Incarceration & Crime
Poverty @ Netroots Nation
Published August 14, 2009 @ 11:00AM PT
Many of my fellow bloggers have gone to Netroots Nation for the weekend; ironically, I suppose, I lack the funds for the trip.
It's too bad; Netroots Nation is one of the best known coalitions of progressively-minded activists in the country and certainly the best known for those of us who use the web and media for our work. The annual conference is taking place in Pittsburgh this year, a city I'd love to visit some day.
So let's pretend I'm at NN, and take a look at a few of the key convenings I'd be joining on behalf of Poverty in America:
Prison the New Public Housing
Published August 10, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
Affordable housing advocates, esp. pro-public housing folks like myself, spend a lot of time comparing the various subsidized housing options out there: public housing, Section 8 vouchers for renting in the private market, tax-credit funded housing built by non-profit developers. Turns out, we've been miscalculating by half the 4-6M or so units these different options provide, because we've been leaving out a major new source of publicly subsidized housing for the poor: Prison!
Yep, according to Ehrenreich's latest missive in the NYT (see our previous coverage of her series here and here), "the same number of Americans — 2.3 million — reside in prison as in public housing."
Ehrenreich wonders if the collision of rising extreme poverty and excess criminalization and incarceration policies will lead us to descalate both - resorting instead to humane treatment of the poor and a move away from criminalizing low-income people as, she fears, disgustedly, a revenue source in this extreme recession. I'd add the masses find it morally uplifting to torment the poor during tough economic times, as it reassures us with a strong "us" vs. "them" dichotomy and gives us a sense of control of the more chaotic zones of life, given we can't seem to stop the corporate pillaging going on above us.
I too wonder if sheer economic necessity will work in our favor differently, by leading to de-crowding of prisons and cessation of expensive housing demolition and development programs. Of course, our desire to clamp down on "concentrated poverty" and its alleged ills bodes differently for prisons versus public housing. Dispersal strategies suddenly seem a lot more worrisome when we're casting offenders into the winds.
Most importantly, reversing these punitive, cruel, expensive cycles really requires to see the poor as human beings like us, our brethren, locked in a similar struggle for economic stability and justice. It requires a framework that focuses less on poverty alleviation and more on poverty eradication. It requires a common framework that embraces all of us. Gee, I wonder what that could be...
(Photo of Fremantle Prison, a decommissioned prison in Australia, by amandabhslater)
"You Do Not Have Health Insurance"
Published August 09, 2009 @ 09:06AM PT
There's a great post up at The Baseline Scenario concerning the diffuse worry that healthcare reform will negatively impact those with health insurance in the US. It basically eviscerates the lie that "employer-subsidized health care for the duration of your employment" is health insurance: "as long as your health insurance depends on your job, your health is only insured insofar as your job is insured – and your job isn’t insured."
Unlike NycWeboy, who believes no one is paying attention to the needs to reform Medicaid for better coverage and care of the poor, James at TBS thinks "people remain convinced that health care reform is for poor people. [But] It’s for everyone – everyone, that is, who isn’t independently wealthy or over the age of 65. Because all of us could lose our jobs."
FYI: Medicare = health insurance.
More great links to while away your Sunday afternoon after the jump.
'Bamboozle' A Golden Rule for Some
Published July 31, 2009 @ 05:19AM PT
I'm a naysayer, a contrarian. I've always been that way. It comes in handy, especially when sorting out the abundant tomfoolery hoisted upon us by "them that have the gold," the Tarnished Golden Rule of Politics. An abundance of news, opinions and blogs about poverty-related issues illustrate how this rule works.
Recent news accounts of Wall Street's audacious behavior and self-interested medical providers illustrate the power of money in guiding (mis) behavior. Follow the money and you'll figure out this nation's and world's woes. Many in Congress and most corporations tend to follow the bucks which gets them in trouble.
Poor Americans Live in a "Law-Free Zone"
Published July 28, 2009 @ 10:00AM PT
Courtesy of the good people over at Postbourgie, I see three related stories that signal the Administration, Congress and anti-poverty advocates of all stripes are coming together to restore a bevy of civil rights for low-income Americans. Reforms to crack cocaine sentencing and felony disenfranchisement have both been introduced in Congress. And a report by the Center for Law & Social Policy reinforces Obama's push to expand legal aid assistance by demonstrating that the "legal needs of low-income Americans" are fulfilled less than 20% of the time.
Race, Class & Activism
Published July 24, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
I don't know about you, but I'm over Gates-gate. You? The more I listen to Professor Gates, the more I get concerned by his apparent recent realization of how f*cked up our incarceration rates of men of color are. Anyway, I'll leave you with this Radio Boston podcast on the case and wish you the best coming to your own conclusions about this fiasco.
One of the things I've found so frustrating about it as it drags on is how so many legitimate perspectives abound in our varied interpretations of this fairly murky case, and how difficult it is to reconcile those. If you're a person of color or a white ally and deeply familiar with experiences of racial profiling or police violence, it's really hard to remove that lens in looking at this case. If you're not as knowledgeable about this brutal history of ours, and believe that the police have a case-by-case right to act as they deem appropriate, you may think this professor got his just deserts. If you're familiar with Cambridge (and Boston) class politics, you may see it as an arrogant professor being taken down a notch. If you're a woman, you may think, why do men need to have these chest-bumping competitions in the first place? Our identities and lived experiences color how we interpret this event, and getting past those situated experiences to reach a common understanding is damn tricky.
Skip Gates on Race, Class & the Criminal Justice System
Published July 21, 2009 @ 06:52PM PT
"this is how poor black men across the country are treated everyday in the criminal justice system..."
- Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
If you haven't heard, one of the most prominent scholars in the world, Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr. of Harvard, listed as one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1997 by Time, was arrested on the porch of his Harvard Square home last week for alleged disorderly conduct. Returning home after a trip overseas to find his front door jammed, he and his Moroccan cab driver were attempting to open it when his neighbor, a white woman employed by Harvard, called the cops over 2 suspicious black men at the house down the street.
Did I mention Gates is black? Anyway, the cop who showed up to investigate pretty much hassled Gates in his own home, which ticked Gates off, who hassled him right back. As Gates followed the cop outside to get his identification, the cop arrested him before a crowd of passersby and other cops and wrote up a report justifying his decision in light of Gates's apparently alarming, "loud and tumultuous" behavior.
Did I mention Gates is about 60, walks with a cane, and is around 5 ft 7? Ferocious!
