Prison Labor: Slavery un the US constitution

YOUR JOBS WENT TO PRISON WITH 2.3m AMERICANS http://justicegagged.blogspot.com/2012/07/your-jobs-went-to-prison-with-23m.html

"Good Enuff," the poem below, is one of my 21st century slave songs. It was first published in MaryLovesJustice blog at this link  http://marylovesjustice.blogspot.com/2011/04/good-enuff-by-mary-neal.html . Most ex-offenders are not considered good enough to work for the government or major corporations. Yet, a million inmates work up to 72 hours a week on jobs that were removed from "free" workers. People who champion "tough on crime" bills and candidates do not seem to recognize that prison labor projects are competing for labor contracts. They actually advertise for companies to use Americans behind bars rather than sending work overseas while plenty of cheap labor is available in the USA through prison work projects. Re Georgia Prison Labor Strike, I wrote the following poem. The Georgia prisoners' labor strike lasted from Dec. 9-15, 2010. The strike was largely censored in mainstream news although it was an Internet sensation. Therefore, a day before the strike started, eleven hundred of my tweets for human rights for prisoners were unpublished at Twitter. They were reinstated months later, after people stopped browsing online as much for "human rights for prisoners." I am America's most censored writer to continue the cover-up re the secret arrest and murder of my mentally, physically disabled brother and my family's victimization for daring to ask the USDOJ for records and accountability for his death. See the poem "Good Enuff" below. After the Georgia prisoners' labor strike, around 36 inmates were reportedly "missing." Some were badly brutalized. The nonviolent protest was met with violence and solitary confinement.

GOOD ENUFF

I work for the U.S. Government

Worked five years for the state

Now I make military uniforms

Sho miss my good friend, Jake

His idea sounded real fine to me

Worker strike for human rights

Most of us agreed to stay in our cells

Got real cold in there at night

They turned off the heat ya know

And no food came at all

Guards said “Freeze Nigga or go to work!

Oughta hang you by yo balls”

But all of us stuck together

Thousands of black men, Latinos and whites

Put aside all our rivalry

Gonna make ‘em treat us right

We expected opposition

But nothin’ like what went down

Guards went crazy beatin’ on folks

And Jake, he can’t be found

I tried to get on with the government

Back before I started gettin’ high

They said there was a hiring freeze

And now I sho see why

I applied with the State, too

But didn’t nothin’ came of that

I guess I just wasn’t good enuff

‘Til they caught me with that crack

Finally got me a government job

Problem is, I don’t get no pay

A big company got my first five years

After laying off a thousand in one day

Our labor strike changed nothin’ ‘round here

Still can’t afford phone calls

Now they expect plenty mo black workers

Heard they outlawing menthol*

We had high hopes for the labor strike

But things didn’t turn out great

All day I work ‘til my back is sore

All night I worry ‘bout Jake

(Published 4/4/11 by Mary Neal - all rights reserved)

http://marylovesjustice.blogspot.com/2011/04/good-enuff-by-mary-neal.html

*The NAACP requested the U.S. Congress to outlaw menthol cigarettes, the kind that 85% of black smokers use. That would be a discriminatory law targeting blacks like powder v. crack cocaine, and it is disgusting that prison investors got the NAACP to suggest it.

Mary Neal, director of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill and the Human Rights for Prisoners March Across the Internet. Blessings!

-- 
Mary Neal's Google Profile - http://www.google.com/profiles/MaryLovesJustice - Follow me at Twitter @koffietime - http://twitter.com/koffietime - Current, urgent justice issues from a laywoman's viewpoint at my primary blog http://FreeSpeakBlog.blogspot.com (the name is a joke, believe me).  See also http://MaryLovesJustice.blogspot.com and DogJusticeforMentallyIll http://DogJusticeforMentallyIll.blogspot.com JusticeGagged http://JusticeGagged.blogspot.com Davis/MacPhailTruthCommittee http://DMTruth.blogspot.comMary Neal at HubPages http://MaryNeal.hubpages.com .Recommended articles - http://topsy.com/site/freespeakblog.blogspot.com - Address:  MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com (I am censored, but some emails reach my box) Try to phone me at 678.531.0262, however, none of us really has free speech, so they may prevent your call.

Marvin X on Wall Street Part 2 WBAI Interview

Video by Travion Cotton, RIP.

Travion Cotton was videographer for Marvin X's 2007 east coast book tour

Travion Cotton served as videographer for Marvin X's 2007 East Coast
book tour, accompanied the poet from Philly to Boston. RIP

Memorial for Travion Lamar Cotton, 30 years old

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Eastside Arts Alliance presents

BLACK MUSIC

Reflections on Jazz Today

Saturday, July 28, 2012 • 8:00 pm - $15

Jazz/ Poetry with AMIRI BARAKA & REGGIE WORKMAN

(Accompanied by Muziki Roberson, piano)

Sunday, July 29 • 6:00 pm - free

A Community Conversation with AMIRI BARAKA & REGGIE WORKMAN on

The State of Black Jazz Today

 (Dinner plates will be available for sale)

At The EastSide Cultural Center

2277 International Blvd., Oakland, CA  94606

510-533-6629   eastsideculturalcenter@gmail.com

www.eastsideartsalliance.org

Also check out– ESAA presents Final Friday Film Screening – Friday, June 27

Triumph of the Underdog – classic film on Charles Mingus – FREE – 7:00pm

Oakland, CA - Eastside Arts Alliance (ESAA) presents a landmark event bringing together two iconic artists - AMIRI BARAKA, the venerable poet and longtime jazz critic, is widely considered the Father of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, author of the classic book on Black music – Blues People, and is on the Advisory Board of ESAA and REGGIE WORKMAN, master bassist and music professor, is often associated with John Coltrane, playing on his most celebrated live sessions. He was a founder of the Collective of Black Artists (CBA), organizing Black musicians in the 60s & 70s.

This event is a part of an ongoing project of EastSide Arts Alliance exploring the history and future of jazz. We are focusing here on past organizing efforts of both Baraka and Workman – their work leading the Black Arts Movement and the Collective of Black Artists.  Using this history as a foundation for exploring where the future of jazz is now – especially for Black folks participation in it. (See more below on this work.)

On SATURDAY, JULY 28 we will present a concert featuring poetry by Amiri Baraka and Reggie Workman on bass with accompaniment by Oakland’s own Muziki Roberson on keys. The following evening, SUNDAY, JULY 29 we invite the Bay Area jazz community to join Baraka and Workman in a conversation on the state of Black jazz today.  Our hope is to be able to draw out and support the seeds of a movement of artists and community organizers committed to ensuring that the Black history of jazz is passed on to the next generation and that most importantly that next generation of Black artists and audience members continue play a lead role in the development of the music.

About Eastside Arts Alliance and The Black Jazz Project:

Jazz is American classical music and perhaps America’s greatest contribution to contemporary world culture, but may be on the verge of extinction from its very source, the African American community. While now widely regarded as a universal art form with international contributions and interpretations, it is a product of the African American experience and cultural history. The steady erosion of Black jazz musicians, Black audiences, venues, circuits, depositories, students and schools signals a significant generational change in the nation’s culture and threatens to erase the memory and consciousness of our very history.  We are currently engaged in a critically important and timely project that serves to address the implications of this change by organizing a national gathering of conscious musicians, educators, jazz critics, journalists and various presenters and cultural organizations who are committed to sustain or revive the Afro American roots of the music. We are initiating and sustaining a dialogue that begins in Oakland but expands nationally that ultimately becomes an organized pro-active network and circuit to advocate for the expansion and development of jazz, particularly in urban African American communities, but also reviving a semi-rural route throughout the Black Belt South.

EastSide Arts Alliance (ESAA) is a collective of artists and community organizers of color who live and work in the San Antonio district of East Oakland.  Founded in 1999, our mission is to unite art with activism to work for community empowerment and cultural development, and to build bridges between the disenfranchised, racially and ethnically divided communities that reside in our immediate neighborhood and in the broader East Bay. The founding members of EastSide Arts Alliance have been working in the San Antonio /Fruitvale neighborhoods for over 20 years.

In 2006 ESAA closed escrow on our new and permanent home – The EastSide Cultural Center, located on International Blvd at 23^rd Avenue in the heart of the San Antonio district. The center includes a 150-seat multi-use theater space, sound and visual arts studios, 16 units of affordable rental housing and storefront spaces for community-based non-profits.

Eastside Arts Alliance programs include free after-school arts workshops for youth ages 14-22 (music, dance, theater, visual arts and leadership development), public arts projects, performances, festivals, town hall forums and exhibitions. Our success has been in our longevity and our continued growth in this diverse working-class community.

Elena Serrano

EastSide Cultural Center

2277 International Blvd.

Oakland, CA  94606

510-533-6629

www.eastsideartsalliance.org

mailing address:

PO Box 17008

Oakland, CA  9460

Obama Drama Coming to Oakland, Vote for me, I'll Set You Free

Marvin,

The President will be visiting Oakland on July 23.  I am inviting you to attend either one of two events that are presently scheduled.  This will be an opportunity for you, family and friends to see and hear the President as he enters the final stages of the campaign.  As you know the President is in a tough fight and he needs all the support that can get both financially as well as campaign workers.  I am encouraging you to contribute at a level that is most comfortable.    Northern California campaign workers made a strong request for the President to come to Oakland/East Bay for the people in this area have been amongst his strongest supporters.  However, given the tightness of the campaign, he needs your support more than ever.  Hopefully you can attend and encourage others to do as well.  Here is the link to make your donation.

The Piedmont link is for a small dinner event at the home of Wayne Jordan and Quinn Delaney.  This event is  limited to a maximum of 45  guests.  Of course, photos with the President will be available.  The Oakland event will be held at the Fox Theatre and it  has different price points.  Photographs will cost $7,500 for one and  $10,000 for more than one person, Premier seats will be $1000 , General Admission  will be $250. If you are interested in either event you should commit sooner than later.  If you don’t want to sign up on line, I will get you a contribution form as soon as they become available. 

Dinner: https://my.barackobama.com/July23Piedmont?custom1=321212

Reception: https://my.barackobama.com/July23OaklandReception?custom1=321212

For any questions please do not hesitate to contact me either by my email or cell (510 928 5392).

John Burris

OVT NorCal  Regional Co -Chair

Malik Sulaiman on Mali Dialogue, toward Ma'at

This discussion between these Brothers is saddening, yet, it is a discussion

that we should have, without personal attacks on each other. The issue here 

is not only the destruction of Afrikan Islamic Heritage in Mali, but the attack

on this Heritage from White Arabs and Black Afrikans. There is a extreme 

Fundamentalist school of Islam called Wahhabi/ Salafi that has roots in Arabia, 

and attack Afrikan Culture as "Un-Islamic." 

There is an extreme Afrikan School 

of thought that sees Islamic Culture as 
Un-Afrikan. Then there is a another school of thought called Sufi that embraces 
Islamic and Afrikan Culture, and it is this School that built Sankore University,
and Malian Civilization.The Wahhabi/Salafi promote Arab Imperialism, not Islam! 
The extreme Afrikan school promotes a "more Black/Afrikan than thou" Pan 
Afrikanism that is more exclusive than inclusive of our people, think about 
the millions of our people who accept Islam, Hebrew, or Christianity, 
which all have Afrikan Roots. 


May we achieve Balance!