Genocide is the USAs preexisting condition

beachdeath:

But the Comedy Central pilot with the most tantalizing potential might actually be a still-to-be-titled project from comedian, YouTube star, activist, and onetime Nightly Show contributor Franchesca Ramsey, who plans to round up “the most diverse set of comedians on TV” to “heal America through brutal comedy, surprising guests, and breakdowns of the most pressing cultural issues you never knew you cared about.” Given the mixed reaction to the network’s recent decision to name Jordan Klepper—”yet another white guy,” as some detractors of the decision pointed out—as Larry Wilmore’s replacement, and many Daily Show fans’ dashed dreams of Jessica Williams taking over for Jon Stewart, it seems high time that a black woman got her shot at a politi-splainer program on Comedy Central—even if the concept is a little well-worn right now. Assuming the series gets green-lit, this one could make history.

oh my god!!!

(via chescaleigh)

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The movement for prison reform has gained much traction since the 2010 release of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, a book that popped the lid on the prison system in the United States, showing how the justice system racially targets Black people for incarceration. Recently, the critically acclaimed documentary “13th” exposed the horrors of the prison industrial complex and the loophole in the 13th Amendment that allows the practice of modern-day slavery in the United States.

Yet, much of the attention has been given to male prisons, with very few studies being made about women in the justice system. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, women in the U.S. make up only 5 percent of the female population in the world but account for 30 percent of the world’s incarcerated women. Women are currently the fastest-growing group of inmates in the United States. Black women remain the most likely to become incarcerated.

Nuevelle herself is a survivor of the system of incarceration and is now telling her story. It was her experience while being incarcerated at the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA/CTF) D.C. and in the Federal Bureau of Prisons that inspired her to launch the Who Speaks For Me? Project.

Nuevelle stated “One day, I lay on my back looking up at the ceiling in the cold, cold cell  — the suicide-watch cells are so cold my fingertips turned blue — I whispered, ‘Who speaks for me?’ Prison is ripe for abuse as it is an isolated world of its own. The prison system answers to itself and we women often have no outside help to speak up and advocate for us for medical needs, access to productive and ongoing mental health treatment or meaningful programming.”

While incarcerated, Nuevelle, although not a lawyer, volunteered her services by providing legal advocacy for women at the prison. When no one else would go to bat for the women, Nuevelle would speak for her fellow sisters. She has incorporated this advocacy work as an extension of the Who Speaks for Me? Project, visiting halfway houses for re-entering women and providing resources and advocacy services.

Women face a unique kind of violence while in prison, which was not designed with them in mind. Existence often is especially uncomfortable and humiliating. To make matters worse, incarcerated women experience the most sexual violence. According to The Guardian, women represent 13 percent of the prison population but make up two-thirds of victims who experience staff-on-inmate sexual violence.

“No one wants to talk about what it is like to have a monthly menstrual cycle while incarcerated and how humiliating this can be when men run the prison,” Nuevelle says. “Pap smears don’t happen, mammograms go incomplete and rape goes unreported.

“Thus, the trauma that women experience prior to prison goes untreated and they become more traumatized by incarceration.”

That trauma is only a continuation of the trauma most have gone through their entire lives. According to one study submitted to the Bureau of Justice Assistance/Dept of Justice at least 86 percent of women incarcerated experienced sexual violence at some point in their lives. This is especially true for Black women. Nuevelle remarks “Women, especially poor Black women, carry the brunt of America’s racism. When we end up on the journey of the trauma-to-prison pipeline, we are cloaked in shame. This shame is reinforced by our society when our truths go ignored and our stories untold.”

The “trauma-to-prison pipeline,” a term Nuevelle herself coined, refers to the phenomena particular to women who grow up in abusive homes or experience trauma, sexual violence and domestic violence at some point in their lives. A woman’s attempts at coping or surviving the abuse often lead to her becoming more likely to be incarcerated later in life. Drug use and other low-level offenses that are linked to past traumas, mental health and job and housing insecurity end up pushing women into the justice system. The term “trauma-to-prison pipeline” is catching on in policy circles in Washington as a result of Nuevelle’s work through the Who Speaks for Me? Project.

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equagga:

thatdiabolicalfeminist:

Being poor is just a series of emergencies.

Emergencies really do crop up more often for poor people. Necessities, like vacuum cleaners or phones or bedding or shoes, need replacement or repair more often when you only buy the cheapest possible option.

Poor people’s health tends to be compromised by cheap, unhealthy food; stress; being around lots of similarly-poor contagious sick people who can’t afford to stay home or get treatment; inadequate healthcare; and often, hazardous and/or demanding work conditions.

So we get sick more. On top of that, many people are poor specifically because of disability. All of that is expensive - even if you just allow your health to deteriorate, eventually you can’t work, which is - say it with me - expensive.

When you’re poor, even the cheapest (most temporary) solution for an emergency often breaks the bank. Unexpected expenses can be devastating. People who aren’t poor don’t realize that an urgent expense of thirty dollars can mean not eating for a week. Poor people who try to save find our savings slipping away as emergency after emergency happens.

I don’t think people who’ve never been poor realise what it’s like. It’s not that we’re terrible at budgeting, it’s that even the most perfect budget breaks under the weight of the basic maths: we do not have enough resources.

Cos we’re fucking poor.

People who aren’t poor also have different ideas of what an emergency constitutes. The AC breaking in the middle of summer isn’t an emergency when it’s in the budget to just go buy a new one the same afternoon without worrying about how it’ll affect your grocery money; having to take two days off from work because you’re running a bad fever isn’t an emergency when you have paid sick leave.

So it’s no wonder the well off people of the world don’t get it when a low income person is stressed over something breaking or a minor illness. I know people for whom a crashed car - as long as no one was hurt - would just be ‘damn it I liked that car and now I gotta borrow my wife’s’ and I know people for whom it would be ‘I can’t afford to have this fixed but I can’t get to work if I don’t get it fixed and I can’t get it fixed if I don’t go to work hahhaha time to indebt myself to family members who I desperately wish I didn’t even have to interact with because they’re the only ones who can give me rides or loan me money.’

Two very different worlds.

(via dangercupcakemurdericing)