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Vaccine Apartheid? Occupation in the time of COVID-19 with Dr Mustafa Barghouti & Dr Yara Asi

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Delta variant and ‘vaccine apartheid’
to blame for COVID-19 surge? | COVID-19 Special

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Why Everything Costs Money - Capital Vol. 1

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Why Everything Costs Money - Capital Vol. 1

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"POLITICAL THOUGHTS FOR FOLKS WHO DON'T WANT TO READ SO MANY DAMN PAGES"

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If you've got the outline of the book in front of you, you'll see that Part One (the first 3 chapters) is called "Commodities and Money". Part 2, the next 3 chapters, is called "The Transformation of Money into Capital". Commodities, money, and capital have something to do with each other if you ask Marx, and the goal of these first few chapters is for him to say what exactly they have to do with each other. Marx says this like he says everything in this book: painfully, painfully slowly - these chapters are together 127 pages in the Penguin print. Buckle up.

​Marx lays out the basics to what folks call the labor theory of value. Marx didn't come up with this theory but he makes some important innovations in these pages. Capitalism is an economic system based on commodity production. But what's a commodity? It's an "external object, a thing which...satisfied human needs of whatever kind" (125). Oh, you mean, like a stapler? Like a stapler. Or an iPhone, or a baseball bat, whatever. Commodities have (and, confusingly, are) two kinds of value: a use-value and exchange-value.
Two Kinds of Value for Commodities
Use-value means the thing Marx just got done saying: you can use something thing to do shit you want done. What you can use it to do depends on its physical characteristics - machetes aren't great for doing neurosurgery because they're not the right size and they're shaped badly for the job. Great for hacking through tall grasses though. Since the physical properties of an object (e.g. size and shape) determine what it can be used for, when you're describing what makes a machete potentially useful you're just describing a machete. Commodities are use values.

But we also exchange objects. In a world like ours we usually exchange them for money, but what makes money useful is that we can buy other stuff (use values!) with it, so you might as well cut out the middleman if we're going to think philosophically about it. That is: say I have a machete, machetes = $2 bucks, and you have some plantains, each of which = $1 dollar. (Marx uses coats and linen. this doesn't matter.) If I want some plantains and don't want to keep my machete, I have a clear strategy for how to get them: find someone who will trade dollars for my machete, and then trade you the dollars for two of your plantains. But if they're really worth what I've said they're worth, I might as well have handed you the machete for your plantains in the first place, instead of each of us finding two extra people who have nothing to do with the trade I had in mind.

But wait, isn't that weird (pgs. 163-165)? A machete is a lot of things - sharp, metallic, good at cutting things, a certain size and weight. Plantains are lots of things too: soft, tasty when fried, like bananas but for real niggas. But if what I've just said is true, I've said that there's a mathematical equation like this: 1 machete = 2 plantains! A machete is a couple of plantains? The fuck does that mean?

However weird it is, this follows from the fact that anything you buy has a price. Now maybe prices are a magical fantasy of some kind, and they don't mean anything. Maybe "1 machete = 2 plantains" and all the equations that we could make with the same kind of thinking ("1 iphone = 150 Subway footlongs" or "1 Mexican stratocaster = .00048 yachts") are just gibberish, and it don't mean anything. But that's not what Marx thinks. Marx thinks it does mean something. There's something they have in common, a unit of measure that we can give them that makes the math meaningful. That's exchange value.

The exchange-value isn't the same kind of value as use value - no matter how many plantains you stack up, you're not going to be able to cut grass with them. In Marx's terms, a machete and a plantain are "qualitatively" different use values. But somebody had to build the machete, and someone had to do the agricultural work to plant and harvest the plantains. And maybe in our example it takes twice as much work time on average to turn the steel into a machete like the one I wanted to trade you as it takes on average to harvest plantain. If our equation "1 machete = 2 plantains" had something to it, if there was a real equivalence in value being expressed there, maybe it's that. This is a hidden "law of nature", the signal under the noisy movement of relative prices that makes them tend towards certain proportions (maybe machetes will be $1.97 tomorrow and 2.04 the day after, but there's a reason why they're dancing around $2). (168).

(You might be thinking: what if this particular machete was really quick to make? Is the equation wrong? But we don't value particular objects this way: no one goes to the store and asks whether this box of Poptarts on the left got forgotten in the back of the factory and actually took more labor-time than the other boxes of Poptarts. This is what the "on average" thing is doing - getting us to judge the from a societal level, on the whole category of object "machetes" rather than the particular one I have in my hand right now.)

So again, commodities: machetes, plantains, staplers, iPhones - they all have two kinds of value. Use value describes their physical shape and what they're good for as a result, exchange value describes how much labor goes into making those kinds of things.
Two Kinds of Value for Labor

But we can say the same thing about labor! The kind of work that it takes to make a machete is qualitatively different than the kind that it takes to make plantain - the first kind involves probably some kind of metal work with fire and shit, and the second has something to do with trees or something. To say it with Marx's terms, the use-value of metal work is different from the use value of agricultural work. But when we were figuring out exchange value of machetes and plantains, we didn't talk about what kind of work was needed to make both of them. We only talked about how much, and we measured that with time - that is, not the specific kinds of skills or practices were involved. You need the right kind of work to make sure you end up with the right kind of object at the end, a machete instead of a fancy paperweight. You need the right amount of work time to make sure that the machete you end up with is worth twice what a plantain's worth. Think about this last point whenever you see Marx (or Marxists) talk about "simple labor", "abstract labor" "congealed labor" or even just "labor" when people are describing that in some kind of weird abstraction.
Money and the Two Kinds of Value
So, both commodities and labor have two kinds of value: the kind based on what they do and their particular concrete characteristics (use-value) and the kind that abstract from their particular characteristics and make individual commodities or production labor measurable against other ones in the mathsy way. The second kind lets you put them in equations based on abstract characteristics (how much of society's general "simple labor" it takes to make a thing, or how much labor-time is "congealed" in the commodity).

But what's special about plantains? Other than the treat of eating fried slices of them, nothing: we could compare machetes to pencils, or iPhones, or cakes. Which comparison would get us at the real value of machetes themselves, rather than their value relative to plantains or pencils or cakes? If we can only say how valuable something is by saying how valuable it is relative to something else, we could ask how valuable that second thing is. Then we'd need a third thing to measure the value of the second thing. But then: how valuable is the third thing?! You never get to the end of that road no matter how long you kick the can. Don't get me wrong, you'll hit a wall eventually since there aren't a literal infinity of things sold: we could try just simultaneously comparing machetes to all the other goods in society in a given historical period (1 machete = 2 plantains = 2.4 oranges = .000032 rocketships =...) but then we would need to start over this every time someone comes up with new shit to sell. (153-162).
But there's an easy way out of this. We can just designate one commodity as our unit of measurement for value, in the way that (I assume) King Cumberbatch the 23rd-and-a-half of England just pointed to his Air Aquinas sneakers one day and that's why we measure distance in "feet". Historically, the value of everything that got bought and sold in a society has often been pegged to standardized weights of gold, but we can skip to paper currency because that's obviously where this is going unless you are on team Ron Paul. There's a danger of "fetishism" here, which is that we might forget that we're just using gold as a yardstick, and might start thinking of gold itself (in the physical, use value sense) as being the thing that confers value on other things. That's not so important here yet, but this kind of argument will matter later.

Finally: all of this pretend math really stands in for complicated social relationships (149-152, 164-166). The social processes that organize the creation of commodities, and their relation to exchanges that (based on perceptions of value) help clarify what social relationships are involved and why they matter. What it actually means that a machete is "worth $2" is that I live in a society that a) has dollars as a currency to begin with and b) will exchange two of those dollars for this machete. Even though there's an explanation for the math behind the initially weird "1 machete = 2 plantains", its a social explanation: in this society, given how labor is organized and our current levels of technology, it takes twice as much labor-time in general as a society to make 1 machete as it does to make 1 plantain.

If our society was organized differently, if someone patents a new machete making device, (looking at the larger supply chain) if steel becomes cheaper to get, the relative costs that we summarize in our "1 machete = 2 plantains" equation might shift. More importantly, these factors could even shift the objective value of the machete measured in our chosen standard of gold or paper moeny. Since this is true, the value of a commodity is only "objective" relative to a specific historical context - something that was very valuable or "high tech" in the past might still be useful now, but might be valued very differently now relative to our current possibilities and needs (152-153). Think of outdated software or wood pencils.
How Historical Context Matters (even for the math!)
These particular social relationships, as they're set up under capitalism, make the stuff we produce "commodities" as opposed to just stuff. Folks produced things before capitalism, but those objects were just use values, not commodities. The reason that the use values that folks produce become "commodities" under capitalism, rather than just use values, is because of the social relationships that exist under capitalism. A machete becomes a commodity rather than just a usable thing because it is in a historical context where its objective social value is set by its exchange value. Its exchange value is set by the amount of labor-time needed to make that kind of thing. That labor time is "simple" or "abstract" - it doesn't matter who does it or what the process of making it is concretely likely. Under capitalism, they are done by private individuals who work independently of each other and only meet when exchange is happening (164-166). That's importantly different from the social relationships that explain division of labor in a village or ethnic group where the social relationships are already there before any exchanges that happen and help.

Ideally, on a good day, when we exchange machetes and plantains, we are trying to make it true that your labor is just as good as mine, even though we don't conceive of things in these terms. The big equation that relates all the machetes to the plantains and the iphones, and the labor that produces all of those things, would be an achievement of just and fair human exchange based on political equality (pgs. 166-167).
Why everyone sucks but Marx (according to Marx)
Marx thinks that folks should have figured all this out already, but have been led wrong in their social science and philosophy by having the wrong politics. Aristotle got as far as figuring out that there was something weird about exchange value, but didn't figure out why because Greek society was a society built on slavery, and you have to be able to conceive of the basis equality of human labor to come up with the right explanation of values (152). Under feudalism, there was no ambiguity about people's material and personal dependence on each other: serfs and lords, laymen and clerics knew the game. Every serf knew that they produced for themselves, that they produced for others, and which things were which. But capitalism is different, because social relations that used to be between people (lord and serf) are now expressed in relationships between objects (capitalists and means of production, workers and labor power). "Bourgeois economists" - always a target of shade in this book - got it wrong because they were in too close with sellers of commodities, who don't care what they are used for and who are just trying to make this money, and haven't had an interest in asking how value of products and labor work under capitalism (173-176). ​

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If you've got the outline of the book in front of you, you'll see that Part One (the first 3 chapters) is called "Commodities and Money". Part 2, the next 3 chapters, is called "The Transformation of Money into Capital".

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Abolish restaurants: A worker's critique of the food service industry

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Abolish Restaurants is a beautifully illustrated guide to the daily misery, stress, boredom, and alienation of restaurant work, as well as the ways in which restaurant workers fight against it.

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Ningla A Na: The Aboriginal Tent embassy documentary

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Ningla A Na: The Aboriginal Tent embassy documentary

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You need to get a free Kanopy account by using your local library card to sign up.

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A rare additon to the study of Australian History. Made in 1972, this documentary records the events surrounding the establishment of the Aboriginal tent embassy on the lawns of Parliament House. It incorporates interviews...

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A rare additon to the study of Australian History. Made in 1972, this documentary records the events surrounding the establishment of the Aboriginal tent embassy on the lawns of Parliament House. It incorporates interviews...

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The Great Money Trick (From 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists')

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Documentary on the Black Panthers in Oakland California

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Documentary on the Black Panthers in Oakland California

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Filmmaker Goran Hugo Olsson's the Black Power Mixtape

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Filmmaker Goran Hugo Olsson's the Black Power Mixtape

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"For three decades, the film canisters sat undisturbed in a cellar beneath the Swedish National Broadcasting Company. Inside was roll after roll of startlingly fresh and candid 16mm footage shot in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States, all of it focused on the anti-war and Black Power movements. When filmmaker Goran Hugo Olsson discovered the footage, he decided he had a responsibility to shepherd this glimpse of history into the world."

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Karl Marx was born in 1818 in Trier, which was then part of the Prussian Rhineland (it became part of the unified German Empire in 1871), and died in London in 1883. He was forced to move in response to political persecution, first to Paris in 1843, and then to Brussels and Cologne, before finally settling in London in 1849 following the 1848 revolutions in mainland Europe. The latter revolutions reflected the social dislocations brought about by the transformation of agriculture and the early development of industrial production. They also reflected the political upheavals of the breakdown of old, absolutist regimes and the rise of new political institutions embodying elements of popular sovereignty, especially after the French Revolution of 1789.

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Connected Sociologies - Marx: Colonialism, Class and Capitalism

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Modern Social Theory. Lecture 4: Marx: Colonialism, Class and Capitalism

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The historical development of the modern, capitalist world economy systematically bound colonisers and colonised into unequal relationships of extraction, colonisation and dispossession over the past 500 years and more. Material realities are central to understanding what we mean by ‘colonisation’ - of materials, life and labour. Colonialism occupied land and turned people and nature into human and natural resources for a singular aim – the accumulation of capital. Historical processes of extraction, dispossession, replacement and extinction drove colonisation and ecological imperialism as structural imperatives of modern capitalism. Land-grabbing, wars and slavery connect with the extensive spread of commercial monocultures as economic structures displacing and threatening much of the world’s human biological and cultural life with extinction. Law and conservation have colluded in these colonising processes – ‘emptying’ lands and displacing or dispossessing indigenous nature and people, in order that material resources can continue to be extracted, monetised and mobilised for the accumulation of capital.

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The Making of the Modern World - Lecture 2

Lecturer: Dr Su-ming Khoo, National University of Ireland, Galway

The historical development of the modern, capitalist world economy systematically bound colonisers and colonised into unequal relationships of extraction, colonisation and dispossession over the past 500 years and more. Material realities are central to understanding what we mean by 'colonisation' - of materials, life and labour. Colonialism occupied land and turned people and nature into human and natural resources for a singular aim - the accumulation of capital. Historical processes of extraction, dispossession, replacement and extinction drove colonisation and ecological imperialism as structural imperatives of modern capitalism. Land-grabbing, wars and slavery connect with the extensive spread of commercial monocultures as economic structures displacing and threatening much of the world's human biological and cultural life with extinction. Law and conservation have colluded in these colonising processes - 'emptying' lands and displacing or dispossessing indigenous nature and people, in order that material resources can continue to be extracted, monetised and mobilised for the accumulation of capital.

Readings

Acuna-Soto et al (2002) Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico Emerging Infectious Disease 8(4): 360-362.

Clark, Brett; Foster, John B (2009) Ecological Imperialism and the Global Metabolic Rift Unequal Exchange and the Guano/Nitrates Trade, International Journal of Comparative Sociology Vol 50(3-4): 311-334.

Fields, S (2008 ) Pestilence and headcolds: encountering illness in colonial Mexico.

Guha, R et al (2012) Deeper Roots of Historical Injustice: Trends and Challenges in the Forests of India, Rights and Resources Initiative.

Hickel, J (2020) Quantifying national responsibility for climate breakdown: an equality-based attribution approach for carbon dioxide emissions in excess of the planetary boundary Lancet Planetary Health 2020; 4: e399-404. For a 10-tweet summary.

Kampmann, U (nd) The impact of silver from the New World.

Moore, Jason (2007) Silver, Ecology, and the Origins of the Modern World, 1450-1640. In Rethinking Environmental History: World System History and Global Environmental Change, J.R. McNeill, Joan Martinez-Alier, and Alf Hornborg, eds. Berkeley: AltaMira Press, pp 123-142.

Moore Jason W. (2009) Madeira, Sugar, and the Conquest of Nature in the "First" Sixteenth Century: Part I: From "Island of Timber" to Sugar Revolution, 1420-1506 Review (Fernand Braudel Center) Vol. 32, No. 4 (2009), 345-390.

Pateman, C (2007) The settler contract, in Pateman C and Mills, C., Contract and Domination, pp 35-78 .

Pringle, Heather (2010) Sugar Masters in the New World Smithsonian Magazine 12 January 2010.

Short, Damien (2016) Redefining Genocide: Settler Colonialism, Social Death and Ecocide. Zed Press.

Questions for discussion

Examine the problem of colonialism (or neo-colonialism) from the perspective of the 'development' of a selected natural resource.

To what extent might it be said that the histories of empire and colonialism depend on the displacement and dispossession of indigenous communities and the erasure of their prior access to the environment?

Explore and discuss the 'colonial' origins of environmental resource use in the world today, using one specific example er: land, forest, mineral ore, fossil fuel, a particular a crop or type of livestock, or the 'atmospheric commons'

What environmental factors are relevant in accounting for historical processes of imperial and colonial extraction and accumulation?

The historical development of the modern, capitalist world economy systematically bound colonizers and colonized into unequal relationships of extraction, colonization and dispossession over the past 500 years and more. Material realities are central to understanding what we mean by 'colonization' - of materials, life and labour. Colonialism occupied land and turned people and nature into human and natural resources for a singular aim - the accumulation of capital.

Historical processes of extraction, dispossession, replacement and extinction drove colonization and ecological imperialism as structural imperatives of modern capitalism. Land-grabbing, wars and slavery connect with the extensive spread of commercial monocultures as economic structures displacing and threatening much of the world's human biological and cultural life with extinction.

Law and conservation have colluded in these colonizing processes - 'emptying' lands and displacing or dispossessing indigenous nature and people, in order that material resources can continue to be extracted, monetized and mobilized for the accumulation of capital.

Readings

Acuna-Soto et al (2002) Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico Emerging Infectious Disease 8(4): 360-362.

Clark, Brett; Foster, John B (2009) Ecological Imperialism and the Global Metabolic Rift Unequal Exchange and the Guano/Nitrates Trade, International Journal of Comparative Sociology Vol 50(3-4): 311-334.

Fields, S (2008 ) Pestilence and headcolds: encountering illness in colonial Mexico.

Guha, R et al (2012) Deeper Roots of Historical Injustice: Trends and Challenges in the Forests of India, Rights and Resources Initiative.

Hickel, J (2020) Quantifying national responsibility for climate breakdown: an equality-based attribution approach for carbon dioxide emissions in excess of the planetary boundary Lancet Planetary Health 2020; 4: e399-404. For a 10-tweet summary.

Kampmann, U (nd) The impact of silver from the New World.

Moore, Jason (2007) Silver, Ecology, and the Origins of the Modern World, 1450-1640. In Rethinking Environmental History: World System History and Global Environmental Change, J.R. McNeill, Joan Martinez-Alier, and Alf Hornborg, eds. Berkeley: AltaMira Press, pp 123-142.

Moore Jason W. (2009) Madeira, Sugar, and the Conquest of Nature in the "First" Sixteenth Century: Part I: From "Island of Timber" to Sugar Revolution, 1420-1506 Review (Fernand Braudel Center) Vol. 32, No. 4 (2009), 345-390.

Pateman, C (2007) The settler contract, in Pateman C and Mills, C., Contract and Domination, pp 35-78 .

Pringle, Heather (2010)Sugar Masters in the New World Smithsonian Magazine 12 January 2010.

Short, Damien (2016) Redefining Genocide: Settler Colonialism, Social Death and Ecocide. Zed Press.

Questions for discussion

Examine the problem of colonialism (or neo-colonialism) from the perspective of the 'development' of a selected natural resource.

To what extent might it be said that the histories of empire and colonialism depend on the displacement and dispossession of indigenous communities and the erasure of their prior access to the environment?

Explore and discuss the 'colonial' origins of environmental resource use in the world today, using one specific example er: land, forest, mineral ore, fossil fuel, a particular a crop or type of livestock, or the 'atmospheric commons'

What environmental factors are relevant in accounting for historical processes of imperial and colonial extraction and accumulation?

Questions for discussion

Examine the problem of colonialism (or neo-colonialism) from the perspective of the 'development' of a selected natural resource.

To what extent might it be said that the histories of empire and colonialism depend on the displacement and dispossession of indigenous communities and the erasure of their prior access to the environment?

Explore and discuss the 'colonial' origins of environmental resource use in the world today, using one specific example er: land, forest, mineral ore, fossil fuel, a particular a crop or type of livestock, or the 'atmospheric commons'

What environmental factors are relevant in accounting for historical processes of imperial and colonial extraction and accumulation?

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Connected Sociologies - Colonial Dispossession and Extraction

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The Making of the Modern World - Lecture 2 Lecturer: Dr Su-ming Khoo, National University of Ireland, Galway The historical development of the modern, capitalist world economy systematically bound colonisers and colonised into unequal relationships of extraction, colonisation and dispossession over the past 500 years and more.

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From Global Social Theory

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The research collective on Decoloniality, organised by Walter Mignolo and Arturo Escobar, brings together scholars of Latin American / European origin working in universities in the United States and Latin America and interested in ideas of dependency theory, colonialism, gender, and critical theory

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Postcolonial and Decolonial Reconstructions by Gurminder Bhambra

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Postcolonial and Decolonial Reconstructions by Gurminder Bhambra

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Bloomsbury Collections - Connected Sociologies

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Chapter 6. Postcolonial and Decolonial Reconstructions

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Aboriginal Tent Embassy classroom resource

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Aboriginal Tent Embassy classroom resource

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians have been fighting to keep their traditional lands since European colonisation. During the 1960s and 1970s campaigns for land rights began to get national attention.

There were two especially important land rights cases that took place in the Northern Territory. The first began in 1966 when 200 Gurindji stockmen, domestic workers and their families walked off Wave Hill Station. The Gurindji were protesting against low wages and the loss of their traditional lands; their protest lasted for seven years. In the second case, the Northern Territory Supreme Court decided in 1972 not to grant the Yolŋu people, an Aboriginal group in Arnhem Land, the land rights they had argued for. Instead a mining company was allowed to mine on the Yolŋu's traditional lands.

In response to the growing demands for land rights, Prime Minister William McMahon's government announced a new land rights policy in 1972. Under this policy, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups could apply for 50-year land leases, but they wouldn't be given independent ownership of their traditional lands. This angered many Aboriginal groups.

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Aboriginal Tent Embassy established | Australia's Defining Moments Digital Classroom | National Museum of Australia

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On 26 January 1972 four Aboriginal men set up a beach umbrella on the lawns opposite (Old) Parliament House in Canberra. Describing the umbrella as the Aboriginal Embassy, the men were protesting about the Australian Government's land rights policies.

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Aboriginal Tent Embassy: 50 years of Indigenous protest

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As Aboriginal Australians face continued discrimination, a vigil has become one of the world's longest protests.

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Warning! This site contains images of indigenous people now deceased!

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Fred Maynard, a self-educated former drover who had been active in the Waterside Worker's Federation during the first World War, set up the Australian Aboriginal Progress Association (AAPA). The AAPA, officially launched in February 1925, was the 'first Aboriginal political organisation to create formal links between communities over a wide area'.

The extraordinary thing about the AAPA was that its leaders, Fred Maynard and Tom Lacey, had een strongly influenced by the ideas of Marcus Garvey, the West Indian who is regarded as the 'father of Black Nationalism'. Both Maynard and Lacey had in the early 1920s been embers of the Sydney Chapter Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). They had also been associated with two visits that world renowned black American boxer Jack Johnson had made to Sydney in the early 1900s.

The slogan of the AAPA was "one God, One People, One Destiny". This slogan was identical to the motto of UNIA, and many of the policies of the AAPA reflected the ideas of Garvey in regard to black self-esteem, self-reliance and economic independence.

The AAPA, was important because of the role it played in planting political seeds that flowered in future generations of indigenous political leaders in southeastern Australia The AAPA campaigned for "freehold title to land, the cessation of the removal of Aboriginal children and the abolition of the NSW Aborigines Protecion Board(APB). The AAPA's political activites were largely confined to the north coast of NSW but in its short existence managed to be a significant thorn in the side of the NSW APB. It eventually faded out in around 1927, but its legacy was still to be seen in the ideas of future generations of indigenous activists.

Salt Pan Creek, an Aboriginal squatters camp south-west of Sydney containing refugee families of the dispossessed and people seeking to escape the harsh and brutal policies of the Aborigines Protection Board becomes a focal point of intensifying Aboriginal resistance in NSW. Significant alliances, strategies and future leaders are developed. People such as Jack Campbell, George and Jack Patten, Pearl Gibbs and Bill Onus all spend time in the camp. In 1933 Joe Anderson was filmed at Salt Pan Creek by cinesound news making a strong statement in support of Indigenous Rights.

Salt Pan Creek had been a site of Indigenous resistance from as early as September 1809, when Tedbury (son of Pemulwuy) was involved in a skirmish that saw Frederick Meredith, one of the first two white farmers in the area, injured with a spear wound and forced to abandon his farm. Being between two arms of Salt Pan Creek, the area was probably an important food source for the Aborigines, who no doubt viewed with dismay the intention of Meredith and fellow white farmer William Bond to settle, clear and cultivate it.

In February AAL agitation led to a deputation on Cumeragunja exiles gaining a meeting with the Federal Minister for the Interior at which they called for Federal control of Aboriginal affairs.

The NSW APB appoints new manager at Cumeragunja. He is called A.J. McQuiggan, and has been transferred from the APB's Kinchela Boy's Home near Kempsey, where he had been Superindent. He was being removed from Kinchea after a Police investigation had found that he was an indebted drunkard and had been sadistic in his treament of Aboriginal boys in the Home, beating them with hosepipes and stockwhips. The NSW Commisioner of Police, who was ex-officio Chairman of the APB had strongly argued for McQuiggan's sacking, but the Chief Secretary's Department chose instead to transfer McQuiggan to Cumeragunja .

Jack Patten publishes first indigenous newspaper, the Australian Abo Call, funded by Nazi sympathizer W.B.Miles, but with Patten maintaining total editorial control. The newspaper gives Patten not only a vehicle through which to publicise the movement's aims, but also a forum for interaction with the APA's growing membership.

On 27th November 1950, Aboriginal workers in Darwin stage "the biggest and best organised native strike ever conducted in Darwin". The Aboriginal workers had orgnaised the strike themselves and then sought advice from the North Australia Workers Union (NAWU). The two strike leaders were identified as a man named "Lawrence" and a striking Police tracker named Billy Palata. In mid-January 1951 Darwin Police 'dispersed' an armed group of more than 50 Aboriginal strikers who were, in their own words, "marching on Darwin". Lawrence and Billy Palata are arrested and police refuse to bail the two men to NAWU officials saying that as Aborigines the men can only be bailed to the Native Affairs Department or their employers.

Secretary of the NAWU, Mr.T. Peel, remarks, "It is obvious that the arrest of the two Aboriginal strike leaders is a deliberate attempt to cut of the leadership of the strike and intimidate these people who are standing up for their rights both as workers and human beings."

Lawrence and Palata remained in gaol as Native Affairs Department officials claim that "Communists" were behind the strike. Lawrence appeared in Court on Australia day 1951 and was sentenced to four months imprisonment with hard labour. After Lawrence is gaoled his place as strike leader is taken by a quietly spoken Larrikia man called Fred Waters. On 11th February 1951 Fred Waters organises a 'lighting strike' of Aborigines at the Bagot compound in Darwin. The Director of Native Affairs, Mr Frank Moy, responds by using his administrative power to banish Waters to Haarsts Bluff in Central Australia some 1200 miles from Darwin.

The final word on the strike was made by Federal minister for the Interior, Mr. Anthony, who said that the whole episode had been a "Communist-inspired plan for general industrial disturbance". He stated that, "I am not prepared to allow natives, who are wards of the Commonwealth, to be used for this purpose".

Charles Perkins enrols at Sydney University. Perkins had been born in 1936 at the Telegragh Station Aboriginal Reserve in Alice Springs, and in his early adult life had been an apprentice fitter and turner in Adelaide and a soccer player of some talent who played at one stage in England. In 1963 he is elected as President of Sydney University's Student Action for Aborigines (SAFA).

In February 1965 Perkins and Reverend Ted Noffs of the Wayside Chapel organised a "Freedom Ride" with 30 white Sydney University students from the group Student Action for Aborigines (SAFA).[30] He took SAFA on a bus ride into some of NSW's most notoriously racist country towns. They were pelted with eggs and rotten fruit when they tried to desegregate the Moree swimming pool and such was the level of violent response they encountered that the hired bus driver left the tour halfway through out of fear. But the resultant publicity resounded around the world and exposed the vicious nature of Australian racism in an unprecedented way.

The action was described as, "Internationally inspired, a product of cooperation between whites and blacks committed to the same ideals, confrontationist but non-violent, the Freedom Ride was a consciousness-raising exercise that was very effective. Awakening media interest in Aboriginal affairs was, for the first time, marshalled in favour of the Black Australian cause, to the severe embarrassment of many white townspeople in rural New South Wales. All of these elements foreshadowed a pattern of protest that was to continue and expand in the 1970s and 1980s."

The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 becomes law. John Toohey, a Western Australian QC, is appointed the first Aboriginal Land Commissioner in August.

The granting of land rights to Aboriginals recognises not only the justice of prior claims to ownership, it also recognises the validity of Aboriginal traditional law and cultural values. It will provide for the Aboriginal people a land base for future social advancement according to their own cultural values and their own aspirations and importantly, in their own time. What we require now is the goodwill of the people of Australia to make this legislation work. White Australians are not unaware of their own attachment to the soil. To Aboriginals it is more. It is their very life, the source not only of their spirit but of the place to which their spirit must return. They are indivisible with their land. It is life itself. It is the force that has enabled them to survive for 40,000 years. It has been the strength of their fight - now won - for their birthright.
Ian Viner, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the Fraser Government, at the proclamation of the Land Rights Act, 26 January 1977

The Commonwealth Government announces that it will transfer the title for Uluru National Park to the traditional landowners who will then lease the area back to the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service. This is an historic decision and is a measure of the willingness of this Government, on behalf of the Australian people, to recognise the just and legitimate claims of people who have been dispossessed of their land but have never lost their spiritual attachment to the land.

Prime Minister Bob Hawke Although the transfer has been on the agenda since 1979, Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Everingham claims that his Government was not consulted: 'It came like a bolt out of the blue - I feel sick in the stomach.' Mr Everingham calls a snap election over the handback decision.

In a widely reported speech, the Executive Director of Western Mining Corporation, Hugh Morgan, describes land rights as a return to paganism and anti-Christian, kicking off a barrage of anti-land rights media. In Western Australia, the mining and pastoral industries mount a scare campaign to influence the Burke Government.

Indigenous groups nationally call on the Commonwealth Government to initiate a public awareness campaign about land rights to dispel the prejudices and misconceptions being exploited by the anti-land rights lobby, but the call is unheeded.

The Hawke Government announces its revamped Preferred National Land Rights Model. The model is a 'set of principles' to which the Commonwealth believes all territory, state and Commonwealth legislation should conform. Four of the five 'principles' that the Government outlined in March 1983 have been dumped.

The new model: (a) requires no Aboriginal consent for mining on Aboriginal land, (b) prevents land claims over stock routes, stock reserves and Aboriginal-owned pastoral leases, and (c) restricts eligibility for excisions. The National Federation of Land Councils and the National Aboriginal Conference walk out of the next Land Rights Working Party meeting in protest.

The first resolution passed in the Commonwealth's new Parliament House is a recognition of Aboriginal people's prior ownership of Australia and their entitlement to self-management and self-determination. The resolution was drawn up by fourteen major churches.

The Queen, and the Senate and the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia acknowledge that: Australia was occupied by Aborigine's and Torres Strait Islanders who had settled for thousands of years before British settlement at Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788;

Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders suffered dispossession and dispersal upon acquisition of their traditional lands by the British Crown; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were denied full citizenship rights of the Commonwealth of Australia prior to May 27, 1967;

And affirm: The importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and heritage; The entitlement of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders to self-management and self-determination subject to the Constitution and the laws of the Commonwealth of Australia; And consider it desirable that the Commonwealth further promote reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander citizens providing recognition of their special place in the Commonwealth of Australia.

ATSIC Regional Council elections are held throughout Australia.

After two years of intensive hearings and investigations the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody releases its National Report. The report contains 339 recommendations in five volumes and addresses underlying issues including the dispossession of Aboriginal land and culture, and Aboriginal exclusion from economic benefits. The Commission supports the granting of Aboriginal land rights Australia-wide and Aboriginal people's right to control access and development of their land.

The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 is regarded by Aboriginal people as the benchmark of achievable land rights legislation. [Aboriginal people] are united in their view that land. is the key to their cultural and economic survival as a people.
Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody National Report, 19.1.1, 19.2.6

Prime Minister Paul Keating speaks at Redfern Park, Sydney, to mark the start of the Year Of Indigenous People.

By doing away with the bizarre conceit that this continent had no owners prior to the settlement of Europeans, Mabo establishes a fundamental truth and lays the basis for justice. It will be much easier to work from that basis than has ever been the case in the past. For that reason alone we should ignore the isolated outbreaks of hysteria and hostility of the past few months. Mabo is an historic decision- we can make it an historic turning point, the basis of a new relationship between indigenous and non- aboriginal Australians. The Message should be that there is nothing to fear or to lose in the recognition of historical truth, or the extension of social justice, or the deepening of Australian social democracy to include indigenous Australians.
Prime Minister Paul Keating, 10 December 1992

Goodall, Heather, Invasion to Embassy:Land in Aboriginal Politics in NSW, 1770-1972, Sydney : Allen and Unwin, 1996.
AAL, Victims or Victors?: The Story of the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League, Hyland House, Melbourne, 1985
Markus, Andrew, Blood From a Stone, Clayton: Monash Publications in History, 1986.
Morris, Barry, Domesticating Resistance: the Dhan-gadi Aborigines and the Australian State, Berg Publishers, Oxford, 1989
Fergus Robinson and Barry York, The Black Resistance, Widescope: Melbourne, 1977.
Burgmann,V. 'The Aboriginal movement' in power, profit and protest:Australian social movements and globilisation, Allen & Unwin, 2003,
Adam Shoemaker, Black Words White Page: Aboriginal Literature 1929 - 1988, St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1989
Central Land Council website - http://www.clc.org.au/media/landalive.asp

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The Koori History Website - Timeline of Significant Moments in the Indigenous Struggle

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Fred Maynard, a self-educated former drover who had been active in the Waterside Worker's Federation during the first World War, set up the Australian Aboriginal Progress Association (AAPA). The AAPA, officially launched in February 1925, was the 'first Aboriginal political organisation to create formal links between communities over a wide area'.

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Francoise Verges and Lola Olufemi discuss decolonial feminism

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Francoise Verges and Lola Olufemi discuss decolonial feminism

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Françoise Vergès, Lola Olufemi - A Decolonial Feminism | Pluto Live

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KINQ = Knowledge Industries Need Queering
This was written in response to the KINQ Manifesto, particularly responding to point 2 and 4 of the Manifesto.

The KINQ manifesto does something very essential, it discusses heteronormativity in archive, library and museum spaces. As with whiteness, naming, discussing and pointing a finger at heteronormativity is an important part of its disruption and hopefully its eventual abolition. By not being named, by being invisible and by being nowhere and everywhere at the same time heteronormativity and whiteness have long been maintained because if they are not named and discussed, they cannot not be critiqued and challenged. Also, because of their invisibility and the fact that they are so embedded in our colonial social institutions, like archives and museums, heteronormativity and whiteness, along with the power dynamics and oppression associated with them, appear like the natural order of things (Levine-Rasky, 2013, 12). This is how...

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KINQ = Knowledge Industries Need Queering This was written in response to the KINQ Manifesto, particularly responding to point 2 and 4 of the Manifesto. The KINQ manifesto does something very essential, it discusses heteronormativity in archive, library and museum spaces.

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There is no political power without control of the archive, if not memory
- Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever

Most people think of archives, especially big government archives, as either neutral sites of memory and history, or as mundane, boring storage facilities for administrative records, or they don't think about them at all. But the poet Dr Natalie Harkin (Narungga) knows what many First Nations people know, that official archives are a powerful colonial weapon as well as a site of mourning. They are time capsules and they are also bullets. Created by state-sanctioned surveillance and violence, these archives have the power to sustain and reproduce that same violence. As Harkin says, there is 'blood on the records'.

Archives are meant to hold the memory of Australia, but whose memory? The history these official archives preserve and tell is funded, collected, configured, curated, and often created by the colonial settler state. As such, they reflect the state's values and ideology. This is the power that the archives wield: they can turn ideology into history, opinion into fact.

Archives are unreliable witnesses, especially here on these lands of invasion and occupation. As a collection of fragments of what actually happened, the archives of settler colonialism are full of misremembered histories, partial truths, and falsifications. They are also propaganda machines for the settler fantasy, selling a narrative of the state saving and civilising us First Nations people. This narrative vindicates invasion and protection-era policies and helps those who prosper now - on the back of land theft and dispossession - feel less guilty or even proud. The existence of this narrative and the misremembering it allows depends on the suppression of First Nations people's experiences and the exclusion of First Nations voices from the archives.

This is not to say that we, First Nations people, are not in the archives but rather that it's hard to hear our voices. We were usually included in archives without our informed consent. Our histories, our cultures, and our people were recorded by those commonly involved in the attempted physical, cultural, and spiritual genocide of our people: police officers, government officials, and anthropologists, for example. Our agency was dismissed as we became the subjects of their records while rarely allowed to be the creator of them. We, as Aileen Moreton-Robinson (Koenpul, Quandamooka) discusses, were the known but never the knowers. The people who surveilled us also distorted our voices when they wrote them down on paper, changing how we were heard and seen. Speaking of her experience working with First Nations records in the New South Wales State Archives, Kirsten Thorpe (Worimi) wrote:

As I navigated back and forwards between the archive and clients - between the written record and the personal stories of people - it became evident that the experiences and oral memories of people differed greatly from the 'facts' documented in the records.

This is also not to say there isn't truth in the archives. Official records hold damning evidence of atrocities committed against our families by state agencies like the Aboriginal Protection Boards and the State Children's Welfare Department. Archives also hold within their walls testimonies that speak to the resilience and strength of First Nations people, particularly First Nations women. However, they can be hidden behind the limestone walls, locked up in basements of boring, official looking buildings. That archives are housed out of sight, out of mind is part of their power. You cannot critique what you cannot see and you cannot see through limestone walls. This power is fortified by archivists who see themselves as gatekeepers and defenders of the archives enforcing colonial bureaucracies that impede access to the information in archives. To engage with archives, one is forced to jump through bureaucratic hoops to reach your ancestors stuck in the pages of these collections.

This is all powerfully explored by Harkin in her decolonial project, Archival-Poetics, which unfolds across three chapbooks: The Colonial Archive (1), The Haunting (2), and Blood Memory (3). Harkin's work interrogates the archive and memory through poetry, imagery (a mixture of artworks and weavings (both by herself and other First Nations artists), legal documents, newspaper clippings, work-in-process shots, and so on). The work draws from both Harkin's personal archive and the official (state) archives. The three chapbooks are themselves divided into numerous sub-sections, many of which are called memory lessons. Taken as whole, the work makes visible the trauma and gendered racism that lives in archives, particularly in the records stemming from the protection era where many First Nations children were forcibly removed from their families as a result of different government policies. The generations of children removed under these policies are now known as the Stolen Generations.

While Archival-Poetics is predominantly text-based, I would not call it a book/s. Like most First Nations knowledge, it does not fit easily into Western categories. To me it felt more like a dream or a deep yarn or a walk through an exhibition - possibly all at the same time. The work is a collection, an archive in its own right.

The Colonial Archive begins with a powerful statement. It's one that should be read in all archival studies courses in colonised countries, a challenge to the way such courses present archives and the organisation of information as objective and neutral:

a small spotlight on the state, its institutions/ systems/ processes that generate and maintain particular fantasy-discourses and representations on histories, on people; that actively silence/suppress/exclude Indigenous voice and agency; stories and hearts that seethe and pulse from violent repositories to rupture fixed-imaginings, contribute counter-narratives and repatriate 'something else' transformative and just; new offerings through and beyond the colonial archive, to carry forward

for all my family

our Grandmothers past

Following this is the prelude, which is also a warning:

ATTENTION:
RECORD KEEPERS OF THE STATE
WE HAVE YOU UNDER SURVEILLANCE
WE HAVE YOU UNDER SURVEILLANCE

This warning, like all of Archival-Poetics, reveals how colonial surveillance is the foundation of many state archives; that is, these records are of the state controlling the movements and lives of First Nations people. Harkin subverts the surveillant gaze reflected in the archives by holding a mirror to it. This act warns archivists and record keepers of the state that actions that previously went unnoticed by many are now up for scrutiny.

Harkin has previously discussed how the level of surveillance in the archives affected her. In describing when she and her cousin received archival records about their Nanna's life, she wrote: 'the level of surveillance was overwhelming. Claustrophobic. We needed air and tea.' We experience this as we read Archival Poetics: there's a palpable sense of restriction stemming from the surveillance detailed in the archives. We experience this as Harkin recollects her feelings on discovering how the state watched her family, and how this production of records restricted their freedom.

I sit between almost 200 pages
file-note archives
a portion of Nanna's life
under State control
throat tight
catch my breath sharp
hold it

The sense of oppressive claustrophobia extends past the surveillance evidenced in the records to the materiality of archives themselves. Reading the section titled ARCHIVE-BOX TRANSFORMATION I was filled with dread. I imagined drowning in paper and being unable to breathe when Harkin describes getting lost in the archives so much so that she becomes trapped or 'locked up' and 'filed away'. While the ocean of paper is seeming endless and ever expanding, Harkin shows us that through it you can also hear your ancestors calling you. The ocean, like the blood in veins and the stories we tell, is moving and living.

Archival-Poetics did not only provoke dread in me, it also provoked rage. Harkin tells the story of how First Nations girls were forcefully removed from their families and put to work as indentured servants. Harkin draws attention to a system of slavery in Australia that is rarely spoken about in mainstream discourse. By doing so, she exposes the violence inflicted by the state on our families (my great-grandmother was also forced to be an indentured servant). Archival-Poetics reminds readers that The Handmaid's Tale is not a dystopian future or an exercise in what could be. Rather, for First Nations people, it's our grandparents and parents lives - an argument that Nayuka Gorrie (Kurnai/Gunai; Gunditjmara; Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta) has also recently made.

Much of Archival-Poetics reminds me of the artwork the gulf by artist Judy Watson (Waanyi), whom Harkin draws from and quotes throughout the project. Watson's work is a giant, nearly 6-foot high X on a wall made up of individual A4 paper copies of records from the Queensland State Archives that detail massacres of First Nations people. What surprised me about the gulf was that the records Watson used are open access and not restricted, meaning they are publicly accessible. The same is true of the stories that make up Archival-Poetics, which raises the question why this history not more well known among non-Indigenous Australians. Harkin makes her readers confront and engage with histories that many want to avoid. She will not let these stories be buried in the archives. Harkin, like many First Nations women before her, will not be silent.

One of the effective ways that Harkin exposes this violence is by providing excerpts from the colonial archives themselves. Excerpts such as this one written by Edward Lee Hamilton, the South Australian government appointed protectors of Aborigines, in the Adelaide Advertiser in 1903, exposes the intent of colonialism and the white supremacy you can find in the archives and the history of this country.

The mission stations are doing a good work, for if the natives under their influence were not taken care of they might wander about, getting into mischief, and put the country to great expense ... The half-castes are more intelligent than the pure-bloods, but they cannot reasonably be expected to come up to the standard of whites.

Unfortunately, using the words of colonisers is sometimes necessary as First Nations voices are often denied and our oral histories are unjustly contested. Sometimes our message can only be heard by non-Indigenous people if it comes from the mouths of other non-Indigenous people. Sometimes to get the message through, you just need to hold a mirror up and let colonisers' words indict them.

Another theme of Archival-Poetics is the state policing of Aboriginal identity and Aboriginality. Influenced by the racist ideas of racial hierarchies and eugenics that gained popularity in the Western world in the eighteenth century and continued into the twentieth century via disciplines such as anthropology, the settler state imposed on First Nations people who is authentic and who is not by using blood quantum metrics and terms like half-castes and quadroon. A First Nations person's blood quantum was the basis of many laws and was part of well documented state-led policies and practices to 'breed the black out' of First Nations people, with the intention of ultimately assimilating us into mainstream white Australia and destroying our identity. This classification of First Nations people shares parallels with the archival practice which heavily involves the coding and sorting of information into categories and taxonomies. Just like the records in archives, First Nations people were/are named then sorted into categories, told where we fit. This is emphasised in the end of the passage titled MEMORY LESSON 3 | AFLOAT IN THE WAKE:

when they come
to claim me name me frame me
will they slice me half
or quarters
or one sixteenths

This control of Aboriginal identity is epitomised in the section titled UNDER THE ACT where Harkin provides a copy of an exemption certificate commonly referred to as a Dog Tag, a piece of paper that the government would issue that would declare that the First Nations person who receives it ceases to be Aboriginal and, as such, is now exempt from the Aborigines Protection Act. In the eyes of the law, with a Dog Tag you become a citizen of the 'ordinary white community' which would mean it was illegal for you to socialise with Aboriginal people, dooming First Nations people issued with a Dog Tag to isolation from their family members still considered Aboriginal by the state.

We are not half anything but a whole person. Our humanity should come from our existence not our proximity to whiteness. But as evidenced in the archives and the excerpts Harkin provides, that state often denied our right to be a person unless we were white enough. The state denied our humanity, referring to us as as 'Objects of His Excellency's Kindness'. We were even denied our names as many state officials in records refer to us, as Harkin notes, as 'the girl' or 'the Aborigine'.

All of this is dehumanising, which is something Harkin actively resists throughout Archival Poetics as she makes 'visible the humanity of those trapped and lost' in the machinery of the setter state. Harkin fights to ensure First Nations people are not reduced to archival paper. One of the things I love most about this project is that it is full of humanity: full of love for family, First Nations community, and the Aunties and Uncles before us. Consider this passage titled A DOMESTIC'S WALTZ:

I was dishes
you lean in
start a gentle rock
to and fro
side by side
deep in suds we hum
a slow
mournful
perfect
harmony
in dreams I go back to my home
you waltz
on setting suns
your hips groove glow
I glide
don't miss a beat
only you

Archival-Poetics is doing something very powerful: it is exercising the right of reply, the right to defend oneself against the record, a right not previously afforded to First Nations people. The right of reply is something many archivists interested in social justice and balancing the history contained within archives have been arguing for. They argue that marginalised voices should have a platform to respond to the records created about them and contribute to the histories constructed from archives. This may help set the record straight. The right of reply is an opportunity to challenge the validity of the history held in Western institutions like archives.

Harkin's Archival-Poetics is an exercise in the right of reply. In doing so, it names the power of archives, so this power cannot remain invisible but rather, can be challenged and critiqued. Archival Poetics speaks back to this power and dismantles it. In turn, it asserts the power that we First Nations people hold and have always held - a power that exists outside of colonial systems.

Archival-Poetics is also a strong reminder that history doesn't only exist in archives or in pages of paper, but exists in the oral histories that are passed down, it exists in the landscapes we traverse and it exists in our blood. Our grandmothers are archives, libraries, and museums; our grandmothers are historians. Consider this passage titled HER MEMORY REMEMBER:

blood-lessons remember / colonial-archive remember /
oral-history remember / uncanny-haunts remember /
ocean-tides remember / shed-skin remember / new-
imaginings remember / my grandmother remembering /
her memory I remember

Similarly, all through this project there are images of documents woven with Aboriginal weaving techniques which is interesting because I believe weaving is a memory device. Through weaving we are speaking to our ancestors and enacting history. Memories are codified and stored in what our hands have woven. When we weave, we talk history, what we weave is an archive but not in the colonial sense.

After reading Archival-Poetics, I wanted to thank Harkin for her generosity: you can tell how much research went into this project and emotional toll that it took on her. The archive can affect people, it can cause trauma, longing, sadness, rage, and joy - all of which can be felt while experiencing Archival-Poetics. The work is not purely a theoretical exercise, it is a personal one, and this makes it even more engaging. Many non-Indigenous historians who tell the 'truth' about this country's history do so from detached perspective which I believe is not more objective but rather is exploitative and always feels false. Archival Poetics is Harkin's truth and it is a truth many First Nations people share. We are lucky she has been so generous to share this truth with us.

Archival-Poetics stays with you. Like the many ghosts of the records, these words attach themselves to you and follow you. Harkin uses the term archival-poetic journey and that's what reading Archival Poetics is - a journey. Be prepared for truth or in Harkin's words:

Warning | some blood-memory lessons should begin with a slow and deep inhale knowing in that moment before exhale where this archival-poetic journey might never end the next breath may clot, won't feel so easy.

Works Cited

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Disrupting the Colonial Archive | Nathan Sentance on Natalie Harkin

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There is no political power without control of the archive, if not memory - Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever Most people think of archives, especially big government archives, as either neutral sites of memory and history, or as mundane, boring storage facilities for administrative records, or they don't think about them at all.

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by Imogen Tyler

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Yaama gurra (hello with respect).

In 2018, I was approached to curate the Australian Museum's Indigenous-led exhibition about Captain James Cook, as a response to the 250th anniversary in 2020 of the HMB Endeavour's East Coast voyage during 1770. I knew this would be a challenging task. Cook is often celebrated as the founding father of Australia, with hero-like status to non-Indigenous Australians. But he represents the opposite to First Nations peoples: a symbol of destruction and death, pain and suffering. Curating a show about why these differences exist that meets the needs of both these audiences would not be straightforward, especially in Australia's oldest museum.

To undertake this exhibition in a culturally appropriate way and ensure we accurately represented the views of First Nations peoples on the Cook anniversary, community consultation was undertaken to define what themes and topics would be covered. Most significantly, the consultations illustrated that First Nations peoples did not want another show about Cook; he was but a small footnote in a more expansive history. Instead, we were asked to take the opportunity for long overdue truth-telling about our shared past.

The consultation had three highest-ranking categories for possible exhibition topics: (1) colonisation and its effects; (2) Australia's origins and foundation; and (3) addressing the false, constructed history that is pervasively shared in society. The most common specific responses were: truth, truth-telling, invasions, wars, massacres, genocide, assimilation, dispossession, resistance, resilience, and survival.

We had our content set by communities, but we needed to name this important exhibition. The First Nations staff, in partnership with independent media, consultancy, and training organisation IndigenousX, spent time brainstorming a title that could capture the importance, meaning and content being covered. We decided on the name "Unsettled". This term has many connotations and in the context of this exhibition they are everywhere: Australia was not peacefully settled; our history is unresolved; relationships between First Nations peoples and Australians are uneasy; and after 250 years, newcomers still have a turbulent and unbalanced relationship with the natural environment in which they now live.

Truth-telling about Australia's past is an incredibly important process for understanding who we are now and how we came to be as a nation. Truth-telling can be confronting, but the process can be powerful: grief can make way for healing, and healing unites people who were once divided. It is time we stop pretending that meaningful change can happen in a system that is grounded in denial. Until historic inequities are addressed, the gap between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous Australians will only continue to widen.

Museums and other cultural institutions have the opportunity to be at the centre of this process given they are publicly trusted sources of information and knowledge. This requires a spirit of inclusiveness and a commitment to build strong relationships between First Nations peoples and collecting institutions which promote principles of Indigenous agency and self-determination. I applaud the leadership shown by the Australian Museum's executive leadership team and Trustees for providing First Nations peoples with a platform to be heard and rebalance the narrative.

As sites of public influence and authority, it is important that First Nations peoples control how our cultures, experiences and world views are interpreted in museums. We worked with over 130 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to interpret the topics set out by the consultation data. Every one of these First Nations community members understood the enormity of our task and we have been thanked many times for sharing the stories of individuals or their Ancestors. They had been waiting a long time for this story to be told. I would like to thank every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person who contributed to the exhibition, guided us, and supported us. I hope we have made your Ancestors, families, communities, and you, proud.

It has been an absolute honour and privilege to develop, curate, and now present Unsettled to the public. It has been my most challenging, yet most rewarding professional project. I thank the visitors to the exhibition and readers of the catalogue for embarking on this journey with us. This is how we will build a better shared future - together.

I thank the Australian Museum's Unsettled team for the hard work, perseverance, and patience on the development of the exhibition. I would also like to thank our First Nations colleagues who assisted us and gave valuable feedback and critical insight.

Lastly, I acknowledge the hard work and dedication of my Yuin colleague and assistant curator, Dr Mariko Smith, maarubaa bawaa (thank you sister).

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The Australian Museum's Unsettled exhibition

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Yaama gurra (hello with respect). In 2018, I was approached to curate the Australian Museum's Indigenous-led exhibition about Captain James Cook, as a response to the 250th anniversary in 2020 of the HMB Endeavour's East Coast voyage during 1770. I knew this would be a challenging task.

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Our Time Is Now (Selma James, Sara Callaway, Shanice Octavia McBean & Aviah Day)

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Our Time Is Now (Selma James, Sara Callaway, Shanice Octavia McBean & Aviah Day)

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On the Surviving Society Podcast

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S3/E2 Our Time Is Now (Selma James, Sara Callaway, Shanice Octavia McBean & Aviah Day) Surviving Society podcast

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Listen to S3/E2 Our Time Is Now (Selma James, Sara Callaway, Shanice Octavia McBean & Aviah Day) and 216 more episodes by Surviving Society, free! No signup or install needed. E145 Roaa Ali: Race & the creative industries in times of crisis. S1/E1 The Housing Series: Kwajo Tweneboa on social housing…

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"ACT UP, Fight Back" Charlie Frank on AIDS, Resistance, Health and Monopoly Capitalism" (podcast)

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"ACT UP, Fight Back" Charlie Frank on AIDS, Resistance, Health and Monopoly Capitalism" (podcast)

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In this episode Josh interviews Charlie Frank, an independent marxist researcher currently studying the history of AIDS in the United States. He is on the general staff of Cosmonaut magazine, a member of St Louis DSA and a candidate member of the Marxist Unity Group.

Josh interviews Charlie about his article in Cosmonaut Magazine, entitled " ACT UP, Fight Back: A History of AIDS in America." In conversation Charlie talks about the history of AIDS and how imperialist capitalism or international monopoly capitalism fueled the spread of the AIDS epidemic in the US.

The bulk of the conversation is about the development of political resistance to the AIDS crisis, most prominently in the organization ACT UP. Charlie also discusses the weak governmental response to the crisis, and areas where ACT UP was successful, as well as areas in which the response to the AIDS crisis continues to fall short - in eliminating the epidemic among Black and racialized populations in the US, and internationally - due to the problems created by a capitalist health system and an insufficient organizing response.

Along the way Josh asks Charlie about some resonances between the responses to the COVID pandemic and the AIDS epidemic in the political economy of the US. And they discuss their perspectives on some of the issues that come up when socialist organizations try to engage or alternatively don't engage in mass struggles like the AIDS crisis, or the most recent rebellions after the police lynching of George Floyd.

Our episodes are completely funded by our listeners. No ads, no corporate money, no grants. And this allows us the independence to cover history like this from a radical perspective. If you like what we do please support our work at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.

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"ACT UP, Fight Back" Charlie Frank on AIDS, Resistance, Health and Monopoly Capitalism

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In this episode Josh interviews Charlie Frank, an independent marxist researcher currently studying the history of AIDS in the United States. He is on the general staff of Cosmonaut magazine, a member of St Louis DSA and a candidate member of the Marxist Unity Group.

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A Pause in the Storm: Episode 2 with Hadas Thier

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The Antipoverty Centre is a new organisation established in May 2021 to counter problems with academics, think tanks and others in the political class making harmful decisions on behalf of people they purport to represent.

We are activists, advocates and researchers with deep expertise in poverty, disadvantage and unemployment, because we live it. We defend and fight for the rights of people like ourselves who experience violence at the hands of an economic system designed to oppress us. It is our mission to shift how people speak about and respond to poverty in this colony.

We work closely with peer support groups, activists and grassroots civil society organisations to complement their work. Our goal is to help ensure the voices and rights of people living in poverty are at the centre of social policy development and discourse. We believe there should be no decision made about us without us.

The Antipoverty Centre is not aligned with any political party and does not accept funding that places political constraints on our work.

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The Antipoverty Centre is a new organisation established in May 2021 to counter problems with academics, think tanks and others in the political class making harmful decisions on behalf of people they purport to represent. We are activists, advocates and researchers with deep expertise in poverty, disadvantage and unemployment, because we live it.

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In this analysis paper from alQaws, we explore how recognizing pinkwashing as colonial violence can help us understand Israel's oppression, division, and erasure of Palestinians on the basis of gender and sexuality.

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SaveArtSpace - Transforming Advertisements Into Public Art By Local Communities

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SaveArtSpace is proud to bring more art to communities across America with the message Trans People Are Sacred! The Trans People Are Sacred GoFundMe raised over $35,000 which allowed us to provide 14 artists with 14 billboards throughout the United States and also provide each artist with a $1,000 honorarium.

The Trans People Are Sacred selected artists are Jamie Malone, Malaika Ibreck, Sophia Zarders, Gabriella Grimes, MaryAnn George, Kae Goode, Shanisia Person, G., Art Twink, KaliMa Amilak, Ade Cruz, Maroodi, Kah Yangni, and Nyjah Gobert.

The cohort of BIPOC artists was selected by Dakota Camacho, Ryan Young, and Randy Ford.

In recent months, the Transgender community has been faced with numerous calculated attacks from the current administration. Intentionally regressive policy reform has led to increased systematic discrimination against Trans people. This has led to the loss of vital protections in healthcare, housing, homelessness resources, and the cruel and sudden exclusion of Trans people from military service. These are fundamental human rights, all of which are necessary for our survival.

The violent murders of Black Trans Women and Trans Women of Color remain at epidemic levels. In 2020 we have already seen too many brilliant individuals taken from this world by force. The public should be a safe place for Trans and gender non-conforming people to exist freely.
It is our goal to reclaim public space for the Trans community.
Our bodies are holy ground, our magic is potent and true, and our existence makes the world a more loving and equitable place for all. We have always been here and always will be. We demand safety for our community. We demand the right to exist without being targeted. We demand understanding. We will continue to work tirelessly until these demands are met.
Now is the time to bring our light into the world like never before.
In July of 2019, Transgender artist and activist Jonah Welch launched a billboard in Detroit, Michigan, in collaboration with Save Art Space and . The billboard proclaimed "Trans People Are Sacred," a phrase that was first shared with Jonah by Dakota Camacho years earlier while they were residents of the Audre Lorde Cooperative in Madison, Wisconsin.

The billboard was intended to strengthen representation and inspire hope for Trans individuals in Detroit, but the piece spread like wildfire. The billboard reached a global audience. The words, Trans People Are Sacred, took root, and catalyzed profound healing for individuals and communities the world over. After the success of the initial billboard, Save Art Space reached out to Jonah Welch to create a national-level project for this work.

Jonah Welch is a 28 year-old transgender and non-binary artist making abstract work that merges trans embodiment with traditions of occult magic. Using primarily line work in black and white, they attempt to make non-binary identity archetypal. Jonah's work references mythology, and the history of trans people within spiritual practice. It depicts non-binary embodiment in particular as an expression of a long human lineage.

Culturally, we have an understanding of the divine feminine and masculine, but what of divine androgyny? It is the paradigm to shift all paradigms, wherein one human is free to expand endlessly.

Jonah's art gestures towards personal empowerment rather than power. It celebrates the sacredness of trans life, and touches on the pain of oppression. Jonah's work upholds anti-assimilation and fearlessness at the edge of life and death as pathways to freedom.

Founded in 2015, SaveArtSpace is a non-profit organization that works to create an urban gallery experience, launching exhibitions that address intersectional themes and foster a progressive message of social change. By placing culture over commercialism, SaveArtSpace aims to empower artists from all walks of life and inspire a new generation of young creatives and activists.

Location: Como Ave & Kent St N St Paul, MN

On view: November 30 - December 27, 2020

Jamie Malone (they/them) is a 23 year old non-binary creator who graduated from Iowa State University in the summer of 2019 with a BA in Biological/Pre-Medical Illustration.

Their art is heavily inspired by celestial bodies, music, mysticism, and the natural world. They wish to educate and celebrate with their art, providing pieces to clients that they may cherish for lifetimes. Their primary medium is currently digital illustration, but they are well versed in many forms of traditional materials as well.

There is a light at the peak of a mountain that shines brighter than any light I've seen before. It holds a glow that feels welcoming and warm, much like the gleam of a candle, though it is never extinguished. I see this light within me, and every trans person I've ever met. Every glow is unique and exhibits an inherit holiness that is deserving of love, respect, and support. We are the light for a sacred path that is challenging to navigate, but is never walked alone.

Connect with Jamie on Instagram at @artbyjmalone.

Location: 12th Ave & W 125th St, New York, NY

On view: November 30 - December 27, 2020

Multimedia artist Malaika Ibreck likes to believe that all creatures are made up of microscopic splotches of paint, pen ink and pixels (scientists call them atoms). These elements exist inside of everyone, an artist's role is to externalise them. Bringing art into the world looks a bit like giving birth: messy, sort of beautiful, can be quite gross and horrible. Whilst creating this piece, Malaika had several beautiful meltdowns.

As well as birthing art, Malaika is an activist, using their lived experience as a Black Trans person to inform how they work. To be Trans is to transcend the gender assigned at birth: to go beyond. To be Black is to hold a history rich with celebration, struggle and complexity. Some of Malaika's recent work includes founding What Can We Do , a collective supporting Black and Brown Trans people in the UK, writing and illustrating the piece "What about Black Trans People" , and participating in writing and illustrating Lush's Diversity in Discussion collection. Malaika's work has been exhibited across the UK, China, and the US, featuring in shows at Pinyago International Photography Festival, Store St Gallery, and The Poly.

Malaika's work honours and celebrates their ancestors, their contemporaries and themself. This piece looks at commemorating Malaika's Black and Brown Trans siblings. All of the people depicted in this artwork were murdered in 2020:

Alexa Neulisa Luciano Ruiz, Lexi, Monica Diamond, Penélope Díaz Ramírez, Layla Pelaez Sánchez, Serena Angelique Velázquez Ramos, Nina Pop, Tony McDade, Dominique "Rem'mie" Fells, Riah Milton, Selena Reyes-Hernandez, Brayla Stone, Merci Mack, Bree "Nuk" Black, Shaki Peters, Draya McCarty, Tatiana Hall, Marilyn Cazares, Tiffany Harris, Queasha Hardy, Brian "Egypt" Powers, Aja Raquell Rhone-Spears.

Malaika asks viewers of this piece to remember these people, and to cherish the Black and Brown Trans people who are still alive.

Connect with Malaika on Instagram at @malaika_an9el.

Connect with For the Gworls, a US fundraising collective for Black Trans people at @forthegworls.

Connect with What Can We Do, a UK collective fundraising for Black and Brown Trans people at @whatcan.wedo.

Location: W Burnside Ave & Davidson Ave Bronx, NY

On view: December 7, 2020 - January 3, 2021

Gabriella Grimes is a 25 year-old Black Queer digital artist from the Bronx, NY, now based in Philadelphia, PA. They're a self taught artist with no formal art education. They graduated from Hunter College in 2018 with a Bachelor's degree in Music, double minoring in Sociology and Africana Studies. They began their art career in their last year of college with watercolors and acrylics, and switched over to digital a year later. They were homeless for 7 years, living in a shelter in East Harlem and Long Island City, before securing housing in the Bronx at the end of 2019. In May of 2020, they moved to Philadelphia with their partner to escape housing insecurity in NYC due to COVID.

Under the handle ggggrimes, they create colorful works of art showing Queer People of Color living happy, beautiful, and sexy lives. They bring magical Queer worlds to life in their artwork, showing a reality that every Queer deserves. One of ggggrimes' main goals is allowing young Queer people a space to feel accepted, multifaceted, and empowered.

Connect with Gabriella on Instagram at @ggggrimes.

Location: S San Vicente Blvd & S Cochran Ave Los Angeles, CA & W Olympic Blvd & Alandele Ave Los Angeles, CA

On view: December 7, 2020 - January 3, 2021

Sophia Zarders (she/her and they/them) is an illustrator, comic artist, and pop culture queen from Long Beach, California. Her illustrations have been published in The Nation, Zora, Fiyah Literary Magazine, and by Harper Collins. They've created empowering poster designs for Forward Together, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and other grassroots organizations. Sophia's drawings and paintings have been exhibited in Somos Gallery in Berlin, Haight Street Art Center in San Francisco, and Fantagraphics Gallery in Seattle. They have self-published illustrative books and zines about stand up comedians, women & trans filmmakers, youth activists, and problematic pop stars. Currently, Sophia lives with her dog, Bobo, and works as a freelance visual artist.

Connect with Sophia on Instagram at @sophiazarders.

Location: Olive St & N Compton Ave St. Louis, MO

On view: December 21, 2020 - January 17, 2021

MaryAnn George (ma or they/them) is a non-binary trans masc genderfull being with a big, multiplitious spirt. Raised in St. Louis, MO, they are currently based in Brooklyn, NY where they create art, write, and work as a coach.

While MaryAnn works with multiple mediums, they feel a special connection to collage. The malleability, accessibility, and immediacy of digital collage is very appealing to the fluidity of MaryAnn's practice.

Inspired by tapestries, family trees, embroidery, magical realism, and zine culture they are also drawn to radiant colors, wild patterns, and sacred symbols. Their work is focused on reimagining, invigorating, and revitalizing images as a way to reframe and recenter narratives of power and magick.

As a coach, MaryAnn predominantly works with Queer and Trans folks, supporting them as they explore their own unique stories and expression. Using artmaking, along with other modalities, MaryAnn encourages everyone to celebrate the wonder within and around them.

Connect with MaryAnn on Instagram at @ma_george.

Location: Marietta St NW & Parker St NW Atlanta, GA

On view: December 21, 2020 - January 17, 2021

Kae Goode (They, She) is a writer, multidisciplinary artist, and Trans Leadership coordinator for Spark Reproductive Justice Now!. They are a New Jersey native and a Black TransFemme. Their work varies from digital art, painting, writing. Her art reimagines a world where liberation is at the forefront of conversation and people have the freedom & resources to make autonomous decisions about their lives and bodies

Connect with Kae on Instagram at @goodegawd.

Location: Hemphill Ave NW & Curran St NW Atlanta, GA

On view: December 21, 2020 - January 17, 2021

I am a multimedia artist, educated in Illustration and Painting, and practiced in Music, Film, and Performance, whatever it is done as D.I.Y. as I am capable. Through all of these medium my work is centred in sexuality including gender and it's expression and the limitlessness and ever growing concept and what's that means to art therefore beauty and inevitably humanity.

If all art is, is an expression of the artists consciousness and therein what they find beautiful in the broadest meaning of the word, being a non-binary and queer person gives me the most comprehensive conception of beauty beyond what gender and any binary can contain. So with this billboard I just want to give space to different kind of trans people and allow others to see the beauty I do in these sacred bodies.

Connect with Shanisia on Instagram at @shanisiaperson

Location: Martin Luther King Jr Way & 19th St Oakland, CA

On view: December 28, 2020 - January 24, 2021

G is a Black, queer and trans non-binary artist, co-founder of Beyondeep Productions. Utilizing many different art mediums including film, G creates magical spaces reflecting their identity and pushing boundaries. All of G's work promoting empowering Black images, is so vital in order to destigmatize and spread positive vibes. G envisioned and titled their billboard "Give Us Our Flowers" because we deserve love, respect, and peace while we are living life. We deserve to thrive!

Please stay tuned to BEYONDEEP, we have lots of productions in the works!

Connect with G on Instagram at @Beyondeep.

Location: Nord Ave & Stewart Ave Chico, CA

On view: January 5 - February 1, 2021

Art Twink grew up drawing critters they thought up to comfort themselves and their friends, and that mission continues to this very day. For Art Twink, art is for creating community and safety in a world that offers very little of either. After 6 years of working in graphic apparel design for brands like Disney, Marvel, Nintendo, and Star Wars, they are well versed in the technical and commercial world of visual art. However, at heart Art Twink is a storyteller. They carry on the tradition of telling stories that inspire, validate, and comfort people and creatures in hard times as a trans artist of color. Along side their visual art they also illustrate children's books, the latest being My Rainbow.

Connect with Art Twink on Instagram at @art_twink.

Location: Church Ave & Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn, NY

On view: February 8 - March 7, 2021

KaliMa Amilak is an Afro-Caribbean photographer, business owner, herbalist, and multidisciplinary artist native from Brooklyn, New York. In their experience as a photographer, they have sold and exhibited artwork in various galleries in Brooklyn and the Bay Area, such as BatHaus Gallery, SOMArts, The San Francisco Human Right Commission Center, Ashara Ekundayo Gallery, and The Richmond Arts Center. They have also been published in online publications such as AFROPUNK. Through their intentions in art, they are devoted to self-expression and celebration for black queer people sharing their life experiences as a means of healing through empowerment.

Connect with KaliMa on Instagram at @kalimaamilak.

Location: Sinclair Rd & Strimple Ave Columbus, OH

On view: March 1 - March 28, 2021

I'm Maroodi a Black/Somali Muslim Trans Visual Artist based in Chicago, Illinois. I grew up in Columbus, Ohio but being who I am. Ohio never really felt like home I always knew I was gonna leave one day. Even though I was loved by many people in my community. I knew it would go away the moment they found out about the real me. Back in 2019 was when I let them know who I really was. Being outed by a family member was the reason why I took ownership of my story. My family being the shock of me being Somali and queer was the reason I did my 1st photoshoot. Hearing how are you Somali and gay was getting very annoying. The shoot brought both of the worlds together. In the photo series, I made a garment that is worn by men into a big puffy skirt. The location was in front of a well known Somali mall in Columbus, Ohio. The photos went viral even though it brought so much hate my way. It births the artist I was destined to be and introduce so many Somali queers that I called family now. It's wild that I am saying this but having Somali queers come out to me is so normal at this point. My art and visibility are for them it's to give us the representation we deserve. Queer Somali existences have always been pushed away to the point where it like we haven't existed. We have always been here and I know that from the protection my queer Somali ancestors have over me.
Muslim Trans People are Sacred
I walked into her room and gently closed the door behind me. This is where I felt most sacred. I knew that this was a forbidden space but I never let fear grab hold of me. I rummaged through her closet to find the brightest dress adorned in the finest sequins that matched my sacredness. This is where I felt most sacred. The blue see-through gown that draped over my curves represented my ocean like strength. The billowing white silk skirt layered beneath held the purity I had within. The fuchsia stained hijab defined the peace I felt when I wore her clothes. Out of the darkness, I felt his eyes on me as he stood in the corner dressed in white fearfully watching. The white he wore represented the fears I once had within, he was transphobia. With the burning fire in my soul and the boldness in my eyes, I killed the transphobia. This is where I felt most sacred.

Connect with Maroodi on Instagram at @Maroodi_.

Location: S Broad St & Carpenter St, Philadelphia, PA

On view: May 10 - June 6, 2021

Kah Yangni is a genderfluid, Black illustrator living in Philadelphia, PA. They make heartfelt art about justice, queerness, and joy.

Their art has been shared by people like Indya Moore of the television show Pose, and they've worked with the New York Times, Vice Media, Bust Magazine, Chronicle Books, and Teen Vogue, as well as with causes Rock the Vote, the National Women's Law Center, and the Movement for Black Lives. They've been mentioned in Bustle, Hyperallergic, and Them, and their poster work is in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Connect with Kah on Instagram at @kahyangni.

Location: SE Hawthorne Blvd & SE 19th Ave, Portland, OR

On view: July 5 - August 1, 2021

In 2020 I graduated from Oregon State University with a Bachelor's Degree studying Graphic Design & Fine Arts. I have also been pursuing photography since I was in high school and just started my career as a graphic designer, while doing personal photography projects on the side. I always knew I wanted to make a big impact with my art; whether that be through my design, photography or other art forms. When SAS reached out and congratulated me on being one of the selected artists to represent the Trans People Are Sacred campaign, I was so honored to have an opportunity to showcase such a beautiful community. I immediately wanted to showcase actual human bodies and give folks I know and love space to flourish in our city. Being able to see trans bodies represented in the real world and on a billboard for so many people to experience is such a great feeling. I wish I could have seen a campaign like this when I started my transition about 4 years ago, because it would have been so inspiring to see folks within my community and to know that I wasn't the outlier of my family/friends or anyone around me for that matter. I'm really glad to be that moment of inspiration to someone who will pass by this billboard and think "wow, I can do it if they did".

I am constantly inspired by those who live their truth, who experiment/are fluid and open, who are unapologetically themselves and comfortable in their own bodies. This is what I want viewers and folks that are a part of the trans community to get out of this piece. We are here, we are confident, we are beautiful, we are divine, and we are sacred.

With love,

Nyjah Gobert (he/him)

Connect with Nyjah on Instagram at @gobert.nyj.

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Trans People Are Sacred - SaveArtSpace - Transforming Advertisements Into Public Art By Local Communities

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SaveArtSpace is proud to bring more art to communities across America with the message Trans People Are Sacred! The Trans People Are Sacred GoFundMe raised over $35,000 which allowed us to provide 14 artists with 14 billboards throughout the United States and also provide each artist with a $1,000 honorarium.

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Andrea Gibson - Your Life (Official Video)

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‎Surviving Society: E024 The Reflection with Alison Phipps: Me,(still) Not You on Apple Podcasts

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Alison reflects on the reception of her 2020 book, Me not you: the trouble with mainstream feminism. We discuss disposability, the connection between t**er*fs and racism (& the far right) and we present some hopeful possibilities for our political culture.

Useful links:
https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526155801/

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e024 the reflection with alison phipps: me

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‎Surviving Society: E024 The Reflection with Alison Phipps: Me,(still) Not You on Apple Podcasts

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Alison reflects on the reception of her 2020 book, Me not you: the trouble with mainstream feminism. We discuss disposability, the connection between t**er*fs and racism (& the far right) and we present some hopeful possibilities for our political culture. Useful links: https://manchesteruniversit...

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Foucault's Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

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Latest Deaths inside news, comment and analysis from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice

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Race & Justice News: Disarming Traffic Enforcement

Sentencing disparities examined in Massachusetts and Washtenaw County, Michigan, federal prosecutors targeted black communities while handling DC gun charges, Berkley to disarms traffic enforcement, and more in Race & Justice News.

COVID-19 in Juvenile Facilities

The widespread incidence of COVID-19 inflicts devastating impacts on incarcerated youth, their families, the staff who work in those facilities, and the communities they call home. The Sentencing Project is tracking COVID-19 positive diagnoses among youth and staff at juvenile facilities and the number of known cases in each state.

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Theresa McIntyre Smith

In 1999, Theresa Smith was arrested at an airport after she met a drug courier in Roy Mercer's network and according to the government, identified a suitcase containing eleven kilograms of cocaine for the courier. Smith said she had been told by Mercer that the suitcase contained his nieces' clothes. For this first-time non-violent offense, Smith was sentenced to a ten-year mandatory prison term.

State Advocacy Update: From Defund the Police to Defund Prisons

The Sentencing Project hosted an online discussion highlighting efforts in California and Colorado to decarcerate and prioritize funding towards crime prevention and community.

Trends in U.S. Corrections

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People with felony convictions under supervision are barred from voting. Let them be heard.

North Carolina's felony disenfranchisement law mutes the political voices of Black residents, preventing them from meaningfully changing systems that, like the criminal justice system, so often discriminate against them.

Disenfranchisement News: Iowa Gov. Ends Lifetime Ban on Voting for People with Felony Convictions

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Race & Justice News: Disarming Traffic Enforcement Sentencing disparities examined in Massachusetts and Washtenaw County, Michigan, federal prosecutors targeted black communities while handling DC gun charges, Berkley to disarms traffic enforcement, and more in Race & Justice News.

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For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.

Chapter 1: "Inmates Run This Bitch"

Have you ever had a riot?" I ask a recruiter from a prison run by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
"The last riot we had was two years ago," he says over the phone.
"Yeah, but that was with the Puerto Ricans!" says a woman's voice, cutting in. "We got rid of them."
"When can you start?" the man asks.
I tell him I need to think it over.

I take a breath. Am I really going to become a prison guard? Now that it might actually happen, it feels scary and a bit extreme.

I started applying for jobs in private prisons because I wanted to see the inner workings of an industry that holds 131,000 of the nation's 1.6 million prisoners. As a journalist, it's nearly impossible to get an unconstrained look inside our penal system. When prisons do let reporters in, it's usually for carefully managed tours and monitored interviews with inmates. Private prisons are especially secretive. Their records often aren't subject to public access laws; CCA has fought to defeat legislation that would make private prisons subject to the same disclosure rules as their public counterparts. And even if I could get uncensored information from private prison inmates, how would I verify their claims? I keep coming back to this question: Is there any other way to see what really happens inside a private prison?

CCA certainly seemed eager to give me a chance to join its team. Within two weeks of filling out its online application, using my real name and personal information, several CCA prisons contacted me, some multiple times.

They weren't interested in the details of my résumé. They didn't ask about my job history, my current employment with the Foundation for National Progress, the publisher of Mother Jones, or why someone who writes about criminal justice in California would want to move across the country to work in a prison. They didn't even ask about the time I was arrested for shoplifting when I was 19.

When I call Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana, the HR lady who answers is chipper and has a smoky Southern voice. "I should tell you upfront that the job only pays $9 an hour, but the prison is in the middle of a national forest. Do you like to hunt and fish?"

"I like fishing."

"Well, there is plenty of fishing, and people around here like to hunt squirrels. You ever squirrel hunt?"

"No."

"Well, I think you'll like Louisiana. I know it's not a lot of money, but they say you can go from a CO to a warden in just seven years! The CEO of the company started out as a CO"-a corrections officer.

Ultimately, I choose Winn. Not only does Louisiana have the highest incarceration rate in the world -more than 800 prisoners per 100,000 residents-but Winn is the oldest privately operated medium-security prison in the country.

I phone HR and tell her I'll take the job.

"Well, poop can stick!" she says.

I pass the background check within 24 hours.
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Two weeks later, in November 2014, having grown a goatee, pulled the plugs from my earlobes, and bought a beat-up Dodge Ram pickup, I pull into Winnfield, a hardscrabble town of 4,600 people three hours north of Baton Rouge. I drive past the former Mexican restaurant that now serves drive-thru daiquiris to people heading home from work, and down a street of collapsed wooden houses, empty except for a tethered dog. About 38 percent of households here live below the poverty line; the median household income is $25,000. Residents are proud of the fact that three governors came from Winnfield. They are less proud that the last sheriff was locked up for dealing meth.

Thirteen miles away, Winn Correctional Center lies in the middle of the Kisatchie National Forest, 600,000 acres of Southern yellow pines crosshatched with dirt roads. As I drive through the thick forest, the prison emerges from the fog. You might mistake the dull expanse of cement buildings and corrugated metal sheds for an oddly placed factory were it not for the office-park-style sign displaying CCA's corporate logo, with the head of a bald eagle inside the "A."

At the entrance, a guard who looks about 60, a gun on her hip, asks me to turn off my truck, open the doors, and step out. A tall, stern-faced man leads a German shepherd into the cab of my truck. My heart hammers. I tell the woman I'm a new cadet, here to start my four weeks of training. She directs me to a building just outside the prison fence.

"Have a good one, baby," she says as I pull through the gate. I exhale.

I park, find the classroom, and sit down with five other students.

"You nervous?" a 19-year-old black guy asks me. I'll call him Reynolds. (I've changed the names and nicknames of the people I met in prison unless noted otherwise.)

"A little," I say. "You?"

CCA RUNS 61 FACILITIES ACROSS THE UNITED STATES:

These include 34 state prisons, 14 federal prisons, 9 immigration detention centers, and 4 jails.

It owns 50 of these sites.

38 hold men, 2 hold women, 20 hold both sexes, and 1 holds women and children.**

17 are in Texas, 7 are in Tennessee, and 6 are in Arizona.

"Nah, I been around," he says. "I seen killin'. My uncle killed three people. My brother been in jail, and my cousin." He has scars on his arms. One, he says, is from a shootout in Baton Rouge. The other is from a street fight in Winnfield. He elbowed someone in the face, and the next thing he knew he got knifed from behind. "It was some gang shit." He says he just needs a job until he starts college in a few months. He has a baby to feed. He also wants to put speakers in his truck. They told him he could work on his days off, so he'll probably come in every day. "That will be a fat paycheck." He puts his head down on the table and falls asleep.

The human resources director comes in and scolds Reynolds for napping. He perks up when she tells us that if we recruit a friend to work here, we'll get 500 bucks. She gives us an assortment of other tips: Don't eat the food given to inmates; don't have sex with them or you could be fined $10,000 or get 10 years at hard labor; try not to get sick because we don't get paid sick time. If we have friends or relatives incarcerated here, we need to report it. She hands out fridge magnets with the number of a hotline to use if we feel suicidal or start fighting with our families. We get three counseling sessions for free.

I studiously jot down notes as the HR director fires up a video of the company's CEO, Damon Hininger, who tells us what a great opportunity it is to be a corrections officer at CCA. Once a guard himself, he made $3.4 million in 2015, nearly 19 times the salary of the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. "You may be brand new to CCA," Hininger says, "but we need you. We need your enthusiasm. We need your bright ideas. During the academy, I felt camaraderie. I felt a little anxiety too. That is completely normal. The other thing I felt was tremendous excitement."

I look around the room. Not one person-not the recent high school graduate, not the former Walmart manager, not the nurse, not the mother of twins who's come back to Winn after 10 years of McDonald's and a stint in the military-looks excited.

"I don't think this is for me," a postal worker says.

"Do not run!"

The next day, I wake up at 6 a.m. in my apartment in the nearby town where I decided to live to minimize my chances of running into off-duty guards. I feel a shaky, electric nervousness as I put a pen that doubles as an audio recorder into my shirt pocket.

In class that day, we learn about the use of force. A middle-aged black instructor I'll call Mr. Tucker comes into the classroom, his black fatigues tucked into shiny black boots. He's the head of Winn's Special Operations Response Team, or SORT, the prison's SWAT-like tactical unit. "If an inmate was to spit in your face, what would you do?" he asks. Some cadets say they would write him up. One woman, who has worked here for 13 years and is doing her annual retraining, says, "I would want to hit him. Depending on where the camera is, he might would get hit."

Mr. Tucker pauses to see if anyone else has a response. "If your personality if somebody spit on you is to knock the fuck out of him, you gonna knock the fuck out of him," he says, pacing slowly. "If a inmate hit me, I'm go' hit his ass right back. I don't care if the camera's rolling. If a inmate spit on me, he's gonna have a very bad day." Mr. Tucker says we should call for backup in any confrontation. "If a midget spit on you, guess what? You still supposed to call for backup. You don't supposed to ever get into a one-on-one encounter with anybody. Period. Whether you can take him or not. Hell, if you got a problem with a midget, call me. I'll help you. Me and you can whup the hell out of him."

"If a inmate hit me, I'm go' hit his ass right back. I don't care if the camera's rolling."

He asks us what we should do if we see two inmates stabbing each other.

"I'd probably call somebody," a cadet offers.

"I'd sit there and holler 'stop,'" says a veteran guard.

Mr. Tucker points at her. "Damn right. That's it. If they don't pay attention to you, hey, there ain't nothing else you can do."

He cups his hands around his mouth. "Stop fighting," he says to some invisible prisoners. "I said, 'Stop fighting.'" His voice is nonchalant. "Y'all ain't go' to stop, huh?" He makes like he's backing out of a door and slams it shut. "Leave your ass in there!"

"Somebody's go' win. Somebody's go' lose. They both might lose, but hey, did you do your job? Hell yeah!" The classroom erupts in laughter.

We could try to break up a fight if we wanted, he says, but since we won't have pepper spray or a nightstick, he wouldn't recommend it. "We are not going to pay you that much," he says emphatically. "The next raise you get is not going to be much more than the one you got last time. The only thing that's important to us is that we go home at the end of the day. Period. So if them fools want to cut each other, well, happy cutting."

When we return from break, Mr. Tucker sets a tear gas launcher and canisters on the table. "On any given day, they can take this facility," he says. "At chow time, there are 800 inmates and just two COs. But with just this class, we could take it back." He passes out sheets for us to sign, stating that we volunteer to be tear-gassed. If we do not sign, he says, our training is over, which means our jobs end right here. (When I later ask CCA if its staff members are required to be exposed to tear gas, spokesman Steven Owen says no.) "Anybody have asthma?" Mr. Tucker says. "Two people had asthma in the last class and I said, 'Okay, well, I'ma spray 'em anyway.' Can we spray an inmate? The answer is yes."

Five of us walk outside and stand in a row, arms linked. Mr. Tucker tests the wind with a finger and drops a tear gas cartridge. A white cloud of gas washes over us. The object is to avoid panicking, staying in the same place until the gas dissipates. My throat is suddenly on fire and my eyes seal shut. I try desperately to breathe, but I can only choke. "Do not run!" Mr. Tucker shouts at a cadet who is stumbling off blindly. I double over. I want to throw up. I hear a woman crying. My upper lip is thick with snot. When our breath starts coming back, the two women linked to me hug each other. I want to hug them too. The three of us laugh a little as tears keep pouring down our cheeks.

"Don't ever say thank you"

Our instructors advise us to carry a notebook to keep track of everything prisoners will ask us for. I keep one in my breast pocket and jet into the bathroom periodically to jot things down. They also encourage us to invest in a watch because when we document rule infractions it is important that we record the time precisely. A few days into training, a wristwatch arrives in the mail. One of the little knobs on its side activates a recorder. On its face there is a tiny camera lens.

On the eighth day, we are pulled from CPR class and sent inside the compound to Elm-one of five single-story brick buildings where the prison's roughly 1,500 inmates live. When we go through security, we are told to empty our pockets and remove our shoes and belts. This is intensely nerve-wracking: I send my watch, pen, employee ID, and pocket change through the X-ray machine. I walk through the metal detector and a CO runs a wand up and down my body and pats down my chest, back, arms, and legs.

The other cadets and I gather at a barred gate and an officer, looking at us through thick glass, turns a switch that opens it slowly. We pass through, and after the gate closes behind us, another opens ahead. On the other side, the CCA logo is emblazoned on the wall along with the words "Respect" and "Integrity" and a mural of two anchors inexplicably floating at sea. Another gate clangs open and our small group steps onto the main outdoor artery of the prison: "the walk."

From above, the walk is shaped like a "T." It is fenced in with chain-link and covered with corrugated steel. Yellow lines divide the pavement into three lanes. Clustered and nervous, we cadets travel up the middle lane from the administration building as prisoners move down their designated side lanes. I greet inmates as they pass, trying hard to appear loose and unafraid. Some say good morning. Others stop in their tracks and make a point of looking the female cadets up and down.

We walk past the squat, dull buildings that house visitation, programming, the infirmary, and a church with a wrought-iron gate shaped into the words "Freedom Chapel." Beyond it there is a mural of a fighter jet dropping a bomb into a mountain lake, water blasting skyward, and a giant bald eagle soaring overhead, backgrounded by an American flag. At the top of the T we take a left, past the chow hall and the canteen, where inmates can buy snacks, toiletries, tobacco, music players, and batteries.

There are almost never more than two floor officers in a general population unit. That's one per 176 inmates.

The units sit along the top of the walk. Each is shaped like an "X" and connected to the main walk by its own short, covered walk. Every unit is named after a type of tree. Most are general population units, where inmates mingle in dorm-style halls and can leave for programs and chow. Cypress is the high-security segregation unit, the only one where inmates are confined to cells.

In Dogwood, reserved for the best-behaved inmates, prisoners get special privileges like extra television time, and many work outside the unit in places like the metal shop, the garment factory, or the chow hall. Some "trusties" even get to work in the front office, or beyond the fence washing employees' personal cars. Birch holds most of the elderly, infirm, and mentally ill inmates, though it doesn't offer any special services. Then there are Ash and Elm, which inmates call "the projects." The more troublesome prisoners live here.

WINN CORRECTIONAL CENTER

Medium-security prison for inmates serving 50 years or less

Inmate population: About 1,500

75% black, 25% white or other

Average inmate age: 36

Average sentence: 19 years

Average time served: 5.7 years

Daily rate charged to state per inmate (2015): $34

INMATE OFFENSES

We enter Elm and walk onto an open, shiny cement floor. The air is slightly sweet and musty, like the clothes of a heavy smoker. Elm can house up to 352 inmates. At the center is an enclosed octagonal control room called "the key." Inside, a "key officer," invariably a woman, watches the feeds of the unit's 27-odd surveillance cameras, keeps a log of significant occurrences, and writes passes that give inmates permission to go to locations outside the unit, like school or the gym. Also in the key is the office of the unit manager, the "mini-warden" of the unit.

The key stands in the middle of "the floor." Branching out from the floor are the four legs of the X; two tiers run down the length of each leg. Separated from the floor by a locked gate, every tier is an open dormitory that houses up to 44 men, each with his own narrow bed, thin mattress, and metal locker.

Toward the front of each tier, there are two toilets, a trough-style urinal, and two sinks. There are two showers, open except for a three-foot wall separating them from the common area. Nearby are a microwave, a telephone, and a Jpay machine, where inmates pay to download songs onto their portable players and send short, monitored emails for about 30 cents each. Each tier also has a TV room, which fills up every weekday at 12:30 p.m. for the prison's most popular show, The Young and the Restless.

At Winn, staff and inmates alike refer to guards as "free people." Like the prisoners, the majority of the COs at Winn are African American. More than half are women, many of them single moms. But in Ash and Elm, the floor officers-who more than anyone else deal with the inmates face-to-face-are exclusively men. Floor officers are both enforcers and a prisoner's first point of contact if he needs something. It is their job to conduct security checks every 30 minutes, walking up and down each tier to make sure nothing is awry. Three times per 12-hour shift, all movement in the prison stops and the floor officers count the inmates. There are almost never more than two floor officers per general population unit. That's one per 176 inmates. (CCA later tells me that the Louisiana Department of Corrections, or DOC, considered the "staffing pattern" at Winn "appropriate.")

In Elm, a tall white CO named Christian is waiting for us with a leashed German shepherd. He tells the female cadets to go to the key and the male cadets to line up along the showers and toilets at the front of the tier. We put on latex gloves. The inmates are sitting on their beds. Two ceiling fans turn slowly. The room is filled with fluorescent light. Almost every prisoner is black.

A small group of inmates get up from their beds and file into the shower area. One, his body covered with tattoos, gets in the shower in front of me, pulls off his shirt and shorts, and hands them to me to inspect. "Do a one-finger lift, turn around, bend, squat, cough," Christian orders. In one fluid motion, the man lifts his penis, opens his mouth, lifts his tongue, spins around with his ass facing me, squats, and coughs. He hands me his sandals and shows me the soles of his feet. I hand him his clothes and he puts his shorts on, walks past me, and nods respectfully.

Like a human assembly line, the inmates file in. "Beyend, squawt, cough," Christian drawls. He tells one inmate to open his hand. The inmate uncurls his finger and reveals a SIM card. Christian takes it but does nothing.

Staff and inmates alike refer to guards as "free people." More than half are women, many of them single moms.

Eventually, the TV room is full of prisoners. A guard looks at them and smiles. "Tear 'em up!" he says, gesturing down the tier. Each of us, women included, stops at a bed. Christian tells one cadet to "shake down bed eight real good-just because he pissed me off." He tells us to search everything. I follow the other guards' lead, opening bottles of toothpaste and lotion. Inside a container of Vaseline, I find a one-hitter pipe made out of a pen and ask Christian what to do with it. He takes it from me, mutters "eh," and tosses it on the floor. I go through the mattress, pillow, dirty socks, and underwear. I flip through photos of kids, and of women posing seductively. I move on to new lockers: ramen, chips, dentures, hygiene products, peanut butter, cocoa powder, cookies, candy, salt, moldy bread, a dirty coffee cup. I find the draft of a novel, dedicated to "all the hustlers, bastards, strugglers, and hoodlum childs who are chasing their dreams."

One instructor notices that I am carefully putting each object back where I found it and tells me to pull everything out of the lockers and leave it on the beds. I look down the tier and see mattresses lying on the floor, papers and food dumped across beds. The middle of the floor is strewn with contraband: USB cables refashioned as phone chargers, tubs of butter, slices of cheese, and pills. I find some hamburger patties taken from the cafeteria. A guard tells me to throw them into the pile.

Inmates are glued up against the TV room window, watching a young white cadet named Miss Stirling pick through their stuff. She's pretty and petite, with long, jet-black hair. The attention makes her uncomfortable; she thinks the inmates are gross. Earlier this week, she said she would refuse to give an inmate CPR and won't try the cafeteria food because she doesn't want to "eat AIDS." The more she is around prisoners, though, the more I notice her grapple with an inner conflict. "I don't want to treat everyone like a criminal because I've done things myself," she says.

Miss Stirling says she sometimes wonders if her baby's dad will end up here. She doesn't like doing chokehold escapes in class because they bring back memories of him. He cooked meth in their toolshed and once beat her so badly he dislocated her shoulder and knee. "You know that bone at the bottom of your neck? He pushed it up into my head," she says.

Senior Reporter Shane Bauer can be reached by email at sbauer@motherjones.com.

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If he ends up in this prison, another cadet assures her, "we could make his life hell."

As we shake down the tier, a prisoner comes out of the TV room to get a better look at Miss Stirling, and she yells at him to go back in. He does.

"Thank you," she says.

"Did she just say thank you?" Christian asks. A bunch of COs scoff.

"Don't ever say thank you," a woman CO tells her. "That takes the power away from it."

"Ain't no order here"

Most of our training is uneventful. Some days there are no more than two hours of classes, and then we have to sit and run the clock to 4:15 p.m. We pass the time discussing each other's lives. I try mostly to stay quiet, but when I slip into describing a backpacking trip I recently took in California, a cadet throws her arms in the air and shouts, "Why are you here?!" I am careful to never lie, instead backing out with generalities like, "I came here for work," or "You never know where life will take you," and no one pries further.

Few of my fellow cadets have traveled farther than nearby Oklahoma. They compare towns by debating the size and quality of their Walmarts. Most are young. They eat candy during break time, write their names on the whiteboard in cutesy lettering, and talk about different ways to get high.

Miss Doucet, a stocky redheaded cadet in her late 50s, thinks that if kids were made to read the Bible in school, fewer would be in prison, but she also sticks pins in a voodoo doll to mete out vengeance. "I swing both ways," she says. She lives in a camper with her daughter and grandkids. With this job, she's hoping to save up for a double-wide trailer.

The shoulders of a young cadet are slumping. He says his check was for $577, after they took $121 in taxes.

She worked at the lumber mill in Winnfield for years, but worsening asthma put an end to that. She's been hospitalized several times this year and says she almost died once. "They don't even want me to bring this in," she whispers, leaning in, pulling her inhaler out of her pocket. "I'm not supposed to, but I do. They ain't takin' it away from me." She takes a long drag from her cigarette.

Miss Doucet and others from the class ahead of mine go to the front office to get their paychecks for their first two weeks of work. When they return, the shoulders of a young cadet are slumping. He says his check was for $577, after they took $121 in taxes.

"Dang. That hurts," he says.

Miss Doucet says they withheld $114 from her check.

"They held less for you?!" the young cadet says.

"I'm may-ried!" she says in a singsong voice. "I got a chi-ild!"

Outwardly, Miss Doucet is jovial and cocky, but she is already making mental adjustments to her dreams. The double-wide trailer she imagines her grandkids spreading out in becomes a single-wide. She figures she can get $5,000 for the RV.
CCA Facilities
At the end of one morning of doing nothing, the training coordinator tells us we can go to the gym to watch inmates graduate from trade classes. Prisoners and their families are milling around with plates of cake and cups of fruit punch. An inmate offers a piece of red velvet to Miss Stirling.

I stand around with Collinsworth, an 18-year-old cadet with a chubby white baby face hidden behind a brown beard and a wisp of bangs. Before CCA, Collinsworth worked at a Starbucks. When he came to Winnfield to help out with family, this was the first job he could get. Once, Collinsworth was nearly kicked out of class after he jokingly threatened to stab Mr. Tucker with a plastic training knife. He's boasted to me about inmate management tactics he's learned from seasoned officers. "You just pit 'em against each other and that's the easiest way to get your job done," he tells me. He says one guard told him that inmates should tell troublemakers, "'I'm gonna rape you if you try that shit again.' Or something; whatever it takes."

As Collinsworth and I stand around, inmates gather to look at our watches. One, wearing a cocked gray beanie, asks to buy them. I refuse outright. Collinsworth dithers. "How old you is?" the inmate asks him.

"You never know," Collinsworth says.

"Man, all these fake-ass signals," the inmate says. "The best thing you could do is get to know people in the place."

"I understand it's your home," Collinsworth says. "But I'm at work right now."

"It's your home for 12 hours a day! You trippin'. You 'bout to do half my time with me. You straight with that?"

"It's probably true."

"It ain't no 'probably true.' If you go' be at this bitch, you go' do 12 hours a day." He tells Collinsworth not to bother writing up inmates for infractions: "They ain't payin' you enough for that." Seeming torn between whether to impress me or the inmate, Collinsworth says he will only write up serious offenses, like hiding drugs.

"Drugs?! Don't worry 'bout the drugs." The inmate says he was caught recently with two ounces of "mojo," or synthetic marijuana, which is the drug of choice at Winn. The inmate says guards turn a blind eye to it. They "ain't trippin' on that shit," he says. "I'm telling you, it ain't that type of camp. You can't come change things by yourself. You might as well go with the flow. Get this free-ass, easy-ass money, and go home."

"I'm just here to do my job and take care of my family," Collinsworth says. "I'm not gonna bring stuff in 'cuz even if I don't get caught, there's always the chance that I will."

"They ain't got shit for us here. What you think gonna happen when a man got nuttin' to do?

"Nah. Ain't no chance," the inmate says. "I ain't never heard of nobody movin' good and low-key gettin' caught. Nah. I know a dude still rolling. He been doin' it six years." He looks at Collinsworth. "Easy."

The inmates' families file out the side entrance. A couple of minutes after the last visitors leave, the coach shouts, "All inmates on the bleachers!" A prisoner tosses his graduation certificate dramatically into the trash. Another lifts the podium over his head and runs with it across the gym. The coach shouts, exasperated, as prisoners scramble around.

"You see this chaos?" the inmate in the beanie says to Collinsworth. "If you'd been to other camps, you'd see the order they got. Ain't no order here. Inmates run this bitch, son."

A week later, Mr. Tucker tells us to come in early to do shakedowns. The sky is barely lit as I stand on the walk at 6:30 with the other cadets. Collinsworth tells us another prisoner offered to buy his watch. He said he'd sell it for $600. The inmate declined.

"Don't sell it to him anyway," Miss Stirling admonishes him. "You might get $600, but if they find out, you ain't go' get no more paychecks."

"Nah, I wouldn't actually do it. I just said $600 because I know they don't got $600 to give me."

"Shit," a heavyset black cadet named Willis says. He's our main authority on prison life. He says he served seven and a half years in the Texas State Penitentiary; he won't say what for. (CCA hires former felons whom it deems not to be a security risk; it says all Winn guards' background checks were also reviewed by the DOC.) "Dudes was showing me pictures," says Willis. "They got money in here. One dude in here, don't say nothin', but he got like six to eight thousand dollars. They got it on cards. Little money cards and shit."

Collinsworth jumps up and down. "Dude, I'ma find me one of them damn cards! Hell yeah. And I will not report it."

Officially, inmates are only allowed to keep money in special prison-operated accounts that can be used at the canteen. In these accounts, prisoners with jobs receive their wages, which may be as little as 2 cents an hour for a dishwasher and as much as 20 cents for a sewing-machine operator at Winn's garment factory. Their families can also deposit money in the accounts.

The prepaid cash cards Willis is referring to are called Green Dots, and they are the currency of the illicit prison economy. Connections on the outside buy them online, then pass on the account numbers in encoded messages through the mail or during visits. Inmates with contraband cellphones can do all these transactions themselves, buying the cards and handing out strips of paper as payments for drugs or phones or whatever else.

Miss Stirling divulges that an inmate gave her the digits of a money card as a Christmas gift. "I'm like, damn! I need a new MK watch. I need a new purse. I need some new jeans."

"There was this one dude in Dogwood," she continues. "He came up to the bars and showed me a stack of hundred-dollar bills folded up, and it was like this-" She makes like she's holding a wad of cash four inches thick. "And I was like, 'I'm not go' say anything.'"

"Dude! I'ma shake him the fuck down!" Collinsworth says. "I don't care if he's cool."

"He had a phone," Miss Stirling says, "and he's like, 'I don't have the time of day to hide it. I just keep it in the open. I really don't give a fuck.'"

Mr. Tucker tells us to follow him. We shake down tiers all morning. By the time we finish at 11, everyone is exhausted. "I'm not mad we had to do shakedowns. I'm just mad we didn't find anything," Collinsworth says. Christian pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and reads off a string of numbers in a show-offy way. "A Green Dot," he says. Christian hands the slip of paper to one of the cadets, a middle-aged white woman. "You can have this one," he says. "I have plenty already." She smiles coyly.

"We are going to win this unit back"

"Welcome to the hellhole," a female CO greeted me the first time I visited the segregation unit. A few days later I'm back at Cypress with Collinsworth and Reynolds to shadow some guards. The metal door clicks open and we enter to a cacophony of shouting and pounding on metal. An alarm is sounding and the air smells strongly of smoke.

On one wall is a mural of a prison nestled among dark mountains and shrouded in storm clouds, lightning striking the guard towers and an enormous, screeching bald eagle descending with a giant pair of handcuffs in its talons. Toward the end of a long hall of cells, an officer in a black SWAT-style uniform stands ready with a pepper-ball gun. Another man in black is pulling burnt parts of a mattress out of a cell. Cypress can hold up to 200 inmates; most of the eight-by-eight-foot cells have two prisoners in them. The cells look like tombs; men lie in their bunks, wrapped in blankets, staring at the walls. Many are lit only by the light from the hallway. In one, an inmate is washing his clothes in his toilet.

"How are you doing?" says a smiling white man dressed business casual. He grips my hand. "Thank you for being here." Assistant Warden Parker is new to CCA, but he was once the associate warden of a federal prison. "I know it seems crazy back here now, but you'll learn the ropes," he assures me. "We are going to win this unit back. It's not going to happen in an hour. It's gonna take time, but it will happen." Apparently the segregation unit has been in a state of upheaval for a while, so corporate headquarters has sent in SORT officers from out of state to bring it back under control. SORT teams are trained to suppress riots, rescue hostages, extract inmates from their cells, and neutralize violent prisoners. They deploy an array of "less lethal" weapons like plastic buckshot, electrified shields, and chili-pepper-filled projectiles that burst on contact.

I get a whiff of feces that quickly becomes overpowering. On one of the tiers, a brown liquid oozes out of a bottle on the floor. Food, wads of paper, and garbage are all over the ground. I spot a Coke can, charred black, with a piece of cloth sticking out of it like a fuse. "I use my political voice!" an inmate shouts. "I stand up for my rights. Hahaha! Ain't nowhere like this camp. Shit, y'all's disorganized as fuck up in here."

"That's why we are here," a SORT member says. "We are going to change all that."

The cells look like tombs. Men lie in their bunks, wrapped in blankets, staring at the walls.

"Y'all can't change shit," the prisoner yells back. "They ain't got shit for us here. We ain't got no jobs. No rec time. We just sit in our cells all day. What you think gonna happen when a man got nuttin' to do? That's why we throw shit out on the tier. What else are we going to do? You know how we get these officers to respect us? We throw piss on 'em. That's the only way. Either that or throw them to the floor. Then they respect us."

I ask one of the regular white-shirted COs what an average day in seg looks like. "To be honest with you, normally we just sit here at this table all day long," he tells me. They are supposed to walk up and down the eight tiers every 30 minutes to check on the inmates, but he says they never do that. (CCA says it had no knowledge of guards at Winn skipping security checks before I inquired about it.)

Collinsworth is walking around with a big smile on his face. He's learning how to take inmates out of their cells for disciplinary court, which is inside Cypress. He's supposed to cuff them through the slot in the bars, then tell the CO at the end of the tier to open the gate remotely. "Fuck nah, I ain't coming out of this cell!" an inmate shouts at him. "You go' have to get SORT to bring me up out of here. That's how we do early in the morning. I'll fuck y'all up." The prisoner climbs up on the bars and pounds on the metal above the cell door. The sound explodes down the cement hallway.

Collinsworth and the CO he is shadowing move another inmate from his cell. The inmate tries to walk ahead as the CO holds him. "If that motherfucker starts pulling away from me like that again, I'm gonna make him eat concrete," the CO says to Collinsworth.

"I kind of hope he does mess around again," Collinsworth says, beaming. "That would be fun!"

I take a few inmates out of their cells, too, walking each one a hundred feet or so to disciplinary court with my hand around one of his elbows. One pulls against my grip. "Why you pulling on me, man?" he shouts, spinning around to stand face-to-face with me. A SORT officer rushes over and grabs him. My heart races.

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One of the white-shirted officers takes me aside. "Hey, don't let these guys push you around," he says. "If he is pulling away from you, you tell him, 'Stop resisting.' If he doesn't, you stop. If he keeps going, we are authorized to knee him in the back of the leg and drop him to the concrete."

Inmates shout at me as I walk back down the tier. "He has a little twist in his walk. I like them holes in your ears, CO. Come in here with me. Give me that booty!"

At lunchtime, Collinsworth, Reynolds, and I go back to the training room. "I love it here," Collinsworth says dreamily. "It's like a community."

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Chapter 2: Prison Experiments

People say a lot of negative things about CCA," the head of training, Miss Blanchard, tells us. "That we'll hire anybody. That we are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Which is not really true, but if you come here and you breathing and you got a valid driver's license and you willing to work, then we're willing to hire you." She warns us repeatedly, however, that to become corrections officers, we'll need to pass a test at the end of our four weeks of training. We will need to know the name of the CEO, the names of the company's founders, and their reason for establishing the first private prison more than 30 years ago. (Correct answer: "to alleviate the overcrowding in the world market.")

To prepare us, Miss Blanchard shows a video in which CCA founders T. Don Hutto and Thomas Beasley playfully tell their company's origin story. In 1983, they recount, they won "the first contract ever to design, build, finance, and operate a secure correctional facility in the world." The Immigration and Naturalization Service gave them just 90 days to do it. Hutto recalls how the pair quickly converted a Houston motel into a detention center: "We opened the facility on Super Bowl Sunday the end of that January. So about 10 o'clock that night we start receiving inmates. I actually took their pictures and fingerprinted them. Several other people walked them to their 'rooms,' if you will, and we got our first day's pay for 87 undocumented aliens." Both men chuckle.

There is much about the history of CCA the video does not teach. The idea of privatizing prisons originated in the early 1980s with Beasley and fellow businessman Doctor Robert Crants. The two had no experience in corrections, so they recruited Hutto, who had been the head of Virginia's and Arkansas' prisons. In a 1978 ruling, the Supreme Court had found that a succession of Arkansas prison administrations, including Hutto's, "tried to operate their prisons at a profit." Guards on horseback herded the inmates, who sometimes did not have shoes, to the fields. The year after Hutto joined CCA, he became the head of the American Correctional Association, the largest prison association in the world.

To Beasley, the former chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party, the business of private prisons was simple: "You just sell it like you were selling cars, or real estate, or hamburgers," he told Inc. magazine in 1988. Beasley and Crants ran the business a lot like a hotel chain, charging the government a daily rate for each inmate. Early investors included Sodexho-Marriott and the venture capitalist Jack Massey, who helped build Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wendy's, and the Hospital Corporation of America.

The 1980s were a good time to get into the incarceration business. The prison population was skyrocketing, the drug war was heating up, the length of sentences was increasing, and states were starting to mandate that prisoners serve at least 85 percent of their terms. Between 1980 and 1990, state spending on prisons quadrupled, but it wasn't enough. Prisons in many states were filled beyond capacity. When a federal court declared in 1985 that Tennessee's overcrowded prisons violated the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, CCA made an audacious proposal to take over the state's entire prison system. The bid was unsuccessful, but it planted an idea in the minds of politicians across the country: They could outsource prison management and save money in the process. Privatization also gave states a way to quickly expand their prison systems without taking on new debt. In the perfect marriage of fiscal and tough-on-crime conservatism, the companies would fund and construct new lockups while the courts would keep them full.
Private and public prison populations, 1990-2014
When CCA shares appeared on the NASDAQ stock exchange in 1986, the company was operating two juvenile detention centers and two immigrant detention centers. Today, it runs more than 60 facilities, from state prisons and jails to federal immigration detention centers. All together, CCA houses at least 66,000 inmates at any given time. Its main competitor, the GEO Group, holds more than 70,000 inmates in the United States. Currently, private prisons oversee about 8 percent of the country's total prison population.

Whatever taxpayer money CCA receives has to cover the cost of housing, feeding, and rehabilitating inmates. While I work at Winn, CCA receives about $34 per inmate per day. In comparison, the average daily cost per inmate at the state's publicly run prisons is about $52. Some states pay CCA as much as $80 per prisoner per day. In 2015, CCA reported $1.9 billion in revenue; it made more than $221 million in net income-more than $3,300 for each prisoner in its care. CCA and other prison companies have written "occupancy guarantees" into their contracts, requiring states to pay a fee if they cannot provide a certain number of inmates. Two-thirds of the private-prison contracts recently reviewed by the anti-privatization group In the Public Interest had these prisoner quotas. Under CCA's contract, Winn was guaranteed to be 96 percent full.

"If you come here and you breathing and you got a valid driver's license and you willing to work, then we're willing to hire you."

The main argument in favor of private prisons-that they save taxpayers money-remains controversial. One study estimated that private prisons cost 15 percent less than public ones; another found that public prisons were 14 percent cheaper. After reviewing these competing claims, researchers concluded that the savings "appear minimal." CCA directed me to a 2013 report -funded in part by the company and GEO-that claimed private prisons could save states as much as 59 percent over public prisons without sacrificing quality.

Private prisons' cost savings are "modest," according to one Justice Department study, and are achieved mostly through "moderate reductions in staffing patterns, fringe benefits, and other labor-related costs." Wages and benefits account for 59 percent of CCA's operating expenses. When I start at Winn, nonranking guards make $9 an hour, no matter how long they've worked there. The starting pay for guards at public state prisons comes out to $12.50 an hour. CCA told me that it "set[s] salaries based on the prevailing wages in local markets," adding that "the wages we provided in Winn Parish were competitive for that area."

Based on data from Louisiana's budget office, the cost per prisoner at Winn, adjusted for inflation, dropped nearly 20 percent between the late '90s and 2014. The pressure to squeeze the most out of every penny at Winn seems evident not only in our paychecks, but in decisions that keep staffing and staff-intensive programming for inmates at the barest of levels. When I asked CCA about the frequent criticism I heard from both staff and inmates about its relentless focus on the bottom line, its spokesman dismissed the assertion as "a cookie-cutter complaint," adding that it would be false "to claim that CCA prioritizes its own economic gain over the needs of its customers" or the safety of its inmates.

The escape

Two weeks after I start training, Chase Cortez (his real name) decides he has had enough of Winn. It's been nearly three years since he was locked up for theft, and he has only three months to go. But in the middle of a cool, sunny December day, he climbs onto the roof of Birch unit. He lies down and waits for the patrol vehicle to pass along the perimeter. He is in view of the guard towers, but they've been unmanned since at least 2010. Now, a single CO watches the video feeds from at least 30 cameras.

Cortez sees the patrol van pass, jumps down from the back side of the building, climbs the razor-wire perimeter fence, and then makes a run for the forest. He fumbles through the dense foliage until he spots a white pickup truck left by a hunter. Lucky for him, it is unlocked, with the key in the ignition.

In the control room, an alarm sounds, indicating that someone has touched the outer fence, a possible sign of a perimeter breach. The officer reaches over, switches the alarm off, and goes back to whatever she was doing. She notices nothing on the video screen, and she does not review the footage. Hours pass before the staff realizes someone is missing. Some guards tell me it was an inmate who finally brought the escape to their attention. Cortez is caught that evening after the sheriff chases him and he crashes the truck into a fence.

The prison is on lockdown. Staff are worried CCA is going to lose its contract.

When I come in the next morning, the prison is on lockdown. Staff are worried CCA is going to lose its contract with Louisiana. "We were already in the red, and this just added to it," the assistant training director tells me. "It's a lot of tension right now."

CCA said nothing publicly about the escape; I heard about it from guards who had investigated the incident or been briefed by the warden. (The company later told me it conducted a "full review" of the incident and fired a staff member "for lack of proper response to the alarm." When I asked CCA about its decision to remove guards from Winn's watchtowers, its spokesman replied that "newer technologies...are making guard towers largely obsolete.")

Later that day, Reynolds and I bring food to Cypress, the segregation unit. It is dinnertime, but inmates haven't had lunch yet. A naked man is shouting frantically for food, mercilessly slapping the plexiglass at the front of his cell. In the cell next to him, a small, wiry man is squatting on the floor in his underwear. His arms and face are scraped with little cuts. A guard tells me to watch him.

It is Cortez. I offer him a packet of Kool-Aid in a foam cup. He says thank you, then asks if I will put water in it. There is no water in his cell.

When inmates are written up for breaking the rules, they are sent to inmate court, which is held in a room in the corner of Cypress unit. One day, our class files into the small room to watch the hearings. Miss Lawson, the assistant chief of security, is acting as the judge, sitting at a desk in front of a mural of the scales of justice. "Even though we treat every inmate like they are guilty until proven innocent, they are...?" She pauses for someone to fill in the answer.

"Innocent?" a cadet offers.

"That's right. Innocent until proven guilty."

This is not a court of law, although it issues punishments for felonies such as assault and attempted murder. An inmate who stabs another may end up facing new criminal charges. He may be transferred, yet prisoners and guards say inmates who stab others typically are not shipped to a higher-security prison. The consequences for less serious offenses are usually stints in seg or a loss of "good time," sentence reduction for good behavior. According to the DOC, Winn inmates charged with serious rule violations are found guilty at least 96 percent of the time.

"Inmate counsel, has your defendant appeared before the court?" Miss Lawson asks a prisoner standing at the podium.

"No, ma'am, he has not," he replies. The inmate counsel represents other inmates in the internal disciplinary process. Every year, he is taken to a state-run prison for intensive training. Miss Lawson later tells me that inmate counsel never really influences her decisions.

For removing a broom from a closet at the wrong time, this inmate will stay in prison an extra 30 days.

The absent inmate is accused of coming too close to the main entrance. "Would the counsel like to offer a defense?"

"No, ma'am."

"How does he plead?"

"Not guilty."

"Mr. Trahan is found guilty." The entire "trial" lasts less than two minutes.

The next defendant is called.

He is being considered for release from segregation. "Do you know your Bible?" Miss Lawson asks.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Do you remember in the Gospel of John when the adulteress was brought before Jesus? What did he say?"

"I don't remember that, ma'am."

"He says, 'Sin no more.'" She points for him to leave the room.

The next inmate, an orderly in Cypress, enters. He is charged with being in an unauthorized area because he took a broom to sweep the tier during rec time, which is not the authorized time to sweep the tier. He starts to explain that a CO gave him permission. Miss Lawson cuts him off. "How would you like to plead?"

"Guilty, I guess."

"You are found guilty and sentenced to 30 days' loss of good time."

"Man! Y'all-this is fucked up, man. Y'all gonna take my good time!?" He runs out of the room. "They done took my good time!" he screams in the hall. "They took my good time! Fuck them!" For removing a broom from a closet at the wrong time, this inmate will stay in prison an extra 30 days, for which CCA will be paid more than $1,000.

True colors

One day in class we take a personality test called True Colors that's supposed to help CCA decide how to place us. Impulsive "orange" people can be useful in hostage negotiations because they don't waste time deliberating. Rule-oriented "gold" people are chosen for the daily management of inmates. The majority of the staff, Miss Blanchard says, are gold-dutiful, punctual people who value rules. My results show that green is my dominant color (analytical, curious) and orange is my secondary (free and spontaneous). Green is a rare personality type at Winn. Miss Blanchard doesn't offer any examples of how greens can be useful in a prison.

The company that markets the test claims that people who retake it get the same results 94 percent of the time. But Miss Blanchard says that after working here awhile, people often find their colors have shifted. Gold traits tend to become more dominant.

Studies have shown that personalities can change dramatically when people find themselves in prison environments. In 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo conducted the now-famous Stanford Prison Experiment, in which he randomly assigned college students to the roles of prisoners and guards in a makeshift basement "prison." The experiment was intended to study how people respond to authority, but it quickly became clear that some of the most profound changes were happening to the guards. Some became sadistic, forcing the prisoners to sleep on concrete, sing and dance, defecate into buckets, and strip naked. The situation became so extreme that the two-week study was cut short after just six days. When it was over, many "guards" were ashamed at what they had done and some "prisoners" were traumatized for years. "We all want to believe in our inner power, our sense of personal agency, to resist external situational forces of the kinds operating in this Stanford Prison Experiment," Zimbardo reflected. "For many, that belief of personal power to resist powerful situational and systemic forces is little more than a reassuring illusion of invulnerability."

Personalities can change dramatically when people find themselves in prison environments.

The question the study posed still lingers: Are the soldiers of Abu Ghraib, or even Auschwitz guards and ISIS hostage-takers, inherently different from you and me? We take comfort in the notion of an unbridgeable gulf between good and evil, but maybe we should understand, as Zimbardo's work suggested, that evil is incremental-something we are all capable of, given the right circumstances.

One day during our third week of training I am assigned to work in the chow hall. My job is to tell the inmates where to sit, filling up one row of tables at a time. I don't understand why we do this. "When you fill up this side, start clearing them out," the captain tells me. "They get 10 minutes to eat." CCA policy is 20 minutes. We just learned that in class.

Inmates file through the chow line and I point them to their tables. One man sits at the table next to the one I directed him to. "Right here," I say, pointing to the table again. He doesn't move. The supervisor is watching. Hundreds of inmates can see me.

"Hey. Move back to this table."

"Hell nah," he says. "I ain't movin'."

"Yes, you are," I say. "Move." He doesn't.

I get the muscle-bound captain, who comes and tells the inmate to do what I say. The inmate gets up and sits at a third table. He's playing with me. "I told you to move to that table," I say sternly.

"Man, the fuck is this?" he says, sitting at the table I point to. I'm shaky with fear. Project confidence. Project power. I stand tall, broaden my shoulders, and stride up and down the floor, making enough eye contact with people to show I'm not intimidated, but not holding it long enough to threaten them. I tell inmates to take off their hats as they enter. They listen to me, and a part of me likes that.

For the first time, for just a moment, I forget that I am a journalist. I watch for guys sitting with their friends rather than where they are told to. I scan the room for people sneaking back in line for more food. I tell inmates to get up and leave while they are still eating. I look closely to make sure no one has an extra cup of Kool-Aid.

"Hey, man, why you gotta be a cop like that?" asks the inmate whom I moved. "They don't pay you enough to be no cop."

"Hey Bauer, go tell that guy to take his hat off," Collinsworth says, pointing to another inmate. "I told him and he didn't listen to me."

"You tell him," I say. "If you're going to start something, you got to finish it." A CO looks at me approvingly.

The dog team

Out in the back of the prison, not far from where Chase Cortez hopped the fence, there is a barn. Miss Blanchard, another cadet, and I step inside the barn office. Country music is playing on the radio. Halters, leashes, and horseshoes hang on the walls. Three heavyset white COs are inside. They do not like surprise visits. One spits into a garbage can.

The men and their inmate trusties take care of a small herd of horses and three packs of bloodhounds. The horses don't do much these days. The COs used to mount them with shotguns and oversee hundreds of inmates who left the compound every day to tend the grounds. The shotguns had to be put to use when, occasionally, an inmate tried to run for it. "You don't actually shoot to kill; you shoot to stop," a longtime staff member told me one day. "Oops! I killed him," she said sarcastically. "I told him to stop! We can always get another inmate, though."

Prisoners and officers alike talk nostalgically about the time when the men spent their days working outside, coming back to their dorms drained of restless energy and aggression. CCA's contract requires that Winn inmates are assigned to "productive full time activity" five days a week, but few are. The work program was dropped around the same time that guards were taken out of the towers. Many vocational programs at Winn have been axed. The hobby shops have become storage units; access to the law library is limited. The big recreation yard sits empty most of the time: There aren't enough guards to watch over it. (Asked about the lack of classes, recreation, and other activities at Winn, CCA insisted "these resources and programs were largely available to inmates." It said the work program was cut during contract negotiations with the DOC, and it acknowledged some gaps in programming due to "brief periods of staffing vacancies.")

Prisoners and officers talk nostalgically about when the men worked outside, coming back to dorms drained of aggression.

"Things ain't like they used to be," Chris, the officer who runs the dog team, tells us. "It's a frickin' mess."

"Can't whup people's ass like we used to," another officer named Gary says.

"Yeah you can! We did!" Chris says. He then sulks a little: "You got to know how to do it, I guess."

"You got to know where to do it also," Miss Blanchard says, referring, I assume, to the areas of the prison the cameras don't see.

"We got one in the infirmary," Chris says. "Haha! Gary gassed him."

"You always using the gas, man," the third officer says.

"If one causes me to do three or four hours of paperwork, I'm go' put somethin' on his ass," Gary says. "He's go' get some gas. He's go' get the full load. I ain't go' do just a light use of force on him; I'm go' handle my business with him. Of course, y'all the new class. I'm sitting here telling y'all wrong. Do it the right way. But sometimes, you just can't do it the right way."

With no work program to oversee, the men's main job is to take the horses and the packs of bloodhounds anywhere across 13 nearby parishes to help the police chase down suspects or prison escapees. They've apprehended armed robbers and murder suspects.

When we step inside the kennel, the bloodhounds bay and howl. Gary kicks the door of one cage and a dog lunges at his foot. "If they can get to him, they go' to bite him," he says. "They deal with 'em pretty bad."

Back in the barn office, Gary pulls a binder off the shelf and shows us a photo of a man's face. There is a red hole under his chin and a gash down his throat. "I turn inmates loose every day and go catch 'em," Chris says, rubbing the stubble on his neck. "And that was the result to one of 'em."

"A dog, when he got too close to him, bit him in the throat," Gary says.

"That's an inmate?" I ask.

"Yeah. What we'll do is we'll take a trusty and we'll put him in them woods right out there." He points out the window. The trusty wears a "bite suit" to protect him from the dogs. "We'll tell him where to go. He might walk back here two miles. We'll tell him what tree to go up, and he goes up a tree." Then, after some time passes, they "turn the dogs loose."

He holds up the picture of the guy with the throat bite. "This guy here, he got too close to 'em." Christian walks in the door.

"That looks nasty," I say.

"Eh, it wasn't that bad," Christian cuts in. "I took him to the hospital. It wasn't that bad." (CCA says the inmate's injuries were "minor.")

Gary, still holding out the picture, says, "He was a character."

"He was a piece of crap," Christian says. "Instigator."

"I gave him his gear and he didn't put it on correctly. That's on him," Chris says with a shrug.

"Part of the bid'ness"

"I would kill an inmate if I had to," Collinsworth says to me during a break one day. We are standing around outside; most cadets are smoking cigarettes. "I wouldn't feel bad about it, not if they were attacking me."

"You got to feel some kinda remorse if you a human being," Willis says.

"I can't see why you'd need to kill anyone," Miss Stirling says.

"You might have to," says Collinsworth.

"I do what needs to get done," says a fortysomething, chubby-faced white officer. He wears a baseball cap low over his eyes. "I just had a use of force on an inmate who just got out of open-heart surgery. It's all part a the bid'ness." (CCA says it cannot confirm this incident.)

The officer's name is Kenny. He's been working here for 12 years, and he views inmates as "customers." While teaching class, he lectures us on CCA's principle of "cost-effectiveness," which requires us to "provide honest and fair, competitive pricing to our partner and deliver value to our shareholders." A part of being cost-effective is not getting sued too often. "One thing the Department of Corrections does is they give us a certain amount of money to manage this facility," Kenny explains. "They set a portion of money back for lawsuits, but if we go over budget, it's kind of like any other job. We got 60-something-plus facilities. If they not making no money at Winn Correctional Center, guess what? We not go' be employed."

"I just had a use of force on an inmate who just got out of open-heart surgery. It's all part a the bid'ness."

Kenny is detached and cool. He says he used to have a temper but he's learned to control it. He doesn't sit in bed at night writing up disciplinary reports while his wife sleeps, like he did years ago. Now, if an inmate gives him a smart mouth or doesn't keep a tidy bed, he'll throw him in seg to set an example. There are rules, and they are meant to be followed. This goes both ways: When he has any say, he makes sure inmates get what they are entitled to. He prides himself on his fairness. "All them inmates ain't bad," he reminds us. Everyone deserves a chance at redemption.

Still, we must never let inmates forget their place. "When you a inmate and you talk too much and you think you free, it's time for you to go," he says. "You got some of these guys, they smart. They real educated. I know one and I be talkin' to him and he smarter than me. Now he might have more book sense, but he ain't got more common sense. He go' talk to me at a inmate level, not at no staff level. You got to put 'em in check sometimes."

Kenny makes me nervous. He notices that I am the only one in class who takes notes. One day, he tells us that he sits on the hiring committee. "We don't know what you here for," he says to the class. He then glances at me. "There might be somebody in this room here hooked up wit' a inmate." Throughout the day, he asks my name on several occasions. "My job is to monitor inmates; it's also to monitor staff. I'm a sneaky junker." He turns and looks me directly in the eyes. "I come up here and tell you I don't know what your name is? I know what your name is. That's just a game I'm playing with you." I feel my face flush. I chuckle nervously. He has to know. "I play games just like they play games. I test my staff to test their loyalty. I report to the warden about what I see. It's a game, but it's also a part of the bid'ness."

Mail call

Over Christmas week, I am stationed in the mail room with a couple of other cadets to process the deluge of holiday letters. The woman in charge, Miss Roberts, demonstrates our task: Slice the top of each envelope, cut the back off and throw it in the trash, cut the postage off the front, staple what remains to the letter, and stamp it: Inspected.

Miss Roberts opens a letter with several pages of colorful child's drawings. "Now, see like this one, it's not allowed because they're not allowed to get anything that's crayon," she says. I presume this is for the same reason we remove stamps; crayon could be a vehicle for drugs. There are so many letters from children-little hands outlined, little stockings glued to the inside of cards-that we rip out and throw in the trash.

One reads:

I love you and miss you so much daddy, but we are doing good. Rick Jr. is bad now. He gets into everything. I have not forgot you daddy. I love you.

Around the mail room, there are bulletins posted of things to look out for: an anti-imperialist newsletter called Under Lock and Key, an issue of Forbes that comes with a miniature wireless internet router, a CD from a Chicano gangster rapper with a track titled "Death on a CO." I find a list of books and periodicals that aren't allowed inside Louisiana prisons. It includes Fifty Shades of Grey; Lady Gaga Extreme Style; Surrealism and the Occult; Tai Chi Fa Jin: Advanced Techniques for Discharging Chi Energy; The Complete Book of Zen; Socialism vs Anarchism: a Debate; and Native American Crafts & Skills. On Miss Roberts' desk is a confiscated book: Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power, a self-help book favored by 50 Cent and Donald Trump. Other than holy books, this is the most common text I see in inmates' lockers, usually tattered and hidden under piles of clothes. She says this book is banned because it's considered "mind-bending material," though she did enjoy it herself. There are also titles on the list about black history and culture, like Huey: Spirit of the Panther; Faces of Africa; Message to the Blackman in America, by Elijah Muhammad; and an anthology of news articles called 100 Years of Lynchings.

"That's the craziest girl I ever seen," Miss Roberts says of the woman who wrote the letter she holds in her hand. She is familiar with many of the correspondents from reading about the intimate details of their lives. "She's got his whole name tattooed across her back, all the way down to her hip bone. When his ass gets out- whenever he gets out, 'cuz he's got 30 or 40 years- if he ever gets out, he ain't going to her."

There are so many letters from children that we throw in the trash.

I feel like a voyeur, but the letters draw me in. I am surprised at how many are from former inmates with lovers still at Winn. I read one from a man currently incarcerated in Angola, Louisiana's infamous maximum-security prison:

Our anniversary is in 13 more days on Christmas and we could have been married for 2 years why can't you see that I want this to work between us?...Bae, [remember] the tattoo on my left tittie close to my heart that won't never get covered up as long as I have a breath in my body and I'm about to get your name again on my ass cheek.

Another is from a recently released inmate to his lover:

Hope everything is going well with you. Very deeply in love with you...I won't be able to spend x-mass with my family either. Baby my heart is broken and I am so unhappy. I always had a great fear of being homeless...And even if I did find a job and had to work nights or work the evening shift, then I wouldn't have anywhere to sleep because the shelter won't let you in to sleep after hours. In order to get my bed every night I have to check in before 4pm. After that you lose your bed so the program is designed to keep you homeless. It don't make sense...I bet that this is a sad letter. I wish that I had good news. This will be a short letter because I don't have a lot of paper left. Merry Christmas baby. Very deeply in love with you.

The front of one card reads, "Although your situation may seem impossible..." and continues on the inside, "through Christ, all things are Him-possible!" It contains a letter from the wife of an inmate:

Here I am once again w/ thoughts of you. I hate it here everything reminds me of you. I miss u dammit! It's weird this connection we have its as if I carry you in my soul. It terrifies me the thought of ever losing you. I pray you haven't replaced me. I know I haven't been the most supporting but baby seriously you don't know the hell I've been through since we got torn apart And I guess my family got fed up w/ seeing me kill myself slowly I at tempted twice 90 phenobarb 2 roxy 3 subs. I lived. 2nd after I hung up w/ you 60 Doxepin 90 propananol i lived WTF? God has a sense of humor i don't have anyone but u, u see no one cares whether I live die hurt am hungry, well, or safe...So I've been alone left to struggle to survive on my income in and out mental wards and running from the pain of you bein there...
Your my everything always will be Love your wife.

This note and its list of pills haunt me all weekend. What if no one else knows this woman tried to commit suicide? I decide I need to tell Miss Roberts, but when I return to work, I sit in the parking lot and have a hard time summoning the courage. What if word gets out that I'm soft, not cut out for this work?

After I pass through the scanner, I see her. "Hey, Miss Roberts?" I say, walking up behind her.

"Yes," she says sweetly.

"I wanted to check with you about something. I meant to do it on Friday, but, uh..." She stops and gives me her full attention, looking me in the eyes. "When we had a class by the mental health director, she told us to report if there was any kind of suicidal-"

She cuts me off, waving her hand dismissively, and starts walking away.

"No, but it was like a letter thing-"

"Yeah, don't even worry about that," she says, still walking toward her door.

"Really?"

"Mmmhmmm. That's if you see something going on down there," she says, pointing toward the units. "Yeah, don't worry about it. All right." She enters the mail room.

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After Christmas, we take our final test. It is intimidating. The test was created by CCA; we never take the qualification exam given to the state's guards. Ninety-two questions ask us about the chain of command, the use-of-force policy, what to do if we are taken hostage, how to spot a suicidal inmate, the proper way to put on leg irons, the color designation for various chemical agents. We went through most of these topics so cursorily there's no way I could answer half of them. Luckily, I don't need to worry. The head of training's assistant tells us we can go over the test together to make sure we get everything right.

"I bet no one ever doesn't get the job because they fail the test," I say.

"No," she says. "We make sure your file looks good." (CCA says this was not consistent with its practices.)

About a third of the trainees I started with have already quit. Reynolds is gone. Miss Doucet decides she can't risk an asthma attack, so she quits too. Collinsworth goes to Ash on the night shift. Willis works the night shift too; he will be fired after he leaves the prison suddenly one day and a bunch of cellphones are found at his post. Miss Stirling gets stationed in Birch on the day shift. She won't last either. Two and a half months from now, she will be escorted from the prison for smuggling contraband and writing love letters to an inmate.

Chapter 3: "The CCA Way"

It's the end of December, and I come in at 6 a.m. for my first of three days of on-the-job training, the final step before I become a full-fledged CO. The captain tells an officer to take me to Elm. We move slowly down the walk. "One word of advice I would give you is never take this job home with you," he says. He spits some tobacco through the fence. "Leave it at the front gate. If you don't drink, it'll drive you to drinking."

Research shows that corrections officers experience above-average rates of job-related stress and burnout. Thirty-four percent of prison guards suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a study by a nonprofit that researches "corrections fatigue." That's a higher rate than reported by soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. COs commit suicide two and a half times more often than the population at large. They also have shorter life spans. A recent study of Florida prison guards and law enforcement officers found that they die 12 years earlier than the general population; one suggested cause was job-related stress.

The walk is eerily quiet. Crows caw, fog hangs low over the basketball courts. The prison is locked down. Programs have been canceled. With the exception of kitchen workers, none of the inmates can leave their dorms. Usually, lockdowns occur when there are major disturbances, but today, with some officers out for the holidays, guards say there just aren't enough people to run the prison. (CCA says Winn was never put on lockdown due to staffing shortages.) The unit manager tells me to shadow one of the two floor officers, a burly white Marine veteran. His name is Jefferson, and as we walk the floor an inmate asks him what the lockdown is about. "You know half of the fucking people don't want to work here," Jefferson tells him. "We so short-staffed and shit, so most of the gates ain't got officers." He sighs dramatically. (CCA claims to have "no knowledge" of gates going unmanned at Winn.)

"We so short-staffed and shit, so most of the gates ain't got officers."

"It's messed up," the prisoner says.

"Man, it's so fucked up it's pitiful," Jefferson replies. "The first thing the warden asked me [was] what would boost morale around here. The first two words out of my mouth: pay raise." He takes a gulp of coffee from his travel mug.

"They do need to give y'all a pay raise," the prisoner says.

"When gas is damn near $4 a gallon, what the fuck is $9 an hour?" Jefferson says. "That's half yo' check fillin' up your gas!"

Another inmate, whom Jefferson calls "the unit politician," demands an Administrative Remedy Procedure form. He wants to file a grievance about the lockdown-why are inmates being punished for the prison's mismanagement?

"What happens to those ARPs?" I ask Jefferson.

"If they feel their rights have been violated in some way, they are allowed to file a grievance," he says. If the captain rejects it, they can appeal to the warden. If the warden rejects it, they can appeal to the Department of Corrections. "It'll take about a year," he says. "Once it gets to DOC down in Baton Rouge, they throw it over in a pile and forget about it. I've been to DOC headquarters. I know what them sonsabitches do down there: nothin'." (Miss Lawson, the assistant chief of security, later tells me that during the 15 years she worked at Winn, she saw only one grievance result in consequences for staff. )

I do a couple of laps around the unit floor and then see Jefferson leaning against the threshold of an open tier door, chatting with a prisoner. I walk over to them. "This your first day?" the prisoner asks me, leaning up against the bars.

"Yeah."

"Welcome to CCA, boy. You seen what the sign say when you first come in the gate? It says, 'The CCA Way.' Know what that is?" he asks me. There is a pause. "Whatever way you make it, my boy."

Jefferson titters. "Some of them down here are good," he says. "I will say dat. Some of 'em are jackasses. Some of 'em just flat-out ain't worth a fuck."

"Just know at the end of the day, how y'all conduct y'all selves determines how we conduct ourselves," the prisoner says to me. "You come wit' a shit attitude, we go' have a shit attitude."

"I have three rules and they know it," Jefferson says as he grips the bars with one hand. "No fightin'. No fuckin'. No jackin' off. But! What they do after the lights are out? I don't give a fuck, 'cuz I'm at the house."

The next day, I'm stationed in Ash, a general population unit. The unit manager is a black woman who is so large she has trouble walking. She is brought in every morning in a wheelchair pushed by an inmate. Her name is Miss Price, but inmates call her The Dragon. It's unclear whether her jowls, her roar, or her stern reputation earned her that name. Prisoners relate to her like an overbearing mother, afraid to anger her and eager to win her affection. She's worked here since the prison opened in 1991, and one CO says that in her younger days, she was known to break up fights without backup. Another CO says that last week an inmate "whipped his thing out and was playing with himself right in front of her. She got out of her wheelchair, grabbed him by the neck, threw him up against the wall. She said, 'Don't you ever fucking do that to me again!'"

In the middle of the morning, Miss Price tells us to shake down the common areas. I follow one of the two COs into a tier and we do perfunctory searches of the TV room and tables, feeling under the ledges, flipping through a few books. I bend over and feel around under a water fountain. My hand lands on something loose. I get on my knees to look. It's a smartphone. I don't know what to do-do I take it or leave it? My job, of course, is to take it, but by now I know that being a guard is only partially about enforcing the rules. Mostly, it's about learning how to get through the day safely, which requires decisions like these to be weighed carefully.

A prisoner is watching me. If I leave the phone, everyone on the tier will know. I will win inmates' respect. But if I take it, I will show my superiors I am doing my job. I will alleviate some of the suspicion they have of every new hire. "Those ones who gets along with 'em-those ones are the ones I really have to watch," SORT commander Tucker told us in class. "There is five of y'all. Two and a half are gonna be dirty."

I take the phone.

Miss Price is thrilled. The captain calls the unit to congratulate me. The other COs couldn't care less. When I do count later, each inmate on that tier stares at me with his meanest look. Some step toward me threateningly as I pass.

Later, at a bar near my apartment, I see a man in a CCA jacket and ask him if he works at Winn. "Used to," he says.

"I just started there," I say.

He smiles. "Let me tell you this: You ain't go' like it. When you start working those 12-hour shifts, you will see." He takes a drag from his cigarette. "The job is way too fucking dangerous." I tell him about the phone. "Oh, they won't forget your face," he says. "I just want you to know you made a lot of enemies. If you work in Ash, you gonna have a big-ass problem because now they go' know, he's gonna be the guy who busts us all the time."

He racks the balls on the pool table and tells me about a nurse who gave a penicillin shot to an inmate who was allergic to the medicine and died. The prisoner's friends thought the nurse did it intentionally. "When he came down the walk, they beat the shit out of him. They had to airlift him out of there." (CCA says it has no knowledge of this incident.) He breaks and sinks a stripe.

Suicide watch

On my first official day as a CO, I am stationed on suicide watch in Cypress. In the entire prison of more than 1,500 inmates, there are no full-time psychiatrists and just one full-time social worker: Miss Carter. In class, she told us that a third of the inmates have mental health problems, 10 percent have severe mental health issues, and roughly a quarter have IQs under 70. She said most prison mental health departments in Louisiana have at least three full-time social workers. Angola has at least 11. Here, there are few options for inmates with mental health needs. They can meet with Miss Carter, but with her caseload of 450 prisoners, that isn't likely to happen more than once a month. They can try to get an appointment with the part-time psychiatrist or the part-time psychologist, who are spread even thinner. Another option is to ask for suicide watch.

A CO sits across from the two official suicide watch cells, which are small and dimly lit and have plexiglass over the front. My job is to sit across from two regular segregation cells being used for suicide watch overflow, observe the two inmates inside, and log their behavior every 15 minutes. "We never document anything around here on the money," Miss Carter taught us a month ago. "Nothing should be 9:00, 9:15, 9:30, because the auditors say you're pencil-whipping it. And truth be known, we do pencil-whip it. We can't add by 15 because that really puts you in a bind. Add by 14. That looks pretty come audit time." One guard told me he just filled in the suicide watch log every couple of hours and didn't bother to watch the prisoners. (CCA's spokesman says the company is "committed to the accuracy of our record keeping.")

One guard told me he just filled in the log every couple of hours and didn't bother to watch the prisoners.

For one inmate, Skeen, I jot down the codes for "sitting" and "quiet." For the other, Damien Coestly (his real name), the number for "using toilet." He is sitting on the commode, underneath his suicide blanket, a tear-proof garment that doubles as a smock. "Ah hell nah, you can't sit here, man!" he shouts at me. Other than the blanket, he is naked, his bare feet on the concrete. There is nothing else allowed in his cell other than some toilet paper. No books. Nothing to occupy his mind.

The sparse conditions are intended to be "a deterrent as well as protection," Miss Carter said. Some inmates claim to be suicidal because, for one reason or another, they want out of their dorms and don't want to go to protective custody, where they would be labeled as snitches. Inmates on suicide watch don't get a mattress; they have to sleep on a steel bunk. They also get worse food. The official ration is one "mystery meat" sandwich, one peanut butter sandwich, six carrot sticks, six celery sticks, and six apple slices per meal. Assuming this meal contains no nutritional supplements, I calculate that eating it three times a day provides at least 250 calories less than the US Department of Agriculture's daily recommendation for sedentary adult men younger than 41 years old. (CCA says suicide watch meals are of "equivalent nutritional value" to general-population meals. It also says suicide watch "is designed for the safety of the inmate and nothing else.")

Nowhere else does a single guard oversee one or two inmates. If more than two inmates are on constant watch for more than 48 hours, the prison has to ask the regional corporate office for permission to continue, Miss Carter tells us. (CCA says this is inaccurate.) Sometimes the regional office says no, she says, and the prisoners are put back on the tiers or in seg.

"Come on, man, get the fuck out of here," shouts Coestly. "You know what I'm about to do is, get up on top of this bed and jump straight onto my motherfucking neck if y'all don't get the fuck out from the front of my cell."

I look over to the cell to the right and see Skeen sitting on his metal bed, staring at me and masturbating under his suicide blanket.

I tell him to stop.

"I'm having some mental health issues, man." He has a wild look in his eyes and he speaks intensely, but quietly.

"Move your chair, then. I'm just doing my thing." He keeps going.

I get up and grab a pink slip to write him up, my first disciplinary report.

"You making a mistake," he says. "You fuck with me like that, I'm gonna go all night."

"All right," I say.

"Write that bitch. I don't give a fuck. I'm on extended lockdown." He tells me he's been in Cypress for three years. He starts singing and dancing in his cell. " All night, all niiiiiight. " Prisoners down the tier laugh. "I'll add that to my collection. I have about a hundred write-ups. I don't give a fuck!"

Someone down the tier calls for me. He's not on suicide watch, just regular segregation. "I'm having some mental health issues, man," he says. He has a wild look in his eyes and he speaks intensely, but quietly. "I'm not suicidal or homicidal necessarily, but it's hard for me to be around people." There is another man in his cell with him, sitting on the top bunk, shaving his face. "And, and, and the voices, demons, whatever you want to call them, want me to wait till y'all come down here and throw defecation or urine or something. I don't want to do that, okay?" He says he wants to go on suicide watch as a preventive measure. "Until I figure out what's going on here"-he taps the sides of his head with his index fingers-"then that's where I need to be." His request is denied by the unit manager. With four inmates on suicide watch, we are already over capacity.

"We are gonna have a Mexican standoff," Coestly says. "Ever seen one of those? I get off the bed, jump off that mothafucker headfirst." He says he's having a mental health emergency, which I am required to report. When I tell the key officer, she rolls her eyes. In class, Miss Carter told us that "unless he's psychotic and needs a shot to keep him from doing the behavior, then I just let them get it out of their system." It takes six hours for a psychiatrist to show up.

One of the other inmates on suicide watch, who's been silent until now, starts yelling through his food slot. "World war!" he shouts. "I got some niggas who need to tell the CIA something, since they already got their eye in the sky, the satellite orbiting in space processing global information." His voice has a demonic quality to it and he occasionally hits the plexiglass to punctuate his sentences. The CO sitting directly across from him twiddles his thumbs and gazes ahead blankly.

In the neighboring cell, Skeen is staring at me, completely naked, masturbating vigorously. I tell him to stop. He gets up, comes to the bars, and strokes himself five feet in front of me. I leave and come back with the pink sheet and he shouts, "Stop looking like that 'cuz you making my dick hard!" I don't respond. "Stop looking like that 'cuz you making my dick hard! Stop looking like that 'cuz you making my dick hard!" The seemingly schizophrenic man next to him hits the plexiglass over and over. "That's what the devil's doing to you, in the invisible world-sticking his invisible dick in your white or black ass and fucking you with it." My heart is pounding. For an hour, I stare at a cup on the floor and study the blotches in the concrete.

A few hours later, a SORT officer walks a cuffed man onto the tier. The man's eyes are tightly closed and snot is dripping off his upper lip. He was pepper-sprayed after punching my old instructor Kenny in the face as Kenny sat in his office doing paperwork. Kenny's in the hospital now-after he confiscated another inmate's cellphone, the prisoner put a paid hit out on him.

Building rapport

Kenny is gone for days, recovering from his busted nose. The message his assailant sent was clear: Keep your hands off our phones. Meanwhile, the fact that I took the phone in Ash showed Miss Price that I'm a strong officer who plays by the rules, so she asked the warden if I could be posted there permanently. Now I work there, on the floor, almost every day. I immediately try to smooth over the phone thing with the inmates. I tell a few of them that I took it because I didn't have a choice and suggest they should try to hide their contraband better. "You ain't no police?" one asks me. "Nah. I ain't here to be police," I reply. "If people ain't fucking with me, I ain't got a problem with them."

Don't be like your partner Bacle, they tell me. In some units and on some shifts, the pairing of floor officers changes day to day, but for whatever reason Bacle and I become a regular pair. (He has allowed me to use his real name.) I tell the inmates I'll never be like him, all that shouting and hollering.

The truth is, Bacle's temper tantrums make us laugh. One inmate asks him for his Social Security number every day just to set him off. If he were not a squat, hobbling 63-year-old, Bacle's occasional fantasies about putting shock collars on inmates or shoving his keys down their throats might not seem so harmless. But he hates the company too. "All you are is a fucking body to 'em. That's the way I feel," he says. He counts the days until his Social Security kicks in and he no longer needs to work here to supplement his retirement checks from the Coast Guard.

Every day, I come to know him more and more. He is a reader of old westerns and an aficionado of Civil War reenactments. He uses words like "gadzooks" and phrases like "useful as tits on a boar hog." Back before the hobby shops closed, he liked to buy his wife gifts made by prisoners. Once, he bought her a handmade saddle for her toy unicorns. "When she seen it, she was tickled pink. We are still fat, dumb, and happy over it!" His breath smells perpetually of menthol chewing tobacco, a fleck of which is always stuck in the corner of his mouth.

Bacle becomes a teacher of sorts. "You got to have what I call a rapport with some of the inmates," he says. Mostly, he is referring to the orderlies, the prisoners selected for special roles inside each unit. When an orderly passes out toothpaste, Bacle tells me to follow the inmate's lead. "I just kind of modify it from when I was in the service. I might have rank over someone, but I don't want to step on their toes."

Without the orderlies, the prison would not function. Each unit has a key orderly, whose job is to keep the key clean and pack up the property of any prisoner sent to seg. Count room orderlies deliver the tallies from each unit to the room where they're tabulated. Tier orderlies, floor orderlies, yard orderlies, walk orderlies, and gym orderlies keep the prison clean. Orderlies typically maintain a friendly relationship with the guards but take every opportunity to make it clear to other inmates they are not snitches. And they rarely are. It is much more likely for them to be movers of contraband. They cozy up to guards who will bring it in, and their freedom of movement allows them to distribute the goods. I will see some of the most trusted orderlies get busted while I'm here.

Bacle regularly gives his lunch to the muscular key orderly. We are not allowed to do this, so he does it discreetly. "It's a habit I got into when I started," he says. Bacle isn't afraid to bend the rules to keep things under control. When one inmate starts marching around angrily, saying "fuck white people" and we're too afraid to try to get him into his tier, Bacle buys cigarettes from another inmate, gives them to the agitated prisoner, and says, "Why don't you go have a smoke on your bed to calm your nerves?" And it works. When Miss Price isn't watching, Bacle lets a guy called Corner Store off his tier so he can run deodorant and chewing tobacco and sugar and coffee between inmates on different tiers. They aren't allowed to trade commissary items, but they do anyway, so when we let Corner Store handle it, they stop pestering us with ploys to get off the tier, like faking medical emergencies.

Corner Store is a 37-year-old black man who looks 55. His hair is scraggly, his uniform tattered, his face puffy. He walks with the clipped gait of a stiff-legged old man who is late for a meeting he doesn't really want to attend. He's been in prison for half his life, though I don't know what for. I rarely know what anyone is in for. I do know that he used to sell crack, that he saw his friend get shot to death when he was eight, and that he once had a firefight with some white men in Mississippi who called him a "nigger." At least that's what he tells me. Fourteen of his 18 years behind bars have been at Winn.

Corner Store has to hustle because he has no family support. He learned early that little comes without strings in prison.

Corner Store does not inspire fear, yet he is confident. He tells COs to open the tier door for him; he does not ask. On his pluckier days, he flaunts his status by sitting in the guards' chairs and smoking. He talks to us as if we are office colleagues from different departments. And unlike the floor orderly who protects his reputation by loudly proclaiming that rats deserve to get stabbed, Corner Store doesn't need to make a show of his loyalty to inmates, yet it is unwavering. When I ask him to teach me some prison lingo, he refuses gently.

The first time I meet Corner Store, he walks through the metal detector at the entrance of the unit. It beeps, but neither Bacle nor I do anything; its sound is one of the many we tune out. The device was installed not long before I started working here, in an effort to cut down on the number of inmates carrying shanks, but functionally it is a piece of furniture. We never use it since it takes at least two officers to get inmates to line up, walk through it, and get patted down whenever they enter or exit the unit, which leaves no one to let inmates into their tiers. When Corner Store makes it beep, he calls over to me: "Hey, watch this here! I'm going to go back through this thing and it won't go off." He jumps through it sideways, and it doesn't make a sound. I laugh. "This is something my granddaddy taught me years ago," he says. "Anything that a man makes can always be altered. Always."

He had to learn to hustle because he has no money and no support from his family. For his courier services, inmates kick him cigarettes, coffee, and soup. He doesn't take charity; he learned early that little comes without strings in prison. Sexual predators prey on needy inmates, giving them commissary or drugs, seemingly as gifts, but eventually recalling the debt. If you don't have money, the only way to pay is with your body. "When I first come to prison, I had to fight about five times for my ass," Corner Store says. "This is how it starts: You're scared of being in prison because of the violence or whatever. You go to people for protection. But this is the No. 1 thing you don't do. You have to be a man on your own." He tries to discourage vulnerable inmates from seeking help and says he's gotten into fights to stop new prisoners from being sexually assaulted. "It just hurts me to see it happen. A kid who really don't even understand life yet, you turn and fuck his life up even more?"

He says there have been periods when he's had to pack a shank. "Sometimes it's best, because you got some bullheaded people in prison who don't understand nothin' but violence. When you show them you can get on the same level they gettin' on, they leave you the fuck alone."

"They always talking about how prison rehabilitates you," he says. "Prison don't rehabilitate you. You have to rehabilitate yourself." When Miss Price is around, Bacle and I are careful not to make it obvious we are letting Corner Store out, and he makes sure to stay out of her sight.

Instructors like Kenny preached against giving concessions to inmates, but in reality most guards think you have to cooperate with them. Frankly, there just aren't enough staff members to do otherwise. Bacle and I don't have time, for example, to keep watch over the corrections counselor when she is in her office, where there are no security cameras, so she uses two inmates as her bodyguards. (CCA says this went against its policy.) COs are always under pressure to impress on the supervisors that everything is under control. We rely on inmates for this, too, letting some stand out in front of the unit to warn us when a ranking officer is coming so we can make sure everything is in order.

It can be a slippery slope. In 2007, a Tennessee inmate, Gary Thompson, sued CCA, claiming that guards, including a captain, periodically ordered him to beat up other inmates to punish them, giving him the best jobs and privileges as a reward. On one occasion, he claimed, guards called him the "largest nigger," put him with a mentally ill inmate who'd cut a swastika into his arm, and ordered Thompson to "rough [him] up." When Thompson filed a complaint, he was put in the hole. CCA denied his allegations but settled the case.

In Idaho, CCA was accused of ceding control to prison gangs to save money on wages. A lawsuit filed in 2012 by eight inmates at the Idaho Correctional Center alleged there was effectively "a partnership between CCA and certain prison gangs," in which gang members were used to discipline inmates. A subsequent FBI investigation found that employees had falsified records and understaffed mandatory positions.* A confidential Idaho Department of Correction memo shared with CCA that was disclosed in the case showed that by August 2008, inmate-on-inmate assaults and other incidents of violence had "steadily increased to the point that there are four incidents for every one that occurs in the rest of the Idaho state operated facilities combined." (CCA points to a later analysis by an independent monitor that concluded that the rate of violence at ICC over the entire first eight months of 2008 was not disproportionate to that of other facilities.) No charges were brought against CCA, nor were any sanctions levied against it. But the state ended automatic renewal of its contract, and reopened it to bidders. CCA did not bid. † "It was a lot better than this place," an out-of-state guard who worked in Idaho at the time told me.

In a prison that is 75 percent black, people of different races sit together in the chow hall.

There are no gangs at Winn, but that has more to do with Louisiana prison culture than the management of the prison. In most prisons around the country, the racial divide is stark and internal politics are determined by racialized prison gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood and the Mexican Mafia. But Louisiana is an anomaly. Here, there are no prison gangs. In a prison that is 75 percent black and less than 25 percent white, people of different races sit together in the chow hall, hang out on the yard, and sleep in the same dorms.

Throughout my time at Winn, I meet guards from CCA prisons around the country who talk up the benefits of gangs. Two SORT members filling in from Oklahoma speak to each other in Sureño sign language that they learned from prisoners transferred from California. The influx of gang members is a "good thing," one of the SORT guys tells me, because gang culture is highly disciplined. "With their politics, they have to clean their cells. They have to maintain cleanliness. If they don't, they get stabbed. If they acted the way these guys act, they'd get stabbed."

I quickly learn it's no longer possible to be the silent observer I was in training, so I try to find the middle ground between appearing soft and being draconian. When I write up one inmate after he runs off the tier against my orders, I think about it all weekend, wondering if he will get sent to Cypress. I feel guilty and decide I will only write up inmates for two things: threatening me and refusing to get on their tier after they enter the unit. The floor is where most assaults happen, and if a lot of inmates are out there, things can get out of hand. That's not why I choose to write them up for it, though. I write them up because my main job is to keep inmates off the floor, and if I don't establish authority, I end up having to negotiate with each prisoner over how long he can wander the unit, which is exhausting.

I spend free moments leaning up against the bars, making chitchat with prisoners about their lives. I tell one, Brick, that I am from Minnesota. He says he has friends there. "We got to hook up!" he says. I cultivate these relationships; having gray-haired, charming inmates like him in my good graces helps me because younger, harder prisoners follow their lead. I do favors for others-I let a cop killer outside when it's not yard time because he seems to have influence over some of the inmates. Guys like him and Corner Store teach me how to win inmates' respect. They teach me how to make it in here.

Investigating and fact-checking this story took 18 months of nonstop work. If you agree it was worth it, become a monthly donor-or make a one-time gift.

Investigating and fact-checking this story took 18 months of nonstop work. If you agree it was worth it, make a tax-deductible contribution today.

I try to address every request and respond to every inmate who yells "Minnesota," my new nickname. The microwaves on some tiers are broken, so I help out by carrying cups of water for soup or coffee to Brick's tier, where he heats them up. When Corner Store isn't working and people ask if I can let them off the tier for a minute so they can run and exchange a honey bun for a few cigarettes, I unlock the door. "You're cool," one inmate says to me. "Real laid-back." I let people out to see the corrections counselor when they need a mattress or need to call their lawyers, even when she tells me she doesn't want to field these requests, which is most of the time.

Brick can see that I get tired striking across the unit from one place to the next for 12 hours a day. He sees that by the end of the day my feet and back hurt and I start to ignore the inmates. He knows that two people aren't enough to run this floor. "This shit don't work," he says to me. We bump fists.

Chapter 4: "You Got to Survive"

There is a looming sense of crisis at Winn. Shortly after Cortez escaped, the warden decreed that the security staff should meet at the start of every shift. So at 6 a.m. each day, everyone is shepherded into a conference room, where they brood over coffee and Monster Energy drinks. "I apologize if it seems as though we're coming down on y'all all the time," says Assistant Warden Parker, who introduced himself to me in Cypress four weeks ago. He's sitting on a table, the picture of a guy-next-door, we're-in-this-together type of boss. "Unfortunately, due to a series of events that took place over 2014, culminating with that escape, there is a high, high level of scrutiny on how you do your job."

He doesn't get into specifics, but guards tell me there was a rash of stabbings over the summer that CCA didn't report to the Louisiana DOC. (The company's spokesman says it reported all assaults.) "Someone said this place has slid downhill for a long time," the assistant warden says to us. "Here's what we have before us: We have to climb up that hill extremely fast."

PRIVATE PRISONS HOLD

The DOC, which has ultimate authority over all prisons in the state, has been taking a closer look at Winn's day-to-day operations. (According to DOC documents I later obtained, the department had just written to CCA about "contract compliance" and areas where Winn's "basic correctional practices" needed improvement.) Wardens from publicly run state prisons have appeared out of nowhere, watching over COs as they work, asking them questions. The newer guards fret about losing their jobs. Old-timers shrug it off-they say they've seen Winn weather tough times before.

At each morning meeting, we are given a new "game plan": keep inmates off the bars of the tiers, move them quicker out to chow, keep them off the floor, finish count faster. We never discuss the problem that both guards and inmates complain about most: There aren't enough employees. Corporate has tried to mitigate the problem by bringing officers in from out of state. The economics of this are never clear to me-it seems far more expensive to pay for their transportation and lodging than to hire more locals or raise wages. In addition to the SORT members, there are an average of five guards filling in for a month or so at a time from places like Arizona and Tennessee.

According to CCA's contract with Louisiana, 36 guards are expected to show up for work at 6 a.m. every day. Twenty-nine of them fill mandatory 12-hour positions that require a body in them at all times-these include unit floor officers, front-gate officers, perimeter patrol, supervisors, and infirmary officers. I make a habit of counting the number of security staff at the meetings. Some days there are 28, some days 24, but there are almost always fewer than 29.

It's possible that employees working overtime from the night shift aren't there or that others trickle in late. But it still appears there are often fewer people on the shift than contractually required to keep the prison open, let alone running smoothly. CCA's spokesman later tells me I was too low on the totem pole to have an accurate understanding of staffing at Winn. (He adds that "security is everyone's job" and a "team effort" involving even employees who are not guards.) Correspondence between CCA and the DOC shows that in early 2015 Winn had 42 vacancies for regular guards and 9 vacancies for ranking officers. Miss Lawson, the assistant chief of security, says that when officials from the DOC were scheduled to visit, "we would be tripping over each other, but it was just because we were paying people overtime to come in and work extra."

Wardens from state prisons have appeared out of nowhere, watching over guards as they work.

Often, the only guards in a 352-inmate unit are the two floor officers and the key officer. There is supposed to be an officer controlling the gate that connects each unit walk to the main walk, but often there isn't. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, every unit should have two case managers, who manage rehabilitation and reentry programs, two corrections counselors, who are in charge of resolving inmates' daily issues, and a unit manager, who supervises everything. Not once do I see all these positions filled in a unit.

During my time at Winn, I witness corners cut daily. Key officers, who are charged with documenting activities in the units, routinely record security checks that do not occur. I hear that these logbooks are audited by the state and are the only evidence of whether guards walk up and down the tiers every half-hour. I almost never see anyone do such a security check unless DOC officials are around. Collinsworth tells me that when he worked in the key he was told repeatedly to record security checks every 15 to 30 minutes, even though they weren't being done. Miss Lawson later says she was once reprimanded by a warden for refusing to log checks that did not occur. "I'm just going to write down that you are doing your security checks every 30 minutes," a ranking officer once told me. "That's just how it's been done, so until someone up top tells me different, that's how we'll do it." (CCA's spokesman says the company had no knowledge of security checks being skipped or logbooks being falsified.)

Even with the guards filling in from out of state, we are required to work extra days, which means that for up to five days in a row, I have just enough time to drive home, eat, sleep, and come back to the prison. Sometimes I have to stay longer than 12 hours because there is no one to take over for me. A guard I relieve one morning is ending a four-day stretch; in a 48-hour period he worked 42 hours at the warden's insistence, he says. He didn't sleep the whole time. (CCA says no such incident occurred.)

Assistant Warden Parker tells us the DOC has required CCA's corporate office in Nashville, Tennessee, to report what CCA is doing to fix the mess at Winn. An obvious remedy would be to raise the pay of nonranking officers to the level of DOC officers-which starts at $12.50 per hour, $3.50 more than ours-and reinstate rehabilitative and recreational programs for inmates. Miss Lawson says such requests hit a roadblock at the corporate level. "There were years that the wardens would beg for more money, and it was like, 'Okay, on to the next subject,'" she tells me.

"If inmates want to act stupid, then we'll give them some pain to help increase their intelligence level."

Instead, corporate takes a different approach to show it means business: A few days after I worked suicide watch, it removed the local officers from Cypress and turned the unit entirely over to members of the company's national SORT team. These are guys who "use force constantly," Assistant Warden Parker says at a morning meeting. "I believe that pain increases the intelligence of the stupid, and if inmates want to act stupid, then we'll give them some pain to help increase their intelligence level." DOC data shows that during the first 10 months of 2015, which includes part of the time I worked there, Winn reported twice as many "immediate" uses of force as the eight other Louisiana prisons combined. ("CCA expressly forbids retaliatory force," its spokesman tells me.)

Over the next four months, Winn will report using chemical agents 79 times, a rate seven times higher than that reported by Angola. Collinsworth recalls an inmate who insulted a SORT officer's mother. The officer cuffed him, stood him in his underwear out of view of the cameras, and covered his whole body with pepper spray for "about eight seconds or so." When Collinsworth filed a report, standard procedure following a use of force, he says he was ridiculed by members of the SORT team, who told him "that I should have said I didn't see anything." He says an assistant supervisor admonished him for "tattling." (CCA says the officer who sprayed the inmate was fired.)

I enter Cypress briefly after SORT takes over. At 6:30 in the morning, the air is so saturated with pepper spray that tears stream down my face. The key officer is doing paperwork in a gas mask. A man screams and flails naked in a shower, his body drenched with pepper spray. Cockroaches run around frantically to escape the burning.

Sex and violence

One day, as prisoners go to chow, Bacle runs past me shouting, "Code Blue outside!" I dash out the front door of Ash, through a crowd of inmates. A couple of prisoners are pinning each other up against the fence, and a frail-looking, young white guy is rolling around on the ground.

I run to him. He rolls from side to side, whimpering and heaving in panic, grasping at small cuts and lumps on his arms. They are not deep like stab wounds; they are shallow and there are many. Under them there is a multitude of tiny scars, cut crosswise-the trademark self-mutilation of the sexually abused.

Assaults behind bars

19% of all male inmates in US prisons say they've been physically assaulted by other inmates.

21% say they've been assaulted by prison staff.

Officials reported fewer than 8,800 incidents of rape and other sexual victimization in all American prisons and jails in 2011.

Yet between 3 percent and 9 percent of male inmates say they have been sexually assaulted behind bars, which suggests more than 180,000 current prisoners may have been victimized.

Former inmates of private state prisons are half as likely to say they have been sexually victimized by another inmate as those who were in public state prisons. However, they are nearly twice as likely to report being sexually victimized by staff.

66% of incidents of sexual misconduct by prison staff involve sexual relationships with inmates who "appeared to be willing," according to authorities.

WOMEN ARE:

7% of the total prison population

22% of all victims of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization

33% of all victims of staff-on-inmate sexual victimization

"Calm down, man," I say, leaning over him. "We are going to take care of you. Just calm down." He keeps rolling and crying.

"He didn't get nothing he ain't deserve!" someone shouts from down the walk.

A sergeant and the captain come and cuff the inmate who's been pinned to the fence. When the crowd around him clears, I am shocked. It's Brick. The guy on the ground is probably about 25 years old. As Brick is taken off to Cypress, he calls the man a "bitch."

A couple of officers look down at the young man disdainfully, pull him off the ground, and take him away. Brick beat him with a lock in a sock. He was angry because the young man had stayed in Cypress for seven months, partly by his own choice. He was supposed to come back to Brick. He is Brick's punk.

There are many things about this incident that I don't know-intimacy and rape in prison are complex issues. Did the young man stay in Cypress to escape Brick? Does he belong to Brick like a sex slave? Or would he say the relationship is consensual in the way a battered woman might say she stays with her husband because she loves him? Did he agree to exchange sex for protection? Did he understand that once he crossed that bridge, there would be no going back?

Once a punk, always a punk. Miss Carter, the mental health director, told us she's seen just two inmates reverse their punk status in the eight years she's been here, and both cases involved stabbing a lot of people. Guards here do not turn a blind eye to overt rape, but the more subtle abuse of punks is accepted. Inmates and COs know a punk when they see one. He will do menial tasks when someone demands it. He is expected to keep his face clean-shaven at all times. He has to pee sitting down or by backing up to the urinal with his penis tucked between his legs. He must shower facing the wall.

Since 2003, the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) has required prisons to take measures to prevent sexual assaults. At Winn, this includes teaching new cadets about the law. "Why is the law so important?" our instructor Kenny asked us during training. "Liability." It was never fully clear whether the goal was to eliminate rape or to suppress homosexuality in the prison. Even consensual sex could lead to time in seg. "Don't even go there and entertain nicknames," Kenny said. "There's homosexuals down here got nicknames: Princess, Malibu, Tiki, Coco, Nicki. By calling them nicknames, that's entertainment. They think they got you goin' along with what they got goin' on. We can't stop 100 percent of the homosexuality that goes on down there, but we try to prevent and slow it down as much as possible."

Nationwide, as many as 9 percent of male inmates report being sexually assaulted behind bars, but given the anti-snitch culture of prison, the real number might be higher. According to the Louisiana budget office, Winn reported 546 sex offenses in the 2014 fiscal year, a rate 69 percent higher than that of Avoyelles Correctional Center, a publicly operated prison of comparable size and security level.

A survey by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) showed that in 2011 the rate of substantiated rapes and other "nonconsensual sexual acts" between inmates in a sampling of CCA prisons was similar to that of public prisons. CCA prisons reported less serious incidents of "abusive sexual contact" at more than twice the rate of public prisons. CCA says this data may be inaccurate because it predates the final implementation of the PREA standards. The company states it has "a zero-tolerance policy with regard to sexual abuse."

Prison has a reputation as a place of homosexual predation, but it's not that simple. Inmates like Brick rarely see themselves as gay and typically go back to pursuing women once they get out. Self-identified gay or transgender prisoners are, however, often on the receiving end of abuse: Federal data shows that 39 percent of gay ex-prisoners reported being sexually assaulted by another inmate. One study found that 59 percent of transgender women in California's prisons for men reported being assaulted.

But not all sex in prison is violent; many of the letters from male lovers I read in the mail room were full of tenderness and longing. Take, for example, this one from a man in Angola, written to one of the most flamboyant men at Winn:

You are the only same sex person in my life. So you have to never worry about anyone taking your place, not even a female...Sweetie, you are a good wife. I don't give a damn what anybody said because I saw the good in you; the true you. That's why when we had sex I'd always look you in the eyes. To truly understand you was my hardest goal but when I did our relationship got so good.

An hour after the young man who was attacked went to the infirmary, he walks into Ash, his arms still bleeding. It's not clear whether Brick's absence is good or bad for him. Now, he has no protection. A couple of well-muscled inmates stand at the bars and look at him lustfully, telling him to try to get placed on their tier. He speaks with Miss Price and she abruptly tells me to put him on B1-Brick's dorm. Inmates have complained to me about this sort of thing; even people who have stabbed each other are sometimes put back in the same dorm. I open the gate and watch him walk down the tier.

Minutes later, he asks me to let him out. I do. He talks to Miss Price, telling her that he is in danger. People think he's a rat. Maybe they think he snitched on Brick to get away from him. Miss Price doesn't give it a moment of consideration, telling him to get back on the tier. When I open the door, a large, bearded man inside pushes him back out onto the floor. "You was asking her to put you on another tier?" he says. "If you think you can't live in here, you can't live in here. We don't need that kind of shit on the tier anyway." He slams the bars behind him.

The young man has two options: Go back on the tier or go to the count room, where they will assign him to another unit.

Miss Price tells me to take him out.

"You gotta go," I tell him halfheartedly.

"I don't want to go on no PC, man," he says to me. He thinks they are going to put him in protective custody.

"I don't know what to tell you," I say. I really don't.

Consider the options swirling in his mind: He could go back to his tier, where a man twice his size has made it very clear he is not welcome. There, he would risk nights as a punk without a protector. He might get robbed. He might get raped. He might get stabbed.

Then there is the alternative, the only one that Winn, like many other prisons, offers to inmates like this: the protective custody wing in Cypress. He would be put in a cell, maybe alone, maybe with another man, for 23 hours a day. He would be branded a snitch just for going there, which means that when he eventually left, the odds of getting stabbed would be high.

He storms past me, back to the key. "I ain't going on no PC, man," he shouts at Miss Price. "I just came from Cypress!" He paces back and forth, working himself up. "Y'all go' have to drag me out this bitch, man. Real talk. I ain't trippin' on what the fuck y'all fixing to do to me," he says, pointing at Bacle and me. "Real talk! 'Cuz I ain't going on no PC." Miss Price screams for him to get out.

"Man, I can live on any fucking tier you put me on!" he shouts. I escort him out of the unit; he's eventually placed in another one.

During our training, Kenny warned us how easy it was to be manipulated into sex by inmates. Even male guards "fall victim to bein' involved in a relationship wit' a inmate," he said. "We got some folks come in here with relationships on the outside, and it just blows my mind how these inmates get in that ear and they wind up falling victim. That's just the way it is. They don't call 'em cons for no reason." He warned us to be vigilant because even in a consensual relationship, the guard could be classified as a sex offender. He told us about one captain at Winn, Charlie Roberts (his real name), who got "involved wit' a inmate. Havin' oral sex wit' him. So guess where he is sittin' at? A federal institution."

This story came up several times as an example of a guard who had to face the consequences of his weak will. Nothing was ever said about the inmate who gave Roberts blow jobs. When I looked at the files from Roberts' case, I learned the inmate was a transgender woman who went by the name China. She had identified as a girl from age 11. Her father beat her repeatedly, and by the time she turned 13 she had left home and begun stripping on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. In 2000, she was sentenced to four years in prison for a "crime against nature"-oral sex for pay-and sent to Winn. During her first year, she was serving a stint in seg for a dirty urine test when, she later testified, Roberts shackled her, brought her to an office, and told her to give him a blow job. If she didn't, he said he would put her in a cell with an inmate who would "handle" things. When she later told two administrators what had happened, one allegedly told her that if she ever lied about one of his guards again, he would "plant [her] ass under Cypress."

Over the next two years, China said, she was raped several times by inmates, but she kept it to herself. "I was ridiculed and picked on by the staff, and that made it to where I couldn't go to the staff for help at all," she said in a deposition. "If an inmate did want to rape me...who could I turn to?" She became another inmate's punk. One day in 2003, Miss Price sent her to the count room for having an "outrageous" feminine haircut. There, an officer ordered her to take another urine test by peeing in a cup while standing. China had been through this with him before-she'd told him she couldn't pee standing up. After a long standoff, Roberts showed up and told her she could sit on the toilet. The other guards left. As she peed, Roberts entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He told her that if she didn't give him oral sex again, he would taint her urine test and send her back to Cypress.

Over the next two years, China said, she was raped several times by inmates, but she kept it to herself.

"Stop playing," China said. Roberts slapped her in the face. She dropped to her knees and did what he asked. When she finished, he said, "Bitch, you better swallow."

"I would die before I ever fucking swallowed anything he put in my mouth," she later recalled. She held the semen in her mouth and spit it out onto her shirt. After she filed a grievance and contacted the American Civil Liberties Union, she called the FBI. An agent came to the prison, took the shirt, and interviewed Roberts. The next day, CCA shipped China off to a publicly operated state prison, where she was held in a solitary cell "no bigger than a broom closet" and never let out for exercise. She was released from prison 11 months later.

"If I knew that the prison was going to shave me bald and send me to another prison and put me on maximum- security lockdown," she later testified, "I would have swallowed." Even harder than the solitary was knowing that, had she swallowed, she would have been able to finish her auto body class, which might have kept her from having to live on the streets and going back to sex work when she got out. "I would have swallowed and I would have kept on swallowing until I got that piece of paper."

CCA denied all of China's allegations, but it settled the case out of court for an undisclosed amount. Roberts also denied her allegations when the FBI interviewed him, but the bureau found that the semen on her shirt was his. Roberts ultimately pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting China and making false statements to the FBI, and he was sentenced to six years in federal prison and a $5,000 fine. I have not been able to track down China. Roberts served his sentence and was released in 2012.

Nearly half of all allegations of sexual victimization in prisons involve staff. In the 2011 BJS survey, CCA prisons reported a rate of substantiated staff-on-inmate sexual assault similar to that of public facilities. However, CCA prisons' rate of reported staff-on-inmate sexual harassment was five times higher. Another federal report found that former inmates of private state prisons are twice as likely to report being sexually victimized by staff members as inmates who were in public prisons.

Prisoners also sexually harass and abuse officers. A recurring issue is inmates standing at the bars and masturbating at women guards sitting in the key. I see some women's reports of sexual abuse by prisoners handled swiftly, but I hear other female guards complain that their sexual-harassment charges have gone nowhere. (CCA says it "takes any allegation of sexual harassment very seriously and has strong policies and practices in place for investigating such claims.") I once write up an inmate for masturbating in front of a nurse, a violation that should cause him to be moved to Cypress, but he isn't. I regularly see the macho culture of prison transcend the division between guards and inmates-male officers routinely ignore the harassment of their female colleagues. "Some of them staff, they'll wear clothes so tight you can see everything they got," Kenny lectured in class. "They'll walk down there and they just struttin' they stuff. We got one, shoot, trying to sue the company 'cuz an inmate touched her on the butt. Man, you was down here every day shaking your stuff! If you do all this trying to draw attention to yourself, you go' get some, and if you ain't mindful, you'll get more than what you asked for."

In a class on "inmate manipulation," Kenny told us that when he was a unit manager, there was a female officer he didn't like. Many prisoners didn't like her either, and one in particular was "bound and determined to get this girl fired." One night, the woman fell asleep in a chair on a unit floor, he said. She had also left the inmate's tier door open. The inmate crept out of his tier, pulled his penis out, and "went to town wit' it" inches from her head. Not long afterward, the inmate was released, and he sent a letter to the prison, telling them to look at the surveillance footage from that night. CCA fired the guard for sleeping on the job and for leaving the tier door open, Kenny recalled.

"Ain't nuttin' we could do to him," Kenny said of the inmate. "That's over wit'. He gone home." (CCA says it is unaware of such an incident and that it would have reported the inmate to law enforcement.) "I laughed, but it's also kind of scary. I don't want nothing bad to happen to nobody." But, he added, "We was lookin' to get her too. He got her for us. It worked out on both ends."

Cracking down

In the morning meeting, the supervisor and Assistant Warden Parker admonish us about the topic they've been lecturing about all week-cracking down on sagging pants and homemade clothing. They are frustrated because no one is doing it. In private, the officers grumble that if the supervisors don't want inmates to wear bleach-stained jeans instead of their "CCA blues," they should confiscate the pants themselves. Why should the guards put themselves on the line? Parker seems to be aware of this, and he's keen to show he's not a front-office kind of guy. His personal goal is to become "lord of the do-rags," taking the prohibited head coverings whenever he sees them.

"Does anybody know why we don't want them to individualize their uniform?" Parker asks us. "We want them institutionalized. You guys ever heard that term? We want them institutionalized, not individualized. Is that sort of a mind game? Yup. But you know what? It's worked over the couple hundred years that we've had prisons in this country. So that's why we do it. We do not want them to feel as though they are individuals. We want them, for lack of a better term, to feel like a herd of cattle. We're just moving 'em from point A to point B, letting them graze in the dining hall and then go back to the barn. Okay?"

"We do not want them to feel as though they are individuals. We want them to feel like a herd of cattle."

Parker says the DOC wardens have been pestering him. "Are they scared, Mr. Parker?" he mimics. "Are you not providing the adequate training that your staff members need, Mr. Parker, to be strong enough to take clothing away from an inmate? Are they that scared, Mr. Parker?"

His tone softens. "I don't know when it last dawned on me in the last couple weeks-I actually care about this institution and I care about all of you. I'm tired of people telling me that people at Winn aren't doing their jobs. A term that was used a couple of weeks ago that was very embarrassing to me was: They don't even understand basic prison management at Winn." Some of the guards shake their heads. "Anybody feel good about that one? I know I sure as hell don't."

After the meeting, everyone moves slowly down the walk. Edison, a big white CO with a bull neck, says he's tired of this "'Kumbaya' bullshit." He was removed from his post in Cypress when the SORT team took it over. Suggesting he can't handle his own is about the worst insult you could give him. "I'm sick and tired of doin' this shit," he says. "The security in this place is pathetic. They need to tighten up on the tier doors, re-man the towers, and reinstitute the inmate work out in the field and the inmate programs, and give these fools something to do besides sit in their beds, eat, watch TV, and figure out how to fuck with us." He blames the "ivory tower" in Nashville- CCA's corporate headquarters -for Winn's problems. "Those fools ain't got nothing in their mind but the bottom line."

Today, the supervisor tells Edison to join Bacle and me in Ash. Having a new guard come to Ash is like having a visitor to our twisted household. This morning, standing around, waiting for the day to begin, Bacle complains about the most mundane of issues: Some inmates don't sit on their bunks during count like they are supposed to.

"How's your fighting skills, Bauer?" Edison asks. The question makes me nervous. This is the opposite of the approach I'm trying to take in here.

"All right," I say.

"They need to give these fools something to do besides eat, watch TV, and figure out how to fuck with us."

"You're with me," he says. "We're going to give these motherfuckers an eye-opener today. I don't play that bullshit. You get your ass on the bunk."

"You're not into this playing shit," Bacle says sympathetically.

"That's right," Edison says.

"You're a grade A1 asshole when it needs to be," Bacle says.

"I'm a grade A1 drill instructor when I have to be."

"That's what this place needs!"

"I know it does," Edison says. "It needs to go back to about 1960. Give a goddamn PR-24″-a police baton-"and hand a can of gas to everybody. You get stupid, you get beat down. You get big and stupid, you get gassed and beat down. Either way, you learn your fucking place."

Edison has been here for a year and a half. "With my skill set, and with where I moved to, it was the only fuckin' thing open," he says. He is an Army Rangers veteran and was once a small-town police chief. He says he retired when "the city council got afraid of me." "When I was a cop, I knew damn well that I would shoot your ass. I didn't carry two extra clips, I carried four. When I went to work, I went to war. When I got off, I still went to war. I carried two clips on me regardless of what I was wearing. I carried at least my Glock 40 underneath my arm, and usually I had a Glock .45 on my ankle. Go ahead, play with me."

We walk the floor. He stops. We stop. "You know what is stupid?" he says. "I see murderers. I see rapists. I see robbers. And then I see, the vast majority is in here for bein' stupid enough to smoke a joint too close to a school. Twenty-five years, federal mandatory. Then you got somebody that slaughtered a whole fucking family gets 25 to life and he's out in six to eight." (About one-fifth of Winn inmates are in for drug-related crimes. Getting busted with a joint near a school will typically land you about six years, not 25.) Edison's indignation about drug criminalization surprises me. "Now, where's the fucking justice in that? And we're paying how much per inmate per day?"

"Count time!" the woman in the key yells. I unlock the door of B1 tier and Edison walks in. An inmate is standing at the sink, brushing his teeth. "Get on your bunk," Edison barks. The inmate keeps his back turned to Edison. "Or would you like to do it in Cypress?" Edison steps in toward him. "Step out!" Edison shouts, pointing to the door. He's seriously sending a prisoner to seg for this?

The inmate walks out, still brushing his teeth. "This man is going on about some bullshit," he says, waving his toothbrush around. A spot of toothpaste lands on Edison's jacket, which is hanging on a nearby chair.

"Go ahead! Be dumb! Let's go!" Edison yells, turning his hat backward. " Please be stupid enough to touch me. I'm already taking your ass to Cypress." The inmate continues to brush his teeth.

I walk down the tier and do count. "That Crip boy go' to tear his ass up," one inmate says as I pass. "Your work partner going to get stabbed."

I can't keep count straight in my head. I just want to get off the tier.

When we leave the tier everyone comes up to the bars and yells at Edison. "You want to go next?" he shouts. "Behind the wall!" They don't budge. "Every one of y'all is going to Cypress."

"Suck my dick!"

The captain and a sergeant enter the unit. The captain tells Edison to step aside so he can talk to the inmates and try to ease the tension. "This pacification bullshit," Edison mutters to me. "Yeah, we knew how to pacify 'em in Vietnam. We dropped a fuckin' 500-pounder on 'em. That pacifies." The captain tells Edison to come with him. "It's not warm and fuzzy enough," Edison says to me as he leaves.

The sergeant, whose name is King, pulls me aside. "I'm here for you, bro," he says. In the past, I've heard him complain that the supervisors don't back the line officers enough. "Don't ever think I'm against you. 'Cuz I'm gonna knock one of 'em out if I have to. And we go' to write that report like he was trying to kill me and it was self-defense. Hahahaha!"

King has only been working at Winn for five months, but he's been in corrections for eight years. As a kid, he spent time in juvenile hall. Like Edison, he is an Army vet, and he credits the military for correcting his delinquent ways. After 22 years in the service, he got a job in a juvenile correctional facility in Texas. One day, he told a boy to get off the basketball court and the kid grabbed his throat and tried to strangle him. "I damn near beat the piss out of him. Sixteen years old, 6 foot 3. As soon as you put your hands on me, you're not a teenager, you're a man. I put that uppercut on his ass and the superintendent said, 'I strongly suggest that you resign, sarge.' I fucked him up pretty good."

"Oh well!" Bacle says.

"All of this I shattered," he says, pointing to his jaw and mouth.

"Oh well!"

Pink Shades

During count, I tally bodies, not faces. If I look at faces, it means I have to keep the numbers straight while constantly calibrating sternness and friendliness in my eyes for each individual. When I go down the tier, I make a point to walk in a fast, long stride with a slight pop in my left step, trying to look tough. I practiced this in the mirror because inmates comment every day on a twist in my walk that I never knew existed. Sometimes prisoners whistle at me as I pass. In my normal life, I try to diffuse any macho tendencies. Now, I try to annihilate anything remotely feminine about me. As I walk and count, I tighten my core to keep my hips from moving.

I steel myself for A1 tier. For some reason, inmates on this tier are always testing me, and as I walk down one side, someone makes a comment about my "panties" as I pass. "You like that dick. You like that dick," someone sings as I go by. I ignore it. Another comments that I look like a model. I pretend I don't hear him. On my way back toward the front, I hear again, "You like that dick. You like that dick."

This has been going on for weeks, but this time something snaps. I stop count and march back to the guy calling out to me, a thirtysomething black man with pink sunglasses and tattoos crawling up his neck. "What did you say to me?" I shout.

"I ain't said nothin'."

"Why are you always saying shit like that? You are always focusing so much on me, maybe you like the dick! Bitch ass!"

"Say that again?"

"Maybe you like the dick!" I shout. I am completely livid.

"He doesn't know how big a mistake he just made," another inmate says as I storm out.

"I ain't got nothing against any of y'all officers. I understand that you gotta live. You got to survive."

When we finish count, I go back to Pink Shades' tier. "Give me your ID," I say to him. He refuses. "Give me your ID! Now! " I shout at the top of my lungs. He doesn't. I get his name from another officer and write him up for making sexual comments. He says he's going to file a PREA grievance on me.

I try to cool down. My heart is still hammering 10 minutes later. "Are you all right, sarge?" a prisoner asks me. Slowly, my rage turns to shame and I go into the bathroom and sit on the floor. Where did those words come from? I rarely ever shout. I am not homophobic. Or am I? I feel utterly defeated. I go back to A1 and call Pink Shades to the bars.

"Look, I just want you to understand I don't have a problem with any of y'all," I tell him. "I think a lot of you are in here for sentences that are too long. I'm not like these other guys, all right?"

"All right," he says.

"But, you know, when people disrespect me like that for no reason, I can't just take that-you know what I mean?"

He tries to deny taunting me, but I won't back down. "Look, you going to have inmates talkin' crazy," he says.

"But you don't want me talking crazy to you, right?" There are inmates staring at us in astonishment.

"I feel you," he says. "You came here and talked to me like a man. And I apologize. I ain't got nothing against any of y'all officers. You feel me? I understand that you gotta live. You got to survive. Those words hurt you. I feel you. I mean I was singing a song, but you probably took it the wrong way. It triggered something in you." He's right. Something about being here reminds me of being in junior high, getting picked on for my size and the fact that I read books, getting called a faggot.

I tear up his disciplinary report and throw it in the trash. When I walk back down the tier for the next count, no one pays any attention to me.

Man down

One day in Ash, a few inmates shout, "Man down! Man down!" A large man, Mason, is lying on his bed in C2, his right hand over his bare chest. His eyes are closed and his left leg is moving back and forth slowly.

"We just put him on his bed. He had fell off this side of his fucking bed just now, bro," an inmate says to me. "He's fucked up." I radio for a stretcher.

Mason starts to cry. His left hand is a fist. His back arches. "I'm scared," he mouths. Someone puts a hand on his arm for the briefest moment: "I know, son. They finna come see you now."

A stretcher finally arrives. The nurses and their orderlies move slowly. "They weren't supposed to send that man back down here," an inmate says to me. Earlier today Mason was playing basketball and fell to the ground in pain, he explains. He went to the infirmary, where they told him that he had fluid in his lungs.

Three inmates pick up Mason in his sheet and put him on the stretcher. His hands are crossed over his chest like a mummy as two prisoners wheel him away.

Within a few hours he is sent back to the tier.

"They told me I got fluid on my lungs and they won't send me to the hospital."

Days later, I see Mason dragging his feet, his arms around his chest. I tell him to take my chair. He sits and hunches over, putting his head in his lap. It feels like a "throbbing pain in my chest," he says. We call for a wheelchair. "They told me I got fluid on my lungs and they won't send me to the hospital," he says. "That shit crazy."

A nurse happens to be in the unit, passing out pills. I tell her they keep sending Mason to the infirmary but won't take him to the hospital. She insists "nothing serious" is wrong with him.

"When I saw him last week, he was almost passed out," I say. "He was in a lot of pain."

She looks at me sidelong. "But the doctor still ain't going to send him to the hospital just 'cause of that."

If he were sent to the hospital, CCA would be contractually obligated to pay for his stay. For a for-profit company, this presents a dilemma. Even a short hospital stay is a major expense for an inmate who brings the company about $34 per day. And that's aside from the cost of having two guards keep watch over him. Medical care within the prison is expensive, too. CCA does not disclose its medical expenses, but in a typical prison, health care costs are the second-biggest expense after staff. On average, a Louisiana prison puts 9 percent of its budget toward health care. In some states it can be much higher; health care is 31 percent of a California prison's budget. Nearly 40 percent of Winn inmates have a chronic disease such as diabetes, heart disease, or asthma, according to Louisiana's budget office. About 6 percent have a communicable disease such as HIV or hepatitis C.

One day, I meet a man with no legs in a wheelchair. His name is Robert Scott. (He consented to having his real name used.) He's been at Winn 12 years. "I was walking when I got here," he tells me. "I was walking, had all my fingers." I notice he is wearing fingerless gloves with nothing poking out of them. "They took my legs off in January and my fingers in June. Gangrene don't play. I kept going to the infirmary, saying, 'My feet hurt. My feet hurt.' They said, 'Ain't nothin' wrong wicha. I don't see nothin' wrong wicha.' They didn't believe me, or they talk bad to me-'I can't believe you comin' up here!'"

His medical records show that in the space of four months he made at least nine requests to see a doctor. He complained of sore spots on his feet, swelling, oozing pus, and pain so severe he couldn't sleep. When he visited the infirmary, medical staff offered him sole pads, corn removal strips, and Motrin. He says he once showed his swollen foot, dripping with pus, to the warden. On one of these occasions, Scott alleges in a federal lawsuit against CCA, a nurse told him, "Ain't nothing wrong with you. If you make another medical emergency you will receive a disciplinary write-up for malingering." He filed a written request to be taken to a hospital for a second opinion, but it was denied.

His fingertips and toes turned black and wept pus. Inmates began to fear his condition was contagious.

Eventually, numbness spread to his hands, but the infirmary refused to treat him. His fingertips and toes turned black and wept pus. Inmates began to fear his condition was contagious. When Scott's sleeplessness kept another inmate awake, the inmate threatened to kill him if he was not moved to another tier. A resulting altercation drew the attention of staff, who finally sent him to the local hospital.

"But when I got my legs cut off they didn't come back and say, 'Robert, I'm sorry.' I done taked my lickin'. Part of being locked up." He is now suing CCA for neglect, claiming that inmates are denied medical care because the company operates the prison "on a 'skeleton crew' for profitable gain."

"Where do you think is one of the No. 1 areas that we get hit on as a confinement business?" Assistant Warden Parker asks us at a staff meeting. "Medical! Inmates have this thing that if they have a sniffle they are supposed to be flown to a specialist somewhere and be treated immediately for that sniffle." His tone becomes incredulous. "Believe it or not, we are required by law to take care of them."

It's true: Under Supreme Court rulings citing the Eighth Amendment, prisons are required to provide inmates with adequate health care. Yet CCA has found ways to minimize its obligations. At the out-of-state prisons where California ships some of its inmates, CCA will not accept prisoners who are over 65 years old, have mental health issues, or have serious conditions like HIV. The company's Idaho prison contract specified that the "primary criteria" for screening incoming offenders was "no chronic mental health or health care issues." The contracts of some CCA prisons in Tennessee and Hawaii stipulate that the states will bear the cost of HIV treatment. Such exemptions allow CCA to tout its cost-efficiency while taxpayers assume the medical expenses for the inmates the company won't take or treat.

In 2010, the company and Immigration and Customs Enforcement settled a federal lawsuit brought by the ACLU that asserted immigration detainees at a CCA-run facility in California were routinely denied prescribed medical treatment. (CCA admitted no wrongdoing.) In a rare case that made its way to trial in 2001, the company was found to have violated the 8th and 14th Amendments and ordered to pay $235,000 to an inmate whose broken jaw was left wired shut for 10 weeks. (He removed the wires himself with nail clippers while guards watched.) The jury wrote they hoped the message sent by the ruling would "echo throughout the halls of your corporate offices as well as your corporate housing facilities." (CCA appealed and settled for an undisclosed amount.)
Subjects of lawsuits filed against CCA
CCA has also been the subject of medical malpractice cases involving pregnant inmates. In 2014, it settled a case for $690,000 over the death of a prisoner's baby at a county jail in Chattanooga, Tennessee. When the inmate went into labor, she was put in a cell with no mattress and left there for three hours as she bled heavily onto the floor. CCA employees did not call an ambulance until approximately five hours after the prisoner asked for help. Her newborn baby died shortly thereafter. In court proceedings, the warden testified that surveillance footage showed no signs of an emergency. But before the footage could be reviewed, CCA claimed it had been accidentally erased. The court sanctioned the company for destroying evidence.

CCA settled another case for $250,000 after a pregnant woman being held in a jail in Nashville complained of vaginal bleeding and severe abdominal pain. She said medical staff demanded "proof," so they put her in solitary and turned off the water so her blood loss could be "monitored." She claimed they did nothing to alleviate her pain as she endured contractions, filling the toilet with blood. The next morning, the inmate was shackled and taken to a hospital, where doctors found that she was already dilated. While prison guards watched, she gave birth and was immediately sedated. When she woke up, medical staff brought her the dead baby. She said she was not allowed to call her family and was given no information about the disposal of her son's body.

At least 15 doctors at Winn have been sued for delivering poor medical care. The prison hired several of them even after the state had disciplined them for misconduct. One, Aris Cox, was hired in the '90s, after his license was temporarily suspended for writing prescriptions to support his tranquilizer addiction. While Mark Singleton was at Winn, the Louisiana board of medical examiners discovered that he had failed "to meet the standard of care" at his previous position in New Mexico. He was put on probation, but CCA kept him on. Winn hired Stephen Kuplesky after his license had been temporarily suspended for prescribing painkillers to a family member with no medical condition. Robert Cleveland was working at Winn when he was put on medical probation for his involvement in a kickback scheme with a wheelchair company. He was later disciplined for prescribing narcotics from his home and vehicle. (It's not clear if he was working at Winn at the time. CCA says all doctors at Winn had "appropriate credentials.")

Data collected by Prison Legal News on more than 1,200 state and federal suits against CCA shows that 15 percent of them were related to medical care. (This sample is not a complete list of complaints against the company; in 2010 alone, CCA faced more than 600 pending cases. Between 1998 and 2008, the company settled another 600 cases.) Since most inmates can't afford legal counsel, it's nearly impossible for them to prevail in court. When I made public-records requests in a couple of states for a more recent accounting of lawsuits settled by CCA, the company intervened, arguing that a list of settlements involving claims of medical malpractice, wrongful deaths, assaults, and the use of force "constitutes trade secrets."

My reconciliation with Pink Shades encouraged me. Every time I have a problem with a prisoner, I try the same approach and eventually we tap knuckles to show each other respect. Still, these breakthroughs are fleeting. In the moment, they feel like a glimmer of a possibility that we can appreciate each other's humanity, but I come to understand that our positions make this virtually impossible. We can chat and laugh through the bars, but inevitably I need to flex my authority. My job will always be to deny them the most basic of human impulses-to push for more freedom. Day by day, the number of inmates who are friendly with me grows smaller.

There are exceptions, like Corner Store, but were I to take away the privileges Bacle and I have granted him, I know that he, too, would become an enemy.

My priorities change. Striving to treat everyone as human takes too much energy. More and more, I focus on proving I won't back down. I am vigilant; I come to work ready for people to catcall me or run up on me and threaten to punch me in the face. I show neither fear nor compunction. Sometimes prisoners call me racist, and it stings, but I try as hard as I can not to flinch because to do so would be to show a pressure point, a button that can be pressed when they want to make me bend.

Striving to treat everyone as human takes too much energy. More and more, I focus on proving I won't back down.

Nearly every day the unit reaches a crescendo of frustration because inmates are supposed to be going somewhere like the law library, GED classes, vocational training, or a substance abuse group, but their programs are canceled or they are let out of the unit late. Inmates tell me that at other prisons, the schedule is firm. "That door would be opening up and everybody would be on the move," an inmate who's been incarcerated throughout the state says. Here, there is no schedule. We wait for the call over the radio; then we let the inmates go. They could eat at 11:30 a.m. They could eat at 3 p.m. School might happen, or maybe not. It's been years since Winn has had the staff to run the big yard. Sometimes we let the inmates onto the small yard attached to the unit. Often we don't. Canteen and law library hours are canceled regularly. There just aren't enough officers to keep everything going.

Guards bond with prisoners over their frustrations. Prisoners tell us they understand we are powerless to change these high-level management problems. Yet the two groups remain locked in battle like soldiers in a war they don't believe in.

Whenever I open a tier door, I demand that everyone shows me his pass, and I use my body to stop the flood of people from pouring out. Some just push through.

I catch one. "Get back in!" I shout. "I'm writing you up right now if you don't get back in there right now. You hear me?"

He walks back in, staring me down. "White dude all on a nigga's trail, man," he says. I shut the door, ignoring him. "You better get the fuck from down here before I end up hurtin' one of y'all," he shouts at me. "You green as a motherfucker!"

I'm tired.

An inmate comes around the key. Bacle is following him and calls for me to stop him. I stand in the inmate's path. I know him, the one with the mini-dreads. I feel threatened, frankly, whenever I see him. "This way," I say, pointing back to where he came from. He tries to walk past me. I lock eyes with him. "This way!" I command. He turns back and walks slowly away. I walk behind him. He stops, spins around, throws his hands in the air, and shouts, "Get the fuck off my trail, dog!" I know he's testing me. I open his tier door. He walks in, stands just inside, and stares me down hard. I grab the door and slam it shut- bang! -in his face.

I turn and step back into the throng of inmates milling around the floor. "Motherfucker's going to end up dead!" he shouts after me. I stop and turn around. He just stares. I grab the radio on my shoulder, then pause. Was I ever taught what to do when something like this happens? I know how to press the button and speak into the radio, but whom do I call? I think of King, the officer who smashed the kid's jaw. "Sergeant King, could you come down to Ash?" I say into my shoulder.

"En route."

When he arrives, I take him into B1 tier. I find Mini-Dreads.

"He needs to get locked up," I say, looking him in the eyes.

King cuffs him. I tell King he threatened my life. He needs to go to seg.

"What happened?! I ain't said nuttin'!" the inmate shouts. I walk away.

I go back to chasing the others into their tiers. "What you lock that dude up for?" an inmate asks me. "Dude was 'bout to go home," another says. "He ain't go' go home now." I walk away, unyielding. In the back of my mind, however, there is a voice: Did you see him say anything? Wasn't your back turned? Are you sure what you heard? It doesn't matter, really. He wanted to intimidate me and it was about time I threw someone in the hole. They need to know I am not weak.

One morning, Ash smells like feces. On D2, liquid shit is oozing out of the shower drain and running down the tier. "It's been here over 12 hours," one inmate says.

"Man, you got worms and everything on the floor. Real talk."

"This is a health and safety violation!"

"Man, this is cruel and unusual punishment!"

We let inmates out to go to the small yard. As they flow out of the tiers, I see a large group run to A1 tier. Bacle pushes the tier door shut and calls a Code Blue over the radio. Inside the tier, two prisoners are grappling, their bodies pressed up against the bars. Each is gripping a shank in one hand while holding the other's arm to keep him from swinging. Drops of blood spatter the floor. The surrounding scene is oddly calm. Inmates stand around and watch, not saying anything.

"Break it up," Bacle says indifferently. "Break it up."

The two combatants are speaking to each other quietly, almost at a whisper.

One man breaks his hand free, swings it up, and jams his shank into the side of the other man's neck.

"Come on," one says. "Come on with it, big dog."

"I'ma do you like you did me."

They grapple some more.

"Break it up!" Bacle yells.

"Come on!" I shout, feeling utterly impotent.

Bacle, Miss Price, a CCA employee from out of state, and I stand just two feet from them, separated by the bars, and watch the two try to press their knives into each other.

One man breaks his hand free, swings it up, and jams his shank into the side of the other man's neck. My breath stops for a moment, and I utter a gagging sound. "It ain't sharp enough, big dog," says the guy who was just stabbed. "Let me show you where the sharp one is."

Bacle reaches through the bars and grabs the stabber by his hood as the other inmate struggles to break loose. For the first time, the other prisoners make noise. "Hey, man, you're gonna get him killed like that!" one shouts at Bacle. Bacle lets go, and the two men tumble across the floor, landing in a heap by the toilet, blocked from our view by a short wall. They keep scuffling. An arm swings up and jabs down. One prisoner walks over to the urinal two feet from them and pees as they keep stabbing.

The fight lasts nearly four minutes, until a SORT member comes in with a can of pepper spray. "Don't fucking move," he barks. "Everybody lay the fuck down." He sprays the men as they try to stab each other. One, who's had a bit of his ear sliced off, is taken to the hospital. The other goes to seg.

The smell of pepper spray fades, but the smell of shit does not. It's not until the afternoon that someone comes in to fix the toilets and finds a shank stuck in the plumbing.

Later, I recount to a sergeant how one of the inmates was poking the knife into the other guy's neck. "Did you learn something from that?" he asks me.

"Not really."

The inmate could have slit the other guy's throat if he wanted to, he says. But he didn't. "Both of 'em scared. That's the reason for having' them shanks in the first place, 'cuz they are scared."

The audit

At the end of my shift, I stride briskly down the dark walk. I am relieved to be going home, but after two weeks on the job as a full-time CO, I'm afraid in a way I wasn't at first. The longer I work here, the more people have grudges against me. As I head down the walk, inmates are coming and going from various parts of the prison and I can't see any other guards around. I don't have a radio-I am required to give it to the officer who relieves me. I've seen the surveillance footage, and I doubt it would be clear enough to identify anyone who might jump me in this darkness.

The gate before the exit is locked and I am routed through the visitation area. There, 20 or so officers from my shift are sitting at the tables, frowning. Two inmates are serving pizza. We've been trapped in a company meeting. Assistant Warden Parker is there. The chief of security. HR. I grab some pizza and sit down, frustrated.

"How many people here got less than a year in?" Parker asks. I raise my hand. "You've probably seen a lot of bad days, okay? We're gonna change that. And it takes all of us working together. It really, really does. As long as we stay as a decent team and we remember that the bad guys are the guys who stay here 24/7 and don't get to leave."

On the wall is a painting of a black kid and a white kid lying on their bellies on a grassy hillside, looking at a rainbow. Next to it is another mural of a lion and a tiger tearing through an American flag with a bald eagle flying overhead. "The CCA Way" is written above it.

"The company took a look at things and they realized that we need to do a little bit better for the staff here at Winn. I'm not going to say that we've waved a magic wand and everybody's walking out of here, gonna go buy new cars, but the hourly wage for a correctional officer is going to go up to $10 an hour. So congratulations to everybody sitting inside this room." He starts clapping and a few people join unenthusiastically. "This is going to be one of those proud moments," he says.

"'ACA's coming. We gotta panic! Hit the panic button!'"

"Does anybody know what the ACA is?" Parker asks. "Have you been hearing about 'We got ACA coming up. Ooooh! ACA's coming. We gotta panic! Hit the panic button!'"

"The American Correctional Association," someone volunteers.

"Okay, why do we care about ACA?" Parker asks.

"We need our jobs. We need to pass."

"That's a theme that goes with it. Years and years and years ago, I think it was 1870, there was a governor upset with what he thought was cruel and unusual punishment," he lectures. "So he started drafting up a little group of people that would go around and they would check on prisons and prison conditions to ensure that the people who were confined were not being treated cruelly. After time they started developing a sophisticated auditing process. So, a third-party person who has no dog in the fight, so to speak, comes in and they take a look at how are we treating our inmates. And they give us a stamp of, 'You're treating them with proper care.'

"That way when we go to court and the inmate says, 'Oh, they made me eat Pizza Hut pizza! That's cruel and unusual punishment! It should have been Domino's!'-when it goes to court, we pull up our ACA files and say, 'Hey, look, here's how we prepare our food in the kitchen. We prepare the food in our kitchen under these standards.'"

The ACA is a trade association, but it's also the closest thing we have to a national regulatory body for prisons. More than 900 public and private correctional facilities and detention centers are accredited under its standards. Winn was the first prison to be accredited in Louisiana. Shortly after T. Don Hutto co-founded CCA, he became the president of ACA.

Over the next few weeks, inmates repaint every unit in preparation for the ACA audit. The maintenance man is run ragged as he tries to fix busted vents, plumbing, and cell and tier doors. ("We didn't own the facility," CCA's spokesman told me, noting that major maintenance issues at Winn were the DOC's responsibility. CCA's contract states that it was responsible for routine and preventive maintenance.)

In anticipation of the audit, I read the ACA standards. How will the auditors deal with the fact that the cells in segregation are at least 20 square feet smaller than required? Or that inmates only get 10 minutes to eat, not the mandated 20? There are many other ACA standards and recommendations Winn does not appear to meet: We rarely have the required number of positions staffed; guards' pay is not comparable to the pay of state corrections officers; guards rarely ever use the metal detectors at the entrances to the housing units; prisoners often don't get one hour of daily access to exercise space; suicide watch meals are below caloric requirements; there aren't enough toilets in the dorms. (The ACA did not respond to a request for comment.)

Then again, Winn passed its last ACA audit, in 2012, with a near-perfect score of 99 percent, the same score it received in its previous audit three years earlier. In fact, CCA's average score across all its accredited prisons is also 99 percent.

On the morning of the audit, we wake everyone up and tell them to make their beds and take any pictures of women off their lockers. Two well-dressed white men enter Ash unit and do a slow lap around the floor. The only questions they ask Bacle and me are what our names are and how we're doing. They do not examine our logbook, nor do they check our entries against the camera footage. If they did, they would find that some of the cameras don't work. They do not check the doors. If they did, they would see they need to be yanked open by hand because most of the switches don't work. They don't check the fire alarm, which automatically closes smoke doors over the tiers, some of which must be jimmied back open by two guards. They do not ask to go on a tier. They do not interview any inmates. They do a single loop and they leave.

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After nearly two decades, Corner Store is about to be free. He has just six weeks to go before he qualifies for early release with the "good time" he's earned. How does someone reenter the world after two decades behind bars, with no friends on the outside and no money to his name? His first step, he says, will be to stay in a shelter until he can get on his feet. He doesn't know where he will go yet. He tells me he doesn't want to count the days. "It stresses me out. Anxiety sets in. Your mind goes, working and thinking about stuff. How am I going to do this? How am I going to do that? It causes a panic attack. When I walk, I walk."

But fantasies creep into his mind. "I'ma get me a big bottle of Kaopectate, a big German chocolate cake, five-gallon thing of milk," he says. "Just get out the way, that's all I'ma tell you." We are outside, talking through the fence; he's on the small yard and I'm on the Ash walk. "After that, I want me a seafood platter, a real seafood platter about the size of the kitchen table, just for me and Mom. It's all about Mom when I go home."

He puts his hand on the fence and leans in. "What I'm sayin' is this here, man: I just wanna go have fun, boy. And fun does not mean me-gettin'-in-trouble fun. Fun means just enjoying life. I wanna be able to take my mothafuckin' shoes off and socks off and walk in the sand. I wanna be able to just go outside in my shorts and just my house slippers and stand in the rain and just-" he spreads his arms, points his face to the sky, and opens his mouth. "Them thangs I miss. You can't do that in here. Alls I'm sayin' is this here: When I get out, I don't want to have to poke my chest out any longer. It hurts to poke my chest out. It's a weight on my shoulders I've been toting for the last 20-somethin' years, and I'm ready to drop that weight because the load is heavy."

Chapter 5: Lockdown

On my fifth week on the job, I'm asked to train a new cadet. He is a short white man in his 40s with peppered black hair. He says he worked as a security contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan for Triple Canopy and Blackwater. He is hoping to go back to Afghanistan soon. "I had terrorists who blew up schools and shit that I had to take care of. It wasn't all PC like it is here." Prisoners here, he says, get treated with kid gloves. "They got rights and all this crap. Fuck that."

I show him how to open the doors and do callouts, and I tell him we are going to start letting people out for chow soon. "What do you mean?" he says, suddenly looking frightened. "You are just going to open the doors and let them out? I can't believe that!"

He doesn't think they should go out at all. "Fuck 'em. Not unless you have absolutely an emergency. Or you're on a work plan or some shit like that. I'd make prison so bad that you would never want to come back. When I was growing up, my mom used to live in Mississippi. They had all the work gangs and they were all in orange and all chained up. Chain gangs and shit like that. That's how it should be. Make it so bad, you'd never want to come back."

"It's pretty bad in here," I tell him. "People get stabbed here all the time." At least seven inmates have been stabbed in the last six weeks. As people come in from chow, I hear on the radio, "Code Blue in Elm! Code Blue in Elm!" A CO is frantically calling for a stretcher. Several inmates are stabbing each other; they can't count how many.

Several people were injured, and I hear one was stabbed about 30 times. Miraculously, no one dies.

"Everyone on the tier!" Bacle shouts to the prisoners milling about. "Fuck all that," one says. "We'll have another Code motherfucking Blue." Bacle blows his whistle. We get everyone in and I head out onto the Ash walk to see what is happening.

A minute later, a bleeding man is wheeled by on a work cart and I return inside. Several people were injured, and I hear one was stabbed about 30 times. Miraculously, no one dies.

Three days later, I see two inmates stab each other in Ash.

A week after that, another inmate is stabbed and beaten by multiple people in Elm. People say he was cut more than 40 times. During this time, Miss Price quits after nearly 25 years of service. She says she's tired of this work. (We will go without a unit manager in Ash for weeks.) Not long after she leaves, someone is beaten unconscious and stabbed through the cheek in Birch and another inmate is stabbed in Cypress.

It is difficult to imagine how someone gets stabbed in segregation. How do shanks get in? How do inmates get to each other? The morning after the stabbing in Cypress, I hear Assistant Warden Parker call over the radio for maintenance to come and fix the cell doors there. A month ago, he told us that inmates in the unit could pull some cell doors off their tracks. A month before that, Mr. Tucker, the SORT commander, told us something similar. Apparently this problem still hasn't been fixed.

Miss Calahan (her real name), the Ash key officer, tells me they had the same problem in the unit before I started. She points at D1 tier and says that for two months, she and Bacle told the higher-ups to fix the door. At least one inmate filed a grievance about it. "I popped it several times using my foot," Bacle says. He even showed the warden how it was done. Then, one evening, two inmates shook the tier door open from the outside, apparently unnoticed by the floor officers. One was carrying an eight-inch knife, the other an ice pick. According to a legal complaint, the two inmates found another inmate who lived on the tier and stabbed him 12 times in the head, mouth, eye, and body. One of the attackers warned that he would kill anyone who alerted the guards, so the victim lay bleeding, waiting for a CO to come through for the mandatory half-hour security check. Unsurprisingly, no one did. He bled for an hour and a half until a guard came by for count. He spent nine days in the infirmary.

"Child, next day they was out here fixing that door!" Miss Calahan says.

Bacle says he wishes an investigative reporter would come and look into this place. He complains about how, in other prisons, inmates get new charges for stabbing someone. Here, they are put in seg, but they rarely get shipped to another prison with tighter security. "CCA wants that fucking dollar!" Bacle says through clenched teeth. "That's the reason why we play hell on getting a damn raise, because all they want is that dollar in their pocket."

High levels of violence have been documented at several CCA prisons. At Ohio's Lake Erie Correctional Institution, which CCA bought in 2011, inmate-on-inmate assaults increased 188 percent and inmate-on-staff assaults went up more than 300 percent between 2010 and 2012, according to a state report. (A 2015 report by the state prison inspector, provided by CCA, noted that Lake Erie had "drastically improved" and said the facility was "outperforming some of the state institutions.") † In 2009, Kentucky declined to raise CCA's per diem rate at one facility because the company's prison was twice as violent as its state-run counterpart and because a suicidal employee smuggled in a gun and shot herself in the warden's office. There is no current data on how violence in public prisons compares with violence in private ones. The last study released by the Department of Justice was in 2001, and it found that the rate of inmate-on-inmate assaults was 38 percent higher at private prisons than at public prisons.

The stabbings start to happen so frequently that the prison goes on indefinite lockdown. No inmates leave their tiers.

But are any of these numbers accurate? If I were not working at Winn and were reporting on the prison through more traditional means, I would never know how violent it is. While I work here, I keep track of every stabbing that I see or hear about from supervisors or eyewitnesses. During the first two months of 2015, at least 12 people are shanked. The company is required to report all serious assaults to the DOC. But DOC records show that for the first 10 months of 2015, CCA reported only five stabbings. (CCA says it reports all assaults and that the DOC may have classified incidents differently.)

Reported or not, by my seventh week as a guard the violence is getting out of control. The stabbings start to happen so frequently that, on February 16, the prison goes on indefinite lockdown. No inmates leave their tiers. The walk is empty. Crows gather and puddles of water form on the rec yards. More men in black are sent in by corporate. They march around the prison in military formation. Some wear face masks.

The new SORT team, composed of officers from around the country, shakes down the prison bit by bit. The wardens from the DOC continue to wander around, and CCA also sends in wardens of its own from out of state. Tension is high. No inmates except kitchen workers can leave the tiers. Passing out food trays becomes a daily battle. Prisoners rush the food cart and take everything.

"CCA is not qualified to run this place," an inmate shouts to me a day into the lockdown. "You always got to shut the place down. You can't function. You can't run school or nothing because you got everybody on lockdown."

Another inmate cuts in. "Since I been here, there's been nothing but stabbings," he says. "It don't happen like this at other prisons because they got power. They got control. Ain't no control here, so it's gonna always be something happening. You got to start from the top to the bottom, you feel me? If [the warden] really want to control this prison-goddamn!-why ain't you go' call and get some workers? But you know what it's all about? It's about the money. 'Let them kill theyselves.' They don't give a fuck."

One day, a former public jail warden visits Ash. "I don't know what's going on down here, but it's not good," he says to me. "There's something fucked up, I can tell you that."

"I been doing this for 16 years. This is a free jail to me. Too much shit going on down here."

I ask if Winn seems different from publicly operated prisons. "Oh, hell yeah," he says. "Too lax." If this were his prison, he says, there would be four officers on the floor, not two. At his public facility, officers start at $12.50 an hour. When they go to police academy, they get another $500 a month. Every time they pass a quarterly fitness test, they get $300. The initial training is 90 days. I tell him it was 30 days here. "This is a joke," he says. "I been doing this for 16 years. This is a free jail to me. Too much shit going on down here. Not no consequences." He says CCA could lose its contract.

One day, the visiting SORT team comes to Ash. One masked officer keeps watch over everyone with a pepper-ball gun. Other SORT members stand around, eating Twinkies and Oatmeal Creme Pies and drinking Mountain Dew. They tear up the tiers, throwing things out, slicing up mattresses. They find drugs and cellphones. Bacle tries to stop them from taking inmates' coffee or destroying their matchstick crafts. Their overzealousness riles him. "Some people here think just because they're locked up they're a bunch of shitheads. I look at it, they fucked up and they're doing their damn time."

As soon as SORT leaves, inmates scream over each other to tell me what was taken, cursing me for not standing up for them.

During the lockdown, Corner Store asks me to let him out of his tier. With the canteen closed, his services are badly needed. Everyone's commissary is getting low; many inmates are in search of cigarettes. They ask me to ferry things from one tier to the next, but I refuse, mostly because I know that once I do, the requests will never stop. I don't let Corner Store out. I tell him it's too risky with all these eyes around. For days, he just lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

His release date is five days away, but he still doesn't know where he's going when he gets out.

"Isn't it Tuesday you are getting out?"

"Supposedly," he says. Louisiana law doesn't allow early release unless the inmate has an address to go to. New parolees have to stay in the state, and his mother doesn't live in Louisiana. With no one outside to assist him, he has to rely on CCA to make arrangements with a shelter. The prison's coach was trying to help, but Corner Store says he got "roadblocked" by the administration.

"So they just keep you here?" I say, incredulous.

"Yeah, basically. I'm not even angry, man. I just know my day is coming. I've waited years for this. I'm not mad."

I ask Corner Store's case manager what is happening with him. "He might be supposed to be getting out," he says, but "as long as he don't have that [address], his feet will not hit outside that gate. It ain't nothin' I can do for him."

"They don't want nobody to leave," Corner Store tells me. "The longer they keep you, the more money they make. You understand that?"

One of the SORT members tells me they'll be at Winn for months. Yesterday, they found 51 shanks in Elm, roughly one for every seven men. DOC records show that during the first four months of 2015, CCA reported finding nearly 200 weapons at Winn. That made it the state's most heavily armed prison, with more than five times more confiscated weapons per inmate than GEO's similarly sized Allen Correctional Center, and 23 times more than Angola. "They getting ready to start a war," one officer says in a morning meeting.

Sergeant King stops by Ash. As he makes to leave, people start shouting from their tiers. "What's up with the fuckin' store?" It's been three weeks since anyone here went to canteen. Inmates are up at the bars, looking angry. "You 'bout to start a whole riot," one says to King.

Bacle seems nervous. "If they start throwing shit, you step right up here where they can't gitcha," he tells me, pointing toward the entrance. Less than a week ago, inmates rioted in a privately operated immigrant detention center in Texas. I saw prisoners here watching it on the news.

I walk over to one of the tiers.

"There ain't go' be no count or no nothing!" one shouts at me.

"Ain't no COs coming in this bitch until we go to canteen."

"That's what's up. We all standing behind that."

"If this shit don't get handled, y'all going to have a fuckin' riot on y'all hands."

"We gonna put this bitch on the channel eight news."

"Y'all risking your fucking life around here playing these fucking games!"

"Fuck the count! Bring the warden down here."

King comes over to one of the tiers. "Y'all gotta give me an opportunity. Before y'all start bucking. Before y'all start refusing. Because here's what's going to happen: They're gonna bring the SORT force down here."

"We don't give a fuck!"

"I ain't got no fucking soap! No nothing! No deodorant! No fucking cigarettes! This place is shit!"

I don't want to give the impression we are afraid, so I walk the floor. Everyone, everywhere, is pissed. I feel an explosion coming and I want to flee. "I'm surprised ain't nobody got you yet," a white inmate with a shaved head says to me, his eyes cold and focused. "They go' get you."

A few years ago, a riot erupted in a low-security CCA prison in Mississippi over what inmates saw as inadequate health care and poor food. A guard was beaten to death. When Alex Friedmann, a former CCA inmate and a company shareholder, asked for a moment of silence for the guard at a corporate meeting in 2013, the board chair refused to honor the request. (At the time, CCA said it had "honored his memory a number of ways.")

King calls Bacle and me to the door. "Listen, it's a lot of tension down here," he says.

"No shit," Bacle says.

"They found 75 shanks in two days. These sonsabitches is dangerous, y'all. I don't want y'all goin' in them tiers. I don't want y'all lettin' nobody out. As of right now, if this shit don't get handled, y'all going to have a fuckin' riot on y'all hands. All the black suits ain't going to do nothin' but pepper-ball and gas all of they asses." He leaves.

A while later, a CCA warden from Tennessee comes and talks to the inmates. "Y'all saying that y'all are being mistreated. I got plenty of people here. If we want to act like refugees and animals, then we can do it that way." The prisoners don't back down.

A couple of hours later, SORT comes and escorts the inmates to the canteen.

A drastic change

The lockdown lasts a total of 11 days. When it ends, Corner Store stands at the bars, waiting for me to let him out to work the floor. I ignore him. He pleads, but I am unbending. I have become convinced that he thinks he has influence over me, though I can't articulate why. I become suspicious of his friendliness and wonder if he is manipulating me. I start to talk to him like every other inmate and he looks at me with confusion. When he lingers too long as I hold the gate open for chow, I slam it shut and let him stew. He calls my name as I walk away. I feel a twinge of guilt, but it lasts only momentarily.

His release date comes and goes. When I do count, I see him lying on his bunk. Eventually, he stops making eye contact as I pass.

An inmate orderly corners me. "Listen, what's the problem?" he says, leaning against his broom.

"What problem?" I say curtly.

"Listen, be cool. Be cool. We talking. Relax. Why you so aggressive when I talk to you? You're too snappy."

"I'm not aggressive, man!"

"No, no, no. There's been a drastic change in you. What the fuck went wrong?"

Things I used to view as harmless transgressions I now view as personal attacks.

I tell him we are under pressure from management to tighten up. This is true, but there is more. I see conspiracies brewing. Things I used to view as harmless transgressions I now view as personal attacks. When a physically disabled man doesn't leave the shower in time for count, I am certain he is testing me, trying to break me down, to dominate me. The same is true when I see prisoners lying under their blankets during the daytime or standing at the bars. I don't care about the rules, per se; many of them seem arbitrary. But I become obsessed with the notion that people are breaking them in front of me to whittle away at my will. I write inmates up all day long. One paper after another, I stack them, sometimes more than 25 disciplinaries in a day. Some inmates are clever; they know how to get under my skin without breaking the rules. So I shake down their beds and look for a reason to punish them.

I carry all this with me. Some days, when I stop for gas on the way home from work I notice myself, for a split second, casing the black men who enter the gas station. When I shoot pool at the local bar, I imagine-I hope-that the white man in hunting camouflage who's playing against me will do something to spark a fight.

One day, the key officer tells me to go to the captain's office. I am nervous; this has never happened before. He is sitting alone at his desk. "I think you are a very strong officer," he says. I relax-it's my employee evaluation. "I think you are a very detailed officer. You got a knack for this. You got a 'it' factor for this. It's just who you are as a person. So, like you went down there to Ash and you just took the bull by the horns and just ran with it. It seems like them guys are starting to understand now-this is how this unit is go' run. This is how CO Bauer go' run it."

The computer screen in front of him reads, "He is an outstanding officer. He has a take-charge attitude. He is dependable and stern. He would be an excellent candidate for promotion."

"That's how we feel about you. I just think that you need to stay consistent with what you are doing. Don't break." Despite myself, I crack a smile.

Even after the lockdown ends, SORT does not leave. They patrol the walk, frisking random inmates, and shake down tiers relentlessly. One morning, I spot white buses parked outside the prison as I pull in for work. At the morning meeting, there are about 15 wardens and COs from public prisons across the state. The Winn warden steps up to the podium. "Our friends here from the Louisiana Department of Corrections have come to help us out," he says. This is the moment everyone has feared. Are they taking over? Will we lose our jobs?

A warden and a couple of officers from Angola follow Bacle and me to Ash. One tells us they are taking inmates who are too friendly with staff and shipping them to other prisons. He also says they've been administering lie detector tests to officers. Several have already refused to take one and walked off the job. When he says this, I get nervous. I go into the bathroom and flip through my notebook. I rip out my notes. I throw them in the toilet and hold the handle down for a good 10 seconds.

When it's count time, the COs from Angola blow a whistle and bark for everyone to sit up straight on their bunks. We've never done this. They tell us that if we get used to counting people sleeping under their blankets, we might eventually count someone who is dead. All the inmates sit up without hesitation. As long as the DOC officers are here, everything is quiet and smooth. They make inmates walk through the metal detector as they enter the unit, and Bacle and I put them in their tiers. I feel less worried about getting attacked, and some inmates tell me things are better for them, too. But others say that as soon as the DOC is gone, things will go back to the way they were. "It's like Mommy and Daddy back home," one prisoner says. "But when they go back on vacation, the kids is back out."

The Winn COs are deferential to the DOC officers, but in private they describe them as elitist pricks. It feels like incompetence has been replaced with overzealousness. The DOC officers chide us for letting inmates smoke inside, and when they spot someone smoking on camera, they find him and strip-search him in front of everyone. When I sit on a chair to take a break, a DOC officer, staring at the monitor inside the key, tells me to go into the TV room in one of the tiers. There is an inmate in there whose pants are sagging. He orders me to tell the man to pull them up.

"It gets in your blood"

Three days later, the DOC officers leave, and the order they imposed vanishes with them. COs slide back into their old routines and prisoners resist more than usual. Assistant Warden Parker, however, is jubilant: CCA has hung onto the prison. "The great state of Louisiana came in with both guns a-blazing," he tells us during a morning meeting. "They were ready to tear Winn apart." In interviews with staff, the DOC learned that staff members had been "bringing in mountains and mountains of mojo"-synthetic marijuana-and having sex with inmates. "One person actually said that they trusted the inmates more than they trusted me, the warden. One staff member said, 'The inmate made me feel pretty. Why wouldn't I love him? Why wouldn't I bring him things he needs because you all won't let him have it?'"

Later that morning, I clench up when my old instructor Kenny enters the unit and approaches me. "The warden told me to find somebody that's knowledgeable and ready for leadership," he says, smiling slightly. "Out of all y'all's crew down here, I'm gonna handpick you. If you are interested in moving on up, I'm go' make it happen. I'm going to train you for the next level." I've been on the job for two months.

In the following days, I walk up and down the tiers at count time, barking at inmates to sit up on their bunks. If they are asleep, I kick their beds. Some refuse to obey, so I write them up.

"Someone asked me if we were pretty picky about who we hire. I said, 'Well, I'd love to tell you yes, but we take 'em six-legged and lazy.'"

At the end of a long day, I head down the walk. On my way out, I meet Miss Carter, the mental health director.

"How do you like it so far?" she asks.

"It's okay. It can be exciting," I say.

"It gets in your blood, doesn't it? Someone asked me if we were pretty picky about who we hire," Miss Carter continues as we pass through the front gate. "I said, 'Well, I'd love to tell you yes, but we take 'em six-legged and lazy.' We take whatever we can get!" she says with a laugh. "When you get down like this, you'll take whatever. But then we come across a few good people like yourself. That's not the norm."

Outside, there is a chorus of frogs and crickets. The air is sweet and balmy. Like I do every night when I get off work, I take a breath and try to remember who I am. Miss Carter is right. It is getting in my blood. The boundary between pleasure and anger is blurring. To shout makes me feel alive. I take pleasure in saying "no" to prisoners. I like to hear them complain about my write-ups. I like to ignore them when they ask me to cut them a break. When they hang their clothes to dry in the TV room, an unauthorized area, I confiscate the laundry and get a thrill when they shout from down the tier as I take it away. During the lockdown, when Ash threatened to riot, I hoped the SORT team would come in and gas the whole unit. Everyone would be coughing and gasping, including me, and it would be good because it would be action. All that matters anymore is action.

Until I leave. When I drive home, I wonder who I am becoming. I feel ashamed of my lack of self-control, my growing thirst for punishment and vengeance. I'm getting afraid of the expanding distance between the person I am at home and the one behind the wire. My glass of wine with dinner regularly becomes three. I hear the sounds of Ash unit as I fall asleep. I dream of monsters and men behind bars.

Late one night in the middle of March, my wife wakes me. James West, my Mother Jones colleague who's recently come to Louisiana to shoot video for my story, has not returned from trying to get a nighttime shot of the outside of Winn. Something is wrong. The sheriff of Winn Parish answers James' phone. James, he says, will be in jail for a while. I feel the blood drain from my face. Then I wonder, "Will they come for me?" We scramble to pack up everything that has anything to do with my reporting and check into a hotel at 2 a.m. A few hours later, I call in sick.

The same morning, James tells the sheriff he needs to make a call. "You can tell them we didn't shoot you at dawn!" the sheriff says. James is later taken in leg irons into a room for questioning. "We don't care if you are doing an exposé on CCA," a deputy tells him. "We have nothing to do with them. They have given us trouble in the past." A state trooper adds, "I don't care if that guy works in the prison." James assumes he is referring to me but says nothing.

James is charged with trespassing. By evening, a $10,000 bond is posted and he is released. "Send me a copy of the article when it's done," one of the cops tells him.

We pick up James at a gas station at the edge of Winnfield and drive out of town. The next morning, as I get coffee in the hotel lobby, I see a SORT officer standing outside in a black uniform, flex-cuffs hanging from his belt. Are they looking for me? We exit through a side door, and as I pull my truck out I see another man I recognize from the prison. We go back to the apartment, hurriedly throw everything in plastic bags, and leave. We drive across the border to Texas. I feel, oddly, sad.

A couple of days later, I call HR at Winn. "This is CO Bauer. I'm calling because I've decided to resign."

"Oh! Mr. Bauer, I hate to hear that!" the HR woman says. "I hate to lose you. Your evaluation looked good and it looked like you were willing to hang in there and hopefully promote. Well, I hate it, Mr. Bauer. I truly do. In the future, if you decide to change your mind, you know the process."

EPILOGUE

When Bacle pulled into Winn's front gate after I left town, the guard told him the assistant warden wanted to see him. "What the hell did I do?" he thought. In his office, Assistant Warden Parker asked Bacle what he knew about me. "He was a good partner," Bacle told him. "I enjoyed working with the dude. He has no problem writing 'em up." He asked what was wrong, but Parker wouldn't say. On his way out, Bacle asked the officer at the front gate, "What's going on with Bauer?"

"You ain't heard?" the officer said. "He was an undercover reporter!"

Bacle recounted this to me on the phone 10 months later. "Oh, I laughed," he said. "I don't know if you remember, but I told you once that it would be nice to have an investigative reporter out there."

Word about me got out quick. The day after I quit, the Winnfield newspaper reported that I had been working at the prison. National media picked up the story and CCA issued a statement saying my approach "raises serious questions about his journalistic standards." A couple of guards I worked with reached out to me right away. Miss Calahan, who'd quit before me because she thought the job was getting too dangerous, wrote to me on Facebook: "Hey boy you got they ass lol." Another sent me an email: "Wow, Bauer! I'm honored. I don't even know what to say."

One concern raised by the Department of Corrections was a bonus paid to Winn's warden that "causes neglect of basic needs."

I attempted to contact everyone who's mentioned in this story to ask them about their experiences at Winn. Some refused outright. Others didn't respond to my phone calls and letters, and a few I could not track down. A surprising number, however, were eager to talk. Corner Store insisted he and other inmates knew something was up all along. "I just don't know no CO to pull out his pad every five minutes," he told me. "Everybody's like, 'Oh man, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.'" Collinsworth said that when he found out I was a reporter, he "thought it was cool." Christian thought "pretty much what most people thought: Can't wait to read the story!"

Some people whom I would never have expected spoke to me. One was Miss Lawson, who'd been the assistant chief of security. "They were scared to death of who you were," she told me. "After they found out you were a reporter, it was like, 'Oh my God. Oh my God.'" The DOC quickly required the staff to undergo fresh background checks. CCA's corporate office sent people to Winn to open what she described as an "extensive" investigation on me. They gathered "everything that had your name on it," Miss Lawson said. Ironically, the investigation narrowed in on the item that, in my mind, had symbolized my transformation from an observer into a real prison guard: the cellphone I had confiscated in Ash. "I got called like four or five times for that one phone from corporate," Miss Lawson said. "It was like they were insinuating that you brought the phone in or there was some information in the phone. I'm like, 'No, he found it in a water fountain.'"

After I'd filled out the paperwork about the phone and handed it off to Miss Price, it had disappeared somewhere in the chain of command. The mystery of the missing cellphone grew into a broader probe in which Christian and Miss Lawson were fired for allegedly selling phones to inmates. Both deny it, and CCA did not pursue legal action against them.

Miss Lawson also told me that Assistant Warden Parker texted her a photo of me, asking if she knew who I was. After she identified me, Miss Lawson says, Parker told her to delete the photo and "forget I sent it to you." She kept it, however, and emailed it to me. The image was a shot of a laptop screen on which a video of me was playing. I recognized the footage immediately: James had filmed it on the afternoon before he was arrested.

When James was detained, he was careful to protect his camera and the footage on it, even as he was surrounded by SORT officers from the prison and Winn Parish deputies. Police body-cam footage that I later obtained shows one deputy grabbing James' camera as James struggles to hang on to it, telling the officer that searching his camera and memory cards would be illegal. After James was cuffed and put in a police cruiser, two officers left their body cameras on. The video shows a SORT member scrolling through the images on James' camera. The sheriff never obtained a search warrant for my colleague's belongings, but someone apparently searched them anyway. Geolocation data on the photo Miss Lawson sent me points to the sheriff's office. (The Winn Parish sheriff says he was "not aware" of anyone searching James' things.)

In April 2015, about two weeks after I left Winn, CCA notified the DOC that it planned to void its contract for the prison, which had been set to expire in 2020. According to documents that the DOC later sent me, in late 2014 the department had reviewed CCA's compliance with its contract and asked it to make immediate changes at Winn. Several security issues were identified, including broken doors and cameras, and unused metal detectors. The DOC also asked CCA to increase inmate recreation and activities, improve training, hire more guards, hire more medical and mental health employees, and address a "total lack of maintenance." Another concern raised by the DOC, CCA's chief corrections officer acknowledged, was a bonus paid to Winn's warden that "causes neglect of basic needs." The DOC also noted that CCA had charged inmates for state-supplied toilet paper and toothpaste and made them pay to clip their nails. In a message to its shareholders, the company gave no hint of any problems at Winn; it only said the prison wasn't making enough money. LaSalle Corrections, a Louisiana-based company, took over in September.

The Department of Corrections also noted that CCA had charged inmates for state-supplied toilet paper and toothpaste.

Some guards stayed on with the new company, but many left. Bacle got a job at a lumber mill. Miss Calahan became a CO at a local jail. One went on to Army basic training. Another took a security guard job in Texas. Some are still unemployed. Assistant Warden Parker took a similar position at another CCA prison. Some Winn prisoners have been transferred across the state and some have been released. Robert Scott is still suing over his amputated legs. I still don't know what most of them were in for, but I was shocked to find out that Corner Store was in for armed robbery and forcible rape.

One inmate's mother read about me in the news and asked an attorney to connect us. When the lawyer told me her son's name-Damien Coestly-it took me back to my first day on the job, when I was working suicide watch. It had been a year since I'd pulled my chair across from him as he sat on the toilet, his entire body hidden under his suicide blanket. He had told me to "get the fuck out of here" and threatened that if I didn't he would "get up on top of this bed and jump straight onto [his] motherfucking neck." He had gone on hunger strike repeatedly to protest the limited dietary options and inadequate mental health services. In June 2015, he hanged himself. His autopsy said he weighed 71 pounds.

Five months after I left Winn, Mother Jones received a letter from a law firm representing CCA. The letter dropped hints that the company had been monitoring my recent communications with inmates and was keeping an eye on my social-media presence. CCA's counsel claimed I was bound by the company's code of conduct, which states, "All employees must safeguard the company's trade secrets and confidential information." Since guards are not privy to confidential business information, the implication is that what I experienced and observed inside Winn should remain secret.

CCA insisted on receiving a "meaningful opportunity to respond" to this story prior to its publication. Yet when I asked for an in-person interview, the company refused. CCA did eventually reply to the more than 150 questions I sent; its responses are included throughout this article. In one letter to me, CCA's spokesman scolded me 13 times for my "fundamental misunderstanding" of the company's business and "corrections in general." He also suggested that my reporting methods were "better suited for celebrity and entertainment reporting."

In March 2016, Corner Store walked free. He stayed in prison a full year while CCA was supposed to help him find a place to go. A lawyer eventually tracked down his father's address and arranged for him to stay there. He rode a Greyhound bus to Baton Rouge. His mother drove from Texas to see him. He got his seafood platter. He walked in the rain. He got a job detailing cars. Sometimes he would hop on a bus, any bus, and ride the entire route just to see the city.

Two weeks after he gets out, James and I visit him at his house on a quiet street near the airport. His father invites us in.

"You all taking [him] somewhere?" his father asks us as we sit on the couch waiting for Corner Store to get ready.

"Yeah, we were going to see if he wants to go anywhere," I say.

"You all ain't come here to arrest him?"

Corner Store comes out of his room and walks directly outside. He tells us to get straight in the car-no talking in the street. He's tense.

"Hey, this no names involved, huh?"

"What are you worried about?" I ask.

"Let's just say something happens and I go back."

"Who would you be worried about?"

"The free people." He means the guards.

"Do you think you might go back?"

"Anything is possible," he says. The smallest parole violation could land him back in prison. "If they were ever to see me again, they wouldn't have too much of a liking for me. They feel like you shouldn't even be talking about this."

When we pick up Corner Store the next day, he tells me he hasn't seen the Mississippi yet. He used to fish in it, growing up. We head to the river. After we sit and talk awhile, he stops scoping out everyone who passes by, and he stares out at the glistening surface. A tugboat chugs past. He walks down to the bank, scoops up some water, brings it to his nose, and breathes in deep.

Story by Shane Bauer

Shane Bauer is a senior reporter at Mother Jones. He has previously reported on solitary confinement, police militarization, and the Middle East. He is the co-author, with Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal, of A Sliver of Light, an account of his two years as a prisoner in Iran.

Videos by James West

Edited by Dave Gilson

Researchers: Becca Andrews, Gregory Barber, Brandon Ellington Patterson, and Madison Pauly

Senior Research Editor: Maddie Oatman

Creative Director: Ivylise Simones; Art Director: Carolyn Perot

Photo Editor: Mark Murrmann

Developer: Ben Breedlove

Web Editor: Jahna Berry

Funding for this project has been provided in part by the Puffin Foundation, the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, the Glaser Progress Foundation, and the ongoing support of Mother Jones readers like you.
*This sentence has been revised for accuracy. **Correction: A production error that caused an incorrect figure has been fixed. †These sentences have been clarified.

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Private prisons are shrouded in secrecy. I took a job as a guard to get inside-then things got crazy

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For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter. Have you ever had a riot?" I ask a recruiter from a prison run by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). "The last riot we had was two years ago," he says over the phone.

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Prison Valley - a web documentary exploring the prison industry

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Prison Valley is a web documentary by David Dufresne and Philippe Brault on the prison industry in the recession-hit United States. A journey into what the future might hold.

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Our Mission Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe. We believe that basic necessities such as food, shelter, and freedom are what really make our communities secure.

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Noname And Mariame Kaba On Art And Abolition

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Noname And Mariame Kaba On Art And Abolition

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In the shadow of police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and in the midst of a global pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement caught a tidal wave of momentum in 2020. There were hashtags, marches, pickets signs and sit-ins. There were moments of silence and poetic commentaries, renamed plazas and even some sways of legislative change, all evidence of a broader acknowledgement (in some cases, for the first time ever) of the racial inequality that's baked into America's social structure, in everything from education to healthcare to housing. And for many, these wake-up calls came with a much more pointed and precise demand - to take away the power from those who uphold this inequality; or, if you want to get simple and snappier: Defund the police.

It's a slogan that's caught steam in a way that was once unimaginable to prison-industrial complex abolitionist and organizer Mariame Kaba.

"Ten years ago, people thought we were completely bonkers," Kaba says. "This is how I know things shift: when Ferguson happened, and all the demands were about body cameras and things like that - to come to this moment, six years later, and the demand is to defund and abolish police for a significant number of people. I mean, my God, that's incredible to me!"

The demand requires people to imagine a world without police and, subsequently, a world without imprisonment. This has been what Kaba has spent her life's work trying to get people to imagine.

One of the principles of prison reform is that prisons are part of society, so they should be safe and fair. For prison abolitionists like Kaba, these reform efforts simply aren't enough: "It's not as simple as: 'Do you support [prison] reform, or do you not?' The question is: 'Are you trying to make sure that this thing shrinks in power, or not?'"

As Kaba lays out, the limit of prison reform is that it validates the institution of prisons overall - that temporary fixes and goals to make facilities more humane reinforce the idea that imprisonment is a natural human occurrence in the first place. Her work questions why these systems exist at all and, instead, offers people alternatives to carceral ways of dealing with harm.

Throughout the course of Louder Than A Riot, we've investigated and analyzed the ways mass incarceration impacts hip-hop, both as an artform and cultural force. For the final episode, we flipped the script. How does hip-hop impact mass incarceration - from reinforcing it to reforming it to dismantling it completely?

Kaba points to art, like hip-hop, to help give the message a common heartbeat, a rally cry, a conversation starter to "disrupt patterns and old ways of thinking."

"That's why we need artists."

That's what 29-year-old Fatimah Warner, aka Chicago rapper Noname, has been grappling with. Through her music, her social media engagement and her monthly book club, Noname Book Club - which hosts discussions of social justice literature and donates books to prisons - the rapper devotes just as much energy to political education and fostering conversation as she does to creating music.

"I love thinking about [PIC abolition] as this living, breathing thing that we can expand and challenge and grow with - as a politic, as a framework, as a vision for this revolutionary future," Noname notes.

Noname and Kaba share a mutual admiration and respect for one another's work, so Louder Than A Riot invited them to join in conversation to discuss their paths to becoming abolitionists and hip-hop's role in a prison-free future.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Mariame Kaba: I think [coming to the idea of abolition] was a process, not a moment - I didn't wake up and come to the realization. It was through a process of study - a process of experience and seeing how these systems were crushing communities, crushing people.

I remember this one moment I was talking to someone, many many years ago, and they said to me, "Why do you assume that prisons are a natural thing?" And I really didn't understand it. And they're like, "Prisons are unnatural - somebody made them, and everything that's made can be unmade." This is way before I had come across any readings or thinking about PIC [prison-industrial complex] abolition. And then a couple of years later, I was in a restorative justice training and somebody said, "There are a million ways to handle harm. Why did we choose this one?" I was like, "Oh my God."

So it was these small moments of people literally asking questions of me or of a larger room that got me thinking, like, "Why do I think prisons are natural, naturalized? Where did that come from?" I guess it was because they always have existed as long as I was alive. And why question what always existed? You just assume that's just how things are. And those were the provocations, along with experiences of harm - I was like, "This isn't working. This system doesn't solve anything."

Noname: I hadn't really thought about it; like Mariame said - it's prison, it's just always been here. And I think Twitter, honestly. It's crazy; I have to thank Twitter for so many moments of me being radicalized and learning new things. Although it is a white supremacist app and I really think it promotes negativity, there are some really amazing people on there who share a lot of information. So, stumbling upon [Mariame's Twitter handle,] @prisonculture and then just continuously stalking everything she's done thereafter.

Mariame Kaba: I'd love to ask you a question. Part of why I was excited to talk with you today is because I love talking about creativity and art and PIC abolition as things that work together. For me, PIC abolition is about imagining a new way. And as Ruthie Gilmore says all the time, abolition is about making things as much as it is about dismantling. I love the fact that art and creativity are so much about making things. Are you feeling excited about making things - and if you are, what are you making?

Noname: I am excited. I've been slowly trying to work on my album, and piecing that together, but my industry is so corrupt and so trash that I would be dishonest if I just sat here and was like, "Oh yeah, I'm like so excited."

The type of art that I make doesn't get centered in the industry I'm in, and same with my peers. I don't think the work that we make is for the mainstream, and that's fine. But I think sometimes I can just get into a negative headspace because I'm wanting to make art that is more revolutionary - I'm looking to folks like Fela Kuti and Bob Marley and Nina Simone, and even some of Nas' early stuff, folks who are extremely political in their music - and there's really no space for that. So I'm excited to be making it, but I'm also like, "This is not about to pay my bills." [Laughs.]

It can be hard and it's weird when you're the only one who's screaming about how messed up capitalism is and how it's sort of altered our relationship with our art as Black artists. It's all for consumerism these days.

Mariame Kaba: I was also thinking about the artist Elizabeth Catlett. She said years ago that "art is only important to the extent that it aids in the liberation of our people." And that idea is not uncontroversial, right? There are many who don't believe that art is most valuable when it's put in the service of movement-building and social justice. Some argue that this is a really utilitarian view of art that limits its potential and maybe even reduces its importance. But I think that art is not only important to the extent that it aids in the liberation of our people, but also, that oppressed people don't have the luxury of not tying art to being in the service of movement-building and social justice.

Noname: I think about that constantly because especially, like, hip-hop - we're talking about a genre that literally came out of the ghetto, you know what I mean? The most oppressed group of people in America decided to collectively create this art form for our liberation, to echo our messages out to larger audiences so they know that this is what is happening in our communities.

The most oppressed group of people in America decided to collectively create this art form for our liberation, to echo our messages out to larger audiences so they know that this is what is happening in our communities.

Because a community that I come from made this work, and now I'm able to sustain myself, I feel it's my responsibility to be as honest and radical in my music as I possibly can. I understand where people come from when they say art should just be art for art's sake - but at the same time, if that idea has been commodified and has been co-opted by capitalism, then we have to reassess. Art isn't just existing as art in some dark cave - it's being sold to millions of white people.

So, yeah - thinking about revolutionary concepts and ideas, it helps when you can package it in a way that's enjoyable to listen to and beautiful to look at. I know for me, I made Book Club, but I struggled so much with reading; the things that help lead me toward wanting to learn more have been art and music and film. So I definitely think we could be, as creators, pushing for something a bit more revolutionary and less individualist.

Mariame Kaba: I'm sure you've heard Toni Cade Bambara's, you know, "as a cultural worker, who belongs to an oppressed people, my job is to make revolution irresistible." I love that quote and it's really true. What you just mentioned, about art making revolution irresistible, is so critical. You attract people to social movements based on a whole bunch of stuff - including aesthetics, including art. All social movements of any sort of import have understood the role of music and song in the collective making of social movements.

Noname: Throughout most of my childhood I was really insecure about reading because it takes me a while to comprehend things and I have to reread and my pacing is very slow. It's gotten a lot better because I'm reading more.

I know that it's important for growth - I want to be the best community member that I can possibly be, and if I am ignorant to things affecting people in my community, I wouldn't be living up to the person that I would like to be in the world.

I wanted to make a book club because I thought, "If people are interested in Noname the brand, if this can function as an extension of my branding, people might be interested in this." And it turned out that people are beyond just, "Oh, this is a Noname thing." I think people also have a similar idea about themselves and wanting to be the best version of themselves that they can, and to be in solidarity with movements. For that, I think the book club has been a success.

I think about my role, too, because I know that just existing as a popular figure, I'm taking up unnecessary space - so not knowing exactly how to promote and share the politics that I have, but also not center myself.

Mariame Kaba: I think about this all the time, about the tightrope you're walking for the reasons you mentioned - but also because you're who you are in your body, because you identify as a Black woman and you're young. Our identities don't determine our politics, but they definitely inform our politics and they inform people's reaction to the politics we share.

I ask you about books because books have been so critical and important to my life, my thinking, my growth and my education. There's something about that process of reading - that can be a real gateway, and can transform your world. What I love about your book club is that you're talking about how you've helped people build community while they've been reading. I think a lot of people don't understand that prison-industrial complex abolition is actually a collective project. People ask me all the time, "What's the world without prisons look like? What is a world without police? Give us the details and give us your imaginary vision." I'm like, "Why are you asking me that?" How is my personal vision going to be the same as somebody in Iowa's vision of that? We are going to have to build it together, and that means we're going to have to argue over stuff. That means we're going to have to create new norms together for how we treat each other when harm occurs. That's going to take everyone.

You attract people to social movements based on a whole bunch of stuff - including aesthetics, including art. All social movements of any sort of import have understood the role of music and song in the collective making of social movements.

Books allow you to have individual imagination, space and a way to develop your politic and what you think and give you new questions. But doing that book club in a collective way, in a communal way, is so amazing because it's about the building of community and the collective making of a thing. And that's what it's going to take, frankly, for us to be able to build the world that we want to build.

Noname: Do you feel that rappers or hip-hop artists have a specific role in creating that community? We bring people together in concert, but it's typically for our own capitalist gain. Do you feel that we have a specific responsibility, especially since we come from communities that are hyper-surveilled and policed?

Mariame Kaba: I do think we all have responsibility to change our world and circumstances. Yes, absolutely, you have a responsibility. I do too, and I'm not a rapper.

It's one thing as artists to actually take part in the civic life of a country and of a world and to be part of organizing - but not everybody's an organizer, and that's OK. The art that gets made is important because it makes us think and feel differently, and because it can help disrupt patterns and old ways of thinking.

It's invaluable - which is why it's saddening to me when I see people with that much skill and ability who choose not to help us do that, for whatever reason.

Noname: Yeah. I just want us to dream a little bit bigger than reform. That's all I'm wanting from us - from hip-hop artists as a community. I think a lot of it is because folks don't have people around them challenging them. Even thinking about what happened with the strike that the NBA was supposed to do, but then they ended up talking to Obama. It's like, "Ugh, if you had just one person in the room who was aware of other ideas and ways of thinking, it would be so helpful."

Mariame Kaba: A big part of where I think sometimes we go wrong in social movement work is that powerful people are not accountable to other people. Powerful people have to - really, I mean, everybody, all of us - we have to practice something called self-accountability, which means constantly asking ourselves what are our values and are we living up to them? And when we're not, shifting our behavior so that we are in alignment with our values.

Part of the difficulty of celebrities and people with power is that, if you aren't already self-regulated enough to listen to people, no one's going to tell you, "You can't just do that." Like, who can go to LeBron except for Obama, another powerful person, and be like, "Do it this way"? Right? So, if you're not tied to a base of folks, if you're not accountable to other people, that's very dangerous.

Noname: I have one question in relation to abolition becoming - I don't want to say mainstream, but a lot more popular. How do you feel about the popularity that it's getting? Do you think it is constructive and fruitful and could lead to something?

Mariame Kaba: I'm stunned, frankly. That's what I keep telling people - when I see people say "abolish police," I'm in shock.

Of course [popularity] is relative - PIC abolition is still deeply unpopular, and it's going to remain unpopular for some time. And that's OK. When I was in rooms, I don't know, ten years ago - and forget about 20 years ago, people thought we were completely bonkers off our mind - but ten years ago, people still also thought we were bonkers for the most part. But this is how I know things shift: when Ferguson happened, and all the demands were about body cameras and things like that - to come to this moment, six years later, and the demand is to defund and abolish police for a significant number of people. I mean, my God, that's incredible to me!

I imagine a whole generation of young people being born in this moment who are going to grow up understanding that the world doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to have prisons, policing and surveillance. When I was growing up, I couldn't have imagined no police and no prisons and no surveillance. It didn't even occur as a possibility. And now the New York Times is talking about it and people are on CNN talking about it. It boggles my mind.

I imagine a whole generation of young people being born in this moment who are going to grow up understanding that the world doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to have prisons, policing and surveillance.

So on the one hand, I just have so much hopefulness. And on the other hand, I'm clear and I understand that we're in a fight, we're in a contest of ideas, and in a contest around resources, in a contest around co-optation, which is always at work, always at work.

There were lots of people who hate me for lots of reasons. And I don't care about them. I care about people who I know and who I have some connection to, who I have some comradeship with, and I really want to work with them. And if they tell me something's off, I'm going to pay much closer attention to that. But I'm earnestly interested in how we get our ideas across to more people so that more people can take those ideas up and challenge them. I want PIC abolition to be challenged by people who are seriously engaging the ideas and say things that I'm like, "Hmm. I didn't think about that before," or, "That's a good point that I need to incorporate into my thinking," or, "Thank you for writing that new thing that had me thinking differently about this concept."

I actually feel super hopeful. I'm somebody who consistently believes that if we act in service of a vision that's liberatory, that we will actually be able to transform our conditions. I believe it in the marrow of my bones. I do. And are there days when I'm despondent because people are a mess? Yes, of course, but I'm always hopeful. I'm always hopeful that after getting a lot of things wrong, we'll come to the right answer.

Noname: I love that. I love thinking about it as like this living, breathing thing that we can expand and challenge and grow with as a politic, as a framework, as a vision for this revolutionary future. Sometimes I think too, when we are able to abolish the prison-industrial complex, I'm hoping that it will also necessitate the abolition of the military-industrial complex.

Mariame Kaba: Absolutely. I tell people all the time: You're not going to be able to end policing without ending capitalism. The prison-industrial complex - the very term has, in part, its roots in the concept of the military-industrial complex. They're in conversation with each other - and we're calling for an end to all carceral regimes, right? Not just cops and prisons. Otherwise, we are going to be reconfiguring carcerality over and over again, and we're going to find ways to constantly be creating violences - not just domestically, but everywhere else. That's why it's so important for people to understand that PIC abolition has to be an internationalist project, as well as an anticapitalist project, as well as a project that is rooted in constantly thinking about concentrated violence across the board.

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'I Want Us To Dream A Little Bigger': Noname And Mariame Kaba On Art And Abolition

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In the shadow of police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and in the midst of a global pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement caught a tidal wave of momentum in 2020. There were hashtags, marches, pickets signs and sit-ins.

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Established in 1992, Sisters Inside is an independent community organisation based in Queensland, which advocates for the collective human rights of women and girls in prison, and their families, and provides services to address their individual needs. At Sisters Inside, we believe that no one is better than anyone else. People are neither "good" nor "bad" - our environment and life circumstances play a major role in how we behave. Improved opportunities can lead to a major transformation in criminalised women's lives. Complex factors lead to women and girls' entering and returning to prison. Criminalisation is usually the outcome of repeated and intergenerational experiences of violence, poverty, homelessness, child removal and unemployment, resulting in complex health issues and substance use. First Nations women and girls are massively over-represented in prison due to the racism at the foundation of systems of social control..

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Established in 1992, Sisters Inside is an independent community organisation based in Queensland, which advocates for the collective human rights of women and girls in prison, and their families, and provides services to address their individual needs. At Sisters Inside, we believe that no one is better than anyone else.

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Indigenous sovereignty and responses to COVID-19

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Indigenous sovereignty and responses to COVID-19

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Indigenous sovereignty and responses to COVID-19

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I am a Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University in the North of England. I am currently Head of the Department of Sociology (2019-2022). I was previously Deputy Head of Department (2017-19). …

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SISTERS UNCUT PROTEST WAYNE COUZENS SENTENCING, SAY "POLICE DON'T KEEP WOMEN SAFE"

This morning Sisters Uncut, the direct action feminist group who led the vigil for Sarah Everard at Clapham Common in March, gathered at the Old Bailey for the sentencing of Wayne Couzens. Court: Wayne Couzens arrested Everard under COVID regulations in front of witnesses who did not intervene. At least 15 women have been killed [...]

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This morning Sisters Uncut, the direct action feminist group who led the vigil for Sarah Everard at Clapham Common in March, gathered at the Old Bailey for the sentencing of Wayne Couzens. Court: Wayne Couzens arrested Everard under COVID regulations in front of witnesses who did not intervene.

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Born in 1936 in Nuneaton, Ken Loach studied law at Oxford, but branched into a repertory stage career (at one point understudying Kenneth Williams in Leicester). Shifting into television, he forged an alliance with producer Tony Garnett and developed the docudrama format via a series of hard-hitting 'plays' such as Cathy Come Home.

Loach made his feature debut Poor Cow in 1967 and with Kes, two years later, he directed what is now acclaimed as one of the finest films ever made in Britain. His socially combative work over the next decade or two was often kept off the radar by a combination of poor distribution and broadcasting censorship. Loach's star rose again in the 1990s as award followed award for feature work no less engaged, and he came to be regarded as one of Europe's premier filmmakers.

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Born in 1936 in Nuneaton, Ken Loach studied law at Oxford, but branched into a repertory stage career (at one point understudying Kenneth Williams in Leicester). Shifting into television, he forged an alliance with producer Tony Garnett and developed the docudrama format via a series of hard-hitting 'plays' such as Cathy Come Home.

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It's a wrap! The premier edition of Queer Cinema for Palestine (QCP) lived up to its promise of setting a precedent, and it did so in a big way. QCP made history as a first-ever global queer initiative centering Palestinian artists and standing in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality.

QCP showcased an extraordinary collectively-curated program by nearly 30 partners across more than a dozen cities, with film screenings, masterclasses, panel discussions, drag performances, queer indigenous solidarity, Jewish queer solidarity, and more. In person events saw maximum capacity crowds and more than 1500 people participated in the online portion of the 10-day festival, hosted by the Toronto Queer Film Festival.

As Ghadir al Shafie of Aswat - Palestinian Feminist Center for Sexual and Gender Freedoms remarked on opening night, QCP was an emphatic "yes to art that stands with the oppressed against the oppressor."

QCP offered an ethical alternative to the Israeli government-sponsored TLVFest and featured many of the 250 queer filmmakers who have either withdrawn from TLVFest or pledged not to participate in response to the call from Palestinian queers and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).

Intersectionality was a recurring theme in all the events, reflecting increased recognition of the intimate connections between liberation struggles of all oppressed peoples and communities. QCP was also a resounding rejection of Israeli pinkwashing, the use of queer and trans liberation to present apartheid Israel as progressive while depicting Palestinian queers as foreign to their own society.

QCP kicked off with a land acknowledgement by Layla Black and opening remarks by Ghadir al Shafie and Hanan Wakeem of Aswat, Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, Dania Majid of the Toronto Palestine Film Festival, Jonathan Petrychyn of the Toronto Queer Film Festival, QCP's platform host, filmmaker John Greyson, and artist S F Ho.

Queer Indigenous solidarity was featured in the program presented by Embassy Cultural House in London, Ontario, with screenings and a panel discussion with filmmakers Indigenous to Turtle Island and Palestine including Qais Assali, Justin Ducharme, Whess Harman, and Rana Nazzal, moderated by Wanda Nanibush.

"What if I didn't have to articulate and fight for my relationship to land. What if it just was?" inquired Palestinian filmmaker Rana Nazzal.

In Prishtina, 50 people packed Kino Armata for the queer cultural program curated by Dylberizm, featuring slam poetry, drag performances and screenings of international short films.

Activist and writer Agon Rexhepi opened the evening by performing his powerful poem "Shame of the house." Vera Vendetta, the Albanian drag performer from Skopje, continued the program by performing poems by the Palestinian queer author Fargo Nissim Tbakhi, continuing with the song "Declare Independence," a song which the singer Björk dedicated to Kosovo at a concert in Tokyo.

Four international short films were screened, including Sebastia by Palestinian director Dima Srouji and three shorts withdrawn from TLVFest in solidarity with Palestinians, Inferno by Andrew Blackman (New Zealand), and Flesh by Camila Kater (Brazil), and Invisible Men by Luis Carlos de Alencar (Brazil).

A discussion was held with activist and historian Gramos Buçinca, feminist activist Trina Binaku, and poet and journalist Arbër Selmani, on the intersectionality and importance of talking about the Palestinian issue and queer rights.

Queers for Palestine // Dylberat për Palestinën - Prishtina

Kino Armata, Prishtina
"Wakeful Rest: Voices for Palestine" took place simultaneously at the Sursock Museum in Beirut and at the Luminor Hotel de Ville in Paris, co-organized by the Sursock Museum and the Festival Ciné Palestine was globally well received by our respective communities. The screening was attended by more than 70 people in Beirut and by more than 50 people in Paris, screening the film Congress of Idling Persons by Bassem Saad, White Elephant by Shuruq Harb and O, Persecuted by Basma Alsharif. All three films touched upon the subject of disenchantment and alienation in the face of oppression and resisting dominant narratives. By drawing these parallels, the event was a call for the convergence of struggles and intersectionality. The screenings were followed by an online masterclass with the filmmakers as a way to open up the discussion on what a 'queer lens' in cinema could mean, especially in relation to cinematic practices and archival re-appropriation.

A Wakeful Rest : Voices for Palestine // En veille, une assemblée de voix pour la Palestine - Beirut/Paris

Luminor Hôtel de Ville - Paris

In Montreal, a program of short films from the Arabic speaking world brought a standing room only crowd of 150 to the Sala Rossa, demonstrating a real thirst for this type of space and content. The films included Houria by Raafat Hattab, Blessed Blessed Oblivion by Jumana Manna, Mondial 2010 by Roy Dib, and Cinema al Fouad by Mohamed Soueid. The films and the discussions, both online and in person, were a retelling of Palestinian history from a queer perspective, highlighting how queerness and Palestine are entangled.

As Raafat Hattab said in the online panel, queer thinking or think queerly is also about deconstructing reality and not accepting things as they are.

Sala Rossa - Montreal

Independent Jewish Voices hosted a discussion in Berlin between queer Jewish artists and scholars Judith Butler, Lior Shamriz, BH Yael and Marc Siegel on their films/work in relation to solidarity with Palestinians and the weaponization of antisemitism by pro-Israel forces to silence artists and activists. The discussion also examined Israel's pinkwashing agenda and radical queer rejection of pinkwashing and homonationalism, or a presumed favorable stance on LGBTQIA+ rights used as a sort of progressive measuring stick for states.

As Judith Butler put it, "'Queer' no longer marks a single issue identity politics, but a form of affiliation, of coalition, and even a way of trying to establish an intersectional and coalition framework."

The Espaço Cultural Renato Russo in Brasilia hosted a maximum-capacity crowd for Queer Cinema for Palestine, its first event after reopening following COVID restrictions. A series of shorts from Brazilian filmmakers who withdrew from TLVFest in solidarity with Palestinians was screened, including I Have To Say I Love You - Preciso Dizer Que Te Amo by Ariel Nobre, Afronte by Bruno Victor and Marcus Azevedo, Revoada by Victor Costa Lopes, and Bonde by Asaph Luccas. The collective Afrobixas joined the event, along with artists Pedro Ivo and Ricardo Caldeira, and a video by queer Brazilian-Palestinian activist Kais Husein was also screened.

Cinema Queer pela Palestina - Brasilia

Espaço Cultural Renato Russo - Brasilia
Sare Lesbianista in Bilbao hosted a screening of Beyond the Frontlines: Tales of Resistance and Resilience From Palestine by Alexandra Dols, featuring stories of resistance and resilience from Palestine, followed by an online discussion between lesbian activists from Palestine, Nicaragua, the Basque Country, Western Sahara and Mexico.

In Turin, BDS Torino, Maurice GLBTQ, Progetto Palestina organized a Palestinian aperitif and a program of short films, some of which had been withdrawn from TLVFest in solidarity with Palestinians, at CSO Gabrio. The program was followed by a discussion on intersectionality.

Queer Cinema for Palestine - Turin
The Outburst Queer Arts Festival in Belfast hosted QCP closing night, with "Queers and the State: Art and Cultures as Tools for Gender, Social and Political Justice," a conversation between Ghadir al Shafie, co-founder of Aswat - Palestinian Feminist Center for Sexual and Gender Freedoms, and scholar, novelist, screenwriter and activist Sarah Schulman.

The maximum capacity crowd of 120 people at The Black Box was very moved by what Ghadir al Shafie had to say, reflecting the strong resonance with Palestine in Ireland. A recurrent refrain from the public was, "We need to do more [for Palestinian rights]."

Outburst Queer Arts Festival at The Black Box in Belfast

A pop-up online screening of March for Dignity, the feature length documentary by John Eames which follows the inspiring story of a small group of LGBTI+ activists in Tbilisi, Georgia as they attempt to conduct the first Pride march in the country while facing overwhelming opposition from far-right groups, the government, and the Georgian Orthodox Church. Eames withdrew his film from TLVFest last year.

Mawjoudin - We Exist hosted an in-person event at Cinema Rio in Tunis with a program of short films, including To Starboard, I Vomit by Tarek Sardi, Women And Girls by Cherien Dabis, Marco by Saleem Haddad and Sisak by Faraz Ansari.

Mawjoudin - Tunis

The Seoul Human Rights Film Festival and Palestine Peace and Solidarity in S. Korea hosted a screening of Mother-in-Law by Shin Seung Eun, presented by. Shin Seung Eun withdrew her film from TLVFest last year. More than 20% of the 200 signatories on the Queer Cinema for Palestine pledge committing not to participate in TLVFest are from South Korea.

The Violetki Collective hosted a program of DIY cinema by queers and their friends in solidarity with Palestinians at the Fabrika Avtonomia in Sofia.

QCP Watch Parties were organized in Denver, Ghent, Berlin, Chicago, Toronto, and Philadelphia.

In a typical response from an apartheid regime and in stark contrast to the spirit of true solidarity and equality of the festival, Israeli government-linked lobby groups, a former spokesperson for the Israeli military and right-wing trolls reacted desperately with vile racist tropes and fake news replete with triggering images on social media. QCP is proud to stand on the right side of history in the struggle for equality and indivisible justice.

QCP was covered by media outlets including Dazed, Hyperallergic, New York Daily News and Washington Blade.

QCP is already starting to make plans for next year. Contact us if you would like to be involved: info@queercinemaforpalestine.org. And sign up to receive updates from Queer Cinema for Palestine.

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Queer Cinema for Palestine 2021 Made History

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It's a wrap! The premier edition of Queer Cinema for Palestine (QCP) lived up to its promise of setting a precedent, and it did so in a big way. QCP made history as a first-ever global queer initiative centering Palestinian artists and standing in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality.

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Overview

Pinkwashing is an Israeli government propaganda strategy that cynically exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image while concealing Israel's occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians.

For decades, Israel's colonial and apartheid regime has robbed, oppressed, ethnically cleansed, impoverished, imprisoned and killed Palestinians, queer and non-queer alike.

As Israel's far-right government allies itself with homophobic, intolerant and racist leaders around the world, including Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, Hungary's Viktor Orbán, and Christians United for Israel (CUFI) leader, pastor John Hagee, who combines anti-Semitism with Islamophobia, sexism, and homophobia, LGBTQIA+ communities are seeing through the pink smokescreen. There is growing awareness that queer and trans liberation cannot be separated from Palestinian liberation.

Anti-pinkwashing activists and groups have pushed Palestinian rights to the forefront of Pride events across the world. More than 100 LGBTQIA+ groups supported the call from Palestinian queers to boycott Eurovision 2019 in apartheid Tel Aviv. Dozens of queer filmmakers have withdrawn or opposed screenings of their films at TLVFest, the Israeli government-sponsored LGBT film festival in Tel Aviv.

Why?

Israel's exploitation of LGBTQIA+ rights, known as pinkwashing, works to shift attention away from Israel's regime of occupation and apartheid.

Israel's pinkwashing agenda seeks to portray itself as a fun-loving gay haven while using racist stereotypes to depict Palestinians as backward.

Through lobby groups, often allied with right-wing homophobic organizations, Israel promotes its pinkwashing agenda around the world.

For more information, see the Pinkwatching Israel web site and anti-pinkwashing resources from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Jewish Voice for Peace.

Impact

There is growing widespread consciousness of the collective struggles among oppressed communities across the world.

Milestones

130 Queer Filmmakers Pledge Not to Participate in Israeli Government Sponsored LGBT Film Festival

More than 130 LGBTQIA+ filmmakers and film artists from 15 countries have signed a groundbreaking pledge committing not to participate in TLVFest, the Israeli government-sponsored LGBT film festival in Tel Aviv.

Palestinian Rights Centered at Pride Events

More than 500 activists joined the Queers For Palestine bloc at the Radical Queer March in Berlin. Israel's pinkwashing agenda was denounced at Pride marches from Europe to Latin America.

Queer Groups Support Palestinian Call to Boycott Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv

100+ Queer Groups Support Palestinian Call to Boycott Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv

More than 100 LGBTQIA+ groups supported the call from Palestinian queers to boycott Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv. Queer groups canceled traditional Eurovision watch parties and organized alternative and apartheid free parties.

Dozens of Queer Filmmakers Oppose TLVFest

Dozens of queer filmmakers have withdrawn or opposed screenings of their films at TLVFest, the Israeli government-sponsored LGBT film festival in Tel Aviv.

Palestinian Rights Take the Stage at Creating Change

Queer and trans anti-pinkwashing groups have campaigned to bring Palestinian rights to the LGBTQ Task Force's annual Creating Change conference, taking the stage and organizing guerrilla workshops.

Exposé Links Israeli Pinkwashing Group "A Wider Bridge" to Right-Wing Homophobic Groups

A 36-page report shows that Israeli pinkwashing group A Wider Bridge receives funding from organizations giving to right-wing, anti-gay, anti-Muslim, pro-settlement groups and politicians.

Take Action

Queer and trans groups are campaigning to counter Israel's pinkwashing efforts in order to build a more inclusive movement for the liberation of all oppressed communities.

Spread the Word

Help build a more inclusive movement for the liberation of all oppressed communities by spreading the word on Israel's pinkwashing agenda.

Raise awareness on Israeli pinkwashing

Work together with local queer, trans and feminist groups to organize a workshop, public talk or film screening on Israel's pinkwashing. Get in touch for possible speakers: [email protected]

Join the Boycott TLVFest campaign

The success of the campaign to convince queer and trans filmmakers not to participate in the Israeli government-sponsored LGBT film festival, is largely due to outreach by local partners and among fellow filmmakers. Contact us for more information: [email protected]

Monitor and counter pinkwashing events

Keep an eye out for pinkwashing events at film festivals, Pride events and campus talks in your area. Build a coalition of local groups to convince organizers not to host known pinkwashing organizations or Israeli government-sponsored events. If they fail to do so, organize a creative protest or an alternative event to raise awareness.

Respect and promote Palestinian guidelines for ethical tourism

Israel markets itself as a fun-loving destination for gay travel. Palestinian guidelines for ethical tourism call for a boycott of all LGBTQIA+ events organized by or in cooperation with the Israeli government or complicit Israeli institutions and to refrain from using any LGBTQIA+ services or utilities like beaches, bars, hotels or clubs, provided by operators and companies that are complicit in Israel's human rights violations.

Sign up to receive queer, trans and anti-pinkwashing news

Contact us to receive periodic updates on anti-pinkwashing efforts around the world and news from Palestinian groups: [email protected]

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Pinkwashing is an Israeli government propaganda strategy that cynically exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image while concealing Israel's occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians. For decades, Israel's colonial and apartheid regime has robbed, oppressed, ethnically cleansed, impoverished, imprisoned and killed Palestinians, queer and non-queer alike.

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Andy and Cam have been broadcasting on 3CR about the comings and goings of the far-right since 2009. Until 2019 they did so via The SUWA Show, but at the start of 2020 launched YNP!.

YNP! is a weekly show dedicated to putting fascism and the far-right under the microscope through interviews with writers, activists, and others happy to say yeah nah to fascism and nah yeah to its gravediggers.

Show notes can be found here. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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Andy and Cam have been broadcasting on 3CR about the comings and goings of the far-right since 2009. Until 2019 they did so via The SUWA Show, but at the start of 2020 launched YNP!.YNP!

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A project and a podcast about rise of conspiracies in a gamified capitalist world.

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Why does misinformation work?

Amidst the great tide of misinformation that has been flooding public debate in the last five years or so, very few people seem to be asking how it was that we were so vulnerable to it.

Why were we so keen to believe that Bill Gates kills children in Africa, that cocaine cures COVID-19, or that George W. Bush is actually a lovely guy?

Perhaps it was because we had already become wilful participants in a society in which we were and are constantly lied to: a nihilistic market-driven society in which ethics and honesty have been slowly relegated to the backseat in order to let capitalism say whatever is necessary to close the sale.

Yet when we try to address this sense of widespread misinformation and disinformation, other things go wrong: sophisticated critiques that nobody listens to from people with no power, mad conspiracy theories that only distract people even further away from understanding the situation, or blindly doubling down on "truth" and "facts" in a way that does not make space for the inevitable political and social complexity of knowledge.

This is why we need to ask: are we After the Fact?

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After the Fact? The Truth About Fake News

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Amidst the great tide of misinformation that has been flooding public debate in the last five years or so, very few people seem to be asking how it was that we were so vulnerable to it. Why were we so keen to believe that Bill Gates kills children in Africa, that cocaine cures COVID-19, or that George W.

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‘Blackfishing’: Alt-right pushes to co-opt Aboriginal Tent Embassy to cause

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‘Blackfishing’: Alt-right pushes to co-opt Aboriginal Tent Embassy to cause

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The newcomers are an iteration of a growing, US-influenced protest movement in Australia that is trying to legitimise its various agendas by co-opting Indigenous people and issues through a process activists and academics have termed "Blackfishing".

They first turned up at the Tent Embassy in early December and, according to Ngunnawal elder Matilda House-Williams, speaking to The Canberra Times, "there's a whole tonne of them".

When police forcibly moved them they responded with QAnon-style phrases, such as "you're non-player characters" and "paedophile protectors".

Video posts by some of the group's adherents and influencers as well as its alt-right supporters reveal how gaining control of the Tent Embassy is only a stepping stone in a more ambitious scheme. They want to "take the chair" of Old Parliament House itself.

And despite a number of arrests after the disastrous smoking ceremony, it appears they are there to stay.

Daily call outs are now being made for "freedom" supporters to converge on the nation's capital to join them.

'Original Sovereigns'

At the head of the new protest group is Murrawiri and Budjiti environmental activist Bruce Shillingsworth, whose prominent activism around water shortages and related issues in the Murray Darling Basin have been nationally lauded. Around him are several Indigenous men and women already prominently involved in the alt-right "freedom" movement rallies in Sydney and Melbourne. None would speak to The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Shillingsworth was closely associated with respected Yuin elder and cultural lore man Uncle Max Harrison, who was allied with the vaccine-sceptical Informed Medical Options Party and the broader "freedom" movement, before his sudden COVID-related death in early December. Uncle Max addressed the "millions march" rally in Sydney two weeks before he died in a COVID ward at the Sutherland Hospital.

Shillingsworth and his group, black and white, have called via social media videos for the broader "sovereign citizens" movement as well as Indigenous "Original Sovereigns" groups around the country to converge on Canberra in convoys.

When police moved them away from the portrait gallery on Thursday, they responded with QAnon-style phrases, such as "you're non-player characters" and "paedophile protectors". Indigenous members of the group demanded the police prove their jurisdiction over the area with "deeds and titles", and Shillingsworth repeatedly demanded that $100 trillion in taxpayer gold be transferred to his personal bank account for breaches of a pseudo-legal contract he attempted to serve on senior officers.

A series of virtual meetings between prominent Indigenous group members and non-Indigenous alt-right activists suggest a plot to effectively copy the US Capitol Hill insurrection. For the Australian version, the target is Old Parliament House.

They believe the quasi-mystical locus of power in Australia is vested in the "seat" of the Old Parliament because that is the address listed on the ABN registrations of the Commonwealth's economy and trade departments.

The new Parliament House, the seat of federal government since 1988, is "pretend," they say, and the government's jurisdiction "fiction".

Over the past fortnight, Shillingsworth has identified himself as an Original Sovereign - a local variation of the international Freemen on the Land movement.

Many of the planning meetings tied to the new protest group involved Indigenous man David Cole, also known as Lurnpa, a leading figure in the Original Sovereign Tribal Federation (OSTF) which was established by non-indigenous man Mark McMurtrie aka Gunham Badi Jakamara after he was impressed in 2009 by the pseudo-legal counsel of David Wynn Millar, an American retired tool and die welder and self-appointed "king of Hawaii".

Last year The Age and Herald revealed the collaboration between the Original Sovereign Tribal Federation and former One Nation senator Rod Culleton who, at the time, was trying to establish a right-wing political party in a formal alliance with the Indigenous sovereign citizen movement.

In the United States, sovereign citizens are regarded by the Justice Department as a domestic terrorism threat after several armed actions in which law enforcement officers and civilian men, women and children have been killed. They do not have the same label in Australia.

'Moses' and the pandemic law

On December 30, video posted to social media accounts run by members of a Sovereign Citizens group showed demonstrators banging on the doors of Old Parliament House, which is now run as a museum. Shillingsworth's son, known as Buddy, and Bundjalung woman Cindy Roberts (aka Widjabul Dubay) were among them.

Police made five arrests in the days after the fire. One who was arrested, released on bail, arrested again and released again was Nicholas Reed, who is accused of carrying numerous armfuls of kindling and several coolamon loads of "hot coals" to the front of Old Parliament House. An ACT court was told he had been shown in posts on social media stoking the fire.

Reed, a white man who also goes by a "tribal" name, allegedly has a separate pending legal matter in Victoria, and is crowdfunding online for the Djab Wurrung Sovereign Tribal Government Fund, a campaign purportedly to benefit the Djab Wurrung people located in Victoria's Western District. The most recent campaign has raised $3759.

The Australian has reported that Reed's bail rules included that he live at an address which, according to property records, is owned by Business Council of Australia president Tim Reed and his wife, Karola Brent, a former Lane Cove councillor on Sydney's north shore. Tim Reed declined to comment.

Among others in attendance at the fire, though not arrested, was Roberts, who in a video interview with Tartaria Australia on December 10 said she saw herself as Moses on the forecourt of Old Parliament House before revealing that she intended to knock the locks off the doors, enter and reclaim what was rightfully hers.

This week police made two more arrests in the area known as the parliamentary triangle. One was of Buddy Shillingsworth for outstanding warrants related to past driving offences. The other was a white man named Dylan "Didge" Wilson from the NSW Northern Rivers, a self-described "land lore marshal" recognised by a "circle of Elders across this continent". Both were later released.

But the arrests and charges are not the end of it.

On Sunday, a strong cohort is expected to arrive from Victoria, many motivated by ongoing opposition to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, whose government succeeded in changing the state's pandemic response legislation late in the year after weeks of protest by anti-vax and anti-lockdown groups on the steps of Spring Street. Among the props taken to protests were an apparently operational gallows.

Several posts to social media among this group have expressed anger at a decision by a court in Myrtleford, Victoria, in which the protesters had invested high hopes that Andrews would be found guilty of treason. These posts encourage supporters to head to Canberra.

'No place'

When Senator Thorpe tweeted on the day of the fire: "Seems like the colonial system is burning down. Happy New Year everyone," it seemed like the action might have broader significance in the Aboriginal protest community than it did. Thorpe later removed the tweet and this week told The Age and Herald: "I stand in solidarity with the Tent Embassy. The people responsible for the fire have disrespected Ngunnawal Traditional Owners. There is no place for anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists in the struggle for First Nations sovereignty."

Back at the Tent Embassy, some key representatives are too nervous of the newcomers to speak on the record. But Ngunnawal and Ngambi traditional owners and senior figures from the earliest Tent Embassy protest cohorts of 1972 -73 have spoken out about the failure of the new group of protesters to observe cultural protocol and obtain consent to conduct their ceremonies on the site.

Meanwhile, as the federal government announced it would establish a $316.5 million Indigenous cultural centre within the parliamentary triangle nearby the area where the embassy stands, they are trying to prepare for the demonstrations and cultural ceremonies which will mark the golden anniversary. The work, they told The Age and Herald, was an assertion of commitment to the legacy of the embassy.

Prominent First Nations activist group Warriors of Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) is clear, though, on the question of sovereignty, and the attempt by the Original Sovereign movement to "co-opt the First Nations Sovereignty rights movement," according to a spokesperson, Gamilaraay and Kooma woman Ruby Wharton.

The biggest difference between First Nations' sovereignty and that being claimed by the sovereign citizen movement was simple, she said: "Sovereignty is our birthright.

"It's our birthright to occupy our traditional homelands, it's our birthright to speak language, it's our birthright to practise our traditional laws and protect our Country. The sovereignty these other people talk of is sovereignty away from the Crown, which is totally delusional because the only way these white people have sovereignty in this country is through the Crown.

"It's delusional for any kind of comparison to be drawn here. It's absolutely not the same and never will be."
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day's most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.

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'Blackfishing': Alt-right pushes to co-opt Aboriginal Tent Embassy to cause

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The newcomers are an iteration of a growing, US-influenced protest movement in Australia that is trying to legitimise its various agendas by co-opting Indigenous people and issues through a process activists and academics have termed "Blackfishing".

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The language of blame, responsibility and accountability

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The language of blame, responsibility and accountability

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Aboriginal people are over-represented in most of the negative statistics and under-represented in most of the positive ones.

This is the fundamental reality underpinning government programs like 'Closing the Gap'.

The language we use to talk about this 'gap' is of crucial importance.

Only a generation ago, and for generations before it, it was pretty much universally acknowledged that many of the issues facing Indigenous people and communities were the direct results of colonisation and the often brutal discriminatory practices it brought with it for Aboriginal people. Exclusion, discrimination, racism, segregation, impoverishment, under funding, over-policing. These were, and continue to be, key drivers for many negative outcomes faced by Aboriginal people.

However, under the Howard government, we saw a shift of focus in the language for improving outcomes. We saw terms like 'Mutual obligation' introduced into the national dialogue, manifested through 'shared responsibility agreements' (SRAs). This was touted as a 'carrot and stick' approach.

During the reign of Tony Abbott we saw mutual obligation mutated into sole responsibility being placed on Aboriginal people and increasingly punitive responses were put in while funding and support mechanisms were taken out. Basically, the carrot was gone, the stick got bigger, and nails were hammered through at all angles.

Both agendas were plagued by bureaucratic incompetence and malfeasance, as has become the signature aspect of Indigenous affairs, but the shift in rhetoric was significant and far reaching.

What was once 'no school, no pool' under Howard became 'if kids don't go to school, parents on unemployment benefits will have those benefits cut' under Abbott. 'Work for the Dole' became little more than a return to 'work for rations', with more work hours for more weeks of the year and much more penalties being enforced than for comparable, predominately non-Indigenous, programs. Basic cards were introduced ostensibly to stop spending on alcohol, gambling and porn, but was applied in a blanket approach regardless of whether an individual had any issues with substance abuse or addiction in the first place.

There was also a significant shift in language.

No longer was there any talk of reciprocity, of shared responsibilities or mutual obligations. Abbott's key three-point slogan for Aboriginal affairs was 'Kids to school, adults to work, and communities need to be safe'. There was zero talk of the need for government to invest in schools appropriately, or create sustainable jobs for adults to go to, or provide mechanisms and support services to promote or facilitate community safety.

Many of these programs and services were actually gutted under Abbott, and this has not improved under Turnbull.

The failure of successive governments to provide adequate housing and services to remote communities became the fault of the people living in them for making a poor 'lifestyle choice' by staying there.

Not only has this language masked an abandonment of government responsibility and accountability, it has also fostered a growing animosity towards Aboriginal people that we see reflected in media and more broadly in the national dialogue. Victim blaming is now the norm, and any talk of government responsibility and accountability is decried as Aboriginal people refusing to take responsibility for our own outcomes.

This language is not just manifested in government policy and pre-scripted talking points though; it has crept into all areas of dialogue. Never do we hear that 'police are more likely to arrest Aboriginal people', we only hear that 'Aboriginal people are more likely to be arrested'.

We do not hear that judges are less likely to employ their discretionary powers to avoid custodial sentences for Aboriginal people, or that governments have made substantial policy changes to send people to gaol for unpaid fines, we just hear that 'Aboriginal people are more likely to go to gaol'.

'Aboriginal people are more likely to' is how every negative statistic is now framed, so much so that Aboriginality itself is now seen as a risk factor for ill health, child removal, educational outcomes, incarceration and so on.

But the act of being Aboriginal is not within itself a causal factor, the way Aboriginal people have been treated, and continue to be treated, and the common issues and ailments that affect many of us are all causal factors, but Aboriginality itself is not.

This does not just impact on how these issues are perceived, it has a tangible impact on how Aboriginal people ourselves view our own likelihood of success. Being constantly told that we are 'more likely' to die young, to not finish school or go to university, to go to gaol, to get diabetes, all of these do little to offer solutions or promote positive behavioural change and instead run the risk of creating self-fulfilling prophecies while masking government incompetence and malfeasance.

Also, this language does very little to paint an accurate picture of the scope of the issue, or the realities of the statistics that affect us. I know that as an Aboriginal person I am four times more likely to get diabetes than a non-Indigenous person, but I have no idea how many non-Indigenous people get diabetes to begin with. I know that 400% sounds like a lot though. But is it 400% of 1 in 10,000 or 400% of 1 in 10? I also don't know from that stat if my age plays a part in that statistic, or where I live, or any other of the many categories that this stat changes for.

Much of the language framing societal statistics as personal probabilities was not done so maliciously. Many believed that in a society that, on the surface, considers itself to be about a 'fair go for all' then hearing that 'an Aboriginal person is x times more likely to [everything bad]', it would resonate as a call for change. Others perhaps believed it sounded more emotive and would more likely garner clicks and made for a better headline.

However, in the new era of Aboriginal victim blaming and the erasure of government accountability, this language now seems to reinforce poor 'lifestyle choices' instead of systemic failures.

There is a clear interplay between the choices we make and the policies and practices within the society we live. Understanding this relationship is crucial to finding solutions for creating the kind of society we want to live in. It is easy to say 'do the crime, do the time', but when people are 'doing time' for unpaid fines, then there must also be some acknowledgement that we have effectively made poverty a crime. Or when non-Aboriginal people are given less prison time (or none at all) for the death of Aboriginal people than Aboriginal people are given for failure to pay fines, then we must acknowledge that our system is fundamentally broken, and that laying sole responsibility on the 'choices' of Aboriginal people will do nothing to address these systemic problems.

These considerations are why it is just as viable to say that 'our society sends more Aboriginal people to gaol than it does to university' as it is to say that 'Aboriginal people are more likely to go to gaol than to university'. Neither is a complete picture, and neither is entirely accurate as a stand alone statement, but over the past decade or two, we have chosen language which across the board frames Aboriginality as the sole causal factor, and ignores the responsibilities or governments and other institutions and service providers to provide adequate policies and practices to have any meaningful impacts on these issues.

And it is not just within Aboriginal affairs that we have seen these types of language shifts, and few of them are accidental. It was not by accident that asylum seekers became illegal immigrants, or the definition of 'Aussie battlers' no longer includes the unemployed or 'dole bludgers' as they are now commonly referred, or why its only 'class warfare' when the mechanisms that benefit the rich are under the microscope and not when the poor are facing further cuts.

These subtle shifts of language have a massive shift in perspective of those who absorb these messages unthinkingly. This is why instead of acknowledging the 'International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination' in Australia we celebrate 'Harmony Day' - it reinforces the message that racial discrimination isn't a problem in Australia, because we are a 'successful multicultural nation'.

The role that racism plays, both institutional and personal, is now effectively banned from public discourse except for in the most extreme cases of personal racism. These instances are seen only in isolation and no efforts are made to draw links between them that could highlight systemic problems.

So while it is perfectly acceptable to talk about the choices Aboriginal people make, a conversation about white privilege, or even mentioning it in a glossary of terms inside a code of conduct, can unleash an unwarranted and unfounded attack. Whiteness is sacred and cannot be named or interrogated, and Aboriginality is a sin that must be punished and any effort to apply a lens outside of personal choice is decried as an avoidance of personal responsibility.

These shifts in language are not trivial, they tell us how we are, who is to blame, who is 'the other', who we should listen to and who we should ignore. They tell us that it is okay to punish those people who 'make bad choices', and that this is only solution to complex social problems.

We are encouraged to no longer consider multiple perspectives and holistic approaches to societal issues.

Instead we are given slogans and stereotypes. Catch phrases and convenient scapegoats. The give us a single story and a means to reject all other stories. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tells us, "The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story."

There is no one story, just as there is no one single cause, or one blanket solution.

We need to interrogate the one story we are being told, and seek out new stories that bring depth, foster understanding and compassion, and find solutions instead of scapegoats.

It is not enough to say that we are bombarded with negative stories and therefore we need to promote positive stories instead.

Not when even those positive stories are seen only through the same lens. The story of one Aboriginal person succeeding is held up as 'if they did it then so can you!' not as a means of instilling hope, but of negating the very real obstacles many Aboriginal people face.

It is saying 'Anyone can become Prime Minister!' while ignoring the reality that not everyone can become Prime Minister, or that everyone who has done so so far has been a white male, with the exception of one white female who copped absolute hell for her troubles.

We need positive stories, this is true, but we also need to understand both the negative and the positive stories.

We need to change the lens through which both are perceived and understood, and this means critically interrogating the choice of language we use to tell them.

Who decided this person can be an 'Aboriginal leader' while another is an 'Aboriginal activist'?

What is the difference between stating a number as a statistic or a personal probability?

Who keeps thinking it is a good idea to have all white panels discussing Aboriginal issues?

How is it that two or three conservative Aboriginal commentators can be used to dismiss the voices of thousands of other Aboriginal people?

Does a white person saying 'our Aboriginal people' instil a sense of responsibility for our conditions with other white people, or simply perpetuate a sense of ownership over our lives?

Why are all Aboriginal outcomes framed against non-Aboriginal outcomes? Does it reflect a goal of equality or of assimilation?

Why do we talk only of 'Closing the Gap' instead of Aboriginal empowerment or self-determination?

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The language of blame, responsibility and accountability

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Aboriginal people are over-represented in most of the negative statistics and under-represented in most of the positive ones. This is the fundamental reality underpinning government programs like 'Closing the Gap'. The language we use to talk about this 'gap' is of crucial importance.

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Lieutenant James Cook, Admiral (First Governor) Arthur Phillip and Major General (Fifth Governor) Lachlan Macquarie are celebrated by many Australians but not all Aboriginal people share the same feeling for these three, click and listen to find out why.

In episode Twenty Seven of Frontier War Stories Boe yarns with Ryan Stewart who is a history teacher and a PhD candidate from the University of Newcastle, the research he is doing is based on the Darkinjung resistance and conflict in the Central Coast of NSW.

In episode Twenty Six of Frontier War Stories Boe yarns with Fred Leone, we chat about his great grandfather Garrinjamaji (King Peter) who survived three massacres and saved his wife who was kidnapped during one of the massacres. Fred and his siblings were told this story growing up by one of his nannas who is the daughter of Garrinjamaji (King Peter), later on in his life Fred got a hold of two books which mentioned his great grandfather. Those books are 'Whitefella Comin' by David S. Trigger and 'Frontier Justice by Tony Roberts.

Fred comes from the Garawa and Butchulla Tribes, Fred is one of the Butchulla Songmen, a language custodian and multidisciplinary Artist.

In episode Twenty Five of Frontier War Stories Gamilaraay man Joshua Waters and Dr Mark Copland both from the Friends of Multuggerah yarn with host Boe about The Battle of Meewah.

On the 12-13th September 1843, eagle chief warrior of the Jaggera tribe, Multuggerah, and the surrounding allied tribes led the masterful resistance now known as The Battle of Meewah (One Tree Hill)

In episode Twenty Four Boe yarns with Angus Murray Wiradjuri PhD candidate at the University of Newcastle.

Since episode Six of FWS Angus has changed his approach to his PhD in this episode we find out that Angus is now focusing on tactics used by Aboriginal people in frontier conflict on his country the Wiradjuri nation.

In episode Twenty Three Boe yarns with Dr Skye Krichauff about the Reconciling with the Frontier project which will develop a mapping tool that people can use to identify and learn about conflict sites between colonists and Aboriginal people. The project is focussing on research of conflicts between European settlers and Aboriginal people between 1836 and 1901. The project is about truth telling - bringing to light the atrocities that occurred against Aboriginal people here in South Australia.

Dr Skye Krichauff who is an ethno-historian who combines the methodologies of history and anthropology. She is interested in colonial cross-cultural relations, the relationship between history and memory, and how societies live with historical injustices.

In episode Twenty Two Boe yarns with singer songwriter and teacher Paddy McHugh, we talk about a song he wrote titled Gins Leap.

many years ago at the station I still work at I remember hearing a song for the first time with lyrics like this "On the Kamilaroi highway near the town of Boggabri There is a little truck stop there most travellers pass by But occasionally the weary or those who need to take a leak Will stop beside this spot by the name of Gins Leap, Now Gins Leap is a clifface a mighty wall of stone Left high above the plain by a volcano years ago There is a little sign there tucked underneath it's face That tells all who read it how Gins Leap got its name.

Click the link to hear the full song: https://soundcloud.com/paddy-mchugh/gins-leap

In episode Twenty One Boe yarn with Professor Lyndall Ryan from the University of Newcastle in NSW.

On the 10th of June 1838 just outside of what is now Bingara in Northern NSW a group of 10 convict stockmen, led by a squatter, rode onto Myall Creek Station and brutally massacred about 28 Gamilaraay People, mostly older men, women and children in an unprovoked and premeditated attempt to get them off land.

This event is now known as the Myall Creek Massacre and, whilst only one of many Massacres committed across Australia over a 100 year period, it's notable now for it was the first time that the perpetrators of such crimes were brought to justice. Following a second trial, seven men were executed. You would think after this trial the Killing of Aboriginal people would stop but in fact the killings continued.

In episode Twenty of Frontier War Stories Boe yarns Libby Connors author of Warrior: A Legendary Leader's Dramatic Life and Violent Death on the Colonial Frontier.

Billy Barlow Gubbi Gubbi headman and resistance leader, was born in the 1820s, the decade when British officials authorised the invasion and occupation of what would become the city of Brisbane.

At some point during the 1840s Billy Barlow had joined Dundalli and the Aboriginal men of Bribie Island in their fight against the European invaders. Bribie Islanders were at the centre of the Aboriginal resistance around Brisbane from 1843 until at least 1859. Their success in removing white settlers, missionaries, timber rafters, and cattlemen from their country was remarkable.

The markings on a spear found in the plundered hut were identified by police as belonging to Barlow and a warrant was issued for his arrest in August 1852. The reward notice described him as 'a good looking man' ( NSW Government Gazette 1852, 1248) with a long nose and a missing front tooth.

Most of the description above found on Indigenous Australia website which is hosted by the National Centre of Biography at the Australian National University. ( https://ia.anu.edu.au/biography/barlow-billy-29905)

In episode Nineteen Boe Yarn's with historian Ray Kerkhove.

We yarn about the many methods of communication Aboriginal people used while fighting on the frontier, Ray also tells us about some of the new interesting things he has learnt about Aboriginal resistance on the frontier.

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Boe Spearim is a Gamilaraay & Kooma radio host and podcaster who lives in Brisbane. Frontier War Stories - a podcast dedicated to truth-telling about a side of Australian that has been left out of the history books. Each episode Boe will speak with d...

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Winner of the John Bray Poetry Award in the 2020 SA Festival Awards. Shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Award in the 2020 NSW Premier's Awards. Highly commended in the 2020 Victorian Premier's Awards.
Archival-Poetics is an embodied reckoning with the State's colonial archive and those traumatic, contested and buried episodes of history that inevitably return to haunt; a way of knowing and being in the world that carries us lovingly back and forward and back again toward something else restorative/ transformed/ honouring/ just. Family records at the heart of this work highlight policy measures targeting Aboriginal girls for removal into indentured domestic labour, and trigger questions on surveillance, representation and agency. This is a shared story; a decolonising project through poetic refusal, resistance and memory-making. It is our memory in the blood, and it does not always flow easily.

Dr Natalie Harkin is a Narungga woman and activist-poet from South Australia. She is a Research Fellow at Flinders University with an interest in decolonising state archives, currently engaging archival-poetic methods to research and document Aboriginal women's domestic service and labour histories in SA. Her words have been installed and projected in exhibitions comprising text-object-video projection, including creative-arts research collaboration with the Unbound Collective. She has published widely, including with literary journals Overland, Westerly, Southerly, Wasafiri International Contemporary Writing, TEXT and Cordite. Her first poetry collection, Dirty Words, was published by Cordite Books in 2015.

'Addictive poetry. This book heals and haunts. Real and unexpected. A stunning achievement.' Ellen Van Neerven

'Archival-Poetics was deemed a landmark piece of Australian poetry by the judging panel. Rooted in archival interrogation and historical reflection, the collection is a critical and timely piece that examines the origins of contemporary Australia.

The judges were struck by the overall cohesiveness of the text and the manner in which Harkin weaved the archival, the familial and the political within the poetic form. They described it as: brave, innovative and challenging.' WINNER of the 2020 Kate Challis RAKA Award

NSW Premier's Literary Awards judges commented, ' Archival-Poetics boldly reckons with traumatic histories of colonisation, the stolen generations and forced domestic labour. For Harkin, these histories are intimate. Her poetry draws deeply on her Nanna's state archive records, weaving traces of haunting, missing narratives and accounts of state surveillance into richly conceived and fully-realised poems that remember, reconnect, and restore the loving bonds of blood-memory that beat across time.'

'Although Harkin does not mention "indigenisation" in her writing, she is in effect indigenising the colonial archives. She is bringing her voice and that of others to bear on what was and continues to be deposited by the ruling classes over the last 230 plus years. Each page that turns brings forth those long forgotten by those who would oppress them, never forgotten by their descendants. The language Harkin uses is not conventionally poetic in form, it is full of gaps and gasps, repetitions, stutterings, a channelling of the women and girls who were forced to be what they were not and had no wish to be. The archons ignored the fundamental aspects of humanity at their peril and documented that ignorance. Harkin restores humanity to her subjects through her weaving of words and images.' Judy Annear in NZ-based journal

Natalie Harkin, Archival-Poetics
2019. Second printing 2020. 128mmx178mm. 3 chapbooks in slipcase. 17 images. 112pp (38pp; 42pp; 32pp).
ISBN 978-1-925735-21-5

Our thanks to Australian poet Peter Boyle for providing funding that made the 2020 second printing in the original full-colour chapbook form possible.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

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Winner of the 2020 Kate Challis RAKA Award. Winner of the John Bray Poetry Award in the 2020 SA Festival Awards. Shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Award in the 2020 NSW Premier's Awards. Highly commended in the 2020 Victorian Premier's Awards.

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Reading Marx’s Capital Vol I with David David Harvey (2019)

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An Introduction to Political Economy (Bikrum Gill)

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An Introduction to Political Economy (Bikrum Gill)

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All things political economy! An introduction to Political Economy with Dr. Gill

This episode gives an introduction to political economy and Marxian economies, we define key terms that we often hear in our circles.

Dr. Gill is currently working on a book manuscript titled "Race, Nature, and Accumulation: A Decolonial Political Ecological Analysis of Land Grabbing." This book examines the motives and consequences of the post financial crisis phenomenon of large-scale agricultural land grabbing, with a particular focus on the "South-South" case of Indian agricultural companies expanding into the Gambella province of Ethiopia. Combining political ecology, political economy, and decolonial theory, this work situates the land grab within the longue duree of colonial-capitalist modernity, and advances the argument that the land grab, as a distinctive post-crisis phenomenon, signifies an attempt to re-constitute the racialized social-ecology of global capitalist development.

Dr. Gill's subsequent work will build off from some of the larger implications of the book project, and will seek to intervene in particular into the emergent "epoch" debates which are centered upon locating the social-ecological crisis of climate change within a distinctive geological epoch defined by the rise of the human as geological agent. Specifically, he is concerned with the Eurocentric premise of the major approaches, whether identified as Anthropocene or Capitalocene, as they are all united in granting historical priority to the generative agency of the European human. His approach aims to extend the debate beyond such Eurocentrism, by foregrounding instead how the structuring relations defining the epoch of the climate crisis are born out of the European settler/master's racialized response to the social-ecological world-making knowledge and agency of non-European peoples. This project thus engages a deeper global history and broader geography of social-ecological co-constitution in order to emphasize first how non-Europeans have been involved in landscape formation for millennia prior to the colonial-capitalist era, and, second, how such knowledge and practice have been both appropriated and erased by colonizing forces.

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#50 An Introduction to Political Economy - Dr. Bikrum Gill

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All things political economy! An introduction to Political Economy with Dr. Gill This episode gives an introduction to political economy and Marxian economies, we define key terms that we often hear in our circles. Dr. Gill is currently working on a book manuscript titled "Race, Nature, and Accumulation: A Decolonial Political Ecological Analysis of Land Grabbing."

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Lowkey - Neoliberalism Kills People [Music Video] | GRM Daily

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'However and Whomever We Choose': Love in Occupied Palestine by Fahad Ali

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'However and Whomever We Choose': Love in Occupied Palestine by Fahad Ali

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In his essay, A Moment in Ramallah, John Berger writes:
Long ago, newly married couples planted roses in Ramallah gardens as an augury for their future life together. The alluvial soil suited the roses. [... ] Today there is not a wall in the town centre of Ramallah, now the capital of the Palestinian Authority, which is not covered with photographs of the dead, taken when they were alive, and now reprinted as small posters.
Palestinian loss is articulated through contrast between the utopian past and the horrors of the post-Nakba present. When we think about these happy newlyweds of ages past, we also think about the future: will there come a time when Palestinians regain what we have lost? When roses bloom yet again in the gardens of Ramallah?

Berger's historical anecdote may be apocryphal - I can find no supporting sources - but it does hint at how romantic love is not purely sentimental. Our desires, our sense of yearning, our hopes, sexualities, and relationships all contribute to, and are defined by, our identity as Palestinians.

Romantic love encounters the occupation, in a tangible and immediate sense, as seen in the apartheid policies that impose geographical segregation on Palestinian lovers. The lapsed Citizenship Law, which prevents Palestinian citizens of Israel from obtainining residency permits for their non-citizen spouses, continues to be applied extrajudicially by Israel's interior minister Ayelet Shaked - who has referred to Palestinian children as "little snakes" - while plans to renew the law are underway. This is just one of the many de facto and de jure policies that seek to keep Palestinians geographically splintered, and therefore limited in who they can love, marry, and live with.

This leads to cruel absurdities: if a Palestinian couple does not posess the same residency permit or identification category under Israeli law, then they cannot live together unless they move abroad. Noura Mansour, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, recently wrote about her surreal experience of attending her own wedding party in occupied Akka without her husband because the Israeli government would not issue him a visa. In this she is not alone: the ' Love Under Apartheid' project, founded and curated by Tanya Keilani, has documented similar instances of spousal separation. Mohammed, a Palestinian-American engaged to Marjan, a Palestinian with a West Bank ID card, was forced to marry in Chicago because the Israeli government denied him entry to the West Bank. Amer, from Gaza, fell in love with and was engaged to a Palestinian woman from the West Bank for two years. Due to the Israeli blockade on Gaz a- now in its 15th year - he was unable to leave the Strip. Despite many unsuccessful attempts at uniting, the couple was forced to call off the engagement.

As an exiled Palestinian who has never set foot in Palestine, my own sense of loss is mediated via family, oral history, art, and narrative. I ask myself: what would it be like to return and to walk through the avenues of my ancestral town of Arraba? If I have children, would they ever be able to play on the same soil and among the trees of my grandparents' childhood? I have only seen my homeland in photographs, films, satellite images, and Instagram reels. I imagine what it would be like to break out of this pixelated prison and step into the real Palestine.

For me, these questions are necessarily tied to love. My yearning for home is not just about place, but also about people. I want to be able to live in Palestine among friends, family, and lovers. These impulses connect us to the future, as Keilani explains:

"When we find a partner, we think about our futures: where will we live; what kind of home we will create; would we like children; if so, how many-but planning a future together isn't the same for Palestinians."

This is especialy true for queer Palestinians. As a gay man, I often wonder what my place will be in a liberated Palestine. Though Palestinian communities both in Palestine and the diaspora are not religiously, politically, or ideologically homogenous - and certainly not essentially homophobic as the Zionist regime would have people believe - we do need to confront homophobia where it does exist.

Stéphanie Latte Abdallah wrote a study on matrimony in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, published in the Journal of Palestine Studies. Abdullah traced attitudes towards marriage in four generations of women in the camps, beginning from the pre-Nakba generation of women born before 1938. In contrast to their elders, women of the third generation, who came of age during the 1970s and 80s, were increasingly able to marry for love, and on their own terms. This was a significant departure from "traditional" sexual and relational politics, in which women married young, often through family arrangements. Although this social revolution was incomplete, the political mobilization of women in this period, supported by the optimism and energy of the emergent Palestinian liberation movement, allowed them some freedom from patriarchal norms and expectations.

Though I take care not to overgeneralize these findings, I do draw a parallel: queer mobilization and visibility in Palestine is, to some extent, enabled by the present-day Palestinian liberation movement, at the same time as it is challenged by it. Queer love and women's liberation are inherently transgressive, and represent a dual threat to both the Israeli regime and heteropatriarchal power in Palestinian society.

Mainstream depictions of queer love in Palestine are largely confined to Israeli cinema. The two most egregious examples, The Bubble (2006) and Out in the Dark (2012), ostensibly seek to critique the Israeli regime, but in doing so reproduce orientalizing, white savior narratives about gay Palestinians. This colonial contortion of queer Palestinian identity works to defuse the revolutionary potential of queer politics and preserve the underlying power relations that maintain the occupation.

We need to articulate and express our identities on our own terms. The closing scene of Palestinian director Elia Suleiman's It Must Be Heaven (2019) takes place in a gay bar in Haifa, and serves as both a culmination of the film and commentary on the future of the Palestinian cause. This five-minute sequence was more authentic and powerful than full-length Israeli films that attempt to showcase the exotic gay Palestinian Other.

To some extent, the pre-Nakba period is mythologized in Palestinian popular imagination-despite Berger's rose bushes, women were married young, generally with no choice in the matter, and most were illiterate, as shown by Abdullah's research. At the same time, though the concept of romantic love did not figure into social relations, it would be wrong to say that it was entirely absent. Indeed, Palestinian folk culture is rich in depictions of romantic love, and folk love songs such as Wein 'a Ramallah (وين ع رام الله) and Tarweedeh Shmaali (ترويدة شمالي) have been repurposed post-Nakba as anthems of resistance and our inevitable return.

The trauma of the Nakba threatens to arrest us in time. But it is clear that the future cannot merely replicate the past-it must surpass it. Our Palestinian future must be one where we can all love however and whomever we choose, free from the repression of the Israeli regime and patriarchal dominance within our own communities.

That is the future that I want to build-a future where Palestinians are no longer separated by borders, walls, or identity cards; a future where my beloved and I can plant roses in soil that has tended and been tended by generations of free Palestinians.

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'However and Whomever We Choose': Love in Occupied Palestine

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In his essay , A Moment in Ramallah, John Berger writes: Long ago, newly married couples planted roses in Ramallah gardens as an augury for their future life together. The alluvial soil suited the roses. [...

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The Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has likened the vandalism of statues of Captain Cook and Lachlan Macquarie to Stalinist purges, warning the acts were part of "a deeply disturbing" campaign to "obliterate" Australia's history.

Australia has been engaged in intense debate this week over an inscription on a statue of explorer, Captain James Cook, in Sydney's Hyde Park. The statue's inscription claims Cook "discovered" Australia, prompting criticism that it ignored tens of thousands of years of Indigenous history.

Early on Saturday, three statues in Sydney's Hyde park - including one of Captain Cook - were attacked by vandals.

The words "change the date" and "no pride in genocide" were spray-painted on the Captain Cook statue, the former a reference to a campaign to stop celebrating Australia's national day on the date the First Fleet landed.

Similar words were scrawled on a monument to Lachlan Macquarie, the fifth governor of New South Wales, and a statue of Queen Victoria was also targeted.

Turnbull, in a lengthy Facebook post on Saturday afternoon, described the vandalism as a "cowardly criminal act".

"But it is also part of a deeply disturbing and totalitarian campaign to not just challenge our history but to deny it and obliterate it," Turnbull said.

"This is what Stalin did. When he fell out with his henchmen he didn't just execute them, they were removed from all official photographs - they became non-persons, banished not just from life's mortal coil but from memory and history itself," he said.

"Tearing down or defacing statues of our colonial era explorers and governors is not much better than that."

Turnbull said the statue should be interpreted for what it was: a perspective on history from 1879, when the monument was erected.

"We do not adopt every inscription on every statue or monument - it is a voice at a point in time," Turnbull said.

"How many ancient Roman monuments show slaves shackled to the chariot wheels of their Roman conquerors? Does that mean modern Italians endorse slavery? Or chariots?" he said.

Police have launched an investigation into the "malicious damage" in Hyde Park, which they believe happened between 2am and 3am on Saturday.

Debate about the statue was prompted by Indigenous broadcaster Stan Grant, who said the inscription perpetuated a "fiction" that spoke to the emptiness and invisibility of Indigenous Australians.

On Saturday, Grant condemned the graffiti as "appalling" and "disgraceful", telling Fairfax Media it damaged the cause of Indigenous Australians.

The Australian treasurer, Scott Morrison, tweeted: "A national insult & disgrace. Does not keep one indigenous child safe, in school or end up in a job. Grow up idiots."

While debate raged in the media, many in Hyde Park remained oblivious to the controversy over the statue on Saturday.

One man acutely aware of the debate's significance, however, was Michael Richard, a trainee school teacher.

Richards is planning an excursion to Hyde Park to help his students understand why the inscription causes offence. He was in Hyde Park on Saturday, just after the graffiti was cleaned from the statue, taking pictures for his class.

He believes the inscription is misleading without being put in its proper historical context.

"I'm personally of the view that we do need to understand ourselves as a nation before we can go forward with a clear conscience," Richards said.

"I guess if we just encourage the next generation to understand the power of words - that 'discovered' isn't quite the right one," he said.

Richards said the vandalism was misguided, saying "there is a right way to do things".

A CCTV still of the man police believe vandalised statues in Hyde Park overnight. Photograph: NSW Police

One tourist lying next to the statue on Saturday said he was unaware anyone had been on the continent before the Europeans. Another was unaware of Australian Indigenous history.

Richards said the statues in Hyde Park, a popular tourist attraction, should serve to teach the world about our history accurately and in context.

"I guess we've got to bear in mind the image that we project to the world as well, it's a little bit naive not to have it put in context," he said.

Another Sydneysider, Max Plodr, said the vandalism was wrong, but had helped to fuel debate.

"I agree it is stupid, but it does spark conversation, but in a bit of a negative light," Plodr said.

"But it still does get a conversation started, but I think there are better ways to go about it."

Police said graffiti was also used on Sydney's ANZAC memorial, park benches in Hyde Park, and on the Archibald memorial fountain.

They described the man responsible as "caucasian appearance with a full face beard", and as wearing black sunglasses, a khaki coloured jacket, and black track pants.

The assistant immigration minister, Alex Hawke, who is vehemently opposed to changing the date of Australia Day, condemned the attack.

"This disgraceful extreme attack on our history &culture is shameful. Phillip& Cook were enlightened for their times," he tweeted on Saturday.
- Australian Associated Press contributed to this report

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'No pride in genocide': vandals deface Captain Cook statue in Sydney's Hyde park

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Australian prime minister says graffiti is part of 'totalitarian campaign' to obliterate country's history

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Protesting Melbourne Queer Film Festival

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Protesting Melbourne Queer Film Festival

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Melbourne Queer Film Festival had an opportunity to be part of a story we will one day be able to tell: the story of a free Palestine.

When I was 18, I moved back to Australia for university, having spent the previous decade living in the Gulf.

For the first few years after my return, I lived in Naarm/Melbourne and didn't talk about my background or identity. Instead, I listened.

I heard people talking about refugee 'queue jumpers' on the tram; I sat at dinner tables and was told that violence was 'part of my religion'; and I heard Palestinian human rights being debated in my university lecture halls. I learned what the narrative of White Australia had sold to people, and that my story as a stateless Palestinian refugee and queer Muslim woman had been coopted by those in power for political gain.

In 2014, during the second year of my undergraduate degree, I went for a walk with a First Nations friend, Indi. It was around the time that there had been backlash in Bendigo surrounding the development of a local mosque, and I told Indi how I was feeling about the way Muslims were being talked about in the news. I told her about the conversations I'd been overhearing, and the things that had been said directly to me at the residential college we were living in. I told her my story - how a refugee, displaced by the creation of another settler colony, came to be a citizen of this one.

Indi and I shared our experiences of White Australia and, in that moment, realised the power of storytelling - how it can be an impetus for change, help us reclaim our narratives, and allow us to reimagine an alternate reality. That realisation opened my eyes and, since 2018, I've been involved with, and led, a grassroots non-profit that's focused on storytelling.

The Power Of Storytelling In Social Justice Movements

Many social justice movements throughout history were, at their core, battles of stories. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a critical social protest campaign that was part of the civil rights movement against racial segregation in the United States; the Irish National Land League sought to abolish landlordism and enable tenant farmers to own the land they worked on; the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, which is a permanent protest site that began in 1972 calling for Indigenous Land Rights - these stories are timeless because they illustrate the universality of our values, how intertwined our struggles are, and how necessary it is for us to come together in the pursuit of justice.

This year, Melbourne Queer Film Festival (MQFF) had an opportunity to be part of a story we will one day be able to tell: the story of a free Palestine.

In March, MQFF produced MQFF Together, a smaller festival that aimed to bring people together after the cancellation of the 2020 festival due to COVID.

Eytan Fox's film Sublet was included in the lineup, along with a retrospective of the director's previous films. Fox's films have been widely criticised for engaging in pinkwashing, which is the practice of promoting an image of Israel as a queer-friendly idyll and Palestinians as inherently intolerant and backward people. Stories that pinkwash Israeli apartheid erase the atrocities committed against queer Palestinians, and all Palestinians, including the theft of our land and resources, and the denial of our human rights. To this day, Israel threatens to out queer Palestinians who do not cooperate with the occupying forces.

In response to MQFF's March program, Muhib Nabulsi, a queer Palestinian, raised their concerns of pinkwashing with festival organisers. Nabulsi was told that pinkwashing is a 'matter of personal opinion'. So, a social media campaign was subsequently launched and a counter-screening of Dean Spade's Pinkwashing Exposed was organised. At the time, we had hoped that MQFF would consider our concerns in future programming.

However, a few weeks ago, MQFF released the programme for their 2021 festival. Again, they included a film that pinkwashes Israeli apartheid, The Swimmer, which had also received government funding from the apartheid State.

Again, queer Palestinians raised their programming concerns with MQFF. In response, MQFF released two statements - the second of which claimed that the festival 'strives to curate queer content and feature stories that represent the diversity of LGBTIQ+ communities' and 'change lives through the experience of shared stoties'.

The festival's statement and actions erase the intersection between queer liberation and the liberation of Palestine.

However, the statement referred to queer Palestinians and our allies as 'BDS supporters' and referred to those who want the film to remain as programmed as 'community members'. In doing so, MQFF isolated and externalised queer Palestinians, and our allies, from MQFF's community. Festival organisers went on to claim that they strive to be 'apolitical', disregarding the fact that queerness is inherently political.

The festival's statement and actions erase the intersection between queer liberation and the liberation of Palestine. Politicisation is not a choice that a festival or an individual can make - it is the product of living in a society in which everyday systems and structures are not built with communities like ours in mind.

A Shifting Balance Of Power

In May this year, we saw Palestinians take to social media as they fought to save their homes, villages, and lives. Social media provided an opportunity to amplify our stories on our own terms. We no longer had to beg storytelling institutions to include our voices - we had all the tools we needed to share our unfiltered and uncensored truth. As platforms become increasingly accessible to us, the power and relevance of storytelling institutions wanes. The balance of power is shifting.

The power that institutions once had when deciding which stories were to be platformed and which were not is dwindling, while the power individual community members have to share their stories on their own terms is rising. And this is not limited to Palestine. Activists from Sudan, Kashmir, East Turkestan, and Tigray, among others, continue to take to social media, using their stories to inspire people to action. Yassmin Abdel-Magied took to social media in light of the coup in Sudan. Subhi Bora has been continuously and tirelessly shedding light on the Uyghur genocide. Apryl Day, through founding Dhadjowa Foundation, supports and platforms the voices and stories of the family members of Aboriginal people who have died in police custody.

Activists and storytellers around the world will continue sharing the stories of our communities through the growing power of our own platforms. Storytelling institutions like MQFF need to align themselves with the values of the communities they claim to represent. More so, they need to be brave enough to pursue values and share stories that subvert hegemonic and colonial narratives.

Storytelling has a long history of catalysing social justice movements, and queerness is historically underpinned by radical and progressive politics.

In response to the campaign calling on MQFF to adopt a cultural boycott, more than 10 filmmakers have pulled their films from the festival's program in solidarity with queer Palestinians. Two MQFF board members, Molly Whelan and Nayuka Gorrie, have also resigned in solidarity. In Nayuka's resignation letter, they said 'as an Indigenous person of this place, allowing myself or any organisation I'm part of to be used in the propaganda machinery of a settler state makes me sick and sad'.

In Molly's resignation, they stated that 'if MQFF is to survive and thrive in the coming years' it is 'imperative that the festival stays true to its rich history and to the spirit of queer liberation by supporting the protest actions of those in our community who face ongoing persecution'.

Storytelling has a long history of catalysing social justice movements, and queerness is historically underpinned by radical and progressive politics. It's time both of these histories are embraced by MQFF.
Junkee has reached out to MQFF for comment. Jeanine Hourani is a queer Palestinian activist, organiser, and storyteller. She is the director of Road to Refuge, an organisation that aims to change the narrative around refugees and people seeking asylum.

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In Protesting MQFF, Queer Palestinians Are Holding Storytelling Institutions Accountable

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Melbourne Queer Film Festival had an opportunity to be part of a story we will one day be able to tell: the story of a free Palestine. When I was 18, I moved back to Australia for university, having spent the previous decade living in the Gulf.

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50 Years of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy - Lorna Munro

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50 Years of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy - Lorna Munro

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The Aboriginal Tent Embassy was founded 50 years ago on Invasion day, January 26, in 1972. It is the world’s longest ongoing protest camp.In this episode, we air some archival audio from 1992 on the 20-year anniversary and from 2012 on the 40-year anniversary. We hear the voice of Dr Roberta ‘Bobbi’…

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It is now reproduced Erik Erikson across several days at Yale University and later in Oakland. Newton's opening remarks at Yale lasted over an hour but were reduced to about ten pages in the subsequently published In Search of Common Ground here, available to the public at large for the first time, accompanied by this introduction.

"The logic of the thesis of intercommunalism is: imperialism leads to 'reactionary intercommunalism' to 'revolutionary intercommunalism' to pure communism and anarchy. Each of the concepts is in need of definition and redefinition."

After graduating high school, he finally gained functional literacy at age 17 through the memorization of poetry and by reading Plato's

He was able to expand on his theorizations later while completing his PhD in the History of Consciousness at UC Santa Cruz, an interdisciplinary department for philosophy, cultural theory, and political theory. Indeed, from 1972 through about 1980, Newton worked on a wide range of theoretical problems, including a series of studies into the global "decentralization of production" and the feasibility of revolutionary expropriations in "The Technology Question" and "Technology vs. Land." He accumulated writings and annotations on anthropology, evolutionary biology, and human psychology for a "Proposed Book on Deceit and Self Deception" that never came to fruition, though he would later publish a related article in collaboration with evolutionary biologist Dr. Robert Trivers for Science Digest

Other accounts fail to engage with the uniqueness More to the point, what are we to make of Newton's own insistence that-when they have done the job that has to be done-"the Black Panther Party will no longer be the

This essay is meant to serve as an introduction to "Intercommunalism" (1974) and as a contextualization of Newton's theory of intercommunalism as a whole. Those in search of theory to inform their political practice will find value in Newton's treatment of the problems of race, nationalism, and internationalism, his speculations on the future of surplus populations and questions of class composition, and the role of information technology in future possibilities for struggle. Through the rest of this essay, I (1) outline Huey Newton's political-economic account of global empire, (2) contextualize Newton's philosophical method-dialectical materialism-within his personal intellectual history, and (3) trace the progression of the Black Panther Party's "official ideology" from Black Nationalism to Revolutionary Intercommunalism, informed by historical debates within the Black Liberation movement. In the second half, applying Newton's theory, I (4) offer a new interpretation of the BPP's shift in strategy from "self defense" to "survival pending revolution," (5) give an account of the political import of the BPP's Oakland commune, and (6) reflect on some connections to political struggles today.

"We see then that the United States controls other countries thousands of miles away and uses their resources to benefit the ruling circle in America. The same situation holds for the many communities of the oppressed within the United States. Therefore the evidence shows very clearly that the United States is not a nation for its boundaries are extended into every territory of the world. The United States is an empire."

Newton's theory of intercommunalism seeks to provide an explanation for the dominating and ultimately determining political force of American capitalist empire on the world stage, the corresponding decline of the political influence of nation-states, and the deterioration of nationalism as a potentially liberatory political ideology. He refers to this condition and phase of capitalism as reactionary intercommunalism . According to Newton in 1970, nation-states can no longer meaningfully be said to exist. Instead, global capital has, through U.S. empire in particular, reduced the world to a collection of communities that lack control over their local conditions of life and which can at most only become autonomous "liberated territories" within that larger empire. These communities can, however, by seizing the material structures that allow for production, technology, and information media, fight to build an interconnected and "cooperative framework" among themselves in a global dynamic that he calls revolutionary intercommunalism During the particular turning point in the history of the Black Panther Party when he developed the theory, Newton was also deeply concerned with how Black people in particular might attain liberation without relying upon a state that purports to represent them as a people or nation. According to Newton, any efforts by Black people to gain national sovereignty or independence while global capitalism still exists could only lead to alternate forms of subjugation under American empire.

The text of Newton's "Intercommunalism" (1974) begins with a long (and surprising) excerpt from David Horowitz's Empire and Revolution: A Radical Interpretation of Contemporary History Corporations might be said to increasingly develop sovereignty and then

In 1950, as justification for entering Korea, the United States executive branch under President Truman first started using the term "police action" to refer to military actions pursued without a formal and constitutional congressional declaration of war.

This interdependence and connectedness creates the conditions for a greater shared lived experience and therefore a possibly greater level of solidarity among the employed, underemployed, and unemployed of the world. For Newton, an awareness of this dynamic possibility follows from a conception of reality grounded in the philosophy of dialectical materialism.

"Power is the ability to define phenomena and make them act in a desired manner"

"Young people generally feel that the role of the revolutionary is to define a set of actions and a set of principles that are easy to identify and are absolute. But what I was trying to explain to them was the process: revolution, basically, is a contradiction between the old and the new in the process of development. Anything can be revolutionary at a particular point in time, but most of the students don't understand that. And most other people don't understand it either."

Consistent with the ancient Greek approach according to which philosophy is pursued always for a practical purpose-to understand better how to live "the good life"-for Newton, no ethical, social, or political goal can be adequately pursued without a philosophical examination and understanding of the world in which that pursuit might occur. For this reason, Newton begins his explanation of intercommunalism first by engaging with a series of inquiries concerning how knowledge of reality might be attained.

It is not possible here to defend this thoroughly, but I believe that a closer tracing and analysis of Newton's epistemological arguments across the span of his writings should reveal a shift over time from a younger Newton consumed with skepticism and doubt and culminates in his embrace of dialectical materialism, which would be his guiding philosophy thereafter.

Fred Hampton, Chair of the Illinois chapter of the BPP, explained the Party's use of dialectical materialism through metaphor:

Under Newton's dialectical materialist conception of the world, contradictions exist everywhere, but only certain ones are antagonistic contradictions Following from this approach, Newton asserts that reactionary intercommunalism has necessarily created the conditions for its own potential destruction-in the form of revolutionary intercommunalism.
"When the people seize the means of production, when they seize the mass media and so forth, you will still have racism, you will still have ethnocentrism, you will still have contradictions. But the fact that the people will be in control of all the productive and institutional units of society-not only factories, but the media too-will enable them to start solving these contradictions. It will produce new values, new identities; it will mold a new and essentially human culture as the people resolve old conflicts based on cultural and economic conditions. At some point, there will be a qualitative change and the people will have transformed revolutionary intercommunalism into communism. We call it "communism" because at this point in history people will not only control the productive and institutional units of society, but they will also have seized possession of their own subconscious attitudes toward these things; and for the first time in history they will have a more rather than less conscious relationship to the material world-people, plants, books, machines, media, everything-in which they live. They will have power, that is, they will control the phenomena around them and make it act in some desired manner, and they will know their own real desires. The first step in this process is the seizure by the people of their own communities.
Newton used his conception of dialectical materialism to both respond to and lead the BPP's ideological and strategic turns. According to Newton, the Black Panther Party began as a black nationalist they invested their efforts in pursuing a politics concerned with defending and empowering Black people as a distinct community. That said, from the start, they also critiqued cultural nationalist Some Afrocentric approaches to cultural nationalism in the 20 th However, the BPP also always regarded cultural nationalism as only a stepping stone in a dialectical process, insufficient on its own for bringing about revolution. They were deeply critical of African or Black-led states that were nonetheless authoritarian, or capitalist, or within which Black people were still poor. To be for Black liberation meant then necessarily also to be against capitalism. Newton recounts how he came to his position, years before the Party was established:

For these reasons, and many more, the Black Panther Party quickly shifted towards revolutionary nationalism

even if it were socialist Given the immense power of the United States, the solution could only be then for the BPP to ally themselves with other oppressed peoples, domestically and abroad.

Aiming to build alliances with oppressed people against capitalism wherever possible, the Black Panther Party officially became internationalist , forming political bonds across six continents with other revolutionary organizations and oppressed people. Historically, this was unremarkable, as non-Western socialists and communists of all stripes had throughout the 20th century worked to build alliances with each other and against European and American capitalism and imperialism. Indeed, in many ways internationalism was already part of the background for the Black Panther Party, which formed in 1966, the same year that The Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America was founded in Cuba, followed soon after by the publication of the Tricontinental magazine. The literature and social movements from which BPP members drew inspiration were consistently internationalist, from Kwame Nkrumah's autobiography to Carlos Marighella's Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla

And yet, by 1970, Newton came to reject even internationalism as a flawed revolutionary strategy. The reasons for this rejection are based in at least two problems or "contradictions," one external to the BPP and one internal to it.

was less of a concern than the backlash that came from the mass base of the Party:

I would forward that Newton was able to identify that this reactionary tendency necessarily reasserts itself through the nationalism that is presumed within internationalism.

Several theorists in recent years have tackled the matter of the historically unique position that diasporic African people have been forced into under modernity-arguably one of incommensurable subjection, and even abjection. For these thinkers, the forced "social death" of diasporic Africans, as a continued effect of slavery, is an indispensable feature of western society, or perhaps of capitalism. In some ways, Newton might be said to agree with the basic intuitions behind some of these views, but, informed by his intercommunalist perspective, he comes to opposite conclusions.

For Newton, Furthermore, though, because "Black people" in America compose a colonized community, comparable to colonized communities in other parts of the world while simultaneously located within the very center of the empire, the community is in a uniquely privileged position to destroy that empire . Specifically, Newton considered Black people in the U.S. to be in the

Within a reactionary intercommunalist world, intercommunal solidarity and revolutionary struggle is to fight locally for one's own freedom as well as the freedom of those far away. Intercommunalism is therefore Newton's non-statist theoretical frame-a frame that insists that one's political vision must be able to see past the limits of border ideology.

The Long Durée of the Black Panther Party: A New Reason to Exist

By 1970, the federal government and many state and municipal governments had already escalated the harassment of the BPP to the level of open war, using assassinations, military-style SWAT deployments, undercover operatives, and psychological warfare to dismantle the movement. However, contrary to typical narratives and conceptions about the sudden decline of the party at this time, the period between 1971 and approximately 1982 in fact encompasses the majority While total membership dramatically contracted, an effect of both state repression and purges, various iterations of the Black Panther movement persisted for another decade.

For what has come to be called "the Newton faction" (or, more misleadingly, the "West Coast faction") there was a sharp strategic turn away from openly violent political contestation with the state and a shift instead towards the development of autonomous institutions and social service programs-what has historically since then been described critically by many as reformism. Newton's stance on this matter is plain, though perhaps still poorly understood: "A Ten Point Program is not revolutionary in itself, nor is it reformist. It is a survival program I offer that Newton's analysis of conditions at the time led him and the Party towards a renewed focus on social reproduction as a primary terrain of political struggle, shifting to a strategy oriented towards developing local, autonomous organs of power, ideally tied to land. That is, the fact of the severe poverty of Black people made clear that the Party had to play a more prominent role in sustaining the people themselves, while simultaneously also working to establish institutions that would allow Before Newton's release from prison, this shift was already partially underway through the grassroots efforts of regional chapters, headed by the initiative of mostly female rank-and-file members, and through the program-building of David Hilliard in particular. For the Black Panther Party, the very survival of Black people was a political question and the very thing to struggle over.

Early in the BPP's formation, the organization was deeply influenced by Frantz Fanon's argument that the unemployed, underemployed, and criminalized third world lumpenproletariat The BPP's analysis of this process of lumpenization shares affinities and was contemporaneous with that of James and Grace Lee Boggs who, in Racism and the Class Struggle: Further Pages from a Black Worker's Notebook , argue that urban Black youth experience first and perhaps most acutely what is to be increasingly experienced by more and more of the global workforce in general. In the U.S., because Black wage-workers have historically been among "the last hired and the first fired," they have long been well-acquainted with the psychological feeling of abandonment and the material exposure to death that large portions of the 21st-century "white working class" have only more recently been forced to confront.

Newton's theory of intercommunalism is accordingly grounded in the question of what is to happen to a proletarian "working class" that is increasingly no longer useful to capitalism Newton argues that these conditions make it necessary-if we are to survive-to come up with a different conception of ourselves. That is, both the material opportunities for waged work will dwindle, but also perhaps the 'worker identity' as such may cease to exist, requiring a new self-conception or form of "class" consciousness to be established. No longer can the figure of the class-conscious worker with a waged relationship to production, idealized within capitalist society as a 'productive member of society,' be assumed to be the central actor in a revolutionary narrative, a tenuous claim in the first place. However else one might gain access to the means to consumption, with or without the wage, may come to be the primary mode of survival and political struggle, Newton and the Panthers thought:

Malcolm sought to shift the struggle from one focused on civil rights, appealing to the state to address grievances, to one for human rights, appealing instead to the Third World-dominated United Nations of the time and humanistic principles in general. George Jackson's Blood in my Eye also makes genocide a central theme in 1971, his concerns grounded in the then quite-common fear that fascism was on the rise within the United States. All that said, Newton was particularly concerned with the more daily and normalized instantiations of genocide; he wrote at length, for example, about Black children in the South who, merely for lack of shoes, are regularly exposed to parasites that hinder cognitive development, a problem which still continues today

The Oakland Commune and Liberated Territories

These new strategies were informed by Newton's dialectical materialist logic, according to which the Party analyzed the conditions of the time and sought to reassess who might be friend or foe by pushing at the population in question until they were forced to choose sides though their actions. In this fashion, the BPP leveraged the Black identity of Black b

By 1974, after the most prominent of these electoral campaigns had failed, Party membership contracted dramatically to about 100 members, not including students enrolled in the Liberation Schools, and the organizational structure had been fully transformed. Concerning "the communal life of the Black Panther Party," Newton stated:

"The closeness of the group and the shared sense of purpose transform us into a harmonious, functioning body, working for the destruction of those conditions that make people suffer. Our unity has transformed us to the point where we have not compromised with the system; we have the closeness and love of family life, the will to live in spite of cruel conditions. Consciousness is the first step toward control of a situation. We feel free as a group; we know what troubles us, and we act."

One might charge then that, by asserting authority over all "national" chapters, Newton was falling into the very belief in the bounds and borders of the nation-state that he had fundamentally criticized through his theory of intercommunalism. This is not to argue that any of these local sites of conflict would have otherwise become liberated territories had the Oakland chapter not "interfered." Nor should it be assumed that any of these local organizations thought of their own struggles in terms of intercommunalism. However, according to Newton's theory, neither did they necessarily have to. There is also the question of whether Newton's theory would have necessitated a particular or differentiated strategy of struggle for those (inter-)communes that happened to be located closest to the heart of the global empire. What is clear, however, is that the Oakland chapter ended up in practice functioning as yet another political body, in addition to the FBI and local police, that some local chapters found themselves pitted against.
"Revolutionary intercommunalism and the good anarchy that Marx spies afar off at the 'end' of History are worldly, of this world."
While Newton's body of thought on intercommunalism is extensive, much of it is scattered across various speeches, interviews, and contributions to the Panther newspaper, whose name was changed from the "Black Community News Service" to the "Intercommunal News Service" in February of 1971. In her under-cited "Long Live Third World Unity! Long Live Internationalism: Huey P. Newton's Revolutionary Intercommunalism," Besenia Rodriguez begins the work of drawing from the newspaper, as well as from other archival materials not engaged with here. Still, what is available currently offers much to those thinking about contemporary struggles for liberation. For one, Newton's insistence on strategizing beyond the nation-state in a way different from that of the older generation of internationalists should resonate for those today struggling with the limitations and problems of pursuing "democratic socialism" within the bounds of the nation-state. Newton might urge us to reconsider whether organizations or movements based in, say, San Diego, might be able to develop more productive solidarities with organizations and movements based in Tijuana rather with ones in New York City. While San Diego and New York City might share some political beliefs and perhaps also material limitations imposed by federal laws, other dynamics such as economic flows, community composition, and major language might be more significant for determining political possibilities, rather than whether or not two organizations exist on the same side of a legal border.

Newton's theory might also help us make more sense of the kinds of non-statist and proto-statist political movements that have arisen and somehow persisted in recent decades-such as with the Zapatistas in Mexico or Kurdish Rojava-while national revolutions have increasingly failed. A conscious shift towards the pursuit of a kind of politics of autonomy or nation-states can be also identified across the political spectrum, from Michoacan and Hezbollah to transnational gangs and ISIS. In other moments, movements have articulated themselves in terms of explicit secessionism against or within a nation-state. In a recent written in its own seemingly "dialectical" mode, Robin D. G. Kelley praises the strategic approach of the Mississippi-based Cooperation Jackson, an outgrowth of the Jackson-Kush Plan

And yet, while material practices or "forms of life" may indeed be the only practical grounds for radical solidarity under current global conditions, the matter of how to cultivate "class consciousness" through a mass base remains a question. The question of how people might be motivated to pursue radical change and how ideas might circulate under reactionary intercommunalism did not escape Newton either, however. In the foreword for To Die for the People

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Intercommunalism: The Late Theorizations of Huey P. Newton, 'Chief Theoretician' of the Black Panther Party - Viewpoint Magazine

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Those in search of theory to inform their political practice will find value in Newton's treatment of the problems of race, nationalism, and internationalism, his speculations on the future of surplus populations and questions of class composition, and the role of information technology in future possibilities for struggle.

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The dangers of being trans in Texas have just been amplified.

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The dangers of being trans in Texas have just been amplified.

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Letter by Governor Abbott directing the investigation of parents of trans children.

Last week State Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is currently under federal investigation, signaled that he would direct CPS to investigate parents that give affirming care to their trans children.

The following day Governor Greg Abbott issued a statement making it a formal directive. While this does not mean it is on the books as a law, it does mean that there will be increased targeting and focus on trans children in schools, neighborhood, and doctors offices.

This also comes at a time that Abbott is up for re-election and his challengers have all called for a special session to be convened to codify this into law as well. While Abbott used this to distract from a damaging report regarding ERCOT, it will be used to show how committed a conservative is to oppressing a vulnerable minority.

All of this comes at a time when war is being waged in Europe. Putin has invaded Ukraine with the assistance of Belarus. In his attacks he has called "transgenderism" to be a weakness and a crime against humanity. He has furthered the far rights views due to his apparent closeness to former President Trump.

Because the far right has now been emboldened by not just a Governor but also a world leader that being transgender is bad they will use this as a chance to commit atrocities against people without any backlash. Under the backdrop of war people will care less for what they view as a minor issue. Right now we are at a critical juncture though because of how many states are using this "minor issue" to draw voters in and putting laws on the books making health care, athletics, and the ability to live in society illegal.

While we think of all of this as some sort of scary future, we are already seeing it happen.

We are seeing families be ripped apart. In the very same way they promised to separate families of undocumented immigrants they are now separating families of trans children under the guise of protecting kids.

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The dangers of being trans in Texas have just been amplified.

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Last week State Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is currently under federal investigation, signaled that he would direct CPS to investigate parents that give affirming care to their trans children. The following day Governor Greg Abbott issued a statement making it a formal directive.

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Introduction to Michel Foucault, Module on Power

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According to a separate 2014 Justice Department report, people living in households below the federal poverty level had more than double the rate of violent victimization than people in high-income households. Additionally, poor Black people and poor white people were found to commit violent crimes at similar rates: 46.4% for white people and 43.4% for Black people. With the clear connection between poverty and crime rates - and the fact that the poverty rate for Black Americans (20.8% in 2018) is more than twice the poverty rate for white Americans (8.1%) - it's obvious that anyone who truly cares about lowering the crime rate in the U.S. would spend their time and resources working to eradicate poverty.

Racism and poverty are inextricably linked in this country. The disproportionate rate of poverty among Black Americans has been designed by generations of racist leaders who intentionally created racist policies and institutions to stifle the growth of Black Americans. None of this is new information to Black people. We know our country's history better than most because we haven't been able to escape it. We also know about the violence within our communities. If people who invoke the phrase "Black-on-Black crime" in response to the BLM movement paid any attention to Black people and their communities, they'd know Black people care about that too - and talk about it, a lot.

There are countless grassroots groups, programs, rallies, marches, and even music contributions powered by Black people to address this violence. Additionally, in a 2015 Pew Research Center poll, Black people supported stricter gun laws at a higher rate than white people; and in a 2018 Pew survey, when asked if gun violence is a very big problem in the United States, 82% of Black people said yes, compared with 47% of white people. Black people are concerned about all crime, but even if we weren't, it would still be well within our rights to be outraged that the people who are paid to protect us are killing us - and more often than not, getting away with it. Each time a police officer has taken the life of an unarmed Black person and our justice system has declared them "not guilty," both institutions are telling the world that Black lives don't matter. We are Americans, and we have a right to demand more from our country and government.

White supremacists will justify colonization, slavery, and the confederacy, all while saying Black people are an inherently more violent race. Think about that. Crime within Black communities is comparable to crime within white communities, but white people aren't being killed by police at the alarming rate that Black people are. Still, people like former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani felt justified in saying, after the killing of 18-year-old Mike Brown, "The white police officers wouldn't be there if you [Black people] weren't killing each other." This type of language is an attempt to justify the killings of Brown, Taylor, Floyd, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, and the ever-growing list of Black victims of police brutality. It takes the blame from the officers involved and places it on the victims simply for being Black. We're not asking for special treatment; we're asking for equal treatment. To call the fallacy of Black-on-Black crime anything other than anti-Black racism is an injustice in itself.

Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: The Racist History of America's Patriotic Anthems

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According to a separate 2014 Justice Department report, people living in households below the federal poverty level had more than double the rate of violent victimization than people in high-income households. Additionally, poor Black people and poor white people were found to commit violent crimes at similar rates: 46.4% for white people and 43.4% for Black people.

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" Racism is one that all women in the women's movement must start to come to terms with. There is no doubt in my mind that racism is expressed by women in the movement. Its roots are many and they go deep. " - Pat O'Shane

Those words were written by former magistrate, First Nations woman Pat O'Shane more than two decades ago and yet still represent an uncomfortable truth for mainstream feminism. Similar criticisms have also been made by First Nations women like Jackie Huggins, Judy Atkinson and Aileen Morton-Robinson and are revived and re-spoken by younger feminists like Larissa Behrendt, Celeste Liddle, Nayuka Gorrie and many more who continue the fight to hold mainstream feminism to account.

The roots of racism within mainstream feminism are still there, under the soil. But that's not to say there haven't been changes in the mainstream feminist movement. Rather than outright denial on racism and how race impacts gender, an even more damaging phenomenon has taken hold: co-option.

Intersectionality, grounded in critical race theory, is now used by many white feminists but has been watered down to a buzzword: a superficial display of "inclusiveness" whereby it is used to deflect rather than interrogate the way race impacts the lived experience of gender, class, gender identity, sexual orientation and disability. An example of this, is the way Aboriginal women are consigned to a footnote with no context in articles about domestic violence, aligning the staggering statistics with the continuing colonial portrayal of the Aboriginal 'other' as inherently violent.

Much like International Women's Day, which has become a day for corporates and fancy breakfasts that few women outside of the upper and middle classes can attend - the term has been re-purposed to fit into a limited type of white feminist thought.

Over the years, I've spent a lot of time being angry at the failings of white liberal feminism, largely because it is the type of feminism that finds the loudest voice in mainstream media. Because it has this voice it has become synonymous with 'feminism', despite the movement itself being a broad church. I even questioned whether to continue calling myself a feminist.

I have realised that as an Aboriginal feminist, I don't have to continue reacting to these failures. There is already a foundation built by brilliant black women which allows us to continue developing an Aboriginal feminism. And the reason this is so important is because the unique experiences of Aboriginal people, the way racism impacts our lived experiences as women, brotherboys, sistergirls and non-binary peoples, is a matter of life and death.

While the national conversation around domestic violence and sexual assault is undoubtedly important, often Aboriginal voices are bypassed altogether. An example of this was the recent Our Watch media awards, where a white male journalist was given an accolade for reporting on "the violence no one talks about". Aboriginal women have been talking about violence for decades - the 'silence' is not the issue. It is that no one listens unless it is spoken in a way that bypasses the role of white Australia, and places blame right back onto Aboriginal people themselves.

That is why arguments about Aboriginal culture being inherently violent are so appealing. There may have been instances of violence in pre-colonial Aboriginal society - but from my perspective, if Aboriginal people were participating in the level of violence we see now in many communities, we would not have survived for tens of thousands of years, and we would not have developed a sophisticated system of land management, astronomy and science that intertwined with our spirituality.

But the cultural arguments around Aboriginal violence find an audience in a white Australia that denies its continuing role in the current circumstances affecting our people. And white feminists can often be complicit in the perpetuation of the myth, particularly when it comes to 'saving black women and children' from the hands of Aboriginal men. The fact is, Aboriginal communities are not inhuman - we care deeply about violence and the impact on our people, particularly our children. But the conversation has become dangerous due to the centring of white outrage and the appetite for black pathology which borders on pornographic.

Meanwhile, Aboriginal women are painted as depraved for this perceived silence. Like the colonial images that rendered Aboriginal women as uncaring 'infanticidal cannibals' who did not love their children, we are again caricatured as powerless and unconcerned about our children. This is the real silence: the silencing of the strong Aboriginal women all across the country who have worked day in and day out on this problem in the face of continual slander.

One of these women is Aboriginal early childhood development expert Dr Janet Hammill, who talks about 'biological genocide', whereby foetal programming began as early as 50 years after the initial invasion into Aboriginal lands.

Dr Hammill has been writing on violence against Aboriginal women for decades, particularly in the context of trauma and foetal alcohol syndrome, and the impact it has on the developing brain.

The impact of alcohol, drugs, malnutrition and childhood trauma and stress on a developing brain can result in epigenetic changes that affects not just this generation, but the health and wellbeing of future generations.

This is where the arguments around 'responsibility' fall flat and why blaming both Aboriginal men for violence, and Aboriginal women for parental neglect, is not just unhelpful, but dangerous.

In an environment centred on demonising our men, the voices of Aboriginal women who want to speak out against violence also become conflicted. Our experiences as women become secondary to defending our men - because we have seen, particularly in the case of the NT Intervention, how moral panics around the safety of women and children can lead to policies that perpetuate violence.

The NT Intervention, which stripped rights away from Aboriginal communities, did not solve the issue of child abuse, as we have seen most recently. It also led to increases in suicide and self-harm rates, and also jailing rates. It is well known that the justice system is violent, and that Aboriginal men who are incarcerated for violent, and even non-violent crimes often come out not healed but traumatised, resulting in anger and rage. This often manifests in further violence, wrought on the self, or on the most vulnerable - Aboriginal women, children and the elderly.

One of the most common critiques of white liberal feminism is how, when talking about violence, it rests heavily on solutions through the justice system and police. For many Aboriginal women, the justice system is structurally violent, and the police are aggravators rather than protectors.

This is not an unfounded fear. We have seen in the case of Ms Dhu and Ms Maher, how our women, who are the fastest growing incarcerated group in the country, are killed, injured and traumatised within its walls. In the case of Ms Dhu, we also see the structural violence of the health system, where nurses and doctors ignored her pain as she slowly lost her life to septicaemia. Ms Dhu's Aboriginality impacted on the way WA police and the health system viewed her as a woman. She was vulnerable, and hurt, and she needed help, not punishment.

In Tumut, two hours from Canberra, 27-year-old Aboriginal woman Naomi Williams, who was six months pregnant, died after being turned away from the local hospital. The Guardian reported that rather than take her pain seriously, staff referred her to drug and alcohol and mental health workers. Just like Ms Dhu, who was referred to as a 'fucking junkie', Naomi's life and the life of her unborn child were endangered by racist and sexist assumptions.

Race and gender also play a part in the way Aboriginal victims are viewed by the police, the DPP and the courts. If the victim is an Aboriginal woman her humanity is stripped away, regardless of the race of the perpetrator. This is true in the cases of Lynette Daley, Therese Binge, Karen Williams, Petronella Albert, Kwementyaye Green and so many others.

Closer to my home, the injustice surrounding the 1991 murder of an Aboriginal woman named Lynda on the banks of the Fitzroy River was influenced by her Aboriginality. The arresting officer at trial admitted that he had wanted to get "a black for a black", and so after they had accused one Aboriginal man, they closed all other lines of investigation. The result was a continuing injustice, an open wound on the community: the man they convicted is innocent and is still locked up in the Rockhampton jail.

Another Aboriginal woman who died a similar death on the banks of the same river in 1975 was dehumanised in the media, and again in the justice system. The non-Indigenous man who was with her before she died, and who left her severely injured by the river because he couldn't be bothered to get an ambulance, had his charges of murder dropped. The case was never reopened.

These women did not inspire national protests and marches through capital cities. Their lives were devalued due to their Aboriginality, both in life and in death.

I write these names down to show that these are not individual incidents. The deaths of these women were due to the structural violence within our institutions that impacted them throughout their lives.

Their lives were devalued by Australia's refusal to provide the rights of citizenship that so many women in this country take for granted. It impacted their families, and their children, and entire communities who remain mourning under dark clouds of injustice. And it impacted them due to their experiences as Aboriginal women in a society founded on white supremacy, on the theft of black lands and the killing and dispossession of our peoples.

That means that our struggles are often drastically different from those of the white feminist movement, and so we must continue developing our own Aboriginal feminism.

One of the strong black women I look up to, Larissa Behrendt put it beautifully: "Black women will have to fight their own battles; after all, we have been doing so all along.... Black women have created a separate political movement. Our political future will continue to be one that is propelled by the strength of black women. "

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Amy McQuire: Mainstream feminism still blind to its racism

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" Racism is one that all women in the women's movement must start to come to terms with. There is no doubt in my mind that racism is expressed by women in the movement. Its roots are many and they go deep.

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Study and Struggle organizes against criminalization and incarceration in Mississippi through mutual aid, political education, and community building. We provide a bilingual Spanish and English curriculum with discussion questions and reading materials, as well as financial support, to over 100 part

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The coronavirus crisis in South Africa is far from over despite falling case numbers in recent weeks. The virus has claimed more than 50,000 lives, and many health experts predict a devastating third wave. Complicating matters is a new coronavirus mutation known as n501, which threatens to upend South Africa's vaccination plans.

Unprecedented scientific collaboration has expedited the development of the new vaccine candidates, but patents protecting the bottom lines of the pharmaceutical companies have hampered efforts to manufacture vaccines at scale. Meanwhile, the US and Western Europe have hoarded limited supplies through bilateral negotiations with Big Pharma. Developing nations in the Global South have been left behind.

The vaccination gap between rich and poor nations grows starker by the day. According to Global Justice Now, a grassroots campaign in the UK that focuses on justice and development in the Global South, 10 countries account for approximately 75% of the COVID-19 vaccines administered worldwide. About 130 countries-accounting for about 2.5 billion people-are yet to administer a single dose. This artificial scarcity creates another global crisis, making room for the virus to mutate and potentially grow more contagious and vaccine-resistant.

As Anna Marriott, a health policy manager at the global anti-poverty organization Oxfam, argued this month:

The world is in a race to reach herd immunity to get this disease under control, save millions of lives and get our economy going again. This is a race we have to win before new mutations render our existing vaccines obsolete. Yet the pursuit of profits and monopolies means we are losing that race...We urgently need to lift the veil of corporate secrecy and instead have open-source vaccines, mass produced by as many vaccine players as possible, including crucially those in developing countries.--

In 2001, the Treatment Action Campaign and the Congress of South African Trade Unions called for worldwide protest against pharmaceutical companies; drug patents were barring the South African government from importing low-cost, generic, HIV medications. While litigation held up acquisition of cheap medicines, hundreds of thousands of South Africans died of AIDS-related illnesses. A report by the Medical Research Council found that, in the year 2000, 40% of the deaths of people age 15-49 in South Africa were related to HIV.

Activists in South Africa organized for years against pharmaceutical profiteering and their own government's HIV-denialism, ushering in new local and global policy to allow for a broad introduction of antiretroviral therapy.

Now, with the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Africa nearing 1.5 million, some of these same networks and organizations are fighting for access to coronavirus medications. Their contentions remain largely the same as they were in 2001: price gouging, internationally enforced Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (known as TRIPS), the backing of pharmaceutical companies by wealthy nations, and a weak public healthcare system that lacks government transparency and accountability.

Fatima Hassan is a social justice activist in South Africa. She worked as a human rights lawyer in the 1990s, litigating against the government and pharmaceutical companies on behalf of people with HIV/AIDS. In July 2020, as history began to repeat itself, Hassan founded the Health Justice Initiative to address inequity in health and medicine access.

"It's playing out again," she says. ​"A lot of us who were in the access to medicines movement then are now trying to get people to understand what's at stake and the gravity of the situation."

Hassan continues:

Never trust drug companies' benevolence. So that ​" no profit pledge" by AstraZeneca, we said: ​"Interrogate that. Look at the sublicensing agreements. Make sure there's data transparency." We said: ​"You're going to have price variations, you're going to segment markets ... . They're not going to respond to this from a public health [or] epidemiological perspective. The vaccines will go to the people who are the wealthiest. They'll test vaccines in our country but decide if they'll come into our country or not..." This is exactly what happened with HIV/AIDS.

In an open letter to world health officials-including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden-Cape Town Archbishop Thabo Makgoba and the People's Vaccine Campaign of South Africa warn ​"we are on the road to a global disaster."

The letter argues:

[The] dire shortage of vaccine supplies is not due to any inherent technological limitation in scaling up production, but rather a seemingly deliberate decision to not allow production scale up to what the global pandemic requires...And while we acknowledge that there is insufficient manufacturing capacity, right now, in the world, a combination of investment in immediate capacity scale up ... and a concerted effort to facilitate technology transfer could help rapidly solve this problem.

The broader Southern Africa region is battling a new and highly contagious strain of the coronavirus. Health workers, reports Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), ​"are currently struggling to treat escalating numbers of patients with little prospect of receiving a vaccine to protect themselves or others from the virus." According to Christine Jamet, MSF's director of operations, ​"While many wealthy countries started vaccinating their health workers and other groups nearly two months ago, countries such as Eswatini, Malawi, and Mozambique-which are struggling to respond to this pandemic-have not received a single dose of vaccine to protect the most at-risk people, including frontline health staff."

But no country on the African continent has been hit harder by the pandemic than South Africa. The South African economy is more stable than that of Malawi or Mozambique, which allows South Africa to buy vaccines directly from the pharmaceutical companies. But it has done so in a market system that prices these medicines exorbitantly.

South Africa's healthcare system is also stronger than the rest of the region, but doctors, nurses, and other care workers have been pushed to their breaking point. Sasha Stevenson is the head of health at Section27, a South African public interest law center and social justice organization:

Our health system is already creaking under the weight of COVID, because it was creaking under the weight of HIV and [tuberculosis] beforehand. And we've now got TB numbers going through the roof, because we can't maintain all of these programs at once. And we're being asked to pay huge sums of money for vaccines that are needed to keep us and the rest of the world safe.

We have a health system that's [been] struggling for a long time. So, the idea of a rollout that requires everyone in the country to register on an electronic database, and then potentially come back for two shots when sometimes clinics are far away from people, and we struggle to get ambulances to rural areas in life-or-death emergencies, is very daunting.

Claire Waterhouse, MSF's regional advocacy coordinator, explains: ​"healthcare workers are exhausted. There was just significantly less human resource capacity to deal with the second wave when it did arrive. A lot of them had been sick in the first wave." Meanwhile, MSF is working to dispatch mobile units of doctors and nurses to coronavirus hot spots to ensure the sick receive the medical attention they need. But with frontline healthcare workers- rom physicians to ambulance drivers to clinic cleaners-denied access to vaccines, that job has become much more difficult.

"It's really hard here right now to see developed countries being able to roll out these vaccines and people getting vaccinated before we've even managed to put one needle in one arm," Waterhouse says. ​"And it's so frustrating and so heartbreaking for our healthcare workers, who [just want] some protection. We're really hoping that when the vaccines roll out, that will give them a layer of confidence, which will hopefully help them to deal with what is frankly an inevitable third wave."

Hassan puts things more bluntly: ​"Everybody's bullshitting us."

"The research and development of this vaccine was publicly funded and conducted at Oxford University," Global Justice Now says in a statement: ​"The vaccine should have been a global public good-openly licensed to allow as many manufacturers as possible to make it."

But the (often secret) agreements between pharmaceutical companies and a particular country allow Big Pharma to set different prices for different markets. AstraZeneca, despite claiming a ​"no-profit" pledge during the pandemic, is charging South Africa $5.25 per dose and Uganda $7 per dose. The European Union, by contrast, has paid just $2.16 per dose.

South Africa, meanwhile, received its first vaccine supply of 1 million AstraZeneca shots February 1, and it may already be too late to use them, amid concerns the vaccine is ineffective against the new n501 strain of virus.

With the rollout of AstraZeneca stalled, South Africa is turning to Johnson & Johnson, which signed an agreement with Aspen Pharmacare's South African subsidiary in November 2020 to produce up to 300 million doses. Those doses, however, despite being manufactured in South Africa, will primarily be exported as part of Johnson & Johnson's global inventory.

Initially, South Africa wasn't going to receive any of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but Johnson & Johnson has now agreed to secure nine million doses for the country. This deal may include an agreement by South Africa to speed up regulatory approval as well as a no-fault compensation scheme in which South Africa, rather than the pharmaceutical company, takes responsibility for any vaccine-related damages.

South Africa has been the site of clinical trials for numerous vaccine candidates, including AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax, sharing its data with the international community. Despite this collaboration, Hassan says that the pharmaceutical companies ​"are in the driver's seat" when it comes to dictating the terms of the sale of the vaccines and any partnerships with local drug manufacturers to scale up production.

For years, South African civil society has been pushing to overhaul of South Africa's patent system to make use of the legal safeguards available through TRIPS. Waterhouse explains:

Intellectual property and patents are not new topics in South Africa. We don't want to repeat the same kinds of issues that we had with [antiretroviral drug treatment for HIV] and which we are now seeing with the pandemic. It's depressing that we're still fighting this fight, and really concerning that access to medicine has not evolved beyond who can afford them. Because that's really what it boils down to. It's that old line of profits over people, profits over patients.

While activists organize locally to revamp South Africa's patent laws, the governments of wealthy nations could reprioritize global health over the profits of pharmaceutical companies. As Stevenson observes, ​"Governments have power over pharmaceutical companies that they don't often exercise. And now is the time to exercise that power. Now is the time to stop being beholden to pharmaceutical companies, particularly given the really enormous levels of public funding."

To ensure profits are not prioritized over public health, activists are organizing on several fronts, pushing for local reforms while supporting calls for a TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organization (WTO). South Africa and India have proposed waiving patents and other intellectual property (IP) restrictions related to COVID-19 drugs and vaccines for the duration of the pandemic. Internationally, these steps could be critical for generic drug manufacturers to scale up vaccine production.

A small group of wealthy nations-including the EU, the UK, the US, Japan, Canada, and Australia-has blocked the waiver proposal so far, claiming that limiting the patents would stifle future innovation. Research by Public Citizen, however, indicates most of the leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates are ​"using a spike protein technology developed by the US government" through grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Indeed, most medical innovations are taxpayer-funded collaborations between the public and private sectors, with pharmaceutical companies typically spending 20% or less of their revenues on research and development.

"It's really interesting the way that the scientists have been talking for the last year about how wonderful it's been to collaborate on development and share information and to move as quickly as possible," Stevenson points out. ​"The moment that it comes to production, and there's billions of dollars in profits to be made, there's suddenly no such collaboration...Instead, these manufacturing companies are twiddling their thumbs."

As the open letter to Fauci makes clear, healthcare advocates are also calling on the US and the UK to pressure pharmaceuticals to share their technology and know-how, commit to low pricing and break open manufacturing capacity to scale up production of the vaccine. Because the US is a co-owner of the vaccine co-developed by Moderna and the NIH, it has significant legal rights to make those demands. The Biden administration could also utilize the Defense Production Act to increase vaccine manufacturing.

Activists in the US and other wealthy nations could help force governments to support mass vaccine production and distribution. While Biden has reversed the course of the previous administration by reengaging with the World Health Organization and the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access initiative (known as Covax, a voluntary, if insufficient, project to buy vaccines for developing countries), he has not backed the waiver request from South Africa and India, nor has he made any promises to use the US government's leverage with Moderna to share its science and technology.

As a matter of global solidarity, the US has a responsibility to support an equitable production and distribution of vaccines. But as the virus mutates in frightening ways, it is also in our self-interest.

As WHO cautions: None of us will be safe until everyone is safe.

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The coronavirus crisis in South Africa is far from over despite falling case numbers in recent weeks. The virus has claimed more than 50,000 lives, and many health experts predict a devastating third wave. Complicating matters is a new coronavirus mutation known as n501, which threatens to upend South Africa's vaccination plans.

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Angela Davis on the power of protest: ‘We can’t do anything without optimism’

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In 1972, the former Black Panther was facing the death penalty. Five decades after the campaign for her release went global, she still believes people are the ‘motors of history’

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International Women’s Day is blind to the greatest threat to women – Australia’s welfare systemKristin O'Connell

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International Women’s Day is blind to the greatest threat to women – Australia’s welfare systemKristin O'Connell

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International Women’s Day is blind to the greatest threat to women – Australia’s welfare system | Kristin O’Connell

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Australia’s welfare system is deeply imbued with misogyny and far too often traps women in unsafe situations

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ast Saturday morning at Lil Bobby Hutton Park in West Oakland, local residents lined up for the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther party's pioneering free breakfast program. Among the attendees were Emory Douglas, who was the party's minister of culture; Fredrika Newton, widow of the party's co-founder Huey Newton; and the Black Panther illustrator Gayle Dickson. Organized by the Oakland-based People's Kitchen Collective (PKC), the gathering was scored by soul music and warm conversations from communal tables.

Now in its eighth year, the breakfast was one of the PKC's biggest, serving 650 plates of grits, greens, scrambled eggs and tofu. At the edge of the feast, an altar decorated with flowers and seeds held framed photographs of Black Panther members, activists and mothers to whom this breakfast owed its legacy.

In January 1969, the Black Panther party's Free for Children Breakfast Program held its first gathering at St Augustine Episcopal church, less than a mile from Saturday's festivities. On that first morning, BPP members fed 11 children. By the week's end, the number had grown to 135.

Billy X Jennings, a former Panther who now serves as the party's archivist, worked at the original breakfast program at St Augustine's. "Every office was required to send two people to learn how it ran so you can open one in your area," he said. Jennings would work at St Augustine's early in the morning before heading to class at Laney College. Soon after, the breakfast service expanded to 23 locations around Oakland.

The program, originally coordinated by Ruth Beckford, an Afro-Haitian dance teacher, also caught on nationwide, becoming a core initiative of the party's Survival Programs. By the end of 1969, the program fed 20,000 children across 19 cities. Its unprecedented success was countered by destructive raids of pantries and party headquarters by police. "J Edgar Hoover was scared of the program because it brought prestige to the party," Jennings recalled. In an internal FBI memo, Hoover wrote: "The [Program] represents the best and most influential activity going for the BPP and, as such, is potentially the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for". Six years later, in 1975, the US government started offering free breakfast in public schools.

"This is one of the biggest and baddest things we ever did," Jennings said. "And it's still functioning across America ... That's what a vanguard party does. We set examples for people to follow."

Though the breakfast program is the most famous of the party's Survival Programs, more than 60 others directly addressed the needs of the black community that were being systematically ignored. Jennings recounts other schemes including a free of charge senior escort program, a monthly bus to prisons to see incarcerated loved ones, and the establishment of 13 medical clinics across the country.

Jocelyn Jackson, a co-founder of PKC, along with Saqib Keval and Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, knows the history of the party's survival programs by heart. She beams with admiration for the party's trailblazing work.

"Our society is not going to support our existence. They would actually prefer if we faded away. So in that moment, what are we going to do? The Black Panthers, they said we will provide," Jackson said. "This was a moment of yes from our past that we want to be in our present. And so we will do that year after year after year. We will be in that park that has so much history of bringing our community together and say every year: we want you to survive."

Lil Bobby Hutton Park - named after the 17-year-old first recruit to the Black Panther party, who was shot and killed by Oakland police - was the site of many Panther activities. Today, the West Oakland park, also known as De Fremery Park, sits at the edge of a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. The city's downtown construction boom creeps closer as it demolishes old buildings and replaces them with high-rises to attract tech prospectors from across the bridge. Local residents point out key Panther landmarks such as their first headquarters in North Oakland and the street where Hutton was shot dead. But there are no statues or commemorative plaques.

"I teach Panther history and my students are always struck when I take them through Oakland, by how alive it is for some and invisible for others," Bhaumik said. "So how is it that we can, using the tools that we have, present those histories, acknowledge on whose shoulders we stand and really present this legacy?"

For PKC, food is a space in which to explore everything from the family unit to global traditions. Saturday's breakfast included cups of rosehip tea from Mak-'amham, a food and culture survival project from the chefs Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino celebrating the history of the East Bay's indigenous Ohlone community. Bhaumik said she learned about the Mak-'amham project after researching the land in West Oakland.

"I couldn't figure out what was growing there, what the [original] food sources were. And when I met [Medina], he said: you're asking me in the past tense. You need to be asking that question in the present tense." Bhaumik and PKC shared that lesson with breakfast attendees. "You cannot deny the present existence of indigenous peoples if you have the first flavors of the land in your body."

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'One of the biggest, baddest things we did': Black Panthers' free breakfasts, 50 years on

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ast Saturday morning at Lil Bobby Hutton Park in West Oakland, local residents lined up for the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther party's pioneering free breakfast program. Among the attendees were Emory Douglas, who was the party's minister of culture; Fredrika Newton, widow of the party's co-founder Huey Newton; and the Black Panther illustrator Gayle Dickson.

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The Pilbara strike of 1946-49 is one of the most dramatic moments in Australia's indigenous history. Aboriginal people not only defied the owners of pastoral stations in North-West Western Australia by demanding better wages and conditions, but also sought to win independence from their colonial masters.

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They are ‘civilised’ and ‘look like us’: the racist coverage of Ukraine

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They are ‘civilised’ and ‘look like us’: the racist coverage of Ukraine

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hile on air, CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata stated last week that Ukraine "isn't a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European - I have to choose those words carefully, too - city, one where you wouldn't expect that, or hope that it's going to happen".

If this is D'Agata choosing his words carefully, I shudder to think about his impromptu utterances. After all, by describing Ukraine as "civilized", isn't he really telling us that Ukrainians, unlike Afghans and Iraqis, are more deserving of our sympathy than Iraqis or Afghans?

Righteous outrage immediately mounted online, as it should have in this case, and the veteran correspondent quickly apologized, but since Russia began its large-scale invasion on 24 February, D'Agata has hardly been the only journalist to see the plight of Ukrainians in decidedly chauvinistic terms.

The BBC interviewed a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine, who told the network: "It's very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair ... being killed every day." Rather than question or challenge the comment, the BBC host flatly replied, "I understand and respect the emotion." On France's BFM TV, journalist Phillipe Corbé stated this about Ukraine: "We're not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin. We're talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives."

In other words, not only do Ukrainians look like "us"; even their cars look like "our" cars. And that trite observation is seriously being trotted out as a reason for why we should care about Ukrainians.

There's more, unfortunately. An ITV journalist reporting from Poland said: "Now the unthinkable has happened to them. And this is not a developing, third world nation. This is Europe!" As if war is always and forever an ordinary routine limited to developing, third world nations. (By the way, there's also been a hot war in Ukraine since 2014. Also, the first world war and second world war.) Referring to refugee seekers, an Al Jazeera anchor chimed in with this: "Looking at them, the way they are dressed, these are prosperous ... I'm loath to use the expression ... middle-class people. These are not obviously refugees looking to get away from areas in the Middle East that are still in a big state of war. These are not people trying to get away from areas in North Africa. They look like any." Apparently looking "middle class" equals "the European family living next door".

And writing in the Telegraph, Daniel Hannan explained: "They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free elections and read uncensored newspapers. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations."

What all these petty, superficial differences - from owning cars and clothes to having Netflix and Instagram accounts - add up to is not real human solidarity for an oppressed people. In fact, it's the opposite. It's tribalism. These comments point to a pernicious racism that permeates today's war coverage and seeps into its fabric like a stain that won't go away. The implication is clear: war is a natural state for people of color, while white people naturally gravitate toward peace.

It's not just me who found these clips disturbing. The US-based Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association was also deeply troubled by the coverage, recently issuing a statement on the matter: "Ameja condemns and categorically rejects orientalist and racist implications that any population or country is 'uncivilized' or bears economic factors that make it worthy of conflict," reads the statement. "This type of commentary reflects the pervasive mentality in western journalism of normalizing tragedy in parts of the world such as the Middle East, Africa, south Asia, and Latin America." Such coverage, the report correctly noted, "dehumanizes and renders their experience with war as somehow normal and expected".

More troubling still is that this kind of slanted and racist media coverage extends beyond our screens and newspapers and easily bleeds and blends into our politics. Consider how Ukraine's neighbors are now opening their doors to refugee flows, after demonizing and abusing refugees, especially Muslim and African refugees, for years. "Anyone fleeing from bombs, from Russian rifles, can count on the support of the Polish state," the Polish interior minister, Mariusz Kaminski, recently stated. Meanwhile, however, Nigeria has complained that African students are being obstructed within Ukraine from reaching Polish border crossings; some have also encountered problems on the Polish side of the frontier.

In Austria, Chancellor Karl Nehammer stated that "of course we will take in refugees, if necessary". Meanwhile, just last fall and in his then-role as interior minister, Nehammer was known as a hardliner against resettling Afghan refugees in Austria and as a politician who insisted on Austria's right to forcibly deport rejected Afghan asylum seekers, even if that meant returning them to the Taliban. "It's different in Ukraine than in countries like Afghanistan," he told Austrian TV. "We're talking about neighborhood help."

Yes, that makes sense, you might say. Neighbor helping neighbor. But what these journalists and politicians all seem to want to miss is that the very concept of providing refuge is not and should not be based on factors such as physical proximity or skin color, and for a very good reason. If our sympathy is activated only for welcoming people who look like us or pray like us, then we are doomed to replicate the very sort of narrow, ignorant nationalism that war promotes in the first place.

The idea of granting asylum, of providing someone with a life free from political persecution, must never be founded on anything but helping innocent people who need protection. That's where the core principle of asylum is located. Today, Ukrainians are living under a credible threat of violence and death coming directly from Russia's criminal invasion, and we absolutely should be providing Ukrainians with life-saving security wherever and whenever we can. (Though let's also recognize that it's always easier to provide asylum to people who are victims of another's aggression rather than of our own policies.)

But if we decide to help Ukrainians in their desperate time of need because they happen to look like "us" or dress like "us" or pray like "us," or if we reserve our help exclusively for them while denying the same help to others, then we have not only chosen the wrong reasons to support another human being. We have also, and I'm choosing these words carefully, shown ourselves as giving up on civilization and opting for barbarism instead.

Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. He is professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. He is a contributing opinion writer at Guardian US

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They are 'civilised', 'European' and 'look like us': the racist coverage of Ukraine | Moustafa Bayoumi

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hile on air, CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata stated last week that Ukraine "isn't a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European - I have to choose those words carefully, too - city, one where you wouldn't expect that, or hope that it's going to happen".

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Essay

Jumping in confusion, you landed in the land of a miserable man
Reversing your misfortune
A rare pair of twins who unduly demand honor and respect from their parents
For your stepmother you are an unwanted landscape,
For your mother you are kings of two empires!
Would you like to be parents to twins?

Ibeji oriki, public domain

The twins, or Ibejis, are opposite forces coming into the world simultaneously, attracting and repelling each other. In Yoruba traditions, twins are the manifestation of chaos and dichotomy contained in the force of realization. I evoke this image because I believe it is impossible to propose a reflection on decolonial art without remembering events that arose in the West almost simultaneously. The emergence of the category "artist" in 1535, in the publication "Lives of the Artists", by the Italian painter and sculptor Giorgio Vasari - a work that only mentions European men from Florence - occurs just 63 years after the issuing of the papal bull Dum Diversas, in which the Roman Catholic Church authorized the Portuguese to conquer non-Christianized territories and to consign "perpetual slavery to Saracens and Pagans". In this document, for the first time in the West, the term negro emerges in order to designate a group of people to be subjugated. If we include in this timeline the arrival of the Portuguese in Brazil in 1500 as a milestone in the official history of this country, which was the last one to abolish slavery, we get to an equation where the history of art and the history of colonialism constitute two codependent empires.

Michelangelo's appearance in Vasari's work as a genius emitting the voice of God inaugurates a new phase, in which the cult of images was replaced by the art market. Simultaneously, inhabitants of the west coast and the south of the African continent had their lives condemned to perpetual slavery - initiating a global market for human beings that produced a primitive accumulation of capital essential for the creation of European empires. Even after this period, the history of art and the history of the subjugation of other cultures continue to influence each other.

Above: "E para salvar o país, Cristo é ex-militar" [And to save the country, Christ is ex-military] (2018), Maxwell Alexandre (Photo: Courtesy of the artist and A Gentil Carioca gallery)

An example of this relationship is the German Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the first author to propose a model of art history in the 18th century, in which there was a hierarchy of development among civilizations based on artistic production, with Europe being "higher" and Egypt "lower". It is important to mention that the author is also one of the founders of scientific archeology and that this model has become fundamental to justify and support eugenics - "science" whose objective was to obtain biological evidence of superiority and inferiority between the races, rescued by Nazism in mid 20th century. In this scenario, in the 19th century, art history becomes a discipline within the Austrian History Research Institute, in an attempt to project itself as an empire, with art as a tool for legitimation. The reason for this desire was justified since empires were entitled to the exploitation of lands and people on the Asian and African continents.

With the same objective, other nations adopt the idea of ​​national art as an imperial tool, exhibiting their artistic productions at the Universal Exhibition in Vienna in 1873. This atmosphere is responsible for World War I in which empires, legitimized by their respective histories of art, come into conflict for the exploitation of territories on the African and Asian continents, where live the peoples whose bodies were condemned to perpetual slavery since the papal bull at the end of the 15th century.

In this sense, there is currently a global movement to undermine the life and culture of these peoples, constituting a continuity of historical cycles, in order to compose a global policy of death called by philosopher Achille Mbembe as Necropolitics. Through the recognition of art as a reference source for the Modern ethical project, it is possible to perceive the emergence of artists descended from these historically vulnerable subjectivities interested in denouncing, subverting and transcending these ethics and their unfolding in oppressive aesthetics.

An example of this movement is the founding dimension of colonial expropriation in the production of great nations, exposed in works such as "Portuguese Stones" (2017), by Jaime Lauriano, in which the names of the countries first occupied by Portugal are written with Portuguese stones originally produced by enslaved human beings. This criticism is also present in works such as "Old Hope" (2017), by Paulo Nazareth, in which everyday packages with sayings related to the colonial subjugation structure are immortalized in resin cubes, in order to convey a frozen notion of temporality.

There are also productions where the artist's place of origin in the Western imagination is subverted and ironic, as in the paintings and photographs by the artist Desali, in which the Nacional neighborhood on the outskirts of Contagem (Minas Gerais, Brazil), his residence for decades, appears as a frequent obsession. The production of a genocide logic based on raciality and poverty as a residual production of slavery can be seen in Maxwell Alexandre's aesthetics, in works such as "E para salvar o país, Cristo é ex-militar" [And to save the country, Christ is ex-military] (2018). In addition to establishing criticism, decolonial artists tend to propose non-Western logics of perception of aesthetic experience, such as Moisés Patrício, who mixes the speed of selfies with ritual art in the series "Aceita?", and Antonio Obá, who establishes decolonial criticism from rituals developed during slavery as in "Malungo: rito para uma missa preta" [Malungo: rite for a black mass] (2019).

In a more profound way, in order to reveal that the intersection between racial logic and gender oppression doubly marginalizes Afro-descendant women, there is the work "Bastidores" (1997), by Rosana Paulino - in which female subjectivities are portrayed through textile support and the artist embroiders over their eyes and mouths. The artist goes beyond denunciation, and in works such as "Parede da Memória" (1994), she uses logic from an African matrix, where the patuá is a symbol of protection, by representing Afro-descendant faces through this support. Another artist who develops her work through textile manipulation is Sonia Gomes, who presents another aesthetic perspective, alluding to the memory contained in this materiality inserted in manifestations of an African matrix, as can be seen in the work "Magia" (2014).

However, it is possible to perceive that the ethical and aesthetic narrative that structures the History of Art constitutes a double twin of the colonial instances of gender and race subjugation, which are beginning to be questioned. To our happiness, as defended by medieval art expert Hans Belting, this narrative came to an end in modernity, since it was exclusive to the European continent and to the male gender. Therefore, the artists mentioned here present a dynamic of criticism and innovation that proposes a fusion that annihilates the dichotomy between these two parts forged in the colonial project.

According to the Yoruba, the death of a twin implies the process of extinction of the other. Thus, decolonial art establishes through artistic desire a will to destroy the socio-cultural policy of genocide that affects women, Africans and Afro-descendants, LGBTQI + people, peoples of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, etc. Nevertheless, decolonial works have had an exponential appreciation, moving an average of 37 billion dollars a year - which reveals a global desire for change. Brazil's participation in this market is still insignificant. Considering the history of a country that was the last to abandon the traffic of people enslaved on the African continent, it remains to be seen whether we will repeat history, now in the field of the arts. Art collections are fundamental in the national construction of the ethical and aesthetic framework of each country. They are what will constitute our cultural history in the coming decades, and the definition of this future is part of the acquisitions and collections that we form in the present.

Ana Beatriz Almeida lives and works between Salvador and São Paulo. She has a masters in History and Aesthetics of Art at MAC-USP, and is a PhD student at King's College (UK), and curator of the Glasgow Biennial of 2020. She collaborates for the art platform 01.01, which offers a more conscious and sustainable way to acquire contemporary art, focusing on production from Africa and its diaspora.

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Ibejis and decolonial art - Editorial - SP-Arte

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Jumping in confusion, you landed in the land of a miserable man Reversing your misfortune A rare pair of twins who unduly demand honor and respect from their parents For your stepmother you are an unwanted landscape, For your mother you are kings of two empires! Would you like to be parents to twins?

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Defunding the police and abolishing prisons are not radical ideas

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Defunding the police and abolishing prisons are not radical ideas

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The past few months have sparked conversations about defunding the police, specifically through the Black Lives Matter protests held around the world. I want to explain, from a criminological point of view, why this is imperative.

We know that there have been more than 440 Aboriginal deaths in custody, according to Guardian Australia, since the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody report and recommendations were released in 1991. We know that Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people make up approximately 28% of the total prison population in Australian prisons, despite making up only 2% of the total adult population in Australia.

We know and have witnessed police brutality, we have seen the lack of police discretion when it comes to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people in the community. We know that police surveillance on our young people is occurring through "taskforces" - particularly in New South Wales. This includes children as young as nine years of age.

We know that deaths in custody would not occur if racist legislation was overturned, specifically in relation to the summary offence of public drunkenness. Victoria is still yet to decriminalise public drunkenness, despite the commitment to do so in August, 2019.

Defunding the police, prison abolition and dismantling the systems that created and continue the ongoing oppression, violence, discrimination and the "othering" of this country's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, is not a radical idea.

I was recently interviewed on Progressive Podcasts about prison abolition and defunding the police. The main points of this podcast are to look beyond punishment as a way to address crime. It is, after all, a social problem. I am certainly not denying there are people who need to be protected in society and vice-versa. However, in 2016, we knew that approximately 46% of people in Australians prisons were incarcerated for non-violent offences. The cost of incarceration of people in prisons for non-violent offences equates up to $1.8bn nationwide.

We need to be looking at redirecting those funds to services that adequately and appropriately address the social issues around non-violent offences. Prison abolition is not about simply opening the prisons up and letting dangerous people into the community. It is about supporting the services that are integral to society. This includes housing, health, education and employment. These areas have all been defunded, yet this is not seen as radical - it is almost expected and accepted.

Police brutality is another reason why we should be looking to defund the police. Korey Penny, an Aboriginal man, said he was violently thrown off his bicycle by police officers in Melbourne recently and called a "black cunt". An Aboriginal teenager in New South Wales was kicked to the ground by police officers in an incident caught on camera. Video footage also showed an Aboriginal man being arrested and hit by police in Adelaide, in June 2020. In Sydney, Aboriginal man Kris Bradshaw was tasered in the face and was thrown to the ground in June 2020. These examples have occurred over the past few months, but police brutality is a practice that has occured since colonisation.

We have seen time and time again that police are not held accountable for their excessive use of force and violence towards people in society.

What is radical is living in a society where acts of violence are accepted because a blue uniform is worn or where racist legislation exists.

It is not so radical to say we need to defund police and pour much needed funds and resources into areas that improve social issues such as housing, health, education and employment. These, in turn, reduce the incarceration rates of Aboriginal people and reduces the over-reliance of degrading and dehumanising punitive measures such as prisons. It also addresses the social issues that impact on the disproportionate numbers of Aboriginal people in prison. We need to be exploring alternatives to prison and stop violence in the community. We must address the issues at the beginning, not looking for services to respond and 'fix' issues created by the criminal justice system.

Your support will ensure IndigenousX is able to stay independent and keep making original content.

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Defunding the police and abolishing prisons are not radical ideas - Robyn Oxley - IndigenousX

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The past few months have sparked conversations about defunding the police, specifically through the Black Lives Matter protests held around the world. I want to explain, from a criminological point of view, why this is imperative.

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Unpacking Europe’s different approach to Ukrainians and Syrians

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Professor Serena Parekh explains Europe’s response to Ukrainian refugees compared to those from Syria.

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Difference Between Colonialism and Imperialism

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Difference Between Colonialism and Imperialism

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Colonialism vs Imperialism
Colonialism and imperialism are often used interchangeably, but they are two different words having different meaning. As both colonialism and Imperialism means political and economic domination of the other, scholars often find it hard to differentiate the two.

Though both the words underline suppression of the other, Colonialism is where one nation assumes control over the other and Imperialism refers to political or economic control, either formally or informally. In simple words, colonialism can be thought to be a practice and imperialism as the idea driving the practice.

Colonialism is a term where a country conquers and rules over other regions. It means exploiting the resources of the conquered country for the benefit of the conqueror. Imperialism means creating an empire, expanding into the neighbouring regions and expanding its dominance far.

Colonialism is termed as building and maintaining colonies in one territory by people from another territory. Colonialism can altogether alter the social structure, physical structure and economics of a region. It is quite normal that in the long run, the traits of the conqueror are inherited by the conquered.

Colonialism is a term used to describe the settlement of places like India, Australia, North America, Algeria, New Zealand and Brazil, which were all controlled by the Europeans. Imperialism, on the other hand is described where a foreign government governs a territory without significant settlement. The scramble for Africa in the late 19th century and the American domination of Puerto Rico and the Philippines can be cited as examples of Imperialism.

In Colonialism, one can see great movement of people to the new territory and living as permanent settlers. Though they lead the life as permanent settlers, they still maintain allegiance to their mother country. Imperialism is just exercising power over the conquered regions either through sovereignty or indirect mechanisms of control.

Coming to the origin of the two, Imperialism has a longer history than Colonialism. While the history of colonialism dates back to 15th century, Imperialism has its origins dating back to the Romans.

Colonialism has its origins when Europeans started to look outside their country, pursuing trade with other nations. Though colonialism can be attributed to the trade pursuits of a country, Imperialism is just not like that and it involves individual pursuits only.

Coming to the etymology, colony comes from the Latin word colonus, which means farmers. Imperialism also comes from Latin word imperium, which means to command.

Summary
1.Colonialism is a term where a country conquers and rules over other regions. Imperialism means creating an empire, expanding into the neighbouring regions and expanding its dominance far.
2.In Colonialism, one can see great movement of people to the new territory and living as permanent settlers. Imperialism is just exercising power over the conquered regions either through sovereignty or indirect mechanisms of control.

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Difference Between Colonialism and Imperialism

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Colonialism vs Imperialism Colonialism and imperialism are often used interchangeably, but they are two different words having different meaning. As both colonialism and Imperialism means political and economic domination of the other, scholars often find it hard to differentiate the two.

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The War in Ukraine and the Ugly Face of Racism

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The War in Ukraine and the Ugly Face of Racism

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Header image: AJPlus
What Ukrainian Racism is saying about Western Democracy
By Dr Ornette D Clennon

Lots of people will be thinking, "do you have to bring race into this, at this time of ALL times?" My response to them is, "I wish that I didn't have to". Why? Because at a time when a nation is fighting for its life, where many of its citizens are facing the reality of becoming refugees, they STILL can find the capacity to dehumanise fellow human beings, also caught between the crosshairs of this catastrophe.

To hear the harrowing stories of Ukrainians living in bomb shelters in the deeply excavated underground metro stations, cueing up at train stations, fleeing in fear of their lives, or walking for hours or sometimes days to their nearest borders is truly heart-breaking. What is more disturbing to me, is how in the midst of this unimaginable violence, ordinary African, Caribbean and Indian students, who are legally visiting scholars to Ukraine, are being made to feel less than human, as though they are lesser than the Ukrainians they, up until this point, have lived amongst relatively peacefully.

This quiet story, away from the bombast of the mainstream media's decrying of a Western civilisational crisis, has elicited narratives from equally desperate and innocent people, some of whom are even being denied water in local shops, whilst trying to flee the country. An article in the Independent, records the experience of Osarumen, who with his family members and other refugees, was forced to leave a bus as it was about to cross a border. He was told 'No Blacks'. "I see bloodshot racism in their eyes. They want to save themselves and are losing their humanity in the process...".

I was deeply shocked to hear how some students were also threatened at gun point at the Polish borders by Ukrainian police, who tried to prevent them from crossing the border into Poland. The reports of vigilantes (who claim to be supporting the Ukrainian army), threatening African students at gun point is as shocking as the racist behaviour shown by officials at the (Polish) border checkpoints, because some Ukrainian citizens actually believe that they are protecting their cities from invasion, in this way.

I joined Twitter Spaces to hear more about how these brave students were rallying around and organising themselves by sharing valuable information about which borders are safe, what to carry, who to contact at embassies, who to go to for transport and so many other logistical issues of vital importance to these now refugees. I heard that racist trolls had infiltrated their Telegram accounts, making it that much harder for them to coordinate themselves.

On the symbolic level, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia is significant because, as we keep being reminded by mainstream media, it represents an assault on a democratic, civilised European nation. We are constantly being told that the suffering of this "relatively civilised and relatively European place" represents the suffering of ALL civilised nations in the West.

What is particularly galling is that these non-European students had paid their tuition fees to their Ukrainian universities and had legally obtained their student VISAS to study in the Ukraine. But apparently these rights that Ukraine, via its universities, has been profiting from, seem not to matter in this national emergency. Even when according to Reuters, "[c]ities under siege across Ukraine are home to tens of thousands of African students studying medicine, engineering and military affairs. Morocco, Nigeria and Egypt are among the top 10 countries with foreign students in Ukraine, together supplying over 16,000 students, according to the education ministry. Thousands of Indian students are also trying to flee."

So why are these issues so important at this time of profound crisis?

Here is a clue to the residues of a longer colonial history within these recent events:

"For the first time, the ravening beasts set loose upon all quarters of the globe by capitalist Europe have broken into Europe itself... This same 'civilised world' looked on passively as the same imperialism ordained the cruel destruction of ten thousand Herero tribesmen" Rosa Luxemburg (as cited by Paddy Gibson in Solidarity.net.au) who unnervingly echoes Aimé Cesaire's Discourse on Colonialism.

On the symbolic level, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia is significant because, as we keep being reminded by mainstream media, it represents an assault on a democratic, civilised European nation. We are constantly being told that the suffering of this "relatively civilised and relatively European place" represents the suffering of ALL civilised nations in the West. For me, what is striking is how the usual universalising of human experience, using Western values in this crisis, betrays a naked racism that infers that only European suffering is worth fighting for and preventing. The suffering by fellow human beings residing outside Europe, who have or are still experiencing the effects of Western backed wars (in terms of arms sales), whether we are talking about the invasions of Afghanistan or Iraq, or the current war in Yemen, or the military intervention in Libya, is not profiled in the same way. It is noticeable how Ukrainians are quite rightly portrayed in the most vivid of human terms, as the most valuable sanctities of life, whilst other human casualties of war outside of Europe have been reported as nameless collateral damage, referred to by the numbers of casualties.

With this humanising portrayal of the Ukrainian tragedy, we are being told that only European/Western life is worth fighting for. So, is it any wonder that our racially marked non-European students are being victimised because of the colour of their skin?

If we can't feel empathy for what others have gone through or are still going through in the brutality of war, because they don't look "relatively civilised" or "relatively European", how are we really any morally better than the despotic Putin we are currently reviling?

Many of the nations from which these refugees and students hail will have experienced much the same catastrophic terror, in some cases caused by British invasion, occupation and colonialism. The feelings of utter terror will have been the same. The struggles against an invading power will have been the same. The appeal for the recognition of their humanity will have been the same. The only difference, apart from advances in war technology, is the recognition of humanity. These colonialised nations did not have the world's media mourning for the fall of their civilisations or loss of life. Yet, they also fought and fought with huge hearts, to eventually win their independence. As Professor Paul Bernal has observed, "You know these empires we're supposed to celebrate? Our glorious imperial past? This invasion of Ukraine, this is what they looked like. This." We are feeling the terror of the imperial war machine. And this terror is not experienced any differently whether in the twenty first century or the nineteenth.

Christine Pirovolakis at @UNHCRUK, told me "UNHCR is aware of reports of individuals facing challenges entering Poland from Ukraine and is following up on them. We advocate for access to safety for all, regardless their legal status, nationality & race." https://t.co/1r5ydnEzAu
- Nadine White (@Nadine_Writes) March 1, 2022

All of this is important because in this present crisis where even the thought of nuclear deterrents is being mooted, the so-called fight for democracy holds existential cracks in its soul. If this great and shining democracy cannot guarantee that all human beings are accorded human rights and human dignity in good times or bad, then it is not really democracy at all. If we are not able to look into the mirror and face the ugly reflection staring back at us, whether it looks like an increasingly isolated Putin or a fragile and increasingly hostile Ukraine, where skin colour is used to bully whilst being bullied by the larger kid in the playground, all the while, the teacher looks on, then what are we fighting for? If we can't feel empathy for what others have gone through or are still going through in the brutality of war, because they don't look "relatively civilised" or "relatively European", how are we really any morally better than the despotic Putin we are currently reviling? In a world where cooperation is becoming key for our survival as a species, this racist double think will most probably end up coming back to haunt us.

When reporters observe that the survival of our democracies is at stake, I am not entirely sure they understand the existential depths of their grandiose comments.
Dr. Ornette D. Clennon is the Head of Institute at MaCTRI (MEaP Academy Community Training & Research Institute). He is also a collaborating researcher and Visiting Professor at the Federal University of Amazon (UFAM), where he contributes to the theme of decolonial community and liberation psychology. Ornette has also been a Visiting Research Fellow in critical race studies and lecturer in community arts practices and popular musicology at Manchester Metropolitan University (ManMet), where he led its Critical Race and Ethnicity Research Cluster. As a ManMet representative, Ornette was a Public Engagement Ambassador for the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE). Ornette's engaged scholarship that bridges the gap between the academy and the grassroots has been recognized with the 2011 NCCPE New Partnership Award. Ornette is a community activist at local, national and international levels, as he works with the MEaP Academy Community Education Centre where he is their Head of Online Learning, The Ubele Initiative, Locality, The Alci Matos Community (Manaus, Brazil), United Nations International Coalition of People of African Descent (ICPAD) in association with OHCHR, MACC (Manchester Community Central), CAHN (Caribbean and African Health Network), GMHSCP (GM Health and Social Care Partnership), Young Manchester, Young People's Foundation (YPF) and the National Resource Centre for Supplementary Education (NRCSE), where he has been their Chair of Trustees. Ornette is widely published, among his latest books are Alternative Education and Community Engagement: Making Education a Priority (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), Urban Dialectics, The Market and Youth Engagement: The Black Face of Eurocentrism? (Nova Science Publishers, 2015), International Perspectives of Multiculturalism: The Ethical Challenges (Nova Science Publishers, 2016), The Polemics of CLR James and Contemporary Black Activism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and Black Scholarly Activism between the Academy and Grassroots: A Bridge for Identities and Social Justice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Ornette is also the Series Editor for the forthcoming book series Palgrave Studies in Decolonisation and Grassroots Black Organic Intellectualism If you enjoyed reading this article and you got some benefit or insight from reading it donate to keep Media Diversified's website online
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The War in Ukraine and the Ugly Face of Racism

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Header image: AJPlus What Ukrainian Racism is saying about Western Democracy By Dr Ornette D Clennon Lots of people will be thinking, "do you have to bring race into this, at this time of ALL times?" My response to them is, "I wish that I didn't have to". Why?

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Refugees, reporting and the far right: how the Ukraine crisis reveals brutal 'everyday racism' in Europe and beyond

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Refugees, reporting and the far right: how the Ukraine crisis reveals brutal ‘everyday racism’ in Europe and beyond

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Refugees, reporting and the far right: how the Ukraine crisis reveals brutal ‘everyday racism’ in Europe and beyond

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The intensifying conflict in Ukraine has raised the issue of racism not only in Ukraine, but Europe. Three specific and related dimensions of racism are evident in this complex conflict.

Discrimination against African and Asian nationals fleeing Ukraine

Shocking reports emerged in the past week of discrimination faced by African and Asian nationals (mainly international students in Ukraine) who were among the over 1 million people seeking refuge in neighbouring Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Moldova.

African and Asian people were forcibly prevented from boarding trains and buses leaving Ukrainian cities, as priority was given to white Ukrainians. Those who finally reached the Polish border (some even on foot) found that again white Ukrainians were prioritised entry. Some African, Asian, and Middle-Eastern nationals were met by verbal and physical abuse on arrival.

Many African, Asian, and Middle Eastern nationals spent two to three days at border check-points, and reported lack of food, water, accommodation or basic support in freezing winter conditions, while they waited to get through.

A statement issued by the African Union condemned reports about the treatment of Africans as "shockingly racist and in breach of international law" and observed:

all people have the right to cross international borders during conflict, and as such, should enjoy the same rights to cross to safety from the conflict in Ukraine, notwithstanding their nationality or racial identity.

Read more: How we mourn the victims of tragedies depends on their citizenship status

Racist mainstream media portrayals

Equally disturbing is the unthinkingly racist mainstream media framing of Ukrainian refugees, in comparison to the framing of refugees from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan or Africa.

Below, a selection of such racist commentary from major news outlets:

"This isn't Iraq or Afghanistan [...] This is a relatively civilised, relatively European city" - Charlie D'Agata, CBS

"War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations" - Daniel Hannan, The Telegraph

"What's compelling is looking at them, the way they are dressed. These are prosperous, middle-class people. These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from the Middle East [...] or North Africa. They look like any European family that you'd live next door to" - Peter Dobbie, Al Jazeera

These descriptions of Ukrainian refugees invidiously position them as more "civilised" and "superior" to refugees from the Middle East, African or Asian nations. This seems to imply that Ukrainian lives are worth saving, while the lives of millions of others who seek refuge are more disposable because they are people who are not "well-dressed", "middle-class", don't "look like us", or live in more remote, supposedly less "civilised" locations.

Read more: 7 ways to spot polarizing language - how to choose responsibly what to amplify online or in-person

White-supremacist Ukrainian mobilisation

The third and more dangerous dimension of racism is the mobilisation of the neo-Facist, white supremacist Azov movement in Ukraine since 2014. Azov started as a volunteer battalion that was then officially integrated into the National Guard of Ukraine in November 2014. The current Ukrainian government has not made comment on this movement.

In the current crisis, Azov battalion is training Ukrainian civilians for guerrilla-style combat with the Russian military.

However, it is important to also note that similar white nationalist groups exist across Europe and North America. Therefore Putin's claim of "de-Nazification" of Ukraine is a flimsy reason for invasion of Ukraine.

While the Azov battalion officially denies adhering to white supremacist ideologies, Azov's street patrol called National Militia were responsible for attacks on Roma in Ukraine in 2018.

Azov also plays a pivotal role in the global network of far-right, white-nationalist extremism; it "participated in training and radicalising United States-based white supremacy organizations" (according to a 2018 FBI affidavit).

Closer to home, alongside other European far-right movements, Azov's propaganda appears to have inspired Brenton Tarrant of Australia in his deadly terrorist attack on a mosque in Christchurch in 2019. This was evidenced by the sonnerad or black sun on his jacket, a symbol commonly used by the Azov Battalion and far-right brands in France.

Read more: The US is boosting aid to Ukraine: 4 questions answered

What accounts for these three dimensions of racism in the Ukraine crisis, and how are they connected?

Research suggests racism and xenophobia varies with the relationship between hostile government policies and anti-migrant sentiments of the population. In short, the problem of racism is not just Ukrainian or eastern European, it is European.

More nuanced analysis argues there is insufficient evidence to show eastern Europeans are more xenophobic than western Europeans. Any analysis should consider the complex histories of migration from, and through eastern European countries.

Indeed, as the global news coverage of Ukrainan refugees demonstrates, everyday racism - or what Goorie author Melissa Lucashenko refers to as "white normal savagery" is not restricted to eastern Europe. All three dimensions of racism discussed here are the manifestation of global, systemic institutionalised racism and imperialism.

Acknowledgement of this institutionalised racism and imperialism would begin by first recognising the Ukraine crisis as a power struggle between the US/NATO and Russia, underwritten by interests of weapons manufacturers and oil companies. This crisis was long predicted by strategic observers of global politics.

Recognising the wider context of institutionalised racism would allow us to connect the current racist treatment of African and Asian migrants in the Ukraine crisis to deadly European border policies over the past decades. These policies have led to increasing numbers of migrants mostly from Africa and the Middle East, reported as missing in the Mediterranean since 2014.

Azov needs to be recognised as the belligerently violent face of a racialised political order that is potentially dangerous. However, this would require holding the US accountable for its suspected support of Azov, and its refusal (along with Ukraine) to condemn the glorification of Nazism in a UN Resolution in 2017.

Finally, we should recognise that any moves to dismantle institutionalised racism are unlikely to be undertaken voluntarily. As Professor of Sociology József Böröcz argues, the defining element of "whiteness" is a "claim, indeed demand, for unconditional global privilege" that is always being reconstituted.

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Refugees, reporting and the far right: how the Ukraine crisis reveals brutal 'everyday racism' in Europe and beyond

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The intensifying conflict in Ukraine has raised the issue of racism not only in Ukraine, but Europe. Three specific and related dimensions of racism are evident in this complex conflict. Shocking reports emerged in the past week of discrimination faced by African and Asian nationals (mainly international students in Ukraine) who were among the over 1 million people seeking refuge in neighbouring Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Moldova.

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Raoul Peck's four-part documentary film about colonialism, slavery and genocide is a powerful and thorough exposition of the crimes of colonialism

"You already know enough. So do I. It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions." - Sven Lindqvist, Exterminate All The Brutes, published by GRANTA, 1996

The title of Lindqvist's book and Raoul Peck's film is taken from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. 'Exterminate all the brutes' was the final advice of the isolated white colonialist Kurtz, about how to civilise Africa.

Peck was a friend and collaborator of Lindqvist. His film should be seen as a continuation of his work, not a different media version. Exterminate draws on other works, notably Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States.

Peck's earlier film, I Am Not Your Negro, about the life and work of James Baldwin, was nominated for an Oscar, and hailed as "an advanced seminar in racial politics" by the New York Times. Exterminate may well receive a more hostile review in the mainstream media. Conservative and liberals alike will recoil from Peck's exposure of glib rhetoric about the USA being founded on liberty and democracy as a blatant lie.

Historical facts and the obligation to engage

History is a subject that benefits from collaboration, discussion and debate. But for historians to be able to argue over their rival interpretations there has to be a common agreement on some essential historical facts.

The facts that Peck concentrates on are already widely known. And, like the truth about the Emperor's clothes, we all benefit from hearing them said, and said loudly.

Eurocentric history and political discourse is rich in Enlightenment values - all the things that Europeans gave to the world - reason and learning, democracy and law-based government.

Peck's goal is to destroy Eurocentric self-love. He does not offer a theoretical alternative. His job is to restate the facts. The undeniable facts. The facts that are so fundamental to history, they have been studiously, deliberately and systematically ignored by historians of the status quo.

Exterminate is about engagement with facts. The audience has a job too. They have to interpret the facts. The interpretation is a duty, to oneself and to society.

The art of Exterminate

In a sharp contrast with I am not your Negro, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, Exterminate is narrated by Peck himself. And the film has various reference points to his life in Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and New York.

Intertwining his own lived experience with the subject of the film has two purposes. Firstly, it tells the audience that he too is obliged to come to terms with the facts. Secondly, Peck had experience of the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti, backed by US arms, and the US-backed overthrow of Patrice Lumumba in the DRC.

The voice of Peck gives the film, covering centuries of European expansion, a vital authority. In a film of this scope and magnitude, a variety of methods are deployed to hit the emotions and intellect of the audience.

Throughout the four one-hour films important scenes are acted out in a very simple and direct way. The arrival of Columbus, the war against the Seminoles in Florida, the murderous robbing and butchery of the native Congolese by Belgian imperialists, are portrayed in short scenes. Josh Hartnett is the perpetual face of white colonialism in each scene.

Animated drawings offer a simple pictorial statement that is tremendously moving in depicting things like the slave passage from Africa. Statistics, maps and summary slides are constructed to be accessible and hard-hitting.

Colonialism, slavery, genocide

The foundation of European civilisation, for Peck, was not only about Greek democracy or the Enlightenment. By telling the story of European expansion into the world based on colonialism, slavery and genocide, and in an accessible and popular way, Peck has rebalanced the argument.

Furthermore, Exterminate goes way beyond being just another radical history. The film is absolutely relevant in explaining the hellish features of capitalism in its dotage. It is of the moment, with the current crop of smug, racist political western leaders in Peck's crosshairs.

White supremacy and the 'right to bear arms' is the legacy of the extermination of Indian tribes and slavery. The murder and displacement of Palestinians as I write this review, is the continuation of the US's Manifest Destiny to remove all native obstacles to 'civilisation'. Wars for democracy can kill Arabs because European values trump their right to life without hindrance. The physical and cultural obliteration of peoples is a continuum from the Crusades to the present. It is an ongoing part of our world - in China, in Brazil, in Myanmar.

Exterminate is a weapon. Peck wants it to become a learning resource in schools and universities as a means of ending the nightmare. The film lends itself well to the classroom with clips being part animation, part explanation and so on. This is also why Peck is more concerned with raising the question than offering a full theoretical explanation. Marxist theories of capitalism and imperialism might well offer something to fill the gaps.

The extermination of peoples is part of our history. If we fail to acknowledge exterminations we fall into line with the Social Darwinist view that inferior peoples are doomed to die out, and the role of advanced peoples is to help them on their way. Celebrations of, for example, the British Empire often refer to the obliterated peoples and cultures with a footnote. The systematic cheating, pillaging and killing is thereby relegated to a few bad apples, difficulties of communication, cultural disparity and so on. But it was deliberate and calculated.

Possibly the most shocking thing for liberal academics to accept in Exterminate will be the conclusion that the Holocaust had strong European and American antecedents. The roll call of exterminated peoples is a long one - and Peck lists them all. Hitler's invasion of Eastern Europe and his war of annihilation against Slavs and Jews was to create lebensraum, or living space for German settlers. What was different to the wars of annihilation fought against American tribes? Hitler actually referred to the Slavs as 'our Redskins'.

Exterminate All The Brutes is an epic documentary, a must watch, a classic. It is a film that is part of making history, a weapon and a rallying point in the war against decaying capitalism that relies on violence and hatred to stay afloat.

Lenin used to say 'facts are stubborn things', and we need to be unyielding in confronting our tormentors with the origins and human cost of their misbegotten gains.
Exterminate All The Brutes is available to watch on Sky and Now TV

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Facts are stubborn things: Exterminate All The Brutes review

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"You already know enough. So do I. It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions." - Sven Lindqvist, Exterminate All The Brutes, published by GRANTA, 1996 The title of Lindqvist's book and Raoul Peck's film is taken from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

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Summary

The Doctrine of Discovery established a spiritual, political, and legal justification for colonization and seizure of land not inhabited by Christians. Foundational elements of the Doctrine of Discovery can be found in a series of papal bulls, or decrees, beginning in the 1100s, which included sanctions, enforcements, authorizations, explusions, admonishments, excommunications, denunciations, and expressions of territorial sovereignty for Christian monarchs supported by the Catholic Church. Two papal bulls, in particular, stand out: (1) Pope Nicholas V issued "Romanus Pontifex" in 1455, granting the Portuguese a monopoly of trade with Africa and authorizing the enslavement of local people; (2) Pope Alexander VI issued the Papal Bull " Inter Caetera " in 1493 to justify Christian European explorers' claims on land and waterways they allegedly discovered, and promote Christian domination and superiority, and has been applied in Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Americas.

The 1493 Papal decree aimed to justify Christian European explorers' claims on land and waterways they allegedly discovered, and promote Christian domination and superiority, and has been applied in Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Americas. If an explorer proclaims to have discovered the land in the name of a Christian European monarch, plants a flag in its soil, and reports his "discovery" to the European rulers and returns to occupy it, the land is now his, even if someone else was there first. Should the original occupants insist on claiming that the land is theirs, the "discoverer" can label the occupants' way of being on the land inadequate according to European standards. This ideology supported the dehumanization of those living on the land and their dispossession, murder, and forced assimilation. The Doctrine fueled white supremacy insofar as white European settlers claimed they were instruments of divine design and possessed cultural superiority.

The significance of the Doctrine continues to be debated. According to David Wilkins, "it is more complicated than just saying the Pope gave European Catholics the rights to colonize and convert. In reality, the absolute denial of Native land rights was replaced less than fifty years later when Charles V... sought the advice of Francisco de Vitoria ... as to what the Spanish could legally and morally claim in the New World. Vitoria, in a clear rebuttal to the Pope and the discovery notion, declared that Native peoples were the true owners of their lands."

The Doctrine of Discovery was the inspiration in the 1800s for the Monroe Doctrine, which declared U.S. hegemony over the Western Hemisphere, and Manifest Destiny, which justified American expansion westward by propagating the belief that the U.S. was destined to control all land from the Atlantic to the Pacific and beyond.

In an 1823 Supreme Court case, Johnson v. M'Intosh, the Doctrine of Discovery became part of U.S. federal law and was used to dispossess Native peoples of their land. In a unanimous decision, Chief Justice John Marshall writes, "that the principle of discovery gave European nations an absolute right to New World lands"[1] and Native peoples certain rights of occupancy.

We study the Doctrine of Discovery to listen to voices that have been silenced and disregarded for centuries. These voices tell a frequently overlooked story about the origins of the United States.

COMPELLING QUESTION

How did European explorers and colonial settlers use the Doctrine of Discovery to justify the taking of Native peoples' land in what became the United States?

SourceS

David Wilkins, " Deconstructing the Doctrine of Discovery," Indian Country Today Media Network, October 24, 2014.

Pope Alexander VI, "Inter Caetera," May 4, 1493. Retrieved from http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Alex06/alex06inter.htm

Robert J. Miller, Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and Manifest Destiny, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008).

United Nations General Assembly resolution 61/295. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (13 September 2007), available from http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf( excerpt PDF)

EXCERPTS

"Inter Caetera"

"Deconstructing the Doctrine of Discovery"
Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and Manifest Destiny United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
HANDOUT

Questions & Activities

1. Read this excerpt of the Bull Inter Caetera issued by Pope Alexander VI.

What is the significance of the fact that the Bull was written in 1493?

What did you learn about the relationship between the Church and the Monarchy?

How does Pope Alexander justify Spain's dominion over other peoples' land?

2. Examine this excerpt from Native America, Discovered and Conquered.

Define the purpose of the Doctrine of Discovery.

How did the Founding Fathers use the Doctrine of Discovery?

Choose one of the ten elements to Discovery and explain how you think it was applied to dispossess Native peoples of their land.

3. What is the main point David Wilkins makes about the Doctrine of Discovery in this excerpt from his article? How does his perspective compare to Robert J. Miller's ideas in Native America, Discovered and Conquered?

4. Read this excerpt from the Preambular to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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Doctrine of Discovery - Upstander Project

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The Doctrine of Discovery established a spiritual, political, and legal justification for colonization and seizure of land not inhabited by Christians. Foundational elements of the Doctrine of Discovery can be found in a series of papal bulls, or decrees, beginning in the 1100s, which included sanctions, enforcements, authorizations, explusions, admonishments, excommunications, denunciations, and expressions of territorial sovereignty for Christian monarchs supported by the Catholic Church.

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Attempted Aboriginal massacres took place as recently as 1981, historian says

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Attempted Aboriginal massacres took place as recently as 1981, historian says

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Attempted Aboriginal massacres took place as recently as 1981, historian says

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Alice Springs mass poisoning claimed two lives and left many in hospital but details are scarce, showing challenges of verifying frontier killings

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The pandemic has been a brutal reminder that disabled people don’t matter. Living through this, as a disabled person with a wonky immune system, has been a reminder that my life doesn’t matter to most. Where I do matter is in my disability community, the community of folks at such risk of this deadl…

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Redfern rising: the story of Aboriginal activism in the 1970s

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New book explores the people, places and achievements at the centre of Aboriginal activism and self-determination in the 1970s.

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In 1971, the all-white South African rugby team, the Springboks, toured Australia. The six-week-long tour was met with a boycott campaign involving rolling protests, strikes and constant disruption. Thousands of people joined in what became an important step forward for the international campaign against apartheid and a pivotal moment in the struggle for Aboriginal rights in Australia.

In 1971, Gary Foley was living in Redfern, Sydney. He was one of a number of radical Aboriginal activists, known as the Redfern Black caucus or the Black Power movement, who were forging a new chapter in the history of Aboriginal resistance. These activists wanted to fight the state and change the world. They were militant and daring and were fast becoming connected with the left and the trade union movement. Gary and other Black Power leaders became some of the key figures in the campaign against the Springboks. He sat down with me to talk about the protests, 50 years on.

We start by talking about why the apartheid system provoked protests in Australia. "In much the same way that the global discussion about racism going on today was set off by events in America, the touchstone in the '70s was the white racist regime in South Africa", says Foley. "It was the big global issue to do with racism at the time and an international anti-apartheid campaign had been growing since the Sharpevillle massacre in 1960.

"The issue came to a head in Australia because the then Liberal government decided that the Springboks would be allowed to play in Australia. This was despite sporting ties with South Africa having been cut by many other countries and a significant part of the British Commonwealth at the time. Australia was determinedly resistant to the campaign to boycott South Africa."

South African sporting tours had become a polarising issue internationally-cheered on by racists and reviled by anti-racists. The Liberal prime minister at the time, Billy MacMahon, was keen to show support for South Africa because, as Gary puts it, "Two of the biggest racist countries, they stick together. Don't forget the apartheid system was consciously modelled on the Aboriginal Protection Act of 50 years earlier ... and, of course, support for South Africa was necessary to stop the supposed spread of communism and terrorism".

At the same time that apartheid was becoming a focus, a range of other issues were radicalising young people, making the mood ripe for a militant campaign. "Vietnam was huge for everyone at the time. It demonstrated the racist, imperialist system we were up against", says Gary. There were many reasons for Aboriginal people in particular to be opposed to the Vietnam War. As Gary explains, "We had started to pay attention to the radical Black literature, the radical Black politics that was coming out of the US. And apart from recognising that the Vietnamese were another group waging a struggle against colonialism, we agreed with what Muhammad Ali had said about the Vietcong: that 'no Vietcong ever called me nigger'".

The anti-Vietnam War movement was personal for many in Australia, especially young people. Australia sent substantial numbers of troops and introduced conscription. Gary was tipped off by fellow activist Paul Coe that Aboriginal people did not have to serve in the military. "So I sent in a letter asking for an exemption. But the horrible thing was basically no other Black people knew you could do this, so they signed them up and sent them to war ... two of my cousins had to serve in Vietnam, and they came back, as everyone else did, completely fucked up."

Aboriginal activists like Gary made links with the student left through the anti-war movement, and became connected with left-wing trade unions and unionists through it. "You know we had really strong ties in Redfern with Jack Mundey's Builders' Labourers [Federation] up there, Bobby Pringle and Joey Owens, they were the fucking legends. Bobby Pringle got arrested with me on three occasions, once at the Redfern tent embassy, and twice fighting coppers in Redfern at the Empress Hotel. I mean, these were trade union officials who were prepared to put their bodies on the line in accordance with their principles; you don't see too much of that these days."

Despite the radical atmosphere at the time, Gary still recalls being surprised that "Almost immediately when it was announced that the tour would go ahead, out of nowhere-well at least that's the way it appeared to me at the time-an anti-apartheid movement materialised. Suddenly there were thousands of white Australians out there demonstrating against apartheid". He pauses and then adds, "Well, it was a surprise on one level but, maybe not so dramatic if you take into account that this was only three years or so since 90 percent of the population voted 'yes' in the 1967 referendum". The "yes" vote was for rewording references to Aboriginal people in the constitution, in a ballot overwhelmingly seen as a referendum on racism. "This had indicated to us that there was a reservoir of good will but, much like today, this was largely emotive. The anti-apartheid campaign helped to turn this into active support."

In the weeks before the Springboks arrived, the demonstrations against the tour were growing and public opposition was building. By the time they touched down in Perth, they had a major problem. "The ACTU had slapped a black ban on them, ironically, a black ban. And it held." With the pilots, liquor and hotel workers unions on board, "They couldn't get anyone to fly them anywhere, or serve them anything or rely on anywhere to stay".

Gary is quick to point out that this wasn't to do with Bob Hawke, then ACTU president and later Labor prime minister. "If it was left up to him as an individual, they would have walked right in. It was because of the key unions with clout and the principled trade union officials that Hawke was brought over."

This hostile situation meant that the government and the rugby associations went to extreme lengths to keep the Springboks' whereabouts secret, especially in Sydney, where the movement was strongest. But they didn't always succeed. As Gary recalls, "The Redfern Black caucus had relocated from Redfern at the beginning of 1971 due to police harassment. We secretly shifted our headquarters to a double storey old house in Bondi Junction. Next door was a big carpark and on the other side of the road from this carpark was a motel called the Squire Inn. One night we came home and saw all these police everywhere and buses pulling up. We realised the next morning that this was the 'super secret' location the Springboks were staying at. And so we opened up our commune to the anti-apartheid mob and made them cups of tea and stuff while they held an almost permanent protest in the carpark outside the inn. We had lots of good rallies there, making as much noise as possible to keep them awake at all hours".

As fortuitous as this was, the centrality of the Redfern Black caucus was, of course, more than incidental. All over the country, Aboriginal radicals played a key role in the protests. One particularly colourful incident involved Jim Boyce, a former Australian rugby player who had been to South Africa as part of an Australian tour and had become a prominent member of the moderate wing of the anti-apartheid movement, approaching Gary and the other Black Power activists with a proposal. "He had three genuine Springbok rugby jerseys, from the ritual at the end of every game-you know they swap jerseys and all that-and he said to us: 'The Prime Minister of South Africa has said no Black man will ever wear this particular jersey. If you guys were to put these on and turn up at a demo it would make headlines in South Africa'. And so we did.

"Me and Billy Craigie grabbed a jersey each and we walked across the carpark and stood in front of the Squire Inn. We were caught by surprise by a bunch of plain-clothes NSW special branch guys: they come running out of the hotel and they grab us, and then they haul us into the hotel and started at us with "Where did you steal these? Who did you steal these from?' They called down the entire Springbok team to look us up and down; one by one they walked past us. These big, angry racist rugby players looked like they wanted to murder us. And they probably would have if the coppers hadn't been around."

Audacious stunts like these helped raise the profile of Black Power activists and drew attention to the issue of anti-Aboriginal racism. In Brisbane, which was another centre for the movement, activists Kath Walker and Denis Walker "provocatively dined with poet Judith Wright at the Springboks' Brisbane hotel".

The audacity was not limited, however, to Aboriginal activists. Trade union activist John Phillips and Builders' Labourers Federation president Bob Pringle walked into a sports ground in Paddington where the Springboks were due to play, and attempted to saw down the goal post. Leading anti-apartheid activists Verity and Meredith Burgmann posed as Afrikaans rugby goers and managed to invade the pitch at a high-profile game in Sydney. In Melbourne, one of the matches descended into a riot, with 200 protesters arrested. In Brisbane, a bitter fight took place. The authoritarian premier, Jo Bjelke-Petersen declared a state of emergency in order to protect the South African rugby entourage, and after protesters were brutalised at Tower Hill, a general strike was called. Across the country there were mass student meetings and mass demonstrations, with regular arrests.

The boycott campaign in Australia went further than similar campaigns in other countries. In particular, the union activity took things to a new level. Nowhere else had union bans been observed so strictly. The media attention on the campaign, both in Australia and internationally, helped fuel the growing opposition to apartheid, and laid the basis for even more confrontational actions, particularly the New Zealand anti-Springboks protests in 1981. Gary travelled to New Zealand to be part of these protests, and his eyes light up telling the story. "So there's 25,0000 of us, and we're marching around the perimeter of this rugby ground, and they'd set up this six-foot-high cyclone wire fence with barbed wire on top, all the way around. And so we were marching around, and all these rugby goers were standing up on the hill and yelling at us: 'Go home you commo bastards! You're weak as piss!'

"We must have been going around it on our second lap, when all of a sudden Rebecca Evans pulls out this megaphone and she says: 'Operation Everest, Go!' and then the front line of women suddenly turn and run as a group at the fence. We saw then that they were all wearing gloves. They just all leapt onto the top of the fence, and behind them a second line of women jumped onto the fence below them, forcing the fence down. As soon as these rugby supporters saw a flying wedge of women coming at them they scattered, and when they scattered they created a path onto the field, so 500 of us managed to get onto the field before the coppers closed the gap."

Ultimately, it was not the international protests that dealt the decisive blow to the apartheid regime but the revolutionary uprising of black South African workers and youth. But international solidarity was important.

In the months and years following the fall of apartheid, world leaders who had been its open supporters or on the fence about it for years rushed to celebrate. Among these turncoats Gary includes Hawke, who, apart from being a "CIA stooge" and a "traitor to the union movement", was a "hypocrite of the highest order" when it comes to pretending to have always been a passionate opponent of apartheid. Gary is also contemptuous of Nelson Mandela, as a "sell-out sucking up to the very people who called him a terrorist and a communist and supported his imprisonment", a view Gary also very publicly expressed when Mandela visited Australia in 1990.

The most immediate and profound effect of the campaign against the Springboks in 1971 was the boost it gave to the Aboriginal rights movement, especially the struggle for land rights. Gary is clearly still moved thinking about this. "We were on a roll, and we argued to those joining the anti-apartheid movement that they needed to fight racism in their own backyard ... Paul Coe got up at one of the demonstrations and said: 'You people need to start turning up at our land rights rallies or we will inevitably consider you hypocrites'. And to their credit, the leaders of the anti-apartheid movement accepted this challenge and began encouraging members of the movement to turn up to fight for Aboriginal rights.

"Our marches grew enormously as a result, and this gave us the momentum to set up the tent embassy ... The other thing that the anti-apartheid movement did was push Billy MacMahon, who was already a nervous, hapless, anxiety-ridden man, to become even more of a nervous wreck and to make a fatal political error by giving a speech on Invasion Day, 26 January 1972, about how he wasn't going to do anything for Aboriginal rights. So out of this we said, 'OK we will establish an embassy'. The embassy led to the single greatest breakthrough for Aboriginal rights, and the only time that any genuine land rights have ever been granted."

When I ask him about what we might learn from this history that might be relevant to struggles today, Gary responds with optimism about the Black Lives Matter movement and the massive Invasion Day marches of recent years. "Those marches are pulling bigger crowds than we did. If 90,000 are prepared to come out on the streets for Invasion Day, that really shows that things can change, that we can start to shift consciousness." But politics, as well as numbers, matters: "It can ironically be a hard thing to educate people about the nature of the boot that's stomping on their neck but, what we need to do is get the 50 percent in Australia who are genuine about challenging racism ... and educate them as to the underlying cause, make them aware you can't be anti-racist and pro-capitalist, it's just a contradiction".

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Gary Foley reflects on the 1971 Springbok tour protests | Red Flag

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In 1971, the all-white South African rugby team, the Springboks, toured Australia. The six-week-long tour was met with a boycott campaign involving rolling protests, strikes and constant disruption. Thousands of people joined in what became an important step forward for the international campaign against apartheid and a pivotal moment in the struggle for Aboriginal rights in Australia.

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Author: Anita Heiss

Because mainstream histories of Australia often render Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as invisible or describe them in negative terms, these histories often fail to recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been involved in the working life of Sydney for a very long time. Very few histories describe Aboriginal people as workers, producers, industrialists or taxpayers. However, soon after Invasion, Aboriginal people in Sydney were involved in work. They were sometimes paid but were often not; they were sometimes indentured, but they were always present.

From 1788 Aboriginal people worked in the grounds of the first Government House. Many of the 'explorers' who surveyed the bush around Sydney and later crossed the Great Dividing Range were led by Aboriginal trackers who were familiar with the 'undiscovered' country and who acted as diplomats to other Aboriginal groups. They were, in a sense, the first tour guides. A number of adventurous local Aboriginal people, including Bungaree and Gnung-a Gnung-a, took to the high seas in the first half of the 19th century, travelling and working on sailing ships that took them around the globe.

Aboriginal people also worked in the burgeoning industries around Sydney, as labourers on building sites, as wharfies and sailors, and were involved in the sealing and whaling industries.

Today Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Sydney work across a broad range of occupations and professions, in business and in government.

Many Aboriginal people had jobs relying on manual and hard labour. Eveleigh Railway Yards was Sydney's largest employer from the time it opened in 1886. It was also one of the biggest employers of Aboriginal people living in Sydney in the second half the 20th century. Aboriginal men also worked in the Alexandria goods yard loading trains with kegs and potatoes and on the waterfront docks at Walsh Bay and Darling Harbour.

Aboriginal women living in South Sydney worked for the Federal Match Factory in Alexandria, which was affectionately known as Wellington Matches because so many of the Aboriginal workers were originally from the NSW country town of Wellington. Other local industries where Aboriginal people worked were the Henry Jones & Co IXL Jam Factory on Golden Grove Street in Chippendale, Francis Chocolates on Stirling Street in Redfern, and the Australian Glass Manufacturers on South Dowling Street at Waterloo.

Getting a job for Aboriginal people was one thing, being paid equal wages and getting union support was another. The relationship between unions and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples was not always good. Some unionists feared that giving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers equal rights and pay would threaten the jobs of white workers. However, progressive left-wing unions and other workers' groups like the Communist Party supported Aboriginal advancement from early in the 20th century.

When Aboriginal people began to organise politically from the 1930s, there were often sympathetic white people to help in the struggle, many of them unionists. During the period from 1950 to 1967, unions and Aboriginal organisations worked closely to build momentum to the 1967 Referendum on Citizenship Rights and Commonwealth control of Aboriginal affairs. Apart from this issue, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were also prominent at May Day rallies and other protests, and unions supported submissions to the United Nations. Activism of this kind, not just in Australia, led to the United Nations (UN) International Covenant on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Miscellaneous Workers Union of Australia was one of the six largest unions in the country in the mid-1960s and gave unfailing support to the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) sending delegates from both state and federal branches to annual FCAATSI meetings. Organisations like the Union of Australian Women, the Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen Association, and the NSW Teachers' Federation were all affiliates of FCAATSI. It was FCAATSI and the unions that showed Aboriginal people how to fight for rights and how to empower themselves.

Unions offered employment to Aboriginal people from remote areas of NSW who relocated to Sydney. They also offered support in the education sector. Scholarships at Tranby in the 1960s were financed by the Australian Workers' Union, the Miners' Federation of Australia, and the Waterside Workers' Federation of Australia. The unions supported housing projects in both urban and remote areas. On a social level, the Builders Labourers Union of Sydney sponsored the Redfern All Blacks football team.

In 1963, two Aboriginal unionists, Ray Peckham and Monty Maloney, began their own newspaper, The Aboriginal Worker, which appealed to Aboriginal workers to 'play an active part in their union'. This was one of the first Aboriginal Australian or Torres Strait Islander newspapers and almost certainly the first Aboriginal workers' newspaper.

In more recent times the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) have lent their considerable support to Aboriginal issues such as Reconciliation and Native Title. Another union supporting the Aboriginal rights movement was the Building Workers Industrial Union of Australia. In their journal, they celebrated the biggest ever National Aborigines Day March on 14 July 1972.

Further reading

Ray Peckham interviewed by Rob Willis in the Activists for Indigenous rights in the mid 20th century oral history project, 2012, National Library of Australia, ORAL TRC 6430, https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-213880846

'Hundreds in protest on Buka action', Tribune, 28 February 1962, p. 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article236249171

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Because mainstream histories of Australia often render Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as invisible or describe them in negative terms, these histories often fail to recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been involved in the working life of Sydney for a very long time.

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Filed to: Australian history

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.
Often people think about the Aboriginal Tent Embassy as something historic, dating back to the 1970s. But it should also be thought of as a site of the longest protest for Indigenous land rights, sovereignty and self-determination in the world.

In fact, this year, the Tent Embassy is set to celebrate its 50th continuous year of occupation. Demonstrating its significance to Australian history, it was included on the Commonwealth Heritage List in 2015 as part of the Old Parliament House precinct.

In this momentous year, it's worth remembering how the Tent Embassy came to be and what it has continued to stand for since its erection in 1972 - and the significance it still has today.

Aliens in our own land

The Tent Embassy began its public life on January 26 1972. On that day, Michael Anderson, Billy Craigie, Bertie Williams and Tony Coorey left Redfern and drove to Ngunnawal Country (Canberra), where they planted a beach umbrella opposite Parliament House (now known as Old Parliament House).

They erected a sign that said "Aboriginal Embassy". With them on that day was their driver, Tribune photographer Noel Hazard, who captured the event in a series of photos.

The term "embassy" was used to bring attention to the fact Aboriginal people had never ceded sovereignty nor engaged in any treaty process with the Crown. As a collective, Aboriginal people were the only cultural group not represented with an embassy.

According to Aboriginal activist and scholar Gary Foley, the absence of an Aboriginal embassy in Canberra was a blatant indication Aboriginal people were treated like aliens in their own land.

Initially, the protesters were making a stand about land rights following the then prime minister William McMahon's speech that dismissed any hope for Aboriginal land rights and reasserted the government's position on the policy of assimilation. The Tent Embassy was therefore a public display of our disapproval of and objection to the policies and practices of the government.

In later years, it has become an acclaimed site of our continued resistance to the continuity of colonial rule.

Demands of protesters

Police who were patrolling the area at the time of the Tent Embassy's erection asked the protesters what they were doing outside Parliament House. They said they were protesting and would do so until the government granted land rights to Aboriginal people. The police were said to have responded, " That could be forever ".

As it turned out, it was not illegal to camp on the lawns of Parliament House, so the police could not remove them.

Later, on February 6 1972, the members of the Tent Embassy issued their list of demands to the government. The demands were clearly about our rights as Aboriginal people to our homelands, regardless of the fact cities were now built on the land or mining companies were interested in the bounties within.

Compensation was called for in the instances where the lands was not able to be returned. There were also demands for the protection of our sacred sites.

While the McMahon government cared little about negotiating with the protesters, the leader of the Opposition, Gough Whitlam, visited the Tent Embassy and publicly proclaimed a promise of Aboriginal land rights under a future Labor government.

There was widespread support for the Tent Embassy from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and allies across the continent, and indeed the world.

Media attention also grew as it became obvious the Tent Embassy and protesters were not going to move on. Other Aboriginal activists joined the embassy, including Foley, Isabel Coe, John Newfong, Chicka Dixon, Gordon Briscoe and many others.

Forced removal and revival

The government was not too keen on being reminded Aboriginal people were demanding rights, so it amended the Trespass on Commonwealth Lands Ordinance to make it illegal to camp on the lawn of Parliament House. This gave the police the authority to remove the protesters.

The ordinance was but a few hours old when police attempted to forcibly remove the embassy. They did so to the roar of the crowd chanting "land rights now". A violent confrontation with police ensued.

On September 12 1972, the ACT Supreme Court ruled against the use of the trespass laws, and the Tent Embassy was temporarily re-erected before being removed again the following morning.

Then, at the end of 1972, the Coalition government led by McMahon lost the federal election to Labor. Whitlam was able to keep his promise in part - he did give the land title deeds to the Gurindji people. This was captured in the historical photo by Merv Bishop of Whitlam pouring a fistful of dirt into Vincent Lingiari's hand.

While this iconic image has become a demonstration of what might be possible, the work of the embassy is not yet done. Land rights across the continent have yet to be fully achieved.

The Tent Embassy was re-established the following year and remained until activist Charles Perkins negotiated its removal pending the enactment of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act in 1976.

In the ensuing years, it occupied several other sites around Canberra, including the site of the current Parliament House. In 1992, it returned to its original site on the lawn of Old Parliament House to mark the 20th anniversary of the original protest.

Eleven years later, much of the Tent Embassy was destroyed by fire in a suspected case of arson. The police once again attempted to remove protesters from the site under orders from federal government's National Capital Authority.

An enduring symbol of protest

Today, the Tent Embassy remains on the lawns of Old Parliament House as a reminder of the successive failures of subsequent governments to address the demands for justice represented by the embassy and its people.

As Foley reflects in his history of the embassy:

That it has endured for [five] decades as a potent symbol rejecting the hypocrisy, deceit and duplicity by successive Australian governments is a testament to the refusal of large numbers of Aboriginal people to concede defeat in a 200-year struggle for justice.

Nowhere else in the world have we seen such longevity around a site of protest. The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is an impressive achievement that demonstrates the tenacity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and our continued fight for the reclamation of our lands and sovereign rights as First Nations peoples.
Bronwyn Carlson, Professor, Indigenous Studies and Director of The Centre for Global Indigenous Futures, Macquarie University and Lynda-June Coe, PhD Candidate, Macquarie University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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What Is the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and How Did It Come To Be?

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Filed to: Australian history Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people. Often people think about the Aboriginal Tent Embassy as something historic, dating back to the 1970s. But it should also be thought of as a site of the longest protest for Indigenous land rights, sovereignty and self-determination in the world.

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians have been fighting to keep their traditional lands since European colonisation. During the 1960s and 1970s campaigns for land rights began to get national attention.

There were two especially important land rights cases that took place in the Northern Territory. The first began in 1966 when 200 Gurindji stockmen, domestic workers and their families walked off Wave Hill Station. The Gurindji were protesting against low wages and the loss of their traditional lands; their protest lasted for seven years. In the second case, the Northern Territory Supreme Court decided in 1972 not to grant the Yolŋu people, an Aboriginal group in Arnhem Land, the land rights they had argued for. Instead a mining company was allowed to mine on the Yolŋu's traditional lands.

In response to the growing demands for land rights, Prime Minister William McMahon's government announced a new land rights policy in 1972. Under this policy, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups could apply for 50-year land leases, but they wouldn't be given independent ownership of their traditional lands. This angered many Aboriginal groups.

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Aboriginal Tent Embassy established | Australia's Defining Moments Digital Classroom | National Museum of Australia

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On 26 January 1972 four Aboriginal men set up a beach umbrella on the lawns opposite (Old) Parliament House in Canberra. Describing the umbrella as the Aboriginal Embassy, the men were protesting about the Australian Government's land rights policies.

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Derrick Palmer, in pink, and Christian Smalls, right, celebrate after getting the voting results to unionize at JFK8. They spearheaded the push for the first union at an Amazon warehouse in the United States. Credit... DeSean McClinton-Holland for The New York Times

The company's crackdown on a worker protest in New York backfired and led to a historic labor victory.

Derrick Palmer, in pink, and Christian Smalls, right, celebrate after getting the voting results to unionize at JFK8. They spearheaded the push for the first union at an Amazon warehouse in the United States. Credit... DeSean McClinton-Holland for The New York Times

In the first dark days of the pandemic, as an Amazon worker named Christian Smalls planned a small, panicked walkout over safety conditions at the retailer's only fulfillment center in New York City, the company quietly mobilized.

Amazon formed a reaction team involving 10 departments, including its Global Intelligence Program, a security group staffed by many military veterans. The company named an "incident commander" and relied on a "Protest Response Playbook" and "Labor Activity Playbook" to ward off "business disruptions," according to newly released court documents.

In the end, there were more executives - including 11 vice presidents - who were alerted about the protest than workers who attended it. Amazon's chief counsel, describing Mr. Smalls as "not smart, or articulate," in an email mistakenly sent to more than 1,000 people, recommended making him "the face" of efforts to organize workers. The company fired Mr. Smalls, saying he had violated quarantine rules by attending the walkout.

In dismissing and smearing him, the company relied on the hardball tactics that had driven its dominance of the market. But on Friday, he won the first successful unionization effort at any Amazon warehouse in the United States, one of the most significant labor victories in a generation. The company's response to his tiny initial protest may haunt it for years to come.

Mr. Smalls and his best friend from the warehouse, Derrick Palmer, had set their sights on unionizing after he was forced out. Along with a growing band of colleagues - and no affiliation with a national labor organization - the two men spent the past 11 months going up against Amazon, whose 1.1 million workers in the United States make it the country's second-largest private employer.

At the bus stop outside the warehouse, a site on Staten Island known as JFK8, they built bonfires to warm colleagues waiting before dawn to go home. They made TikTok videos to reach workers across the city. Mr. Palmer brought homemade baked ziti to the site; others toted empanadas and West African rice dishes to appeal to immigrant workers. They set up signs saying "Free Weed and Food."

The union spent $120,000 overall, raised through GoFundMe, according to Mr. Smalls. "We started this with nothing, with two tables, two chairs and a tent," he recalled. Amazon spent more than $4.3 million just on anti-union consultants nationwide last year, according to federal filings.

The unionization vote reflects an era of rising worker power. In recent months, a string of Starbucks stores have voted to organize as well. But JFK8, with 8,000 workers, is one of Amazon's signature warehouses, its most important pipeline to its most important market.

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Amazon has fought unionization for years, considering it a dire threat to its business model. Its ability to speed packages to consumers is built on a vast chain of manual labor that is monitored down to the second. No one knows what will happen if the newly organized workers tryto change that model or disrupt operations - or if their union is replicated among the more than 1,000 Amazon fulfillment centers and other facilities across the country.

For all their David-versus-Goliath disadvantages, the Staten Island organizers had the cultural moment on their side. They were buoyed by a tightened labor market, a reckoning over what employers owe their workers and a National Labor Relations Board emboldened under President Biden, which made a key decision in their favor. The homegrown, low-budget push by their independent Amazon Labor Union outperformed traditional labor organizers who failed at unionizing Amazon from the outside, most recently in Bessemer, Ala.

"I think it's going to shake up the labor movement and flip the orthodoxy on its head," said Justine Medina, a box packer and union organizer at JFK8 who had waited with an exuberant crowd in Brooklyn to hear the vote results.

The future of American unionizing efforts "can't be about people coming in from the outside with an organizing plan that people have to follow," said Sara Nelson, head of the flight attendants' union, in an interview. "It has to come from within the workplace."

Now, both the nascent JFK8 union and Amazon face pressing questions. The union, with no traditional infrastructure, experience or leadership, is likely to face a legal battle over the vote and challenging contract negotiations. The company, which did not respond to a request for comment for this article, will have to decide whether to reconsider some of its tactics and address the underlying labor dissatisfaction that handed it such a sweeping defeat.

"Amazon wanted to make me the face of the whole unionizing efforts against them," Mr. Smalls wrote in a tweet on Friday, appearing undaunted by the task ahead. "Welp there you go!"

When Amazon opened the sprawling JFK8 site in 2018, the company was both drawn to and wary of New York, America's most important consumer market. The established Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union announced a bold goal: to turn JFK8 into the first organized Amazon warehouse in the country.

Soon Amazon withdrew from its highly touted plan to open a second headquarters in the city, as a backlash grew over public subsidies it would receive and its history of opposing unions. But the talk of organizing JFK8 went nowhere. In labor circles, many believed that Amazon's turnover was too high, and its tactics too combative, for a union to succeed.

When the first coronavirus cases were confirmed at JFK8 in March 2020, Mr. Palmer and Mr. Smalls confronted managers with safety concerns. Employees were increasingly worried about rising infection rates and felt that Amazon was not notifying them about cases in a timely manner, managers documented in newly released court records.

But Amazon refusedto pause operations, saying it had taken "extreme measures" to keep workers safe. The pandemic had turned JFK8 into a lifeline for the city, where 24/7 shifts and a fleet of trucks delivered supplies as it went into lockdown.

As Amazon moved to fire Mr. Smalls that March, two human resource employees at JFK8 doubted the wisdom of his dismissal. "Come on," one messaged. Mr. Smalls was outside, peaceful and social-distancing, she wrote. His firing, she predicted, would be "perceived as retaliation." But the termination proceeded.

After the firing, the chief counsel's smear against Mr. Smalls - a full apology came only later - and the dismissal of another protester, the two friends resolved to take action. Mr. Smalls was outspoken, Mr. Palmer deliberate. They were both Black men from New Jersey and the same age (31 then, 33 now). Both had dropped out of community college, prided themselves on high scores on Amazon's performance metrics and once hoped to rise within the company.

Now they made new plans. Mr. Palmer would keep working at JFK8, the better to change it from inside.

In early 2021, they took a road trip to another Amazon warehouse. When workers held a union drive in Bessemer, Ala., Mr. Palmer and Mr. Smalls wanted to witness it. But they found organizers from the retail union - the one that had previously declared an interest in JFK8 - less than welcoming to them and thought the professionals seemed like outsiders who had descended on the community.

By April, workers in Bessemer had rejected the union by more than a 2-to-1 margin. Mr. Palmer and Mr. Smalls declared their intention to organize JFK8, but few took them seriously. Why should they win when better-funded, more experienced operatives had been beaten?

As they set about their first task - gathering thousands of worker signatures to trigger a unionization vote - cracks in Amazon's employment model were evident.

JFK8 had offered jobs to workers laid off by other industries during the pandemic. But a New York Times investigation last June revealed that the warehouse was burning through employees, firing others because of communication and technology errors and mistakenly depriving workers of benefits.

Black associates at JFK8 were almost 50 percent more likely to be fired than their white peers, according to an internal document. Even before the pandemic upended work, Amazon warehouses had an astonishing turnover rate of 150 percent.

As Mr. Palmer and Mr. Smalls approached workers at the bus stop, Amazon's tone toward its employees kept shifting. Jeff Bezos, the company's founder, was handing over the role of chief executive to Andy Jassy, and the company raised wages and added the goal of being "Earth's best employer" to its guiding principles. It pledged to listen to complaints and improve working conditions.

At other times, it was contentious. In a widely publicized Twitter exchange about the Bessemer organizing, Amazon sounded so dismissive about workers who could not take bathroom breaks and had to urinate in bottles that it had to apologize.

In May at JFK8, an anti-union consultant called the mostly Black labor organizers "thugs," according to a complaint filed against Amazon by the N.L.R.B. The retailer denied the episode.

And in November, the labor agency said Amazon had showed "flagrant disregard" for the law and threw out the results of the Bessemer warehouse vote, ordering another.

That fall, after months of gathering support, the New York union organizers delivered more than 2,000 signatures to the labor board, but they were rejected for not meeting the minimum required to hold an election. Mr. Smalls said Amazon had submitted payroll data to the board indicating that the company believed half the people who had signed cards no longer worked at the warehouse.

"After all those months of hard work, it seemed like the momentum was gone," Mr. Palmer recalled in an interview. Between working his shifts and organizing at JFK8 on his time off, he had spent barely a day away from the warehouse for months. Some of the employees he approached were skeptical of unions or dues, or just grateful for Amazon's health care and pay, which starts above $18 an hour at JFK8. Others seemed too exhausted and wary to even engage.

To press onward, the union leaders posted the TikTok videos, made outdoor s'mores and sang along to hip-hop and Marvin Gaye. When workers faced family crises, the budding union prayed.One fired employee became homeless, and the group set up a fund-raising campaign.

Their near-constant presence at the warehouse helped. "The more comfortable they get with us, that's when they start opening up to us," Mr. Palmer said of other workers.

Some union sympathizers took jobs at JFK8 specifically to help the organizing effort, according to Ms. Medina, who was among them.

Amazon countered with the full force of its anti-union apparatus. It monitored organizers' social media, court filings show, pelted workers with text messages and blanketed the warehouse with signs saying "Vote NO" or claiming the union leaders were outsiders. The company often held more than 20 mandatory meetings with workers a day, The Times reported last month, in which managers and consultants cast doubt on the effort.

"The Amazon Labor Union has never negotiated a contract," one presentation said. Dues would be expensive, it continued, and the union "has no experience managing this massive amount of money."

Andro Perez, 35, works at a smaller Amazon warehouse near JFK8, where another union vote is scheduled this month. He's leaning toward voting yes, he said, because Amazon's mandatory meetings mostly criticized unions. He would rather his employer address the question: "What could you do better?"

The organizers at JFK8 fought back,filing dozens of complaints with the N.L.R.B. claiming that Amazon violated workers' rights to organize. Amazon has denied their allegations, but the labor board found manyto be credible and pursued them in administrative court.

By Christmas, the organizers scored a major legal win. Amazon agreed to a nationwide settlement, among the largest in the agency's history, that said workers could stay in the buildings to organize when they were off the clock.

With that, the organizers moved their potlucks indoors, giving them more access and legitimacy. Mr. Smalls's aunt provided home-cooked soul food: macaroni and cheese, candied yams, collard greens and baked chicken.

"What you do is you create a community that Amazon never really had for workers," said Seth Goldstein, a lawyer who represented the organizers free of charge.

One day this February, Mr. Smalls was bringing lunch to the break room when Amazon called the police, saying he had trespassed. He and two current employees were arrested. The response may have backfired: The union's videos of the episode on TikTok have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

Kathleen Lejuez, 41, employed by Amazon for nine years, said she was not a "union fan" but voted for the organizing effort to send a message to a company that she felt had lost its connection to workers. "The humanity at Amazon is gone," she said in an interview.

In the weeks before the count, Amazon, which has consistently said its workers are best served by a direct relationship with the company, laid the groundwork for potential challenges to the election - arguing in legal filings that the labor board had abandoned "the neutrality of their office" in favor of the union.

On Friday morning inside the agency's offices in Brooklyn, Mr. Smalls, in siren-red streetwear, sat next to Amazon's lawyer to review each ballot. His knee jittered as each vote was presented.

The votes were tallied - 2,654 for the union, 2,131 against. With a comfortable margin secured, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Smalls and other representatives emerged into the spring light, screamed with joy and clasped one another in a tight circle.

A few miles away, at JFK8, workers were stealthily monitoring the results in between packing and stowing boxes. There was no formal announcement. Instead, a shout rose up from somewhere on the floor: "We did it! We won!"

Grace Ashford and Noam Scheiber contributed reporting.

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The company's crackdown on a worker protest in New York backfired and led to a historic labor victory. Derrick Palmer, in pink, and Christian Smalls, right, celebrate after getting the voting results to unionize at JFK8. They spearheaded the push for the first union at an Amazon warehouse in the United States.

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Australia's economy has been in terrible shape for years.

It was disease ridden long before the pandemic.

That might sound strange, given our economy famously grew for nearly 29 uninterrupted years before last year's recession.

But let's think about the economy differently.

Rather than thinking of the economy in terms of economic output (gross domestic product), let's think about the treatment of millions of Australians who have been living inside the economy.

The point to be emphasised: If we want to rebuild a healthier economy on the other side of this pandemic, we'll have to learn to treat each other as human.

And we'll need to understand why the phrase "dole bludger" was introduced to Australia.

When we shift from one system to another, our language shifts

Let's unpack how we got here.

Roughly speaking, Australia's economy has run on two different growth models in the past 75 years.

From 1946 to 1975, under the first growth model, policymakers ran a policy of "full employment".

During that period, the Commonwealth Employment Service helped workers who wanted a job to find a job, and the people who worked there took seriously the task of matching workers with good jobs that matched their skills.

The system had its problems (and genuine inequities) because it was built on a male breadwinner model, but it kept the official unemployment rate exceptionally low.

For 25 years, the unemployment rate averaged below 2 per cent.

However, through the 1970s, as that system broke down, policymakers began to shift the economy to a new growth model.

Under the new model, cemented in the 1980s, policymakers deliberately allowed a much higher level of unemployment.

That higher level of unemployment was used as a policy tool to suppress wages and inflation.

It's the system we're still living with.

It has coincided with the significant growth of wealth and income inequality in Australia since the 1980s, and in other countries using a similar model.

The unemployed were demonised

But check this.

In the early 1970s, when the old model began to disintegrate, systemic problems in the global economy caused unemployment rates to shoot up in multiple countries, including in Australia.

Australia's unemployment rate jumped sharply higher in the early 1970s as major developed economies suffered "stagflation"; rising inflation and rising unemployment.(Source: Reserve Bank of Australia, "The Evolution of Employment and Unemployment in Australia," Jerome Fahrer and Alexandra Heath, Research Discussion Paper 9215, December 1992. )

Long-term unemployment became a serious problem too.

It led to the emergence of a new phenomenon called "unemployment scarring".

The term referred to the financial, educational, material, psychological, and ill-health "scars" left on individuals (and their families) who endured long-term unemployment.

Long-term unemployment increased in Australia in the 1970s, leading to a new phenomenon called "unemployment scarring".(Source: Reserve Bank of Australia, "The Evolution of Employment and Unemployment in Australia," Jerome Fahrer and Alexandra Heath, Research Discussion Paper 9215, December 1992. )

But, as the level and length of unemployment increased dramatically in the 1970s, the rhetoric from politicians changed with it.

From the early 1970s, Australian voters began to hear of "dole bludgers".

The first person to use the phrase was Liberal MP Bert Kelly, who was a pioneer of bringing "New Right" political ideas to Australia.

But it was Clyde Cameron, the minister for labour in Gough Whitlam's Labor government (1972-1975), who really promoted it.

According to historian Verity Archer, the phrase "dole bludger" served a crucial ideological purpose.

By recasting welfare recipients as parasites upon "ordinary Australian" taxpayers, it reset the parameters of economic debate in Australia along neoliberal lines, she said.

Unemployment is the fault of workers?

That change in language helped to corrode our view of the welfare system.

During the "full employment" years, highunemployment was seen as a failure of the economy and government to create enough work for everybody, due to inadequateaggregate demand.

But from the mid-1970s, high unemployment was recast as the fault of workers for being too lazy, or of government "intervention" in the form of overly generous income support and minimum wages.

Now, have another look at those graphs above.

Notice how unemployment rose steeply from the mid-70s. Remember it was a global phenomenon.

Was there a global outbreak in laziness?

And once policymakers started using an unemployment rate of 5 per cent as a deliberate policy tool, from the 1980s, how could everyone be expected to find a job?

There haven't been enough jobs to go around, by design.

Has that been the fault of the unemployed?

The media bears responsibility

Here's one final thing.

At the moment, we're seeing a rise in complaints from employers about "labour shortages".

The number of job advertisements is at a record high and some employers say they are struggling to find suitable workers.

But have you noticed the language being used?

Apparently workers are too picky. Unemployment benefits are too high.

The debate is still occurring within the rhetorical parameters of neoliberalism set in the 1970s.

In 1976, the Labor MP Ralph Willis bemoaned the rise of unemployment bashing in Australia, saying it was coming from people suffering "dole bludger syndrome".

And he was particularly scathing of the way the media reported the issue.

Here are some excerpts of a speech he gave in federal parliament, from the opposition benches:

Let me make it clear at the outset that the opposition does not support or encourage the process of people ripping off the government by way of making false claims for unemployment benefit or claiming it whilst they are working or doing all in their power to avoid work of any kind while living off unemployment benefit.

But having said that, I want to make it just as clear that we deplore and deprecate this government's acceptance and encouragement of what we might term the 'dole bludger syndrome'.

In opposition, and now in government, the Liberal Party and the National Country Party have totally accepted the veracity of allegations of large-scale attempts by unemployment benefit claimants to defraud the government - allegations that have been screeched from the headlines of the press generally, and the Murdoch press in particular.

He decried the way the manufactured hysteria had gathered steam.

When he mentions the "modest member of parliament", he's referring to a regular column in the Australian Financial Review written by none other than Liberal MP Bert Kelly:

During 1973 and into 1974 the employment market tightened, vacancies became higher than the number of registered unemployed and labour shortages began to develop.

Employers began to complain about labour shortages, and newspapers began to pick up their complaints. Accusations that the unemployed were too choosy and were now content to live on unemployment benefit became prevalent.

Typical of the gathering hysteria was the comment by the 'modest member of parliament' writing in the Australian Financial Review in August 1973, that as things were now, the ordinary citizen 'pays extra taxes as bludgers sit on their tails scratching themselves, being paid by mugs like me for doing nothing'. I accept his description of himself in that statement.

The campaign of denigration continued and became an issue in the 1974 election, with the opposition alleging the existence of vast numbers of dole cheats. All this was perhaps understandable in the circumstances of full employment that prevailed until mid-1974, but that it should have continued as unemployment mushroomed in the latter part of that year and into 1975 is incredible.

It therefore says much for the power of the press that its build-up had been such that at the 1975 election one of the important issues of the campaign was the supposed existence of droves of so-called dole bludgers, despite the fact that there were at that time, 185,000 people on unemployment benefit but only 28,000 registered job vacancies.

He then described the woeful role the media had played in the creation of the "dole bludger" narrative:

One of the most scurrilous episodes in this process of beating up stories on dole cheats was the treatment by the press of a Department of Social Security survey released in September 1975, which showed that, in one area, of 14,462 unemployment benefit recipients who were investigated, 30 per cent were found to be ineligible for benefits.

This attracted press headlines such as 'Dole cheats' cheques stopped' and 'The great dole rip-off'.

However, as the then-minister for social security, Senator Wheeldon, said in his press statement when releasing this survey, the number of people found to be not entitled to the benefit did not mean that people were cheating. Most of these cases occurred because of administrative problems.

Such factors accounted for 3,753 of the 4,451 people found to be ineligible.

Furthermore, the then-minister made it clear that the area surveyed was one where a relatively high number of persons not entitled to benefit was expected to be found, so no conclusions about the national average could be drawn from that survey.

The treatment of that survey by the press, particularly the Murdoch press, was utterly disgraceful. Mostly the press ignored all the qualifications in Senator Wheeldon's press release and completely misled the people as to what the survey showed.

When the then-minister explained it fully in answer to a question in the Senate on 9 October last year, the Murdoch press printed not one word of his answer.

This brief outline of the development of the dole bludger syndrome describes a shameful episode in our history.

To sell newspapers or to gain political advantage people in a position to influence members of the public have played on their fears that they as hard workers and substantial taxpayers were being sponged on by lazy ne'er-do-wells or scheming cheats.

The accusers never let themselves be dissuaded by the lack of proof of their allegations; nor did they pay any heed to the damage and suffering that their actions caused to the unemployed.

Mr Willis made those complaints 45 years ago.

We've been bludgeoning dole recipients with a neoliberal cane for a very long time.

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The phrase 'dole bludger' emerged in the 1970s, and it's still serving its political purpose

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Australia's economy has been in terrible shape for years. It was disease ridden long before the pandemic. That might sound strange, given our economy famously grew for nearly 29 uninterrupted years before last year's recession. But let's think about the economy differently.

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OPINION: All-white juries are a symptom of structural racism

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Zachary Rolfe was acquitted of the murder of Kumanjayi Walker by a jury with no First Nations people. This case is the latest example of a system with entrenched inequalities, writes Hannah McGlade.

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Mum dedicated her life to protecting others. In Australia’s aged care system, she received no such sanctuary | Aged care | The Guardian

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Mum dedicated her life to protecting others. In Australia’s aged care system, she received no such sanctuary

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My mother picked a particularly inhumane epoch in Australian politics to get sick. When it comes to aged care, something has to give

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ne year ago, on the night Poland introduced one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe, the phone started ringing at the country's most high-profile family planning organisation. Over the course of the evening, volunteers took calls from more than 20 panicked women who suddenly found their next-day appointments for abortions cancelled.

One of the calls was from hospital staff at a loss over what to do about a woman who broke down after being told that her termination would not go ahead."She went into a frenzy, got into the hospital lift and was going up and down, up and down, without stopping for an hour," says Krystyna Kacpura, director of the Federation for Women and Family Planning (Federa).

Staff at Federa were used to helping women navigate a hostile healthcare system in which legal terminations were already virtually impossible. But the new legislation put in place an almost total abortion ban in everything but name, allowing women to terminate only if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest, or if it represented a threat to life or health. At the time the legislation was brought in, about 1,000 legal abortions were carried out in Poland every year, 98% because of foetal abnormalities. This option was now closed to women. It was, says Kamila Ferenc, a lawyer for Federa, a devastating blow.

Since its announcement, at least 34,000 women in Poland have managed to get abortions despite the ban, and hundreds travelled abroad for later abortions, facilitated by groups such as Abortion Support Network and Women on Web.

But now the women calling Federa for help are often inserious distress, many further into their pregnancy because they have discovered a problem at a second-trimester scan. Pregnancies are more likely to have been planned. "In the past, it was rare for us to receive calls from individuals in this state. This last year, it has been 80% of our work," says Ferenc in Federa's Warsaw office. "Every call is very emotional."

In the past year staff and volunteers at Federa, like many other women working as advisers, lawyers and activists in the pro-choice movement, have faced death threats, intimidation and legal challenges. Many have said they are exhausted by their increasing workload as they struggle to help women trying to access safe abortions.

Ferenc says she is not afraid of the people who send bomb threats to her office or superimpose bullet holes on pictures of her face. "I'm more scared that one day prosecutors will launch an investigation against us," she says. In the past, few Poles faced trial on abortion-related charges.The state largely turned a blind eye to illegal abortion services, with pages towards the back of newspapers filled with euphemistic adverts for private clinics offering "restoration of the menstrual cycle". That changed when the new law came in.

A member of pro-choice group Abortion Dream Teambecame the first Polish abortion activist to face the prospect of trial in September, after a man notified the police that his wife ordered abortion pills online. The case is ongoing.

Ferenc believes the latest changes did not fully appease the ruling Law and Justice party's (PiS) religious base. "Before, abortion was not a topic, no one wanted to talk about it. Now the anti-abortion groups on whose support PiS is relying are demanding blood."

Marta Lempart - who isfighting 86 court cases under various charges - heads the pro-choice Polish Women's Strike movement and says the new laws have targeted the women most at need of healthcare and support.

"Polish women with unwanted pregnancies are now in a better situation than those with wanted pregnancies but who are facing complications, because there is a working system completely outside of public healthcare for the former. But the healthcare system does not provide a service to the latter at all."

A further attempt to ban abortion completely and jail women who had terminations for life was rejected by the Sejm, the lower chamber of the Polish parliament, but the government has since announced it would begin compiling a database of all pregnancies across the country, a move defended as a digitisation of existing documentation but which women's rights groups believe is another natalist policy designed to control women's lives and a sign that worse is to come.

I called one woman straight after she left the hospital. She was in an awful state, it's hard to say what she would have done if we hadn't reached her

Krystyna Kacpura

Meanwhile, an underfunded and overstretched Polish healthcare system, accused of failing to provide women with reproductive care, is emboldened by the new laws. "Women are falsely told by doctors that contraceptive pills give them cancer, or that an IUD is dangerous for those who haven't had children yet," says Ferenc. She has begun advising women to record their conversations with doctors. One woman said that doctors treating her breast cancer repeatedly told her the illness was caused by an abortion she had months earlier.

But Kacpura and others believe the legislation may also have had a chilling effect on doctors who are terrified of navigating the new law. She says, before the 2021 ruling, doctors would rarely contact her, but in the past year she has been answering their calls day and night. "No one [in authority] explained to the doctors what they should do," she says. Sometimes, doctors call to pass on the numbers of patients they were not able to legally help. "I called one woman straight after she left the hospital. She was in an awful state, it's hard to say what she would have done if we hadn't reached her."

Agata Bzdyń, a lawyer who represents a number of women who have taken their abortion refusals to the European court of human rights, points to reports that Bielański hospital in Warsaw, which she says "has a reputation for still providing abortions", has been under pressure from the government to hand over documents on the number of terminations approved. Bielański did not respond to a request for comment.

Beyond the government, Roman Catholic lay groups continue to exert pressure for an outright abortion ban. The group Ordo Iuris (Order of Law)was one of the mobilising forces behind a citizen's bill in favour of a total abortion ban, a move that was rejected by parliament but precipitated the ruling. Since 2016, the organisation has acted as official adviser to the PiS government in areas of reproductive rights and education. The organisation recently announced that it will provide legal representation to a man who is suing his wife for having an abortion, which Ordo Iuris argues violated the man's right to family life.

The most shocking case of the past 12 months is that of a woman called Izabela, who died in November of septic shock while in her 22nd week of pregnancy. Doctors at the hospital in Pszczyna, in south-west Poland, did not perform an abortion, even though her foetus would not survive, according to a lawyer for the family. "For now, because of the abortion law, they can't do anything," Izabela texted to her mother shortly before she died. An investigation found "medical malpractice" led to Izabela's death and the hospital was fined . She is survived by a husband and daughter.

Kacpura said she knows of several cases in the past year where the woman's waters broke prematurely, as Izabela's did, but doctors refused to perform a caesarean or induce birth. "A nightmare, because the foetus cannot survive but the heartbeat can continue for days, sometimes weeks, and the woman has to wonder whether she has already become a coffin."

Bartłomiej Wróblewski, a leading PiS parliamentary force behind the change in the law, said: "It is not true that this law puts women's lives in danger, because nobody challenged existing provision of Polish law to rescue endangered life and health of the mother, even when it leads to the death of their unborn child." Echoing other governmental and anti-abortion voices, he stressed that in his eyes there was no connection between Izabela's death and the new abortion restrictions, instead putting the blame on doctors.

But Izabela's death horrified the country and sparked fresh protests. It may have proved a turning point. Several polls have found the majority of people in the country oppose the 21 January ruling.

Even those who are not pro-choice resent what they see as the Roman Catholic church overstepping the mark by creating political pressure for a ban, says Aleks Szczerbiak, professor of politics at Sussex University. "About 40% of people in Poland still attend weekly mass, but that is not to suggest they are happy for the church to have more control of their lives," says Szczerbiak. He believes the change in law may have shifted perceptions of the issue in Polish politics.

Ferenc echoes this. "We thought there was no political chance to change [the law around abortion]. The paradox is that it has changed for the worse, but that means we have a chance to liberalise the law too," she says.

A pro-choice citizen's bill calling for abortion to be made fully available is gaining momentum. "We had an older gentleman come in whose wife told him to print the form from the internet and he got his friends to sign it, and then he came to deliver his 10 signatures," says Lempart from her office on Wiejska Street, a few doors down from the Polish parliament. "Before, initiatives to collect signatures were mostly organised by groups and political parties. Now, I'd say 60% is just individuals collecting signatures."

Organisers say the citizen's bill has reached the 100,000 signatures needed for official recognition and more signatures are coming in every day.
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Death threats and phone calls: the women answering cries for help one year on from Poland's abortion ban

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ne year ago, on the night Poland introduced one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe, the phone started ringing at the country's most high-profile family planning organisation. Over the course of the evening, volunteers took calls from more than 20 panicked women who suddenly found their next-day appointments for abortions cancelled.

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Anti-abortion activists are suing to block a new law allowing the procedure, and many doctors in conservative areas have declared themselves conscientious objectors.

Abortion opponents outside the National Congress in Buenos Aires in December. Credit... Sarah Pabst for The New York Times

BUENOS AIRES - For the first time in more than a century, women in Argentina can legally get an abortion, but that landmark shift in law may do them little good at hospitals like the one in northern Jujuy Province where all but one obstetrician have a simple response: No.

Abortion opponents are reeling after a measure legalizing the procedure was signed into law in December, but they have hardly given up. They have filed lawsuits arguing that the new law is unconstitutional. And they have made sure doctors know that they can refuse to terminate pregnancies, a message that is being embraced by many in rural areas.

"The law is already a reality, but that doesn't mean we have to stay still," said Dr. Gloria Abán, a general practitioner and abortion opponent who travels the remote Calchaquí Valleys of Salta Province to see patients. "We must be proactive."

In neighboring Jujuy, 29 of the 30 obstetricians at the Hector Quintana Maternity and Children's hospital have declared themselves conscientious objectors, as the law allows. So have all but a handful of the 120 gynecologists in the province, said Dr. Rubén Véliz, head of the obstetrics department at Hector Quintana.

"We're really standing in the eye of the hurricane," he said.

Argentina's abortion law represented a big shift for reproductive rights in Latin America, which has among the strictest such laws in the world, galvanizing movements to expand access to safe abortion in Colombia, Mexico and Chile.

But even officials in President Alberto Fernández's administration, which introduced the bill, acknowledge that hard work remains to ensure that women are able to gain access to the procedure. "Activists will have to play a key role," Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta, Argentina's minister of women, gender and diversity, said in an interview.

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Supporters of abortion rights celebrating in Buenos Aires as Argentina became the largest nation in Latin America to legalize abortion. Credit... Sarah Pabst for The New York Times

The law, which went into effect on Jan. 24, allows pregnancies to be terminated in the first 14 weeks. Before then, abortion, which was outlawed when Argentina adopted its first criminal code in 1886, was legal only in cases of rape or if the pregnancy posed a threat to the mother's health.

In recent days, anti-abortion activists - who battled unsuccessfully as lawmakers debated the measure - have turned to the courts, filing lawsuits in at least 10 provinces seeking to have the new law declared unconstitutional.

They won an early skirmish in the northern province of Chaco, where a judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law from taking effect late last month. But abortion rights activists expect to prevail in the courts.

"It was expected that some sectors would make the decision to go to judges to try to block the law," said Vilma Ibarra, the president's legal secretary, who wrote the abortion bill and played a key role in its passage.

It is also expected, she said, that one of the cases will make it to the Supreme Court, and it will uphold the law: "We have no doubt."

But the courts are not the biggest hurdle.

The law faces widespread opposition among doctors in rural areas, particularly in northern provinces where Catholic and evangelical churches have considerable influence.

"In my hospital, around 90 percent of health care professionals are conscientious objectors," said Dr. Mirta Gisela Reynaga, a gynecologistin Tucumán province who is an anti-abortion activist.

Abortion rights activists say that officials at the federal and state level have been slow to draw up plans to put the new law into effect, especially in conservative areas. That, they say, has given their opponents the upper hand.

"Those who are against this law are much quicker than the ministry, and they're pressuring people to sign up as conscientious objectors," said Dr. Cecilia Ousset, a gynecologist in Tucumán, a conservative province known for restrictive policies on terminating pregnancies.

An exam room at a health center that advises women on reproductive issues and performs abortions in Buenos Aires. Credit... Victor R. Caivano/Associated Press

Dr. Ousset became embroiled in Argentina's abortion wars in 2019 after helping an 11-year-old girl who was raped but was denied an abortion. The baby was delivered in a C-section but died shortly thereafter. The case inflamed passions across the country.

Officials say the opposition by doctors will have limited impact because the vast majority of abortions within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy are carried out with pills and do not require a medical procedure. Even when a procedure is needed, they said, there will be ways to work around roadblocks.

"The practice is guaranteed, because if a certain hospital does not have professionals who are not conscientious objectors we will transfer the patient," said Dr. Claudia Castro, who leads the women's health department in the maternity and infancy division of Jujuy's Health Ministry.

In rural areas, though, it may be difficult for women to ask for help in the first place.

María Laura Lerma, a psychologist in the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a remote mountain valley in Jujuy, said doctors often tried to scare pregnant women off abortion. Health care workers, she said, "will often tell young women her fetus will become an elf."

"It's one of many popular beliefs that are in the collective imagination," said Ms. Lerma, who belongs to an abortion rights coalition of health care providers.

Recently, Ms. Lerma said, a woman in her early 20s came to see her and said she was terrified about the prospect of having an abortion because a gynecologist had told her it would cause cancer.

As they work to improve access to abortion in rural areas, activists are also seeking to expunge the criminal records of hundreds of women who were charged with crimes related to abortion in recent years. The Center for Legal and Social Studies, a human rights group that campaigned in favor of legalizing abortion, said that from 2012 to 2020, there were more than 1,500 prosecutions directly related to abortion and 37 for "obstetric events," which typically refers to miscarriages.

The first category may be easier to handle. Since abortion is now allowed, any pending cases may be thrown out, though "this won't be so automatic," said Diego Morales, a lawyer with the legal center.

Michell, a granddaughter of Rosalía Reyes, who was sentenced to eight years in prison after she miscarried. Credit... Magali Druscovich/Reuters

Activists want to ensure that even cases that did not lead to convictions are expunged.

"Convictions are very low, but the criminal process operates as punishment due to the stigma," said Soledad Deza, a lawyer in Tucumán who has represented many women accused of having abortions.

The bigger challenge are charges involving so-called obstetric events, filed after women report late-term miscarriages or stillbirths. Some prosecutors have treated such cases as murders.

Victoria Tesoriero, a senior official at the Interior Ministry, said this was part of a strategy by the "misogynistic" judicial system to "hide the situation" that women were effectively being prosecuted for miscarriages.

Natalia Saralegui Ferrante, a law professor at the University of Buenos Aires, was the co-author of a book published last year that brought to light how common such prosecutions had become. Sometimes, she said, the women said they had not even known they were pregnant - "but nobody believed them."

"There should be a presumption of innocence in our judicial system," Ms. Saralegui Ferrante said, "but in these cases it was the other way around, there was a presumption of culpability."

One woman, Rosalía Reyes,was placed under house arrest after being sentenced to eight years. She says she suffered a miscarriage when she was seven months pregnant.

Judges declared it murder.

As a mother of four, the judges reasoned, Ms. Reyes should have known how to cut the umbilical cord, even though she lost so much blood she fainted, said her lawyer, Fabiana Vannini.

Ms. Vannini hopes she may now have a way to reopen the case. The new law, she argues, does more than just legalize abortion.

"It also changes the paradigm of what is a woman, and who has control over her body, her uterus," the lawyer said.

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Abortion Is Now Legal in Argentina, but Opponents Are Making It Hard to Get

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Anti-abortion activists are suing to block a new law allowing the procedure, and many doctors in conservative areas have declared themselves conscientious objectors. BUENOS AIRES - For the first time in more than a century, women in Argentina can legally get an abortion, but that landmark shift in law may do them little good at hospitals like the one in northern Jujuy Province where all but one obstetrician have a simple response: No.

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reddy McConnell takes out his phone and shows me a film of his baby snoring contentedly. Jack is gorgeous, with blond hair, blue eyes and heavy eyelids, and McConnell is the classic doting dad - albeit more hands-on than most. It's many months since he gave birth to Jack, an experience he describes as life-changing. He has also made an intimate and moving film about that experience, from the decision to have a baby, through pregnancy and the delivery. Everything is documented in close-up, including Jack's arrival in a hospital birthing pool.

You might expect McConnell to be an extrovert; an exhibitionist, even. In fact, the Guardian multimedia journalist is reserved and private in a rather old-fashioned, stiff-upper-lip English way. So why on earth would he want to expose himself like this?

McConnell admits the whole thing is counterintuitive - that he, too, cannot think of a person less likely to put his private life on screen. But, he says, he also felt a responsibility to tell his story. He talks about how sensationalised film and TV documentaries about trans people have tended to be, and how the subjects have invariably felt betrayed. "Production companies will say, 'It's going to be called something sensitive' and it ends up being called something like Trapped Bodies Get Sliced Up!" So McConnell decided to assemble his own team, and then hand over creative control to the director Jeanie Finlay. The result is Seahorse (so called because the male carries the young), a tender - and rather wonderful - documentary about love, family, breakups, fallouts, raging hormones and the complexities of identity.

McConnell lives in a seaside town in the south of England, close to where he grew up. He says he felt safer here when he was pregnant than he would have in London. "People looked out for me. It's small. I'd never have felt comfortable being pregnant at work."

He's right: the town is small. Within two minutes of walking into the centre we chance upon McConnell's father, a local shop owner. Like his son, he is well-spoken with a military bearing. His father doesn't appear in the film; their relationship was one of the fallouts from the pregnancy. Initially, he couldn't comprehend why Freddy had fought so hard to become a man, and was now doing the very thing that appeared to define womanhood - having a baby.

Today, it's very different. The exchange between the two is warm and loving. His father asks how Jack is, they hug and make babysitting plans. Of course things are different now, McConnell says: his father is no longer struggling with a philosophical concept - he simply has a grandson to love. What makes the film so human is that McConnell struggles himself with what he is doing, and asks himself the same question, about why he wants to carry his baby. The answer isn't simple. Nor is the process he goes through to make it happen.

McConnell, 32, started taking testosterone at 25 and had "top surgery" to remove breast tissue a year later. He considered a hysterectomy, but never went through with it - partly because he had not ruled out the possibility of having children. In the film, we see how discombobulated McConnell becomes when he stops taking testosterone as he tries to conceive, using a sperm donor, and his body, in effect, goes into reverse. He starts having periods again ("I don't like the idea that I've got tampons in my bag," he winces); his facial hair gets wispier, his hips broaden, his tummy softens and he starts to speak less from his chest and more from his throat. "Every time I think about it, I think, 'What the fuck am I doing?'" he says. At one point, a tearful McConnell sobs into the camera in the middle of the night: "I feel like a fucking alien."

Throughout, he is encouraged by his mother, Esme, who tells him: "I loved being pregnant. Everybody should experience it - especially men." McConnell tells me she used to say this to him when he was a child, long before she had any idea that her son was trans. On screen, his mother supports him with a mixture of tender loving care and the odd no-nonsense kick up the arse. Occasionally, when he's feeling sorry for himself, she loses patience: "Why are you making such a fuss? It's what you wanted." Then she relents. "But, actually, it's not as simple as that. It's such a brave and amazing thing to do. I'm in awe of him, basically."

It's a ferociously windy day, and we head towards the cafe on the pier overlooking the North Sea and the Channel. McConnell orders pancakes and bacon with maple syrup, and tells me the thing he most wants the film to do is normalise trans people. "It sounds wishy-washy, but I thought it could be a good opportunity to spread empathy. I think empathy is key in convincing people that trans people are actually quite normal, and live lives that are not sensational or scary."

Freddy McConnell with his son. 'I needed to figure out exactly who I was before I had a kid.' Photograph: Manuel Vázquez/The Guardian

Is there much convincing that needs to be done? "Yes, definitely. Particularly at the moment, with the rise in transphobia. It just so happened that the time I was trying to conceive and carry coincided with the rise of anti-trans rhetoric around reform of the Gender Recognition Act." The UK's Gender Recognition Act 2004 allowed people to legally change gender with a gender recognition certificate. Last year, the government opened a public consultation on proposed changes to the act that would allow trans people to self-identify (bringing the UK into line with countries such as Denmark and Ireland). This would mean that a person no longer has to undergo an arduous and expensive process of presenting evidence to an anonymous gender recognition panel; they would simply sign a statutory declaration, akin to an oath. Some opponents of the proposed changes have argued this would increase the chances of men pretending to transition in order to access "women-only" spaces, such as prisons or refuges. Conversely, trans equality campaigners point to the fact that, while emotive, there is little evidence for this risk; service providers have argued that longstanding safeguarding measures are in place to keep all vulnerable women safe. The consultation period ended in October, and the government has yet to make an announcement on what happens next.

In the same month, the government published figures showing that, over the past 12 months, anti-trans hate crimes had risen by almost a third (from 1,248 in 2017, to 1,651 in 2018). McConnell believes much of the antipathy has been fuelled by unlikely bedfellows - the "alt-right" and some feminists, who argue that biology is destiny and therefore trans women are not really women and trans men are not really men. "Many of these people haven't met a trans person, and the monstering and caricaturing is not based on reality," McConnell says. "Not everyone gets a chance to meet a trans person - but that is often what changes everything for someone who can't get their head around it. So I thought this film could be in lieu of meeting somebody - you could spend an hour and a half with me."

What drove him to put himself through so much, physically and emotionally? "I've always loved kids. Before I transitioned, I considered becoming pregnant - because I'd been told transitioning would make me infertile." But he decided it was irresponsible to have a baby then; if he was unhappy and confused, how could he give a baby the love it needed? "I thought, 'I need to transition for my own mental health, so to become a parent now would not be a good idea.' I needed to figure out exactly who I was before I had a kid."

I think empathy is key in convincing people that trans people are actually quite normal

He recalls signing the consent form to start testosterone and being told it would leave him infertile. "It was like saying, 'Yes, I accept I will never have my own children' which seems really unfair now I know the truth. Trans men are still not being given the right information about their options, including how to carry their own children safely. We're told we can't, and it's assumed we don't want to." Before transitioning, McConnell was told if he wanted children he should consider freezing his eggs and surrogacy. But such a route is expensive, complicated and the chances of success are small.

McConnell discovered there were trans men in America who were having babies, and spoke to his doctor about becoming pregnant. Even then, he was still battling with the idea. He worried that he might be ridiculed or attacked; that people would think he was transitioning into a woman; that as a man carrying a baby he was having his cake and eating it.

"I went back and forth for ages. But for me, having that genetic link is something I felt I needed to have. It took me so long to feel OK about wanting kids, because there's a stigma attached to it," he says. "It took me a long time to separate identity from biology. I'm just using my hardware to do a thing. It's pragmatic."

There are no definitive figures when it comes to how many transgender men have given birth worldwide, or in Britain. While it is still rare, it is not quite as rare as is sometimes claimed. In 2017, the Sun hailed Hayden Cross as "Britain's first pregnant man". When Scott Parker got in touch to say that he had given birth a few months earlier, the paper awarded him the honour and relegated Cross to second place. In an interview with the Guardian last year, Jason Barker, who gave birth to a son eight years ago, quipped that in Britain alone "there have been about six 'first pregnant men'". According to figures compiled by Medicare for Australia, one of the few national surveys, 75 people who identified as male gave birth naturally or via C-section there in 2016, and 40 in 2017.

McConnell while pregnant. His mother used to tell him "I loved being pregnant. Everybody should experience it - especially men." Photograph: Jeanie Finlay

I ask McConnell why it was so important for him to carry his own child and he replies with a question of his own: why does anybody want a child? "Straight people don't get asked, 'Why didn't you adopt? Why was it so important to be genetic parents?' So why do gay and trans people get asked that?" He says it has taken him a long time to separate being trans from what his body looks like. "It is not something that I can choose, or leave behind, or change. It's not something predicated on my physical state. It's a thing, it's part of me. So if I'm pregnant, it doesn't change me being trans."

In the film, we see McConnell and his mother reminiscing over photographs of him as a child - tomboyish, blunt-fringed, energetic. "When I look back at stuff like that, I see a little boy," McConnell says now. The pictures brought back unhappy memories, he says, particularly the photographs taken during puberty and his teenage years. "All I can see is somebody who is so uncomfortable in their skin."

'I look forward to sharing everything with my son. I'm going to be totally open at every stage.' Photograph: Manuel Vázquez/The Guardian

He was a bright child. In another scene, he looks through an old school report that reads, "McConnell is a very able pupil. She is clearly highly opinionated" and says: "It's really weird being confronted by my old name." But we never discover what the name was. Is that deliberate? "Yes, definitely, because it's such a trope of trans storytelling. This is my story of starting a family - so what on earth has my old name got to do with it?" At moments like these, McConnell is a funny mix of old-fashioned courtesy, diffident restraint and pugnacious certainty.

Was he ever happy as a child? He looks surprised at the question. Yes, of course, he says - he was lucky to have an understanding family, and has many good memories. "I would play make-believe with my friends at primary school. We had really intense imaginary worlds that we would disappear into." He describes how he and a friend created a fictional male crime-fighting duo. "His dad made us business cards with our names on." What were those names? He blushes. "I don't think I could deal with having the exact details in print for ever! But they were very happy memories."

Throughout his childhood, McConnell experienced gender dysphoria - though he couldn't put a name to it back then. Can he describe how it felt? "I once heard it described as a cosmic toothache, which is quite apt. And I'd felt it ever since the age of three or four. I was a very anxious child, maybe partly because of the trans-ness, maybe something else."

Did he speak to people about feeling he was in the wrong body? "I talked about it very rarely, but quickly realised as a young child it wasn't an OK thing to talk about." Why? "Because people don't like it when little kids use terms like 'sex change', and they tell you to shut up." Who? "Kids at school. I'm not sure I ever spoke to my parents about it. But I would speak to friends. I was bullied and teased for being too boyish. My mum knew I struggled with being seen as a girl, and she just told me it would be OK eventually - that I'd grow out of it, and I believed her."

But McConnell never did, and the older he became, the more intense the dysphoria. He became obsessed with the 70s and gender-fluid rock stars such as David Bowie and Brian Eno, convincing himself he had been born in the wrong era. McConnell smiles. "But I was obviously looking in the wrong place."

Testosterone and my transition changed everything and made life not just livable, but enjoyable

One day he decided he'd had enough of being picked on and fought back. "This guy was 14, 15, and he was calling me names, and we walked past a minibus that had a back door open. I slammed the door and it smacked him in the head." McConnell was shocked at his reaction then, and he still sounds shocked today. "I instantly regretted it, because it fed into this narrative of me being this weird, manly..." He trails off.

He went on to study Arabic at Edinburgh University, and then fancied toughing it out as a war correspondent. But he meandered and moped through his early 20s - almost joining the prestigious Sandhurst military school (he had been in the cadets at school and was a good shot), travelling in the US, Yemen and Afghanistan, where he combined teaching with skateboarding, rock climbing and journalism. He was followed everywhere by that cosmic toothache. "I hated my early 20s. I just didn't know what was going on. I don't think it's possible to explain what gender dysphoria is like to somebody who doesn't feel it. All I know is testosterone and my transition changed everything and made life not just livable, but enjoyable. The self-questioning, second-guessing quietened down. It didn't go totally, because that's just part of who I am. But the gender dysphoria disappeared."

ore than anything, Seahorse is a love story - or a series of love stories. There is McConnell and his son, McConnell and his mother, and McConnell and CJ. At the beginning of the film, CJ and McConnell are living together as best friends and partners. CJ is non-binary and uses the gender-neutral pronoun "they". "My partner and I both have ovaries," McConnell explains to the camera. We see the two of them sitting on the sofa with their laptops, looking at sperm donor sites. "This is like our version of having sex," laughs McConnell. "Talking about having a child together, and the ideal donor."

"It's very satisfying," CJ says.

"Then we have a cigarette afterwards." They laugh.

But halfway through the film, CJ decides not to parent a child with McConnell. "CJ's told me they're not involved any more," a devastated McConnell tells the camera. The idea of being a solo parent is a different prospect, and initially he is full of doubt: what is he doing to his body, is it safe, is he capable of bringing up a child alone? Meanwhile, the withdrawal of testosterone is playing havoc with his hormones. In a moment of glorious bathos, McConnell tells the camera, Garbo-like, that he wants to be left alone. He laughs when I remind him of this now, all the tears and drama. "I felt so bad for my mum. She had to put up with me."

We walk from the beach to fetch Jack from nursery. McConnell cuddles his son, checks that everything has gone well this morning (he has only recently returned to part-time work), and hooks the baby into his carrier. We walk to their home - a leaky, 200-year-old, two-bed Georgian terrace McConnell bought from his great-aunt.

On the way there, he tells me how content he is. "I'm more settled, confident, happier than I've ever been. Some of that has to do with transition, and some has to do with getting older and understanding myself better."

Men's bellies sit very similarly to the way pregnant bellies sit. People read gender in less than a second

He talks about how lucky he was throughout his pregnancy, the support he received from family, friends and NHS staff. Did he get any abuse from strangers? "No, because I carried quite small the whole way through. It was a huge relief." Rather than looking like a pregnant man, he says, he just looked like a fat one. "My mum noticed that men's bellies sit very similarly to the way pregnant bellies sit. So nobody's going to think you're pregnant. People read gender in less than a second - so if I had a beard, it would not matter what the rest of my body looked like, they would read me as male."

After the horrors of the pregnancy, McConnell says, the actual labour was wondrous. "All through the pregnancy I thought, 'Please don't ever allow me to do this again.' But my birth experience was extremely positive. It was just incredibly..." His emotions get the better of him, and he starts again. "There is a strong case to be made for it being the peak human experience, if it goes well. I cannot imagine ever experiencing anything as incredible or as transcendent as that."

Yes, he says, of course he worried about the birth being filmed, but that soon faded. "It was a big room and it was dark, so I was able to ignore the camera, and the director respected my boundaries. But now I'm so glad it's captured." Not least for Jack. "I look forward to sharing everything with him. I'm going to be totally open at every stage - whatever is age-appropriate."

Does he want more children? McConnell smiles. "I would love to have more children, but I'd also love to not have to carry them, necessarily. Though I haven't ruled it out." So he has ruled out lower surgery for the time being? "Erm, yeah. Yeah." He squirms at the question. Too personal? "Ruled out seems strong."

His living room is dominated by a huge play area for Jack. Nautical paintings by McConnell's great-grandfather Charles McConnell, one of two brothers who started a successful tobacco company, hang on the wall. Next to the door is a large photo of a gorgeous, blond, blue-eyed baby, a carbon copy of Jack. "That's me," McConnell says. "Look, you can see the same heavy eyelids!"

He is anxious about how Seahorse will be received, but glad to have made the film. He feels he has done his duty. "I kept saying, 'Why don't we hear more from trans men?' And then I thought, you've got to put your money where your mouth is." What does he want people to get from the film? "I'd like people to feel they can relate to whatever bit of the story echoes with their own experience. Hopefully people will come away thinking they've seen something relatable, a universal story about love and family and wanting to have kids."

As for McConnell, a part of him would like to put the film out, retreat to the margins and live the rest of his life in peaceful obscurity. But a bigger part of him feels his mission has only just begun.

Seahorse, made in association with the Guardian, debuts at the Tribeca film festival on 27 April. It will screen on the BBC Storyville strand later this year.

If you would like a comment on this piece to be considered for inclusion on Weekend magazine's letters page in print, please email weekend@theguardian.com, including your name and address (not for publication).

Some personal details were amended on May 9 2019.

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The dad who gave birth: 'Being pregnant doesn't change me being a trans man'

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reddy McConnell takes out his phone and shows me a film of his baby snoring contentedly. Jack is gorgeous, with blond hair, blue eyes and heavy eyelids, and McConnell is the classic doting dad - albeit more hands-on than most. It's many months since he gave birth to Jack, an experience he describes as life-changing.

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Violence against women is normalised in our societies to such an extent that it is almost invisible, like the air we breathe. Neither the perpetrators nor the systems that permit and breed violence against women are put on the stand. Inevitably, the blame falls on the women, who have been beaten, raped and/or murdered because they were "asking for it", by being in the "wrong place" at the "wrong time," with the "wrong person" or for wearing the "wrong clothes."

This is true for all women. However, when it comes to violence against indigenous women, the level of impunity is higher. Available data shows that indigenous women and girls are more likely to suffer from gender-based violence compared to non-indigenous women and girls, including those with disabilities. It is clear that, in the case of indigenous women, their racial/ethnic identities not only make them easier targets of violence but also provide the perpetrators a ground for rationalising their violent acts.

It is important to ask why and how indigenous women's intersectional identities of being "women" and being "indigenous" make them more susceptible to violence. To answer this question, we have to go beyond the narratives of the prevalent culture of impunity and the "ineffectiveness of law and order." Many theorists, including Maria Lugones, claim that it has a lot to do with the way the concept of gender was reconfigured due to colonial intervention, and how it changed the region's social relations-a process she identifies as the "coloniality of gender."

To be sure, no one can say exactly what pre-colonial societies were like. We can only gain perspectives from fragments of written and oral histories. These suggest that both in Africa and in our Indian subcontinent, pre-colonial conceptions of gender were complex and fluid, and they were structured differently from European conceptions, which are prevailing in most of the world now.

Let me share an example from the indigenous community I belong to-Chak in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh. One of the elders, who is in her nineties now, once pointed out to me how sexual ethics in her youth were far different from the ones we practice today in our Chak community. She told me a love story about a young couple who could not get married because their parents did not get along. So the woman married another man who was selected by her parents. The surprising part of the story for me was that the woman was visibly pregnant with a child from her previous lover during the time of her marriage. I asked the elder, "And everyone was okay with it?" She replied, "Everyone, including the parents of the boy who was marrying her, knew about the romantic relationship, and becoming pregnant is a common consequence of making love." Lowering her voice, she went on to say, "But these things are seen as immoral now. When a woman or girl becomes pregnant before marriage, she and her family get a bad name."

This incident tells us that, in our Chak community, women did not use to be named and shamed for the act of pre-marital sex and pregnancy in a not-very-distant past (approximately in the 1950s). But now, not only is the woman condemned for such acts but their families are also socially humiliated. The other observation from the aforementioned case is that neither the woman nor the man was criticised for pre-marital sex and pregnancy, whereas now, the blame and shame of such acts fall solely on the shoulders of the women. It means that, from the 1950s to 1980s and onwards, not only did the ethics related to sex and marriage change drastically, but the position of women in the Chak community has been further subordinated. So, what happened during this time to cause such a shift?

Perhaps another story can help us understand what happened. My mother (anno) remembers, in the late 1970s, the Chak leaders who had travelled outside the community and been exposed to dominant Bengali culture had declared that wearing short na-phings-the traditional handwoven mini-skirt-length garb of Chak women-was "shameful," and so was bathing "naked" in the river. They also explained that times were changing and to protect themselves from outsiders (Bengalis), the Chak women should wear longer na-phings. Gradually, younger women in the community doubled the length of their na-phings to adhere to the newly founded "modest" behaviours for Chak women. It would be relevant to remember that this was the time when the Bangladeshi nation heavy-handedly asserted nationalist agendas in the Chittagong Hill Tracts through extensive securitisation and state-sanctioned population transfer from the plains to the hills. It was a population which had different ideas and expectations of gender, negotiated by different religious and colonial experiences.

This encounter of two peoples thus brought about intimate violence to almost every aspect of how indigenous women go about their lives. My mother's story is only one small example, out of thousands, of how cultures and gender norms of indigenous communities were reshaped by outside influences. Ideas of modesty and gendered roles have also changed and a gradual subjugation of women's position in the name of modesty could be observed. This way, indigenous women became the subject of surveillance and moral policing based on the changed concept of "modesty."

As this concept permeated into our communities, indigenous women are now having to deal with violence against themselves, inflicted both by indigenous men and by non-indigenous men. It also entails their dehumanisation by Bengali males and females.

This is what coloniality of gender does to our cultures, our psyches and our bodies. We, the indigenous women, inflict violence on ourselves by continuously trying to fit into the foreign and "appropriate" ethnical and gendered roles, responsibilities and behaviours. And those to whom we are subjects of subjugation (men from the same community, men and women from the more dominant communities including Bengali, and traditional and/or state-sanctioned justice systems) continue to violate us by pointing out how we fail to fit these standard roles.

To be clear, there is no way of claiming that pre-colonial societies were non-patriarchal, but the patriarchies and masculinities we experience within our indigenous cultures now are the direct results of colonisation(s).

I am not asking to go back to a glorious past. We cannot, because the past is always constructed against the present we live in. Locating roots of violence against indigenous women in colonial legacies does not mean looking for solutions from or reviving pre-colonial socio-cultural settings, or romanticising the pre-colonial time. Rather it is about understanding how colonisation(s) occurred in our contexts, how coloniality of power and coloniality of gender are still at work, and how they shape and dictate our minds and bodies through socio-cultural and legal institutions. Only with an understanding of how the larger dominant social order is, will we be able to challenge hegemony and liberate the subjugated from oppression.

Now, who are the oppressed? In fact, everyone is, including Bengali females. Even males (both Bengali and indigenous) who seemingly enjoy greater power over women do so because society expects and allows them. They can also behave differently if we can imagine our society differently.

Thus, locating the roots of gender-based violence to colonial reconfiguration of gender allows us to understand that our (indigenous female and males, and even Bengalis in general) struggles are connected. Decolonisation is not about merely being free from visible control of the British empire, or Pakistani rule, or Bengali hegemony (in the case of indigenous women in Bangladesh). It is about unpacking how the oppressive systems came into being in post-colonial countries. The visible control can be fought against, but the value systems they leave behind are harder to battle since they are invisible. That is what we should all work together to combat, and that is where we should strive to build our resistance against non-hegemonic/non-binary and respectful relations by reimagining our relationships. And also by keeping in mind that decolonisation is "a long-term process involving the bureaucratic, linguistic and psychological divesting of colonial power," as Maori intellectual Linda Tuhiwai Smith stated in her 2010 book, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples.
Uchacha-A Chak is a researcher, activist, and a member of Lokayoto Bidyaloy.

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Indigenous Women and the Coloniality of Gender

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Violence against women is normalised in our societies to such an extent that it is almost invisible, like the air we breathe. Neither the perpetrators nor the systems that permit and breed violence against women are put on the stand.