health, & safety.
Thread on how to support:
Texas Jail Project. Empowering incarcerated people in Texas county jails by lifting their voices through stories, testimonies, & community building. Providing aid and support to people, families, and communities. Fighting for truth. Give here:donorbox.org/texasjailproje…
Silicon Valley De-Bug (@ . A community organizing, advocacy, & storytelling organization based out of San José, California. Leading a national network of "participatory defense" hubs supporting public defenders secure the best outcomes in & out of court: mightycause.com/donate/Silicon…
Contextos (@ContextosChi). Working to prevent, interrupt, & end cycles of violence in Chicago, while complicating the narrative w/ true stories that illuminate, elevate voices, create proximity, build empathy & change minds and actions of diverse audiences.contextos.org/donate/
Gideons Promise (@Gideons_Promise). Supporting public defenders so that we can be a nation where every person has access to zealous, outstanding legal representation necessary to ensure “equal justice for all” in the criminal justice arena. gideonspromise.org
Partners for Justice (@PFJ_USA). Training non-attorney Advocates to provide clients with case navigation and wraparound support, while helping public defenders protect people from incarceration and other criminal penalties.partnersforjustice.org
Healthy Hood (@healthyhoodchi). Providing affordable programming & resources to combat the current twenty-year life expectancy gap between undeserved communities and high-income communities in the Chicagoland area and around the country. healthyhoodchi.com
PEN America Prison & Justice Writing Program. Amplifying the work of 1000s of writers who are creating while incarcerated. Providing resources, mentorship, & audiences outside the walls. pen.org/prison-writing/
Fund for Guaranteed Income (@fund4gi). Proving a viable path to guaranteed income–direct, recurring cash transfers that support those who have been locked out of welfare programs and economic systems. Based in Los Angles. f4gi.org
Justice LA Coalition (@JusticeLANow). Grassroots orgs, advocates, directly impacted communities, & stakeholders, working to reduce the footprint of incarceration by stopping jail expansion & reinvest dollars into community-based systems of care. justicelanow.org
JustMedia. Organizing, amplifying, and sharing existing films and videos that tell a variety of stories as a media literacy tool for the movement to end mass incarceration and achieve abolition. justmedia.org
Release Aging People in Prison/RAPP Campaign. Working to end racist policies that have more than doubled the number of elders behind bars, to expand the use of parole, compassionate release, & clemency, and to end life imprisonment. rappcampaign.com
Orleans Public Defenders. Representing nearly 20,000 people each year utilizing a client-centered, community-oriented defense model that puts the client first & takes a 360 degree approach to advocacy & representation. opdla.org
Free Hearts (@freeheartsorg). Led by formerly incarcerated women, Free Hearts supports, empowers, reunites, and organizes families impacted by incarceration in Tennessee. freeheartsorg.com
Our courtwatching family over the next several threads. Don't just consider giving. Consider volunteering. Truly one of the best, most direct ways right now to help transform the criminal legal system. Accountability. First up: Courtwatch PG in Maryland.courtwatchpg.com
Baltimore Courtwatch. Don't just consider giving. Consider volunteering. Truly one of the best, most direct ways right now to help transform the criminal legal system. Accountability. baltimorecourtwatch.org
Baltimore Courtwatch. Don't just consider giving. Consider volunteering. Truly one of the best, most direct ways right now to help transform the criminal legal system. Accountability. baltimorecourtwatch.org
Court Watch LA. Don't just consider giving. Consider volunteering. Truly one of the best, most direct ways right now to help transform the criminal legal system. Accountability. courtwatchla.org
Court Watch NYC. Don't just consider giving. Consider volunteering. Truly one of the best, most direct ways right now to help transform the criminal legal system. Accountability. courtwatchnyc.org
Support worker-led journalism that exposes injustice and challenges our reliance on police and punishment. theappeal.org/donate/
If you made it this far, thanks! More on my org, Zealo.us. Working round country to support local coalitions of defenders, organizers, artists, & people w/ direct experience to topple imbalance of power over justice policy & media.
My new op-ed is now live. In it, I explain how it's *legal to execute an innocent person* in the U.S. How that's a feature, not bug of the system. And what we can do about it now. Hint: Robust public defense. Teen Vogue again leading the way with truth. teenvogue.com/story/robert-r…
It is legal in the U.S. to execute an innocent person. Indeed, the Supreme Court has twice ruled it is perfectly constitutional to do so bc the value of expediency & finality in the legal process is more important than truth, justice, & even human life.teenvogue.com/story/robert-r…
As a civil rights attorney who served as a public defender, I saw how killing an innocent person was the most extreme example of a legal process designed *not to achieve justice, fairness, or truth, but enable unjust outcomes & erect every obstacle toward redress.
There is no evidence that police in the subways are lowering crime. What we do know: NYPD is swallowing up valuable resources, harassing New Yorkers, making needless arrests, & engaging in violent & reckless confrontations on the subway.
City records show a $151 million increase in 2023 for NYPD overtime pay for subway policing. NYC went from spending $4 million in 2022 on NYPD overtime pay for subway policing to $155 million in 2023.
In addition to the $150mil+ extra spent on NYPD for subway policing in overtime alone in 2023,
NYC Eric Adams ordered NYPD in March 2024 to send an another “800 police officers specifically to keep watch on turnstiles." apnews.com/article/new-yo…
Pay attention. 800,000 incarcerated workers are currently forced to labor in prisons for pennies.
Don’t believe me? Read on for first hand accounts from inside. Slavery is alive in the US. Thread:
Cell blocks, prison grounds, kitchens, laundry rooms, libraries, medical centers — these are the common spaces that make up America’s vast carceral architecture.
Grounds: "My first job in the prison system was on yard crew. The duties include digging through trash bags to collect recyclables. The pay for some positions in this prison is 8 cents an hour.
I remember feeling degraded and humiliated. ” Tasha in Texas.
Wow. Fiona Apple is a real one. Watch this video. Calling for donations to bail out Black mothers for Mother’s Day. Her fans already came through w donations & spreading the word. Over $30k! Let’s “fetch the bolt cutters” & support even more. I just gave. givebutter.com/nHSrnp
Two years ago, Fiona Apple popped up on a zoom call to get trained by local organizers to Court watch. Dedicated ever since. Her work has led to freedom, lawsuits, accountability.
The stories all here in this short video. She wrote & performed the score:
Be like Fiona Apple. Volunteer to CourtWatch. Visit this campaign hub, learn more, connect w/ a local courtwatch program, &/or learn how to start your own.
Injustice happens in empty courtrooms. Which allows police brutality to continue outside of them. Courtwatch.org
“No judge has ever lost their job setting bail on someone.”
A NYC judge whispered that. To a public defender. Before depriving their destitute client of freedom. This happens every day. Judges are intimidated to throw poor people in cages.
Thread on a history of intimidation:
Public defenders @elizaorlins & @APetrigh tell about the open secret of "justice" throughout the country People are deprived of liberty, not based on merit. But judicial fear of negative press.
"The NYPD’s recent social media attack against a judge who released a defendant under supervision instead of setting bail and detaining them. The case drew headlines because the NYPD’s aggressive social media posts were full of misinformation, including misidentifying the judge."
How copaganda works. Police, prosecutor, & prison interests use media to exaggerate & lie about "sensational" cases. Amplify them on repeat. Create the *perception* that "crime" or "migrants" are a "Crisis!"
Perpetual anger/fear buys votes & public opinion. Facts be damned.
How copaganda works. Police release a highly edited video that doesn't include their unprovoked, violent, & unjustified attack on a migrant. Manufactured "outcry" ensues. Lawmakers call for sweeping policy changes. New video later released. It's too late. Profound damage done.
How copaganda works. Even after previously withheld police footage showed the "attack on police" in Times Square was the opposite: An unprovoked attack *by police* on innocent people, reports continue only center the lie.
None (that I've seen) report on the overt police lie.