Trigger Warning for medical neglect and abuse, police abuse, and discussions of the child welfare system

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports:

Anna Brown wasn’t leaving the emergency room quietly.

She yelled from a wheelchair at St. Mary’s Health Center security personnel and Richmond Heights police officers that her legs hurt so badly she couldn’t stand.

She had already been to two other hospitals that week in September, complaining of leg pain after spraining her ankle.

This time, she refused to leave.

A police officer arrested Brown for trespassing. He wheeled her out in handcuffs after a doctor said she was healthy enough to be locked up.

Brown was 29. A mother who had lost custody of two children. Homeless. On Medicaid. And, an autopsy later revealed, dying from blood clots that started in her legs, then lodged in her lungs.

She told officers she couldn’t get out of the police car, so they dragged her by her arms into the station. They left her lying on the concrete floor of a jail cell, moaning and struggling to breathe. Just 15 minutes later, a jail worker found her cold to the touch.

Officers suspected Brown was using drugs. Autopsy results showed she had no drugs in her system.

Six months later, family members still wonder how Brown’s sprained ankle led to her death in police custody, and whether anyone — including themselves — is to blame.

The way the Post-Dispatch exploits family members’ personal sense of guilt that is a normal part of grieving, equating it with much larger forces, would have you believe that Anna Brown’s death was just a tragic accident. But the way Brown died was not the result of a few bad choices. It was the result of a myriad of institutional violences: white supremacy, the broken health care system, police brutality and the prison industrial complex, the racism and classism of the child welfare system, ableism and its intersection with racism, dehumanization and criminalization of (suspected) drug users, and the lack of housing as a human right, among others. Anna Brown did not die with the dignity we afford to human beings, but with the contempt we reserve for garbage. And a woman’s humanity is not just forgotten and cast aside with no systemic reason.

The institutional violence against Anna Brown began long before her death from an undiagnosed yet treatable condition, and her death can only be understood within the context of this long string of abuses.

Anna Brown was one of 10 children. She graduated from Kirkwood High School. At 18, she had her first child, a boy. She had a daughter nine years later. Brown was raising them alone when a tornado destroyed her north St. Louis home on New Year’s Eve 2010. She moved to Berkeley.

Shortly after, she lost her job at a sandwich shop. Bills lapsed. The electricity was turned off. So was the gas. And the water.

Family members say Brown and her children appeared fine during visits at Davis’ home in Normandy.

They weren’t.

In April, a state Children’s Division representative found Brown’s toilet filled with feces. Burn marks scarred the floors and sinks where Brown had used small fires to stay warm. One refrigerator could not be opened. Insects and rotting food filled another, according to state reports given to the Post-Dispatch by Brown’s family.

Brown was not lucid and seemed confused as Berkeley police arrested her for parental neglect. The courts awarded legal custody of the kids to the Children’s Division. Davis could have physical custody, as long as Brown didn’t live with her.

Brown’s home was condemned. She ended up on the streets. She lived in four homeless shelters from May to September 2011.

At first, she visited her children at her mother’s home. That ended in June, when Brown started telling the children they didn’t have to listen to their grandparents and called the police to report they were being abused. Police found no evidence of abuse.

After that, Brown had supervised visits with her children at the Children’s Division. She also called her mother daily to check on them.

Brown, who later started receiving treatment for mental illness, is just one of countless examples of the way that the child welfare system is an active agent of racism, classism, ableism, and sexism. Earlier assistance could have easily prevented the loss of necessary utilities like heat and water, could have kept food in the fridge, could have provided mental health services to Brown if needed, could have helped her care for her children. This crisis almost certainly could have been avoided.

But as Dorothy Roberts shows in her incredible and important book Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare, the system sees these means of assistance as undeserved, and either refuses to provide them or makes access to them overly burdensome. Indeed, the child welfare system, instead of acting to keep families healthy, works mainly as a means of social control of Black populations. While Native and Latino children are also generally overrepresented in the child welfare system, the overwhelming majority of children are Black — in some cities, virtually all are Black. Virtually all also come from families that are poor. And the vast majority of cases are not of the kind of child abuse we see on the news, but of “neglect.” As Roberts explains, “neglect” generally means being poor — not having access to adequate food, shelter, or child care. But as in Brown’s case, the system does not give beds to families when it deems they do not have enough, does not provide housing vouchers when they see shelter as inadequate, does not increase food stamp allotment when children are going hungry, or provide child care when parents cannot afford it but still have to work. The child welfare system instead almost always acts too late, and has only one means of intervention: removing the children from their parents, who are usually mothers.

Brown’s children were not only removed from her, but explicitly forbidden from living with her, even when another adult in the household was acting as their carer, even though there was no evidence that she posed a physical danger or threat to her children. The system deliberately acted not just to keep the children safe and cared for, but to keep mother and children apart. In the child welfare system, separating Black children from their mothers is seen as the only means to keep them safe, even when other options are clearly available.

Further, once the children were provided for, the system lost interest in Brown’s own well-being. Like so many poor people of color with mental illness(es), she was not given housing and access to mental health services, but instead ended up homeless — a state which only exacerbates existing mental illness, and would be incompatible with reuniting her with her children. And after this series of assaults on Brown’s rights and humanity, it is her mother who is left feeling the guilt for forcibly complying with an abusive system:

Davis also faults the St. Louis County Family Court, which she said forced her into a heartbreaking dilemma after the state took away Brown’s children on a claim of neglect. Davis could take in her grandchildren or her daughter, a judge said, but not both.

“I’m mad at myself because if I hadn’t listened to the courts, she would still be here,” Davis said. “If she had been here at this house, she would be here today.”

Anna Brown attempted to access health care from the position of a Black homeless woman who had been deemed an “unfit mother” and who was perceived as “mentally unstable.”  The social forces of white supremacy, classism, misogyny, and ableism ensured that she therefore entered this system, a site in which innumerable oppressions are enacted, as someone perceived as far less than fully human. If homeless people are inhuman, if being an unfit mother is close to the worst thing a woman can be, if being Black is both criminalized and associated with worse health care outcomes across the board, if “crazy” people are to be either feared or ignored, this inevitably impacted the care that she received.

Despite repeatedly complaining of the same symptoms, Brown was not believed. The medical staff in charge did their tests, and decided that they knew better than Brown about her own body. Instead of reviewing their work — ultrasounds were apparently conducted to check for blood clots — or searching for alternate explanations, they decided that Brown must be lying, perhaps looking for drugs. This call was irrefutably tied to Brown’s race, gender, homelessness, and mental health status. Real-life medicine doesn’t work like House. But if anyone thinks an insured white guy with no history of mental illness would have been pinned with “drug-seeking behavior” and literally dragged away in handcuffs, they’re living in one hell of a different United States of America than I am.

Anna Brown was arrested for demanding medical care for a condition that killed her several hours later. For seeing herself as deserving of life, for knowing that her constant pain was not normal or acceptable, for demanding that somebody give a damn and recognize her humanity, she was thrown in jail and died alone on a cold cement floor. An officer waited for three hours with Brown to see a doctor who could declare her “fit for confinement,” so that he could drag her from a police car when she could not walk. Who devoted those same levels of time and resources to saving her life? Who cared as much about why this homeless Black woman was in so much pain and distress as they did about locking her up?

Both the police and the hospital have shirked responsibility:

St. Mary’s officials say they did all they were supposed to do for Brown. “Our records show that, in this case, everything that should have been done medically was done properly. We found nothing that would have changed this tragic outcome,” according to a statement.

Police Chief Maj. Roy Wright said his officers had no way of knowing Brown’s condition. “A lot of times people don’t want to stay in jail and will claim to be sick,” he said. “We depend on medical officials to tell us they’re OK.”

We found nothing that would have changed this tragic outcome.

I am not a doctor. Even if I were, I do not have access to Anna Brown’s medical records. I do not know if the ultrasounds were conducted properly. I do not know if there were additional tests that could or should have been done. I do not know if her condition was not diagnosed because of carelessness and prejudice, or because it simply could not be diagnosed. I do not know how or if Anna Brown could have lived.

But I do know one thing for sure: she did not have to die like she did.

It was not inevitable that she was charged with “trespassing” at a hospital while complaining of a legitimate medical condition. It was not inevitable that her pain was ignored and treated as a fabrication. It was not inevitable that she be literally dragged away in handcuffs because she could not walk and because authorities just needed another Black body locked up. It was not inevitable that she die alone on a cold floor, in a way that we would never wish on animals. It was not inevitable that a homeless Black woman asserting herself was perceived as being “on drugs,” or that being “on drugs” revoked her right to decency and humanity.

I do not know that Anna Brown had to die. But even if she did, she could have died in a hospital bed. She could have been given the same dignity afforded to insured white people who aren’t (actually or perceived as) “crazy” or “on drugs.” She could have not have had her identity as a mentally ill, homeless Black woman equated with criminality and worthlessness. She could have been treated like the human being she was, as a person whose life had value.

And anyone who cannot see that is the one who is actually lacking humanity.

On September 21, 2011, Troy Davis was killed by the state of Georgia for the murder of a white police officer, despite incredible doubts about his guilt and many years of strong efforts to save his life. Hopefully you’re familiar with his story; I was writing about it years ago, and many others never stopped. To call his execution a travesty of justice doesn’t quite cover it.

Davis’ family has suffered a terrible string of tragedies. Shortly before Troy’s execution, his mother Virginia died, having long been brokenhearted about what was done to her son. Less than two months after Troy was killed — following a cruel delay in which his family briefly thought Troy was getting another stay of execution — his sister Martina Correia died from cancer.

The Davis family still has outstanding funeral and medical bills for Martina that they must pay.

Jen Marlowe, a journalist who knows the family and has written extensively about Troy Davis’ case for years, has started a fund to help them pay their bills, setting a goal at $8,000. Unfortunately, fundraising efforts plateaued around the $6,000 mark, and I’ve watched over the past couple of weeks as the goal has struggled to be met. The deadline has already been extended, but even with two weeks remaining, at the current rate of fundraising the total will surely wind up short.

Troy Davis’ case mobilized countless racial justice and anti-death penalty activists, and the day after his execution thousands of people donated to organizations working to end the death penalty. Undoubtedly, that’s how both Troy and Martina would have wanted it, being valiant fighters not just for Troy’s life, but to end the death penalty as a whole. (Correia was a dedicated board member at the Center to End the Death Penalty.) But surely, they would have also wanted to see their own family provided for and free of the incredible stress of unpayable debt.

The Davis family has been through unfathomable pain and injustice; and for their long, hard, courageous fight, they deserve all of our support and gratitude. Though we cannot grant them justice, the least we can do, if we have the resources, is help minimize their hardships in this small yet important way.

Please give if you are able; even the smallest amounts will help. And just as importantly, help spread the word through your networks to help meet the goal.

Few find it surprising that Jim Crow arose following the collapse of slavery. The development is described in history books as regrettable but predictable given the virulent racism that gripped the South and the political dynamics of the time. What is remarkable is that hardly anyone seems to imagine that similar political dynamics may have produced another caste system in the years following the collapse of Jim Crow—one that exists today.

– Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

The thesis of Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is exactly what the title implies: the U.S. criminal justice system has become a formal if unnamed means of anti-Black racial discrimination and social exclusion analogous to though distinct from Jim Crow. In the United States, Alexander argues, all aspects of this system — from policing to prosecutions to sentences to prisons to post-release restrictions — have not only a disparate impact on racial minorities, Blacks in particular, but were actively designed as a racial caste system and means of social control in the wake of Jim Crow’s collapse. And yet, because the system is officially race neutral and overt racial hostility by individual actors generally cannot be proven, the bulk of society goes around acting as though this racial caste system does not actually exist.

To make her case, Alexander turns naturally to the War on Drugs that began in the 1980s, at at time when drug use was on the decline and considered by virtually no one to be a serious social or criminal issue. Though “mass incarceration” and “the drug war” are not quite synonyms, they are fairly close. As Alexander shows, drug convictions make up a very large proportion of the enormous and unprecedented increase in incarceration rate in the past thirty years, from 300,000 in 1980, shortly before the drug war began, to over 2 million today. Alexander writes:

Drug offenses alone account for two-thirds of the rise in the federal inmate population and more than half of the rise in state prisoners between 1985 and 2000. Approximately a half-million people are in prison or jail for a drug offense today, compared to an estimated 41,100 in 1980—an increase of 1,100 percent. Drug arrests have tripled since 1980. As a result, more than 31 million people have been arrested for drug offenses since the drug war began. Nothing has contributed more to the systematic mass incarceration of people of color in the United States than the War on Drugs.

Alexander critically exposes the little understood origins of the War on Drugs. Generally, the drug war is traced to the explosion of crack cocaine in urban Black communities, when in fact crack did not become an issue until several years after the drug war was launched in 1982. The drug war has its roots in a combination of the deindustralization and globalization that resulted in mass job loss and a predictable and growing white backlash to the gains of the civil rights movement. The rate of Black unemployment quadrupled as a result of factory closings, while white unemployment increased at a far slower rate. With no new jobs appearing in communities of color, Black men were suddenly no longer needed as workers and therefore disposable. At the same time, unrest was growing among blue-collar white workers as a result of their own unemployment. Instead of creating jobs or addressing class disparities, conservatives harnessed this anger and effectively turned it on the Blacks with whom these whites actually shared exploitation and joblessness.

When crack hit in the mid-80s, years after Reagan officially launched his War on Drugs, he used it as a massive publicity campaign for his program. The media blitz dramatized and exaggerated the now infamous crack epidemic, promoted all kinds of ugly racist stereotypes about poor Black people, and spawned outrageously harsh mandatory sentences and sentencing disparities. At the same time, the sensationalistic  public relation campaign aimed at whites was backed up with enormous amounts of money and equipment being funneled to law enforcement who agreed to use it to fight this metaphorical “war” in a quite literally militarized way. As being “soft on crime” became a political career-ender, Democrats, too, got in on the act, instituting increasingly draconian and cruel punishments for the “crimes” of recreational drug use and addiction.

Before delving into The New Jim Crow, I considered myself relatively educated on the subject of the systemic racism of both the criminal justice system generally and the War on Drugs specifically. It wasn’t long after the introduction that I began to realize just how little I actually knew. Knowing that the system is racist is one thing; knowing how that racism legally and practically functions and how it has been actively protected by the highest powers is something else all together. This issue is about much more than just vastly disproportionate numbers of Black men in prisons and jails, or the fact that the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the entire world. It is about housing, disenfranchisement, the right to work, and the terrorism and social control of policing, probation, and parole.

Alexander’s “New Jim Crow” metaphor does not just describe prisons themselves, but the system that sends overwhelming numbers of Black men there in the first place and then proceeds to keep them on the margins of society for the rest of their lives upon release. This new Jim Crow, like the old one, creates a parallel society to which large numbers of Black people are relegated. From stop and search procedures that are rarely used against whites, especially middle-class ones; to mandatory sentences that lock people away for years on first-time non-violent offenses; to laws designed to keep released felons jobless, homeless, and disenfranchised, this racial caste system is quite deliberately almost impossible for its targets to escape.

Alexander walks us through the workings of the racist criminal justice system step-by-step, showing us how the U.S. manages to criminalize such huge numbers of men of color. The process begins with enormous federal financial incentives given to local law enforcement in exchange for agreement to comply with the drug war by rounding up as many people as possible. As middle-class white communities would be in an uproar if the same procedures used to criminalize Black men were used in their own neighborhoods — especially since, according to drug use statistics, they would result in as many if not more arrests — police concentrate their efforts on low-income, urban communities of color. Alexander horrifyingly pieces together how the Fourth Amendment has been effectively stripped of all meaning for the individuals who are stopped, and stopped extremely regularly, in these terrorizing everyday fishing expeditions. Police are allowed to stop individuals for virtually no reason and then ask to conduct a search without making clear that one can refuse; should one actually refuse, he will normally be arrested on a bogus charge, at which point he will be searched anyway. Meanwhile, virtually all claims of racial bias in this process have been ruled null and void by the Supreme Court, with racial profiling even sanctioned, provided it is not the “sole factor” influencing a stop.

After “the roundup,” Alexander shows how defendants have their charges trumped up and are denied meaningful representation. Often, they are forced to make a decision regarding whether or not to accept a plea deal in an incredibly short period of time, without first being given access to counsel. With extraordinarily high mandatory minimum sentences, charged individuals are almost guaranteed to plead guilty to “lesser” charges that are still likely to result in years in prison — all, usually, for simple possession. In fact, legislators and prosecutors admit that this coercive power to compel guilty pleas is precisely the intent behind minimum sentencing laws. Should defendants actually go to trial, they are likely to face inadequate representation from a vastly overworked lawyer and all or heavily white juries. Alexander further demonstrates that lengthy prison sentences are not the end, as social control extends through parole, which can result in a return to detention for the most minor of infractions — including continued addiction, being unable to make a scheduled check-in, or being unable to pay exorbitant fees. In 2000, 35 percent of all prison admissions were the result of parole violations. And, Alexander exposes, all claims of racial bias during these stages of the process have also been effectively cut off.

Finally, Alexander examines the period of “invisible punishment.” Upon release, ex-offenders face a maze of legal restrictions conjured up by “get tough” politicians largely in the Clinton 90s. Most commonly recognized is the virtual inability to find meaningful employment with a felony on one’s record, despite the fact that such a huge number of convicted felonies are non-violent. Even crueler than the inability to support oneself and one’s family is the fact that failure to maintain employment is a common cause of rearrest as a parole violation. In addition to being unable to obtain or maintain employment, let alone employment that provides enough to genuinely live off, individuals with felony drug convictions are barred from receiving federally funded public assistance in most states, including food stamps. Further, drug offenders are not eligible for public housing, and housing discrimination against not only former felons but also “suspected criminals” is perfectly legal. Public housing recipients are also able to be evicted for any drug crime committed in or even near their homes, even if they themselves were not aware of it, making relatives of usually-poor released prisoners reluctant to take them in, even temporarily. Ex-felons are barred from voting at least temporarily in almost every state, and voting rights are notoriously hard to get back even when ex-offenders are eligible, resulting in enormous numbers of officially disenfranchised Black citizens, and far more unofficially. None of this is to even begin to touch on the social stigma of a criminal record. All up, Alexander convincingly shows that the intent and effect of the new Jim Crow is to punish Black men, who entered the system only because they are Black, into perpetuity.

The New Jim Crow is not without its flaws and limitations. Alexander declines to take up the issue of increasing rates of incarceration for women both cis and trans, though these women are themselves overwhelmingly non-white, instead choosing to focus on the large majority of male individuals swept into the criminal justice system. While Alexander retains a sharp focus on class, she does avoid and ignore other marginalized identities that make one more likely to be targeted by the criminal justice system, such as disability and mental illness. Further, while the system was clearly designed decades ago to target Black men specifically, the more recent and apparently seamless adaptation of mass incarceration to the growing Latino population’s threat to white supremacy — and what this adaptation means — is left for future writers to take up.

While Alexander’s strict focus on the drug war is understandable, it can be somewhat frustrating in its exclusion of all other causes of mass incarceration. Though most of her racial rhetoric is bold, even radical, in various passages toward the end of the book I found myself disagreeing with some of Alexander’s more soft-peddled stances. The economic realities of the (never-named) prison industrial complex, also a huge player in increased incarceration rates and their maintenance, only garner a couple of pages of discussion. And surely, the topic of racism within the criminal justice system is too large for any single book to cover comprehensively, which means that major issues like police violence, prison violence, lack of adequate medical care in prisons, and so on, are barely touched on, if they are broached at all.

Despite the fact that one book cannot be everything, that’s not an insignificant list. And yet, this book is still invaluable in what it does accomplish: a vital primer for how racism and white supremacy function at all levels of the criminal justice system and how they are not mere accidents or unfortunate side effects. The New Jim Crow is compelling and endlessly quotable, a necessary read for anyone whose vision of social justice hopes to actually address race as a major axis of oppression in the United States.

Currently incarcerated persons are probably already the most isolated individuals in the United States. Those who are not only incarcerated but also the victims of sexual violence while imprisoned face little support, few mental health and recovery services, the ongoing threat of violence, and even retaliation should they speak of the abuse. With their support networks ripped from them, their right to safety revoked, and their abusers (who are most frequently prison officials) having control over every aspect of their lives, they are among the most vulnerable sexual assault survivors.

In light of this, sending a 250 character message of support and greeting during the holiday season may seem a truly underwhelming gesture. It is precisely these same conditions, however, that makes such a small act able to speak volumes. Incarcerated persons are cultural pariahs, socially treated as subhuman, and/or told that they deserve sexual violence as a condition of their detention. A few kind and compassionate words, under those circumstances, could mean the world.

Rafael, a recipient of a holiday card through Just Detention’s 2010 campaign and victim of multiple assaults by state corrections officers, stated:

Here I was in my cell sitting on my bed on Christmas Eve, sad but hanging in there. My thoughts were on my mom who passed on in 2004, and thinking ‘man, this is my 24th Christmas behind bars.’ Then at about 4 pm the officer gave me some mail from JDI. I was surprised because I don’t get much mail. Being incarcerated for so long, friends and family have forgotten me or passed on. When I read the holiday cards my heart skipped a beat and I started to cry. Yes, this 46-year old hard-core convict was crying. The kind words of encouragement, blessing, and letting me know that I’m not forgotten from total strangers from far away shattered my emotions. Please let them all know that I love them all and will cherish their words in my heart. And yes, I will walk with my head up high and will share my story with no shame and will help others that find themselves in similar situations.

Another (anonymous) survivor said:

I have been down since 1998 and have not had a card or letter sent to me, nor a visit. To receive those cards has totally left me speechless. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

While Just Detention International works to eradicate sexual violence in prisons — and other activists do work to more fundamentally dismantle the racist (classist, transphobic, homophobic, misogynistic, ableist …) prison industrial complex — please take a few short moments today to send a message to a person who has experienced sexual violence while incarcerated. Your message will be transcribed by hand into a card by a JDI volunteer and delivered to a currently incarcerated person who has experienced sexual violence while detained.

If you’re having trouble knowing what to say, JDI has provided me with some examples of actual messages written by others:

“I wish you hope, healing, and support. Please know there are people fighting for you, even if you have never seen us. Know there is love.”

“May you take comfort in knowing that countless people in the free world care deeply about you and will not stop fighting for justice.”

“From one survivor to another, I send you hope for peace of mind and heart. On both sides of the bars, we give one another strength to go on.”

“Dear Friend, I guess this time of year may feel particularly hard. Please let me take a minute to say that I recognize that your humanity and your safety are worth fighting for regardless of your detention. I wish you hope and joy every day. Be well.”

It is imperative that work to support those currently suffering under oppressive conditions be done simultaneously with work to dismantle the oppressive systems that create those conditions. Ultimately, your words may mean a lot more than you know. Please send a card today and help spread the word.

Trigger Warning for discussions of sexual violence, prison violence, anti-trans violence, rape apologism, and transphobia and misgendering.

Recently, a woman was allegedly raped orally by a prison guard at Riverside Correctional Facility. She reported the assault to authorities, and an investigation was begun. During that investigation, officials learned that she was not cis, as they had apparently been assuming, and promptly transferred her to a male prison (trigger warning on the link).

Jovanie Saldana, who has been named by prison authorities and the media despite being the victim of sexual assault, has now had her basic rights violated many times over. She was violated when a prison guard entered her cell and forced her to perform oral sex on him. She was violated when her brave decision to report this assault resulted in an investigation that placed her under scrutiny and revoked her right to privacy. She was violated when she was sent to a male prison, both denying her true gender and placing her at extreme risk of further physical and sexual violence. And she was violated when her name was released and spread without concern for her privacy or safety.

Clearly, trans prison inmates are not seen to be deserving of the same rights as their cis, non-inmate counterparts. That Saldana is a black woman also could not have helped these already abusive and oppressive figures to see her as more human. (Indeed, trans women of color are at much higher risk of violence than white trans women.) Saldana’s cousin strongly believes that the transfer to a men’s prison is retaliation for her rape allegations; the timing, media attention, and reaction of the prison guard’s union certainly make these charges credible.

If true, it means that the Pennsylvania prison system essentially punished an inmate for reporting rape by subjecting her to likely future rapes. (Fifty-nine percent of trans women are sexually assaulted while incarcerated, and the vast majority of trans women inmates are housed in men’s facilities.) Even if retaliation was not the primary motive behind the decision to move Saldana, the facts remain the same; a victim of prison rape has not been protected, but instead placed in a position where future prison rape is more likely than not.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, however, is far more concerned with Saldana’s gender presentation and genitals than with the allegation that she was raped by a prison guard who had control over every aspect of her daily life. They also are far more concerned about the prison’s apparently lax policy on cavity searches than the fact that a woman is now residing very unsafely in a men’s prison so shortly after reporting that assault. Indeed, they seem more concerned about the threat that Saldana allegedly presented to her fellow prisoners merely by existing:

A source close to the prison system, who asked not to be identified, complained that the slip-up “jeopardized a lot of women over there [at Riverside],” adding that Saldana tallied at least two infractions for fighting with other inmates during Saldana’s stint in the female jail. On average, Riverside houses about 730 inmates daily, Hawes said.

Of course, it’s not noted how many “infractions” most inmates at Riverside have or whether Saldana is the one who instigated the fights. It’s also not explained how, exactly, Saldana is more of a threat than any other inmate at the prison. We’re simply supposed to “understand” that trans women are “really men,” and therefore threatening to all cis women. The specter of sexual violence is also present, as trans women are routinely portrayed by everyone from Christian Conservatives to self-identified feminists as sexually predatory men in disguise.

Through this defamatory portrayal of Saldana, we are supposed to forget that the true sexually violent perpetrator was a cis man. In reality, it’s Saldana who was the victim of sexual violence, and the real threat to the safety of all women in the prison, both trans and cis, was the armed cis guard lording over them. Only in a kyriarchal society could the black trans woman who was raped and then placed in a position where she is very likely to be raped again be effectively transformed into the “real” sexual threat against more socially valued womanhood.

Indeed, the corrections officers’ union plans to exploit Saldana’s trans status to brand her as a liar, unrapeable, or some combination of both (warning for misgendering):

Lorenzo North, president of the union representing corrections officers, declined to discuss the officers’ failure to perform the required cavity searches.

“I don’t know how [Saldana] got through,” North said, adding that all inmates should be searched. “If you don’t strip-search somebody thoroughly, then you’re not 100 percent sure of getting whatever [contraband] that inmate has. He may have something up his butt.”

But North claimed the goof proved that the officer whom Saldana accused of sexual abuse is innocent.

The officer was transferred to another prison after Saldana’s recent complaint.

“I’m trying to get him back to RCF [Riverside] as soon as possible, because he didn’t do anything wrong,” North said.

How, exactly, Saldana being trans — and officers failing to do their jobs, for that matter — proves that she lied about being raped is not exactly clear. We are either to assume that trans women are “liars” by mere fact of living their lives as women (and that people who lie sometimes cannot tell the truth about being raped), or that trans women have no right to bodily autonomy to begin with and therefore cannot be sexually violated.

Either way, the purposeful dehumanization of Saldana and all inmates by proxy is terrifying, as is the stark inability to accept responsibility and hold guards to a standard of professionalism. North’s attitude as a prison guard authority inadvertently makes it incredibly easy to see how the original sexual assault occurred in the first place. Clearly it’s because those tasked with protecting prisoner safety do not give a shit, and excuses for violations will always be made.

This woman’s safety has been severely jeopardized. She needs protection and recovery services for the assault she endured, not an incredibly more dangerous set of surroundings and public outing. The prison system has behaved abysmally, showing a blatant disregard for inmate safety. Rape is not supposed to be a part of the punishment for any crime. And this rule isn’t only supposed to apply if you’re cis.

via Transgriot

A new study about the ongoing rape epidemic in the Congo has some rather terrifying statistics to offer. According to USA Today, 420,000 women are raped in the DRC every year.

Or, if you ask the Boston Globe, 1,152 women are raped every day. The Guardian reports that 48 women are raped every hour. And the Sydney Morning Herald ups the ante even further by putting the number at one rape every minute.

Even if all of the varying numbers did add up just so, I can’t be the only one wondering when exactly this ongoing campaign of sexual terrorism against women turned into a competition over which Western newspaper could write the most shocking headline. Nor can I refrain from asking what, exactly, is the magic number of rapes that will suddenly make us care? Would the headlines still be blaring if it were 30 rapes an hour? Is one rape every one and a half minutes just too few that the numbers needed to be fudged and made even more sensationalistic? Do we, as Western observers, care more now than we would if the number were actually one rape every five minutes?

Do we care now? Will the subject merit our true attention? Will we suddenly start listening to Congolese survivors? Are we ashamed for not having listened more closely before, for not believing the full magnitude when women were already telling us the truth? Do we feel better now that a U.S. organization has officially verified their lived experiences? Or will we remain indifferent until the numbers hit two rapes every minute? Five rapes every minute? One every second? Where precisely is the cut off point for compassion and a sense justice? How many women must be raped before we start to care enough to look at the causes? How high do the numbers have to be?

I am in no way trying to suggest that these numbers do not matter. Nor am I arguing that they are not horrific, that they do not deserve attention, or that headlines on the topic are unwarranted. What I’m condemning is the objectifying and imperialistic tendency towards disaster porn. What I’m criticizing is the refusal to engage with the issue of violence in the Congo in an in-depth and ongoing basis that puts these numbers in context, and the decision to instead resort to pearl-clutching headlines designed to shock Western readers with information we already had and will continue to ignore.

I’m also making clear that the response to this extremely extended crisis would look a lot different were it occurring somewhere other than sub-Sahara Africa. It’s not that the media takes most rape seriously, or that even the most privileged rape survivors are immune to rape apologism, victim-blaming, and indifference — this entire blog is a testament to these things not being true.

But on the one hand, that is precisely the point. These same newspapers that report these numbers with horror and very little background or analysis will tomorrow resort to shaming and casting doubt on rape victims from their own communities. Tomorrow, when it is no longer convenient to feign interest in rape, it will be back to business as usual. Tomorrow, lines will be drawn between the “date rape” that so many women needlessly whine and exaggerate about and the “real” rape that is downplayed by taking it seriously — after all, what about those women in the Congo?

Indeed, the part of this study that has been the most ignored and will continue to be pushed to the margins is the fact that this study shows higher numbers than others, in large part, because it includes rape by intimate partners instead of only rape committed as a tactic of war — a fact that makes the situation look a lot more similar to the one in countries where most don’t consider rape to be a big problem.

And, on the other hand, while the shaming and ridicule of rape victims is ubiquitous in the U.S. and other Western countries, some victims are indeed always more valued than others. We wouldn’t have to wait until the number of rapes hit “one every minute” before we started to care, if a large portion of those victims were white, cis, economically privileged women — at least, not if those rapes were in large part being committed within the context of war and with the level of violence we’re seeing against Congolese women. We wouldn’t have to wonder whether one every minute is actually going to be enough to cause real concern. We would know that there would be outrage.

But women who are black, who are poor, who are from countries labeled “third world” always fall towards the very bottom of hierarchy of rape victims who will gain Western attention. We in developed Western nations can and will ignore their plight because we have constructed them as less than women, less than human. We can simultaneously tut-tut at the atrocity and turn away from it because it is what we expect from those men we have culturally constructed as inherently barbaric, because it’s what we believe the women have come to expect, too.

And we can ignore our role — the role of industrialized nations and of consumers, especially in the U.S. We can look at the numbers and think it is “them” instead of “us.” We who aren’t living in the Congo can refuse to ask the question of why there is so much rape and assume that it has something to do with “lesser” cultures instead of so much to do with our own. We can side-step questions of rape culture and imperialism and colonialism and economic racism and consumer culture. We can forget to ask why we ignored earlier opportunities to ask hard questions and demand change.

We, we reading these headlines divorced from the context in which the news was created, can read “one rape every minute” and exclaim “those poor women!” without wondering why we didn’t care before someone made the headline sufficiently eye-grabbing, and without demanding accountability from ourselves now.

Last year, I wrote quite a bit about prisoner rape and the failure of the Department of Justice to implement new standards to address the epidemic in a timely fashion. I previously urged you to submit public comments to the Justice Department regarding the implementation of new guidelines. Almost a year has passed, and still the Justice Department is moving ahead on the issue at a snail’s pace, as people in detention are being raped every day with little to no recourse, and with their rapists (most likely to be prison guards) frequently controlling every aspect of their lives.

Now, we are entering the very end of the final comment period, which closes on April 4, 2011. After this comment period ends, the Department of Justice will finalize its new standards regarding prison rape, and prisons will all have one year to comply or risk losing federal funding.

This final comment period is extraordinarily important, because the new standards are not even remotely shaping up to be the sweeping set of changes that are required. A press release I received via email from Just Detention International reads in part (emphasis mine):

“Key parts of the Justice Department’s standards are unconscionably weak,” said Lovisa Stannow, Just Detention International’s Executive Director. “The next few days are the last chance for advocates, survivors, forward-thinking corrections officials, and concerned citizens to demand that something meaningful be done about the disgraceful epidemic of prisoner rape.”

In 2003, Congress unanimously passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). PREA created the bipartisan National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, which spent years studying the problem before delivering its recommendations to Attorney General Eric Holder for ratification. In his proposed version of the standards, however, Holder has dramatically watered down the consensus recommendations by the commission.

Holder has removed limits on cross-gender pat searches and viewing of inmates using the toilet or shower, despite having documented that most staff abuse of inmates is cross-gender, and that it often begins during pat searches. Contrary to the clear intent of PREA, the Department has also decided that the standards should not apply to immigration facilities — even though immigration detainees are among the most vulnerable to abuse. Holder has even proposed that corrections agencies be allowed to police their own compliance with the standards by using an internal employee to conduct audits, rejecting the commission’s recommendation (and standard practice in the Western world) that oversight be conducted by independent monitors.

“The stated reason for weakening the commission’s recommendations was cost,” said Stannow.  “But the Justice Department’s own data, together with its preliminary cost-benefit analysis of the standards, make abundantly clear that much stronger standards would be warranted even from a purely financial perspective. This suggests that the Attorney General’s true reasons for weakening the standards are primarily political.“

These changes are dramatic, they are unconscionable, and they are unworkable. And they cannot be allowed to go forward without a fight. Restricting cross-gender supervision is one of the most obvious ways to effectively prevent a large number of assaults that are being committed every single day. And attempting to address the issue of sexual violence in detention without addressing immigration facilities is blatantly discriminatory and hateful, not to mention hugely ineffective. That there could possibly even be political reasons to not take the most effective steps to prevent prisoners from being raped is sickening and infuriating.

But the prison lobby is strong, and so is the anti-immigration lobby, which frankly believes that undocumented persons don’t deserve safety or protection of any kind. That’s why getting as many comments in before the deadline on Monday is extremely important.

Just Detention International has all the information you need to submit your public comment. JDI provides a letter template for you, but please take the time to write your own. Submitting public comments is not like contacting your representative — it is quality that counts over quantity. The Department of Justice needs to hear about why standards to address prisoner rape need to be strict, why they need to include immigration facilities, and why restrictions on cross-gender supervision are an integral part of any serious effort to prevent as many assaults as possible immediately. Read more in-depth talking points from Just Detention International and get your comments in by Monday, April 4.

Trigger Warning for descriptions of sexual violence and abuses against sex workers

Last week, Jordan Flaherty wrote an article at Colorlines about how sex workers are being punished under an archaic and punitive law that specifically targets those who are convicted of selling oral or anal sex (as opposed to vaginal sex). The law makes these sex workers open to being labeled as felons by police and prosecutors, and worst of all, forces them to register as sex offenders.

Last month, a coalition of advocates, including Women With A Vision and the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed a federal lawsuit challenging the statue:

Eve, who asked that we not reveal her real name or age, spent two years in prison. During her time behind bars she was raped and contracted HIV. Upon release, she was forced to register in the state’s sex offender database. The words “sex offender” now appear on her driver’s license. “I have tried desperately to change my life,” she says, but her status as a sex offender stands in the way of housing and other programs. “When I present my ID for anything,” she says, “the assumption is that you’re a child molester or a rapist. The discrimination is just ongoing and ongoing.”

Eve was penalized under Louisiana’s 205-year-old Crime Against Nature statute, a blatantly discriminatory law that legislators have maneuvered to keep on the state’s books for the purpose of turning sex workers into felons. As enforced, the law specifically singles out oral and anal sex for greater punishment for those arrested for prostitution, including requiring those convicted to register as sex offenders in a public database. Advocates say the law has further isolated poor women of color in particular, including those who are forced to trade sex for food or a place to sleep at night.

In 2003, the Supreme Court outlawed sodomy laws with its decision in Lawrence v. Texas. That ruling should have invalidated Louisiana’s law entirely. Instead, the state has chosen to only enforce the portion of the law that concerns “solicitation” of a crime against nature. The decision on whether to charge accused sex workers with a felony instead of Louisiana’s misdemeanor prostitution law is left entirely in the hands of police and prosecutors.

Prior to the lawsuit, Colorlines was covering the issue over a year ago. Melissa Gira Grant wrote about the suit at Third Wave right after it was filed last month, and the INCITE! Blog was on it both last year and earlier this month. You should definitely go check those articles out, as there’s no doubt that I’m behind. But I still think the issue is worth writing about and getting further attention.

As noted by Flaherty, Louisiana is the only U.S. state that requires people who have been convicted of crimes that do not involve minors or violence outside the sexual violence itself to register as sex offenders. Meghan’s Law, which created sex offender registries, was clearly intended to target rapists. Louisiana has actively made the choice to abuse the registry to further shame, punish, and vilify sex workers who have not committed any violence. Women are by far the primary target of these efforts, though gay and bisexual men are also incredibly vulnerable. Of the women targeted by the state, women who are non-white, trans, and/or poor are most open to attack.

People convicted under the Louisiana law must carry a state ID with the words “sex offender” printed below their name. If they have to evacuate because of a hurricane, they must stay in a special shelter for sex offenders that has no separate facilities for men and women. They have to pay a $60 annual registration fee, in addition to $250 to $750 to print and mail postcards to their neighbors every time they move. The post cards must show their names and addresses, and often they are required to include a photo. Failing to register and pay the fees, a separate crime, can carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison.

Women and men on the registry will also find their names, addresses, and convictions printed in the newspaper and published in an online sex offender database. The same information is also displayed at public sites like schools and community centers. Women—including one mother of three—have complained that because of their appearance on the registry, they have had men come to their homes demanding sex. A plaintiff in the suit had rocks thrown at her by neighbors. “This has forced me to live in poverty, be on food stamps and welfare,” explains a man who was on the list. “I’ve never done that before.”

In Orleans Parish, 292 people are on the registry for selling sex, versus 85 people convicted of forcible rape and 78 convicted of “indecent behavior with juveniles.” Almost 40 percent of those registered in Orleans Parish are there solely because they were accused of offering anal or oral sex for money. Seventy-five percent of those on the database for Crime Against Nature are women, and 80 percent are African American. Evidence gathered by advocates suggests a majority are poor or indigent.

There are several broad critiques to be made of sex offender registry programs. In addition to the racial profiling and discriminatory enforcement noted in the Colorlines article, there are also further questions regarding whether sex offender registries actually keep communities safer and/or lower recidivism rates. Support for sex offender registry programs generally, however, should not be viewed as in any way incompatible with thinking that the Louisiana system is being used as a means of violence and oppression against sex workers and must immediately be overturned.

This is not in any way about keeping communities safer. It is about further punishing and portraying as deviant those who have failed to comply with societal rules regarding sexuality, class, and womanhood. It’s not about making communities safer, it’s about specifically ensuring that these particular community members are as unsafe as possible. And in that sense, it’s certainly working.

Because of the way that sex workers are generally made vulnerable to violence, as well as the ways that prisoners face frequent sexual assault, the most callous part of this practice may be the fact that such large numbers of those forced to register as sex offenders for non-violent offenses are victims of sexual violence themselves. Most of the women and men profiled in these articles talk about having been raped, whether as adults or children, whether by clients or family members, by prison guards or fellow prisoners. They must register as sex offenders, be unable to find employment or residences, face harassment and assault, and bear scarlet letters on their identification while at the same time, probably all of their actual rapists do not have to do the same. They have not only been raped, but been given their rapists’ punishments. They have not only been raped, but told that they are like, or perhaps worse than, their actual rapists.

And while this form of punishment for an act that should not be illegal in the first place is not even remotely acceptable for those who do engage in sex work because it is their preferred profession, it is also worth noting that there are many sex workers who do sex work as a form of survival or have otherwise been coerced. These workers are already more likely to be in street-based economies, and therefore are more likely to be targeted by law enforcement and more likely to be singled out for felony instead of misdemeanor punishment as a result of judicial prejudice.

In other words, punishing people for what they choose to do with their own bodies, when those actions do not harm any other person, is unconscionable — as is punishing them specifically for selling forms of sex perceived as less acceptable by a cissexist, heterosexist, anti-sex society. But quite a few of those women and men who have been forced to register as sex offenders didn’t even necessarily have a choice. And for that, they have been branded by a racist, anti-trans, classist, anti-gay system.

It will be interesting to see how this case plays out, and whether the court will decide with power and oppression as usual, or with the people and justice.

The Afghan government has drafted new rules which would severely harm women who are the victims of domestic violence and greatly impede their ability to leave their abusers. Local women’s shelters run by Afghan women would be turned over to the control of the government and subjected to new misogynistic rules. Women for Afghan Women writes:

The government of Afghanistan has recently introduced a bill that wrests control of women’s shelters in Afghanistan from the local Afghan women’s NGOs that have founded and run them, and transfers that control to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA).  This bill could become the law of the land ANY DAY NOW.

If this bill becomes law:

Women and girls seeking shelter will be required to plead their case before an eight-member Government panel, including conservative members of the Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice.  This panel will determine whether a woman needs to be in a shelter or should be sent to jail or returned to her home (and her abuser).

Women will have to undergo “forensic” exams (virginity tests) to determine whether they have had sex and therefore committed adultery. The tests are medically invalid.

Once admitted to a shelter, women will be forbidden to leave. Their shelter will become their prison. If any family member comes to claim her, even her abuser, she will be handed over to that person, in most cases to be subjected to the harshest retribution for shaming the family.

You can find more information through both the NY Times and the Ms. Magazine Blog.

I can’t add much more than what has already been said, but this is a horrifying assault on women’s rights, and it would result in making countless victims far less safe than they already are. It needs to be stopped, and women need to remain in control of their own organizations and their own lives.

Women for Afghan Women has a petition to save the women’s shelters. Please take a moment to click through and sign.

Thanks to Claire for the link

Arizona legislators are working on a new anti-immigration bill that is essentially the hospital equivalent of their notorious SB 1070. The new bill, SB 1405, would require all hospitals within the state to verify the immigration status of all patients. If a patient cannot prove that sie is in the country legally, hospital staff would be required by law to contact immigration officials.

A new bill making its way through Arizona’s state legislature is drawing a lot of attention. It’s Senate Bill 1405. Some call it the hospital version of SB 1070.

Anyone who has spent a day at Maricopa County Medical Center knows people from all walks of life are wheeled through the halls.

But if a new piece of legislation passes, some of those patients will be wheeled from the emergency room to immigration officials.

If SB 1405 passes, hospitals would be required to check a patient’s citizenship status after administering any emergency medical care.

If the person isn’t in the United States legally, the law would require they be turned over to immigration officials.

Yes, this bill is real. It can be read in full on the Arizona State Legislature’s website, and view the official fact sheet.

Now, the bill itself does not actually require that hospitals refuse treatment to those who are undocumented or cannot prove immigration status. SB 1405 doesn’t go quite that far — at least, in this draft.

But do not be at all mistaken — if passed, an inability to access medical care will be precisely what occurs all the same.

Already, some immigrants, terrified and terrorized by the very real raids and surveillances that are a daily threat to their communities, falsely believe that hospitals are required to check immigration status. As a result, they avoid medical treatment, even when it is dire. People have become very ill, risked their lives, been left with lifelong conditions that would have been treatable earlier, and undoubtedly died. Because there is a war to protect U.S. borders, and undocumented bodies have inevitably been declared its enemy.

If this bill is passed — and with the passage of SB 1070, it is most certainly more than a remote possibility — that situation will be multiplied many times over. People will forced to choose between the dangerousness of refusing medical care and hoping they survive and the dangerousness of interacting with institutions have declared their existence, their very selves to be “illegal.” As now with those who can’t afford care in the U.S. for-profit medical system, serious conditions will be nervously brushed off. Rape victims, victims of intimate partner violence, and women and trans* people who are having pregnancy complications will go without treatment. There will be no such thing as safety. Violence will become even more inescapable than it is now. And people will die.

People will die.

They will die, and this fact — this is not speculation, it is a simple cause and effect analysis, it is a fact — is neither a secret nor a mystery. And clearly, that’s at least part of the point. As KPHO Phoenix reports:

Those in favor of the bill said hospitals shouldn’t be treating people in the country illegally.

They don’t quote a proponent of the bill in support of this statement, but such people are not exactly difficult to find. They are everywhere, asking why should “they” (undocumented immigrants) get to use “our” (U.S.) schools, anyway? Clearly, children whose parents don’t have the right papers do not deserve an education, they do not need to read or add or write. They are seen asking why “they” should be allowed to use “our” police forces. Clearly, some of us deserve access to the institutions generally regarded as the primary means to keep communities safe, some of us deserve to report crimes against us, to not be assaulted and raped, and some of us do not. And they are indeed seen asking why “they” should be allowed to use “our” hospitals — there is a health care crisis already, so how dare they use up resources?

Clearly, some of us deserve to live and some of us deserve to die. Because that is what the ability to access health care comes down to. And those supporting this bill know it.

And then there is this:

Senate President Russell Pearce, a Mesa Republican who was chief sponsor of last year’s immigration law, says the hospitals bill is part of a broader effort to crack down on illegal immigration. The hospitals bill wouldn’t bar people from getting care, but it would put the onus on hospitals to “do due diligence,” Pearce said. “We’re going to enforce our laws without apology.”

Added Pearce: “It’s the law. It’s a felony to (aid and) abet. We’re going to enforce the law without apology.”

This is what happens when we declare people “illegal,” when we start calling them by that slur publicly and officially. If they are illegal, their very lives are illegal. To protect the health and safety of those declared illegal, to afford them the very most basic human rights, to treat them as human beings, becomes a crime.

As ms. radically hott off writes:

How much more savage and vindictive can we be? what other mami will have to choose between the health of her children and a place to live/work? Do you know what that feels like? To see your sick child and know—I’m going to have to take her in? To *dread* getting help for your child? I feel like that all the time because of money—I can’t even imagine the added burden of knowing that you will lose everything because your child has a right to live and be healthy.

Those proposing and supporting this bill don’t even recognize that this right to live and be healthy exists for certain bodies, including those which belong to children. They certainly don’t mind putting it in extraordinary jeopardy.

The bill was originally scheduled to go before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, but was yanked at the last moment due to a lack of votes. The sponsors, however, have stated that they are considering other committees. We have most certainly not seen the last of SB 1405, and with numerous other states considering legislation similar to SB 1070, we are witnessing the mere beginning of a white supremacist resurgence in the U.S. In the general public consciousness, the bars for what constitutes either “extreme” or “racist” have both been raised. Progressives can only ignore efforts like these and assume they will just go away at the risk of people losing not only their homes and incomes and right to be near their families, but also their lives.