democracy

Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex: Activism, Arts, and Educational Alternatives

gwen — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

As a feminist concerned with social justice, in the past year or so I’ve become convinced that dismantling the prison-industrial complex should be a top priority amongst feminists.

This anthology, Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex, edited by Stephen John Hartnett, argues as much, stressing that this very goal “should be at the head of a new human rights agenda for the twenty-first century.” In making this argument, the anthology is comprised of two sections of essays: “Diagnosing the Crisis” and “Practical Solutions, Visionary Alternatives.” The anthology further incorporates artwork and poetry by those who know the dehumanization and injustice of the system firsthand – those incarcerated – in an attempt to “remind readers that the prison-industrial complex does not house monsters but humans.”

The first section addresses how the United States of America has become a “punishing democracy.” That is, a democracy that spends more on prisons than on public education and spends more on punishment than on rehabilitation. In “Diagnosing the Crisis,” the authors note how we became a country with countless prisons and a swelling prison population. Several authors cite the “war on drugs” as a historical policy shift, one which paved the way for zero-tolerance policies which heavily affect – and actually target – communities comprised of poor and working class people of color.

Other essays in this section address how the defunding of public education and social programs works to benefit the prison-industrial complex. I especially appreciated Rose Braz’s and Myesha Williams’ essay “Diagnosing the Schools-to-Prisons Pipeline: Maximum Security, Minimum Learning,” which clarifies how the term high school “dropout” is misleading. They suggest replacing it with “pushout” – a term that more accurately conveys how the current public education system (due to issues of defunding and racism) betrays students of color from at-risk communities and practically ensures their entry into the criminal justice system.

The second half of Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex offers hope and ideas for change through activism and the arts. Essays underscore the need for educational opportunities in prisons, as university professors take it upon themselves to offer college-level courses, GED preparation courses, and college entry exam courses to inmates. Several essays also demonstrate the empowering effects of offering creative workshops and classes to inmates.

These essays detail the hard work, tribulations, and results of providing playwriting workshops in prisons as well as enlisting inmates to stage Shakespearean plays. Such activism provides opportunities for inmates to reclaim their humanity and their voices, as well as provides communities a glimpse into the prison-industrial complex and the people caught up in the system.

The inmates’ artwork and poetry are powerful additions to this anthology. As with any academic text related to social justice, there is the possibility of elevating so-called experts’ thoughts and voices on an issue while simultaneously silencing or absenting the voices of the very people affected the most. Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex seeks to create a balance between the two, in which voices of those both inside and outside the system work in tandem to convey a greater realization of what is happening in our schools, in our communities, and in our prisons.

Ultimately, the conversation surrounding dismantling the prison-industrial complex needs to be happening outside the walls of academia. This is an issue that relates to racism, classism, immigration reform, youth, budget spending, the militarization of our police forces, racist and inaccurate media coverage, the privatization of prisons, physical as well as sexual violence within our prisons, and the disenfranchisement of entire communities across the country – just to name a few. Feminists should be taking an active role in this fight. Abolishing the prison-industrial complex should be routinely discussed and debated on feminist blogs and in feminist publications alongside our efforts to end sexual violence and our fight for reproductive rights.

Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex provides a framework for this discussion as well as steps to dismantle the system. We should all heed the authors’ warnings and advice and work together to reimagine a new democracy.

Written by: Kristen Lambert, April 27th 2011

Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America

admin — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

Edited by Jane S. Jaquette

Duke University Press

The feminist experience of women in Latin America is not one that is often written about or discussed. Many discussions about politics in Latin America leave feminism out, as discussions of feminism in general are often limited to the U.S. and Europe. Perhaps it is for this reason that I immediately warmed to Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America, but it was the content and style that kept me reading.

This book is meant to analyze and compare the structure of feminist movements in Latin American countries that have become democratic in recent history. The book is broken down into three sections: Feminism and the State, Legal Strategies and Democratic Institutions, and International and Cross-Border Activism. In these sections, each chapter is written by women with firsthand experience and/or academic expertise in the feminist or women’s movement in a particular country or region. The book begins and ends with a chapter by the book’s editor, Jane Jaquette, who pulls the pieces together to give a sense of the bigger picture.

What I liked most about Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America, particularly when compared to others I’ve read about the topic, is that it’s easy for the reader to tell that the women who wrote each chapter are experts in what they’re writing about. Some of them even slip in firsthand reactions to the events they mention, which gives the reader reassurance that this isn’t just the usual “outside looking in” account of history. For example, when Gioconda Espina discusses the possibility of creating new alliances in Venezuela with other organizations, she is giving a glimpse into her actual experience working with these other groups, which provides a greater level of authenticity.

It was also great to see the focus on what the future might bring. The fact is that this is a very recent history; indeed, a lot of the countries highlighted in this book were in the middle of major changes when the chapters were written, leaving the picture still incomplete. Because of that, it was good to have the writers try to piece the puzzle together.

The book is not perfect, however. I found that the focus on countries with more recent shifts to democracy such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Venezuela made for a narrow view of Latin America. With the vast number of countries, it’s disappointing to only see the book focus on a handful. Brazil and Argentina, for instance, had a chapter dedicated to each country and then another comparing the two, meaning that three out of ten chapters focused only on two countries. It would be interesting to examine the feminist movements in other Latin American countries, particularly those in the Caribbean and Central America.

I can see Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America being used as a text in college courses about global feminism, Latin America, or emerging democracies around the world. It is an academic text at its core and not meant for light beach reading unless you have a particular interest in this subject matter, as I admittedly do. That said, the book was surprisingly easy to read and digest, and not at all the boring academic text I expected.

I would be happy to check out another attempt by Jaquette, perhaps providing a follow-up to the countries she has already covered and expanding to other Latin American countries in flux. I am confident she would provide a volume of work as captivating as this, if not more so.

Written by: frau sally benz, December 19th 2009

Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy: On Being an American Citizen

admin — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:07:00 +0000

By Susan Griffin

Trumpeter Publishers

In this piece, Susan Griffin develops quite a substantial work by elaborating on tenants and beliefs behind "democracy" as a practice; she establishes a readable interpretation of democracy as it stands in today's world. Previously, Griffin presented A Chorus of Stones and What Her Body Thought; this third volume of what Griffin continues to term her "social autobiography" uniquely integrates the story of her life, diary entries of her own bouts and exposures to democratic moments of the past, and current events to create a tightly woven conversation that illuminates ideas of democracy.

Written in this form, Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy provides a fascinating journey of Griffin's life dealing with issues pertinent to democracy. Griffin shines a light on some well-known and some less popular past situations that influenced change in relevant ways. Each chapter delivers a substantial bulk of information, and the words easily flow from one topic to another. At times, points may be repeated to emphasize the importance of a specific public incident, person or personal experience.

Throughout this book, the author inspires the reader with her examples of democratic movement. She offers tastes of her experience and encourages readers to apply this knowledge to their own work with democracy. By the end of the book, the tempo speeds up. Diary citations are shorter and more quickly interspersed with current dilemmas in the American political administration. The question of "what does democracy look like now?" is not answered, but Griffin leaves the reader with a sense of needing to be involved.

With an outstanding bibliography, Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy delivers a powerful punch of emotion and action - rousing us to develop more conversation about and discovery of democracy on our own, like Griffin does.

Written by: Carolyn Espe, June 7th 2008

Elusive Equality: Gender, Citizenship, and the Limits of Democracy in Czechoslovakia, 1918-1950

admin — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 13:07:00 +0000

By Melissa Feinberg

University of Pittsburgh Press

Melissa Feinberg’s must-read new book, Elusive Equality, chronicles in rich and sometimes dramatic detail the fascinating, though frequently distressing, events that marked Czech feminists’ struggle to implement the radical ideas of equality on which the Czechoslovak Republic was founded after the end of World War I. Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of the new Republic, was a much-venerated utopian idealist who had studied John Stuart Mill with his American-born wife-to-be Charlotte Garrigue, whose last name he added to his own when they married. She translated The Subjection of Women into Czech and was a member of the influential Czech Women’s Club that brought together in Prague elite professional women such as educators, medical doctors, actresses and writers. Early Czech women’s groups tended to see Czech men as allies in the fight for political and national rights. Feinberg points out that a female candidate was elected to a provincial assembly even before woman suffrage was achieved in the state: “Czech men voted for a woman at the very time that Britain’s militant suffragettes were being brutalized and imprisoned.” Masaryk himself insisted that any true democracy must be based on recognition of the equality of all individuals.

The celebrated feminist leader Františka Plamínková praised "the old Czech virtues of love and democracy" and resistance to "any oppression." She and her colleagues did not make a distinction between supporting women and supporting democracy. Yet, despite their commitment to the ideal of gender equality, and despite the way that prominent male politicians promoted this idea, true equality of the sexes was never achieved in family law, job protection, or the problem of married women’s citizenship during the time of the Czech Republic. Deep-rooted attitudes to marriage and women’s duties prevailed. As one male reformer remarked, "I would not want...to change the civil code, which assigns a husband certain privileges...which we do not want to destroy."

Numerous Czech women, too, supported the old gender system, finding security in the fixed roles of wives and mothers. In the 1930’s a campaign for legalizing abortion aroused a backlash that seems to this reviewer quite similar to anti-ERA feelings in the United States in the 1970s. Politicians desperately trying to preserve the Czech nation in times of wars and economic crises were actually, concludes Feinberg, “in the process of hollowing out democracy itself.” Not even the sacrifices of Plamínková, executed as a resistance leader under the German occupation in 1942, and Milada Horáková, executed as an anti-Communist fighter in 1950, could preserve “the feminist hope for liberation via democracy.”

Plamínková was memorialized in 1947, but only after the fall of the Communist regime in 1989 was Horáková honored as a martyr to the cause of Czech freedom. Few today remember her work for women’s rights or, indeed, the whole history of the Czech feminist movement. Feinberg’s well-told cautionary tale serves as a reminder to readers and reformers everywhere that liberty for women and men is always in question and in danger.

Written by: Kittye Delle Robbins-Herring, March 17th 2007

Global Sense: Awakening Your Personal Power for Democracy and World Peace (An Update of “Common Sense”)

admin — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 15:02:00 +0000

By Judah Freed

Media Visions Press

Judah Freed has opinions about government that seem inline with progressive thought. The government is corrupt. People in government are too removed from the people – both through the need for security and from a reliance on special interest money over common people’s votes – to be appropriately representative. Representative democracy is flawed from its inception, checks and balances are a pipe dream, and direct democracy is the only hope for liberty.

If this had been all he wrote in Global Sense: Awakening Your Personal Power for Democracy and World Peace, then he might have had a decent book, but he tries to link his thoughts to popular Western political philosophy, primarily Thomas Paine. His one-sentence summaries of the philosophies of these great thinkers are oversimplified, at best, and erroneous, at worst. What’s more, his effort to hold himself as the logical extension of Western political thought merely reveals that his theories to be contradictory, a little shallow and, more importantly, extremely different from those of the men he uses to convince us of his legitimacy.

For example, Freed encourages democracy. Though he uses the word to mean different things, in his critiques of representative democracy (citizens vote for representatives who, in turn, vote for laws) over direct democracy (citizens vote directly for laws). His critiques of representative democracy contain many excerpts of “Common Sense,” which I infer as an argument based on a plea to the authority of Thomas Paine. But Paine does not even use the word “democracy” in “Common Sense,” and based on my own readings of Paine’s writing, I am doubtful he differed that dramatically from the other “founding fathers” in near-universal skepticism of Greek-style democracy and the risks of the tyranny of the majority.

He includes the story of his own self-doubt and awakening to self-actualization in his political theorizing. I don’t doubt his sincerity, and I think his ideas warrant consideration, but cloaking his whole message in the authority of Paine diminishes his impact. Yes, citizens today face challenges to civil liberties from unjust laws, as we did before the Revolution. But Freed’s fury at the abuses of government is the only thing he has in common with Paine. He’d be more believable if he had the confidence to let his ideas stand alone, and if his subtitle actually alluded to “Common Sense” rather than “The Crisis.”

Written by: Janine Peterson Wonnacott, February 10th 2007