Being Poor Is Dangerous. Being POC While Poor? Even More Dangerous.

Some thoughts from the block crafted by community scholars and decoloniziners 🇵🇸🌸

"Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of people who were oppressing them." ~ Ancestor Assata Shakur

"If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it." ~ Ancestor Zora Neale Hurston

“Those who commit the murders write the reports.” ~ Ancestor Ida B. Wells

"They have in me struck down but the trunk of the tree; the roots are many and deep - they will shoot up again!" ~ Toussaint Louverture

“Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance.” ~ An ancestral Lakota proverb

Bail Reform

NO. 1

Back in late December, NYC’s Bail’s Reform has plenty of opportunities to free poor defendants, and be able to help wrongfully convicted people as was it’s intention--but as of right now, eliminating cash bail is sure to put too many violent criminals back on the streets, threatening public safety.

   According to the NY Times,  CNBC, and the New York Post, the new laws seem to be doing the opposite effects of helping people, whereas instead is hurting the communities where these crimes are happening. From the NY Times, it goes into defining what the bail reform actually is: ‘’New York is now the only state in the nation that requires judges to entirely disregard the threat to public safety posed by accused persons in determining whether to hold them pending trial or to impose conditions for their release. In addition, the new law constrains judges from holding repeat offenders with long records of both crime and absconding trial. It eliminates cash bail and the possibility of detention for a wide array of offenses, including weapons possession, trafficking of fentanyl and other drugs, many hate-crime assaults, the promotion of child prostitution, serial arson, and certain burglaries and robberies.’’

NO. 2

   It also floods police departments and attorney’s with intensive forms of paperwork, leading to important evidence being suppressed and ‘solid cases can be dismissed on the grounds of incomplete discovery’; So it seems that the bail reform is leading to all kinds of damages. CNBC is saying that critics of the bail reform were absolutely wrong after three weeks after the law went into effect, as some of the repeat offenders have been arrested for anti-Semetic assault and harassment, just as New York is seeing a disturbing spike in these hate crimes. ‘’In case you need to be convinced how big a political issue this could become, remember that violent crime stories are visceral in many ways. They often involve life and death, and can be easily painted in terms of “good guys” and “bad guys” with very little gray areas in between. Crime stories also have a rare ability to energize otherwise non-politically active Americans. Ask anyone who lived through the urban crime waves of the late 1960s through the 1980s to confirm that.’’

NO. 3

 The New York Post has a similar agreement, explaining the increase of anti-Semetic attacks happening and the suspects quickly being released, like the case of Tiffany Harris, which was reported on December 28, 2019, attacked three Orthodox women in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. She was hauled in handcuffs before a Brooklyn judge on menacing, harassment, and attempted assault charges; but this wasn’t the first time, as she had an open harassment and assault case back in November 2018. 

    So, I agree that this new law is just going to take us into a new era of ‘fear mongering’ that poses against public safety, and that’s a major problem. I live in New York, and I want the laws to be immediately changed on proof that there is a better way of fixing the criminal justice system. I understand Governor Cuomo’s reasoning, as he doesn’t want those who are innocent to be unlawfully held in prison, but the consequences of releasing those who are a danger to the community, are to grave and too high to mistake.

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We need everyone's help right now to protect the rainforest and Indigenous People

The Amazon Rainforest is under a massive threat. I know you've heard this a million times, but this is different. There is a piece of legislation that will decimate the rights of Indigenous people of Brazil, who have been protecting the rainforest. It's unfathomably bad. It has majority support. And they're voting tomorrow. As reported here, the Bill allows "the Brazilian government to find energy resources, set up military bases, develop strategic roads, and implement commercial agriculture on protected Indigenous tribal lands, without any prior discussion with the affected peoples."

The thing you can do—and I know this sounds overly simple—is sign this petition—and tell your friends to do the same: SIGN HERE.

As reported here, the Bill allows "the Brazilian government to find energy resources, set up military bases, develop strategic roads, and implement commercial agriculture on protected Indigenous tribal lands, without any prior discussion with the affected peoples."

Again, this bill has majority support. You may be wondering, why will a petition signed by people who don't live in Brazil make any difference? Because it will give those opposing it political air cover. It will show the world is with them.

But we need a LOT of signatures.

Please do this simple act and spread the word.

Norma McCorvey and the story of 'Roe vs. Wade'

It’s been a few weeks since Roe vs. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court. It’s been the ideal goal for conservative lawmakers and groups. The case that got it overturned, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, focused on Mississippi’s appeal of a lower court ruling that struck the state’s law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy as unconstitutional. In Mississippi’s appeal to the Supreme Court, the state’s district attorney asked the court not only to uphold its abortion ban but to overturn Roe vs. Wade. This marks the first time that the U.S has taken away a constitutional right entirely. The overturning got me wondering: Who was the woman who accomplished Roe vs. Wade in the first place?

Norma McCorvey, the woman ‘Jane Roe’ at the crucial center of abortion rights, had flaws, as everyone does. In 1969 she became pregnant a third time and simply wanted an abortion. According to the NY Times, ‘‘‘McCorvey, a young single woman in Dallas, gave no thought to the fight for reproductive rights. She was barely getting by as a waitress, had twice given birth to children placed for adoption, and simply wanted an abortion. She later lied about getting pregnant, saying she had been raped. When, more than a decade later, she came clean and wished to join the movement she had come to represent in earnest, its leaders denied her a meaningful part in their protests and rallies. ‘I think they’re embarrassed,” McCorvey told Texas Monthly in 1993, ‘They would like me to be college-educated, with poise and little white gloves.’’

Because of the fall of Roe, over 13 states in the United States have trigger laws that were put in place to go into effect, and it marks the first time in the country’s history that the Court has taken away a constitutional right, not to mention many abortion clinics across the country have closed down. But this isn’t the end: large companies like Disney, Meta, Apple Zillow, Buzzfeed, Amazon, Levi’s, etc., have offered compensation for their employees who seek abortion procedures. Dozens of elected prosecutors from over 29 states, territories, and Washington D.C, have released a statement, ‘‘We decline to use our office’s resources to criminalize reproductive health decisions and commit to exercise our well-settled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions….Criminalizing and prosecuting individuals who seek or provide abortion care makes a mockery of justice; prosecutions should not be a part of that.’’

This video occurred in March, and I think it’s important to hear from an actual doctor. When studying anthropology in school, I was taught to be unbiased and objective, which I tried to do in my past articles. But I cannot keep my objectivity, knowing many women across the states cannot get a safe abortion, especially as this doctor explains in the video, will continue to happen whether or not they are considered legal. Norma McCorvey may not have meant to start the fight for abortion rights when she decided to find lawyers, it is important to know that she started the fight, and it will continue to pave historically on!

The Legend of the Holy Grail

The Grail legend is one of the most popular and reiterated myths told around the world. The legend is basically connected to the King Arthur tales as well, as the king and his noble knights embark on a heroic quest in search for the ‘Grail’, a shining cup claimed to be the sustainer of all life or a mysterious vessel that provides sustenance, which is guarded in a castle that is difficult to find.

The first Grail legend first appears in an unfinished romance called Perceval ou Le conte du Graal by Chretien de Troyes dated to about 1190. The basic outline would be the mysterious vessel being guarded in the castle, and the owner of that castle is sickly or unable to care for it; the surrounding land would almost always be barren, and the owner can only be restored if a brave knight finds the castle, and after seeing a ‘mysterious procession’, asks a certain question. If he fails at this task, everything will remain as before, and the search must begin again. After many adventures, the hero knight returns to the castle and asks the correct question which, hereby cures the king and restores the land. After, the knight succeeds the wounded monarch and becomes king instead, and becomes the guardian of the castle and its contents. The Crusades were the backdrop of this awesome tale, and the fall of Jerusalem occurred in 1187 just before the legend appeared as a literary motif, and Chretien’s romance was written at the behest of his patron, the crusader knight, Count Philip of Flanders.

‘‘In Chretien’s romance, the knight Perceval sees the grail during a feast at a mysterious castle controlled by the Fisher King, a lame man whom he had met before. Chretien calls the object simply ‘un graal’, and its appearance is just one of the unusual events which take place during the feast. Indeed at this time, Perceval is also shown a broken sword that must be mended. The two objects together, sword and grail, are symbols of Perceval’s development as a true knight. Chretien died before he could finish the romance, but the story was completed by other writers. The Continuations, as they are referred to in critical literature, expand several themes and the grail gradually acquires a more ‘sacramental’ character. The First Continuation is also incomplete and the author is unknown, but it can be dated before the year 1200. Besides Perceval, Gawain also has a grail adventure (the womanizing Gawain is the type of the perfect worldly knight and regularly forms a contrast to Perceval in these romances). During a procession which Gwain sees, ‘the rich grail’ (as it is now called) floats about the hall and provides food for all; the bleeding lance is later identified as the Lance of Longinus (the spear used by Longinus to pierce Christ’s side at the Crucifixion) and the broken sword belonging to a dead knight who is laid out of the bier. He who mends the sword will know the secrets of the grail castle (thereby strengthening the link between sword and grail.) Other medieval writers took up this theme; Burgandian poet, Robert de Boron, also wrote, at the behest of a crusader patron, the Lord of Montfacon, produced three romances, Joseph d’ Arimathie, Merlin, and Perceval. All these romances treat the grail theme, even into the context of Christ’ passion.’’

The Holy Grail legends are not only entertaining, with valiant heroes and dangerous but awesome quests, but they also speak of patience and knowledge that these heroes gain along the way. Perceval and Lancelot aren’t heroes because they are searching for a beguiled, golden chalice, but for greater understanding of themselves. These legends have been written and re-written for ages, and even in the modern years, people are still fascinated by the great quest for the Holy Grail. I know I am.

The Animal Manifesto

NO. 1

Aristotle wrote, ‘’Nature proceeds little by little from things lifeless to animal life in such a way that it is impossible to determine the exact line of deformation, nor on which side thereof an intermediate form should lie.’’ (Book VIII, pg.6) to compare this to his hierarchy the ‘’The Great Chain of Being’’ in his book, ‘’The History of Animals, where humans are at the top, and slaves and non-human animals are at the bottom, justifying the subjugation and oppression of these beings. But that isn’t fact, it’s just a theory to support this type of biased reasoning at the time. In this essay, or manifesto, I will explore my four main steps that I believe will benefit all animals, humans, and the environment.

 NO.2

    The discussion about the cruel treatment of animals, particularly agricultural animals like cows, chickens and pigs, and the harmful effects it has on our society and on the environment is still talked about now. In her paper called In Defense of Slavery, sociologist, Marjorie Spiegel compares the suffering of animals and humans. For example, chickens cramped in cages, stacked on top of each other, to the slaves in the south. The comparison of non-human animals to humans isn’t the right way to make the point across that we need to liberate all animals that we use for food from these machine-type farms, because comparing animals to captive human beings is wrong.

      The difference between non-human animals and humans, are what early scientists has described as, ‘’The argument to prove that the reason why animals do not speak as we do is not that they lack the organs but that they have no thoughts; (Humans) We all have moral status because we *think*. If animals think, they must use language. Humans who do not speak use symbolic language to express original thought.’ (Descartes, 1646). This type of thinking is why for centuries the abuse of animals has gone on for so long, and it has only caught attention during the last two decades. 1) My point is, all animals, including humans, share the Earth and we must co-exist to help protect it. Since we can speak, we believe we are the superior species, and even then, we feel that way and dominate other races of humans, anyone or anything we feel that is ‘other’.

   NO.3

  All animals have a right to life, even the right to bodily integrity, Regan, (pg.25) ‘’If animals have rights, and if rights are the trump card in the moral game, their rights override any benefits, real or imagined, we have gained, or stand to gain, from using them in biomedical research.’’ And this is something I agree to. Utilitarianism, the practice of maximizing the good stuff and minimizing the harm, and is connected to animal welfare, is the complete opposite. (Bentham, pg.9) The liberation of all animals, from zoos, farms, circuses, labs, etc. is, in my opinion, the moral way. I understand the reasoning behind using animals as test subjects for research and medical cures, but I know there are other ways to cure diseases. All animals deserve to be in there, natural habitat, and it is not fair for us to be keeping them in tanks and simple four inch. rooms with the door locked. The only animals that should be involved with humans are domestic dogs, cats and birds, etc. Simply because they wouldn’t survive in the wild, since they are descended from actual wild animals.

       In Marc Beckoff’s, The Animal Manifesto, one of the reasons he uses to envision the world a better place is, ‘’Connection breeds caring; alienation breeds disrespect,’’ is one very important step we humans must learn if we want instill peace, for all living beings. For example, humans express lighter emotions, especially to dogs and cats, animals we normalize and see as pets, whereas we express extreme dislike and contempt to many animals, like rats, pigeons, reptiles, bugs and even some dogs, like the pit bull. For example, during the late 1800’s, the English Sparrow was one of the most documented problem animals of that time. ‘’The English Sparrow is a curse of such virulence that it ought to be *systematically attacked and destroyed’’,  (U.S Department of Agriculture, 1889). The hatred of this particular bird stem from moral attributes, rather than scientific ones. They are foreigners, they attack American birds, there character is disreputable, and they need to be controlled as foreigners.  Humans also show contempt to other humans, those of a different race and different culture. We still don’t understand one another, and so we make up stereotypes from one person we’ve met, and suddenly that stereotype is placed on the whole race of people, alienating and disrespecting a whole people. It leads to social problems, fear, and occasionally, death, toward the oppressed.

  NO. 4

  The environment is the most important place we all have to take care of, and it fits into my thinking of the human-animal relationship because we are the cause for its downfall. The Rain forest in South America is nicknamed, ‘The lungs of the Earth’’ for a reason, and every day it is getting destroyed, or cut down to make room for more land, which is damaging to animals’ habitats and the ecosystems, and to ourselves. We dominated and distanced ourselves from nature.  The only reason why it is affected is because humans are destroying the natural order. The Meat and Dairy industry is giving land animals’ products displaying scientific substances inside it to speed up the process of killing for consumption. The animals, on the one hand, excrement is filled with nitrogen, and when that piles up all together, the air is affected.

The main reason, alongside the obvious reasons, for global warming is because of how much meat and dairy, we are consuming. As long as there is a want and need for meat, global warming will always be a problem. Wanting to eat meat is not a horrendous thing, seeing that humans are omnivores. But there is simply no reason to speed up the natural process for killing these animals by mixing drugs with their food. Most humans know about the daily abuses these animals go through, but we ignore the social world, so we don’t see it, and we sanitize everything, and it lets us off the hook. This is called the toilet assumption, (Spiegel, 1988). In my opinion, we can improve the way we treat animals, even land animals. We can do better, the way we treat others, we can show more compassion and love to everyone and everything. And my final point is again from (Beckoff, 2010) and that is acting compassionately helps all beings and our world. Showing compassion to animals and to non-human animals can definitely affect our day-to-day understanding of the world. We all have our own personal beliefs, and it’s okay to disagree, but respectfully.

Marvel is nailing it with their movies! Gotta talk about the upcoming movie #GuardiansoftheGalaxy it is on fire! And I haven't even seen it yet!

Teachers lead a music lesson for agricultural workers’ children at a nursery at Okeechobee migratory labor camp in Belle Glade, Florida (1941).