Justice – Page 14

2014072120221207

J4J report shares important data about attacks on public ed – Death by 1000 Cuts

The Journey 4 Justice Alliance has issued an important new report entitled Death By A Thousand Cuts which includes the number and location of school closings not previously gathered together by any major organization or media portal. It discusses the racist motivation of the misnamed “education reform” movement; the injustice that investor-based charters represent – institutions which are publicly funded but privately controlled; and is a must-read for any person interested in education equity. read more

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How equity differs from equality

Equality and equity may once have been completely interchangeable terms but in law and as pertains to social justice matters, they are not the same any longer. Equity speaks to making allowances for handicaps created by historic, economic or racially based lack of access in order to level the playing field for everyone. Equality is the goal of equity considerations: by giving a leg up to the underserved, we hope to become a society where all are truly equal.

Oxford Dictionary defines equity as “A branch of law that developed alongside common law in order to remedy some of its defects in fairness and justice, formerly administered in special courts.” read more

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Take control of your privacy & end surveillance

Jon Fox, Global Advocacy Manager for Access points out that we have the power as individuals to curtail mass surveillance and data collection and comments, “Here are four things you can do today to keep your online activities private and secure from snooping eyes.”

1. Secure Browsing: Access recommends using the Tor Browser Bundle which provides access to blocked websites, and prevents others from tracking you online or watching what sites you visit by obscuring your online communications. Tor also prevents websites and others from collecting data on you – most importantly your physical location. read more

20140611

How Koch Bros’ $25M gift to United Negro College Fund can hurt us

A mind is a terrible thing to waste (girl)

A friend posted this on Facebook about the $25 Million gift given to the United Negro College Fund by the Koch Brothers:

If this money comes from sincerity (their heart) it is a blessing, but if it comes with “strings attached” the Koch brothers will have not surprised us. They will show us as usual their true colors! Win-win situation either way!

My thoughts are different:

Not necessarily, Maria. The insidious multi-level strategies that typically accompany gifts by the rich and powerful are designed to have subtle, but long-lasting and far reaching effect. First we should ask, what is being asked for as a direct trade for the gift? We may never know everything that was bargained away behind closed doors but we do know that two Koch Brothers designees will sit on a scholarship decision committee of three that will decide which students get that blood money. Right out of the gate, it’s clear that the money was not given with an open hand. read more

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Leadership tool: CHEJ’s Community Organizer Guide

Fight to Win Leadership Handbook

by Center for Health, Environment & Justice

This is CHEJ’s first basic community organization manual. Although it is written for first time organizers, established leaders may find they learn a new trick or two. Topics covered include how to start a group, keep a group going, research opponents, organize your community, carry out an effective action, raise funds, and win!

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Is your Congressman against Big Money corruption in America?

Project 435 wants to get all 435 US Congressmen on record as being for or against the American Anti-Corruption Act. The next step will be, running a national campaign to publicize Congressional Representatives’ stand against (or not against) corruption and then leverage bipartisan public support to get the American Anti-Corruption Act passed.

Sign the petition to take back control of our government and rebuild a democratic society by showing your support for the American Anti-Corruption Act … and if you want to get more involved, indicate your volunteer preferences too. read more

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Christie wants to use leftover campaign funds to pay for Bridgegate defense

You would think that a person in Christie’s situation would learn from past mistakes, but I guess after you’ve fallen a certain distance from grace self-correction becomes impossible. Christie’s camp is once again making the law all about our governor’s wishes instead of about legal precedent, common decency, responsibility to constituents or logic.

This time, Christie wants to use leftover campaign funds to pay legal bills for the Bridgegate defense. No matter that the Christie-Booker team went after Sharpe James for doing exactly the same thing: read more

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“White feminists” want to determine what feminism is

Fabulous post by Betty Mamzelle on the white privilege of “White Feminism”.

This, in a nutshell, is about how white people feel they own the right to dominate a conversation (or a movement) and tell other people what can and cannot be discussed; who’s in and who’s out; what topics are allowable and which are not; and what’s important v. what is not … and how those beliefs extend to the battleground of feminism.

Even though feminism is supposedly about protecting women from other-abuse, “white feminists” feel perfectly comfortable browbeating or excluding women who don’t fit their concept of what feminism is supposed to be. Betty says, read more

2014010220221207

Black Bruins say UCLA admits just a small number of Black students – for sports wins

A Yale Daily News reporter provides the essential background for this video decrying the starkly racist policies of UCLA, one of the United States’ largest colleges.

Last week, Sy Stokes and 11 other black male students from UCLA uploaded a YouTube video of a spoken word poem called “The Black Bruins.” The poem attacks the university for its lack of racial diversity, specifically its incredibly small percentage of black male students. Overall, only 3.3 percent of the male population of UCLA is black. Of the 2,418 entering male freshmen, only 48 were black. read more

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Like Jobs and Winfrey, Suli Breaks will not let exam results decide his fate

Young people around the world are speaking up about education and careers. We need to listen to them because – this is their age. The age of information. And they know, much more than we give them credit for.

No dejaré que el resultado de un examen decida mi destino (subtitulado en Español)

Lyrics

Right now, there is a kid finishing parents evening in a heated discussion with his mother,
Saying why does he have subject subjects he will never ever use in his life…
And she will look at him blank eyed, stifle a sigh, think for a second,
And then lie.
She will say something along the lines of,
“You to get a good job you need a good degree and these subjects help you get a degree.
We never had this opportunity when I was younger”
And he will reply, “but you were young a long time ago weren’t you mum?” read more

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WSJ Op-Ed laments the waning of white supremacy

Alternet author Adam Peck does a good job of showing the humour in Joseph Epstein’s massively egotistical and racist WSJ Op-Ed in which Epstein proposes, “we need more rich white men in power, preferably WASPs,” and goes on to say,

There are a lot of problems in Washington, D.C these days, but not many solutions to them. Inefficiency, an allergy to cooperation, and stiff resistance to pragmatism have all ground the federal government to a stand-still. But one op-ed contributor to the Wall Street Journal knows what the real problem is: not enough rich, white men. read more

20131223

Film: American Violet

Film: American Violet

American Violet is a film that shows us the criminal justice system being used as a tool to disenfranchise target communities from housing, jobs and social services – with no regard for whether detainees have ever committed a crime, or how the arrest of one member will impact the stability of an entire family.

People who are falsely detained and have children or parents at home who rely on them for support, are likely to succumb to coercion and plead guilty to crimes they did not commit in order to get released from jail and back to their families. But afterwards, they will face the consequences of being branded as convicts and the immediate loss of social support services their families rely on, including their family’s home if they live in public – or publicly supported – housing. read more

20131223

Book: Reign of Error by Diane Ravitch

Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools by Diane Ravitch
Category: Social Justice, Education

In the days that Diane Ravitch was U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education in the administration of George H. W. Bush, she drank lots of Kool Aide and believed strenuously that destroying public education was good for students of color and poor kids. But one day the veil was lifted from her eyes. She understood the error of her previous thinking, and did a complete about face to become the country’s most visible and high-profile champion of public education. I’m a Diane fan and now, you can be too! Read her book and her blog. read more

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Book: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Category: Social Justice

Author Michelle Alexander-West is the wife of a United States federal prosecutor and an attorney in her own right. In this book, she does a truly remarkable job of drilling down through levels of strategy, policy and procedure that form the complex web of injustice that has brought the United States to the terrible point of imprisoning over 1% of our adult population and detaining 25% of all prisoners everywhere in the world … many of whom have been jailed for minor offenses, such as carrying a couple of marijuana cigarettes. Over 3200 non-violent offenders have been jailed for life for non-violent offenses like that, or for stealing an item of clothing worth $150. Unjust imprisonment is part of the intentional destruction of the lives of people of color. read more

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Doc ACLU fought years to see sat @ Library of Congress, visible to all

Mother Jones reports on the strange case of the high-security document sitting in the Library Congress, “where anyone with a library card can read it.”

In a lapse that national security experts call baffling, a high-ranking FBI agent filed a sensitive internal manual detailing the bureau’s secret interrogation procedures with the Library of Congress …

For years, the American Civil Liberties Union fought a legal battle to force the FBI to release a range of documents concerning FBI guidelines, including this one, which covers the practices agents are supposed to employ when questioning suspects. Through all this, unbeknownst to the ACLU and the FBI, the manual sat in a government archive open to the public. When the FBI finally relented and provided the ACLU a version of the interrogation guidebook last year, it was heavily redacted; entire pages were blacked out. But the version available at the Library of Congress, which a Mother Jones reporter reviewed last week, contains no redactions. read more