by Bob Barber* In this series of dispatches, veteran Bay Area journalist Bob Barber shares his impressions and views from the streets of Cleveland, Ohio, during the Republican National Convention. • Friday, July 14 It’s hot here in Cleveland, like in the 80s with the predictable humidity. Just like those good old summer days I remember […]
Author: Social Justice
Unpacking “Rape Culture” after Stanford and Beyond
by Anastasia Powell* Most of the time victims of sexual violence are silenced, their experiences minimized, or their realities ignored entirely. Perhaps that is why the victim’s impact statement in the high-profile Stanford case has been so widely shared in both print media and online. When you think about it, we rarely hear about sexual […]
Educational Reform and Repression in Mexico
by Maurice Rafael Magaña* June 14, 2016, marked the 10-year anniversary of the beginning of a popular uprising in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. The Oaxacan social movement of 2006 formed following the violent eviction of striking teachers from their labor union’s encampment in the zócalo (main plaza) of Oaxaca City. Outraged by the […]
Suicide Prevention: It’s a Social Justice Issue
by Stephen Platt* Despite “encouraging signs of progress” in suicide prevention in the United States, the suicide rate continues to rise, particularly among middle-aged white men. The drive to reduce the overall suicide rate is necessary but not sufficient: it is also vital to acknowledge and tackle the underlying inequalities that leave the socioeconomically disadvantaged […]
Torture, It’s Back in Fashion
by Rebecca Gordon* The 2016 presidential campaign has put torture back on the American agenda. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are campaigning on promises to bring it back, and even Marco Rubio hinted in that direction. (Of course torture never left the Secure Housing Units of US prisons, where it is hidden in plain sight.) […]
The Chilean New Song Movement: Far More Than a Relic of the Past
by Patrice McSherry* The New Song movement that emerged in the 1960s in Chile was rooted in popular musical traditions that were passed down through generations. The young musicians drew from folk traditions but created new musical, instrumental, and poetic forms that revolutionized the musical culture of Chile. Songs like “Plegaria a un Labrador” (Víctor […]
Letter from Paris: Which Side Will Prevail?
by Bernard Dreano* In this chilly evening of November the 27th, a few hundred people are on the Place de la République. Many are meditating, praying, or just silent around the big statue of the Republic in the middle of the square, surrounded with candles, messages of peace, children’s drawing, flags of different countries, and […]
(Un)Settling Solitary Confinement in California’s Prisons
by Keramet Reiter* On September 1, 2015, California prison officials agreed to a settlement in the case of Ashker v. Brown. Todd Ashker, together with the other prisoner plaintiffs housed in California’s Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit (SHU), alleged that the practice of assigning hundreds of prisoners to solitary confinement for indefinite terms dragging out […]
September 11: From Verona to Belfast
by Phil Scraton* September 11, 2001. The day imprinted on a disparate international collective consciousness. As two planes hit New York’s twin towers, another engulfed the Pentagon in flames, and United Airlines Flight 93 plane came down in Pennsylvania en route to its target, I slipped traversing a ramp in Verona, severing my quadriceps tendon. […]
Reentry to Nothing #4: In the Shadow of the Jailhouse
by Alessandro De Giorgi* The materials presented in this blog series draw from an ethnographic study on prisoner reentry I have been conducting between March 2011 and March 2014 in a neighborhood of West Oakland, California, which is plagued by chronically high levels of poverty, unemployment, homelessness, drug addiction, and street crime. Since 2011, with the […]