Daily Archives: April 11, 2021

NEW BEDFORD The sign on the corner ofSpring and Seventh streets declaring that Abolition Row Park was Coming Soon is finally living up to its name as work crews showed up last weekandbegan construction.

Its exciting in many ways, said Lee Blake of the New Bedford Historical Society. In threemonthswell have a lovely little park there.

Abolition Row Park will be a tribute to New Bedfords history as a major stop on the Underground Railroad, the first free home of Frederick Douglass, and a beacon of tolerance and safety for those seeking freedom, said Mayor Jon Mitchell in a statement.

History lesson: Here's what the British Consul General learned about New Bedford's own Frederick Douglass

The project is a joint venture between the historical society and the City of New Bedford.There are two lots involved in the park project one was on city property, the other was not.

Blakeexplained that both lots became city property and that meant any forthcoming construction on theplot needed to go through the bidding process to hire a contractor to do the work.

The bidding process slowed things down and then came the pandemic and the state government stopped all construction, Blake said.

The delay, however, allowed the historical society to finda silver lining, as Blake called it.

We were all hesitant about asking for private donations whenfamilieswere going without because of the pandemic, she said.

It freed up time for the group to research andfindadditionalgrant money to help fund the park project.

Between grants and donations, some $600,000 has been raised, she said.

Additionalplans for the park includeacherrytree border, seasonal flowers, community garden space, a publicgazeboand plaza area, andwalkways and seating. Jam Corporation, based in Worcester, was the winning bidder for the project. Blake said the company has a reputation for working on parks throughout Massachusetts.

Besides the sign announcing the parkscoming soon status, the lot is vacant except for a set of steps that go...well,nowhere.

The was an historic rooming house there that was built in 1843.Afast-moving firedestroyed the building in December 2009. All its residents escaped without injury, however, two dogs died in the fire. The building was sobadly damagedthat it had to be demolished.

The only thing thatstillremainsis the front steps which will be incorporated into the new park.

The dig in 2017 uncovered more than 5,800 artifacts, including the foundation of a small 19th-centuryoutbuilding, buttons, cuff links, a spoon, and fragments of ceramic plates, porcelain, and glass bottles.

The park will be across from the 1822 Friends Meeting House and the Nathan and Polly Johnson House, former home of Frederick Douglass. The neighborhood was home toa number ofprominent abolitionists, both black and white.

Pieces of porcelain plates discoveredduring the dig, headed by New Bedford archeologist Craig Chartier,helped illustrate that Quaker families were not againstacquiringwealth, despite their desire to keep the exterior of their homes and their public appearance modest, according to an article in the Standard-Times.

The park wouldn't be complete without a statue of Douglass who migrated to New Bedford in 1838 through the Underground Railroad after escaping from slavery. In New Bedford, he was helped by Nathan and Polly Johnson, African American abolitionists. He and his wife Anna began their life together, raising their young family here.

The historical commission has so far raised $75,000 toward the expected $200,000 cost of the statue.Richard Blake of Pennsylvania is the sculptor for theDouglass statue.

Blake said fundraising for the project will start up again and members of the public are encouraged to become members of the historical society.

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Long-awaited work begins on Abolition Row Park in New Bedford - SouthCoastToday.com

Warrior Met coal miners should vote to reject the sellout contract offer accepted by the United Mine Workers and begin mobilizing support now to broaden their fight.

After working under a $6 an hour pay cut since 2016 while the company rakes in massive profits, workers are being asked to accept an insulting wage increase that divides workers by pay grade and will not take full effect until 2026. Meanwhile, the companys brutal disciplinary policy, which has resulted in countless unjust terminations, is being kept in place, only with six strikes before dismissal instead of four.

Miners are in a powerful position to carry forward their struggle and press their demands, including full restoration of all pay cuts, restitution of lost wages and concessions, along with the abolition of the companys draconian attendance policy.

Any claim that there is no money to meet these demands is a lie. Warrior Met made $302 million in 2019, while CEO Walter J. Scheller III has pocketed an annual salary of over $4 million even during the pandemic.

The main obstacle workers face is the United Mine Workers, which is seeking to corral and strangle the strike. On Wednesday, UMW President Cecil Roberts, who earns a salary of $210,000 annually, told Warrior Met miners that a $1 to $2 pay raise was the best the union could get.

While sitting on assets of over $164 million, the union is attempting to starve workers on a strike pay of only $300 a week. Meanwhile, it is keeping the strike isolated from other sections of workers, such as teachers, Amazon workers, steelworkers and autoworkers.

Workers must organize independently of this corrupt organization and build a rank-and-file strike committee to take over negotiations and continue the fight. Instead of ending the strike, Warrior Met miners should expand the struggle, demanding a nationwide miners strike and solidarity action from workers throughout the area. Delegations of striking miners should go to the US Steel and US Pipe mills in nearby Birmingham, the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, the Constellium aluminum plant in Muscle Shoals, the Mercedes Benz plant in Vance and schools in Birmingham, Montgomery and other cities where educators are fighting the deadly back-to-school policy.

Conditions are developing to wage such a fight. After a year of a pandemic in which the government has shoveled literally trillions of dollars into the coffers of the corporations while doing nothing to keep the population safe from COVID, workers are ready to fight back. Already significant struggles are breaking out.

* More than 1,300 steelworkers at Allegheny Technologies Inc. are on strike at nine mills in five states seeking to overturn a pay freeze and restore lost concessions.

* About 700 nurses at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts are entering the fourth week of strike action against Tenet Health Care for safe patient ratios and patient care.

* In New York City, 3,000 graduate student instructors at Columbia University are in rebellion against the United Auto Workers, which is seeking to shut down their strike against poverty-level wages without even achieving a contract. Meanwhile, other graduate student instructors at New York University are preparing to walk out.

In waging their struggle Warrior Met miners must advance demands based on what they need, not on what the company and the UMW says management can afford.

These demands must include:

*Full restoration of all wage and benefit concessions and a large pay increase to make up for what has been sacrificed.

*Ending of all pay tiers. Equal pay for equal work.

*Abolition of the disciplinary system. Rehire with back pay all workers who were unjustly terminated.

*End forced overtime and grueling work schedules. Hire additional miners to ease the workload and give workers time with their families.

*Workers oversight of health and safety conditions. Appropriate social distancing and daily testing for COVID. Workers must have the right to refuse to work under unsafe conditions.

In mobilizing to fight for these demands Warrior Met miners should turn to the militant traditions of class struggle in Alabama going back more than 100 years. Alabama coal miners have waged repeated strikes in the face of company gun thugs and state militia and confronted repeated attempts to divide workers by race.

A rejection of the contract is not enough. New rank-and-file organizations of struggle are needed. The unions long ago turned their backs on the working class for the warm embrace of corporate management. This fact is underscored by the failure of the union drive at the Amazon Bessemer plant. Workers want to fight, but they know the corporatist unions will do nothing to defend them.

As long as the struggle is left in the hands of Cecil Roberts and the UMW, it will be isolated and defeated like the strikes against A.T. Massey and Pittston Coal in the 1980s and 1990s.

Workers must build their own rank-and-file strike committees and democratically decide for themselves their demands and how to conduct their struggle. The strike against Warrior Met is part of a nationwide and global movement of workers against the obscene growth of billionaire wealth amid the deaths caused by the willful negligence of the corporations and their political frontmen, whether it is Trump and the Republicans or Biden and the Democrats.

Workers everywhere are fighting the same global corporations and are increasingly facing identical conditions under a rampaging pandemic. The fight against the sacrifice of workers lives to the drive for profit must be combined with building an international political movement of the working class for socialism, and the reorganization of society so the wealth created by the collective labor of workers goes to them not the wealthy few.

The World Socialist Web Site encourages miners to help circulate this statement.

For more information about building rank-and-file committees and to share your story, contact the WSWS today.

Sign up for the WSWS email newsletter

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Reject UMWA sellout! Spread the Warrior Met strike! - WSWS

By IANS

Looks like when it comes to the film industry, the powers that be believe in making their work and life more miserable by the day. To this end, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) seems to be the tool of choice. Of course, the governments have a tool each for controlling just about every wake of life, but why is it always the film industry?

It would be a tough task to find a single filmmaker who, at some time or the other, has not been at the receiving end of the CBFC's unfair observations and rulings on his film when it comes to certifying a film. The trend was set during the British Raj, which implemented censorship of films with the purpose of checking on anti-Raj or pro freedom content in films.

The British had no other issues. Kissing scenes etc were okay, for it was a normal thing in their way of life. They also knew it as a part of Indian culture, too -- centuries-old caves, temples and other structure depicted intimacy as a way of life. It was the Indians after the freedom which thought kissing on screen was immoral!

The CBFC has its guidelines properly laid down and, if those were followed, few filmmakers would have problems with the process. However, over the period, many of those who occupied the post of Chairman of the Board, made their own interpretations of the guidelines, and some even set their own set of rules.

When Raj Kapoor launched Rishi Kapoor in "Bobby", I think the kissing scene was okayed by the Board after ages. More films followed, and there was little the Board could do since a precedent had been set. But, to some, what good was being the Chairman if he/she had no say in the way things were running smoothly!

Things could not be let out of control of the Board, so a measure for a kiss, a fight or a rape scene and such on the screen was devised, totally illogical and arbitrary at that. It was decided to limit a kissing scene to certain duration (in seconds, too) at a time. So, what the wise filmmakers did was to interrupt a kissing scene with a couple of moments' break, showing surroundings or birds chirping to show their happiness at the happy couple kissing!

The filmmakers were reduced to finding indirect ways of depicting such scenes. For a kiss, two birds would be shown cooing or two flowers touching each other! For a rape scene a boiling vessel of milk overflowing or a water fountain coming to life in some garden somewhere! It was hilarious.

The kissing scenes on screen are usually cursory, just a lip-to-lip touch. There is nothing about them that is can be termed as vulgar.

Of course, there was discrimination when it came to judging foreign films. The same Indian audience saw these films but there the kissing on screen was okay! But then, there was a Chairman of the Board who ruled that the kissing scene in a James Bond film, "Spectre" (2015), be limited to some seven seconds! Now, that was rather ridiculous. All foreign films have a few kissing scenes here or there. And, you can't expect a James Bond film sans kissing and Bond bedding the woman in the last scene of the film! That has been the Bond film formula since "Dr No" in 1962, the first film in the franchise.

Pahlaj Nihalani being a producer of many films, it was strange on his part to impose such impractical rulings as CBFC Chairman. But, then, Nihalani was not the only one to come up with ridiculous snipping of films. Earlier, too, many films have been victims of Censor highhandedness.

Actually, the post of the CBFC Chairman is more honorary than executive. In usual practice, the CEO or the Regional Officer (RO) manage the day-to-day affairs of the Board like planning a screening and shortlisting a committee for the job from the list of the Examining Committee members. It was when some Chairmen assumed power that CBFC affairs made it to the media.

At times, the problem starts right at the onset when Examining Committee members watch a film. These are people and professionals appointed from various walks of life, considered to be well-versed with things around them. May be, it is something to do with what a government-assigned chair does to some. They turn into moral guardians of the people of India and also the encyclopaedia on filmmaking! Instead of doing their duty of watching a film and deciding if the content in any way goes against the guidelines, they start ordering cutting of scenes and dialogue at random.

Don't know what suddenly puts so much wisdom in these otherwise normal people! As a remedy of the whimsical Examining Committee observation, the Board has a Revising Committee (RC), which has a relook at a film the EC finds objectionable.

It may sound strange that though the RC is appointed from the same list of Committee Members on the Board's roaster, here usually, the same film passes without hassles either clearly or with minor cuts!

What could be the reason? May be, the RC members feel more responsible.

Yet, when both the Committees -- Examining as well Revising -- were around, there was a last resort in the set-up for the aggrieved filmmaker. This was the Appellate Tribunal where a producer could take his case. Very rarely has a filmmaker returned unhappy from the Tribunal, which at most times overturned objections raised by the earlier committees.

Now, the government, in its wisdom, has decided to abolish the Appellate Tribunal, leaving filmmakers totally at the mercy of the few wise men and women it deems fit to decide what Indian filmlovers should watch!

The system so far follows the rule that wherever somebody is sitting on a judgement on your issue, if not satisfied, one can take recourse to the next level. This holds true from Income Tax Department to the Courts of Law. The CBFC Tribunal served the same purpose. Why should absolute power be vested in a few and not have the body that can judge the flaws, if any, in their decisions. Especially so, because the Appellate Tribunal also consists of people outside of the EC and includes a retired judge.

Now, if a filmmaker has issues with the Board, he will need to approach the court of law and no producer has even been in favour of this, as it takes a lot of time, uncertainty about the release plans, besides adding to the overburdened courts.

There is a last resort for all, even a killer who may appeal to the President of India. The banks have Ombudsman. The Income Tax department and stock market also have appellate bodies.

The ball is now in the film fraternity's court. Since, the trade fails to find logic in this move, let the government justify it to the courts.

(Vinod Mirani is a veteran film writer and box office analyst. The views expressed are personal)

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Abolition of Film Certification Appellate Tribunal: The last resort - The New Indian Express

As Black Lives Matter protests swept the world last summer, one rallying cry rang louder than the rest: Defund the police. Rising up against the violent, racist, transphobic, homophobic, and misognyistic institution that has abused its authoritative power time and time again, protesters began to challenge the disturbing norm of global mass incarceration, and called for an abolition of the system as we know it.

For journalist and author Victoria Law, this has been her focus for the last two decades. As well as helping women in prison develop their writing skills, Law has written several books, essays, and articles about the dangers of mass incarceration and the ways in which we can resist it. Her new book, Prisons Make Us Safer: And 20 Other Myths About Mass Incarceration, is no exception. In it, she dismantles 21 of the most persistent myths about prisons many of which have been drilled into us from childhood. These include the myth that prisons offer rehabilitation; that race has nothing to do with mass incarceration; that those in prison dont resist or organise; and that prisons are the only way to address violent crime.

Even though prisons have failed to keep us safe, we as a society have been conditioned to turn to more policing, more prisons, and more punishment as a response to every social and political problem, Law tells Dazed. This shrinks our imagination so that were not thinking about other solutions other than locking people up in some way or another.

Although conversations about police and prison abolition are arguably more widespread than ever before, one group is still left behind. Too often, women are forgotten when it comes to both conversations about mass incarceration, as well as tangible prison reforms. Womens concerns, priorities, and existences are ignored, while their attempts to resist and organise behind bars are dismissed. In her book, Law explores why this is, discusses the ways in which trans women and women of colour are disproportionately targeted by the criminal justice system, and examines how womens experiences of violence and trauma trap them in a abuse-to-prison pipeline.

Women experience all the same abuses facing incarcerated men, says Law, but their gender allows the prison system and a constellation of other institutions to inflict additional injustices and violence on them.

Here, Law discusses some of the myths that enable mass incarceration, why women are excluded from the conversation, and what police abolition would look like in reality.

Your book centres on the myths that enable mass incarceration. What makes these myths so dangerous?

Victoria Law: These myths emerge over time, and often serve to whip up fear and build support for more spending on policing and prisons (while cutting funds to other needed resources, such as housing, health care, education, and economic opportunities). Everyone wants to feel safe and free from the fear of violence and attack many of the myths that prop up the system of mass incarceration play into these fears. One of the most widespread and enduring myths is that we need prisons to keep us safe(r). In the US, every child has been fed this myth from a young age, and it continues through adulthood via cop and crime shows, mainstream media, and politicians.

These myths justify the continuation of mass incarceration as a catch-all solution to all of societys problems. If we dont debunk these myths, then we end up either continuing down the same path of perpetual punishment (without any real safety), or else fall for proposed reforms that dont address the root causes of problems nor ensure safety.

How can we identify and eradicate them?

Victoria Law: By learning more about mass incarceration and questioning commonly-repeated refrains justifying prisons and prison expansion. I realise that not everyone has the time or inclination to read, watch documentaries, or listen to endless podcasts detailing the history and political machinations behind mass incarceration, so I wanted my book to be an easy primer about mass incarceration and to dispel the myths that I heard again and again.

Even though prisons have failed to keep us safe, we as a society have been conditioned to turn to more policing, prisons, and punishment as a response to every social and political problem Victoria Law

As well as looking at mass incarceration more broadly, your book delves into the experiences of women in prison. Why are women so often excluded from conversations about mass incarceration?

Victoria Law: Women make up approximately 10 per cent of the US prison population. Until recently, their issues and experiences were largely ignored because they comprise such a small percentage of the countrys bloated jail and prison population. But, with approximately 200,000 women behind bars, even 10 per cent is a high number and should not be ignored.

Women experience all the same abuses facing incarcerated men, but their gender allows the prison system and a constellation of other institutions to inflict additional injustices and violence on them. For instance, the majority of people in prison have children. When a father is imprisoned, hes likely to have family members who will care for his children. He may not always see or hear from them, but hes less likely to worry about losing them to foster care. When a mother is incarcerated, her children are five times more likely to end up in the foster care system. Until recently, however, navigating family court and custody issues were not considered prison issues because it wasnt an issue that affected the majority (incarcerated fathers).

Can you tell me a little about the intersections between womens histories of violence and trauma and their imprisonment?

Victoria Law: Among people incarcerated in womens prisons, past abuse family violence, sexual violence, and/or domestic violence is so prevalent that we now have a term for it: the abuse-to-prison pipeline. Until recently, this was a largely ignored pathway.In the US, at least half of all women in prison report having experienced past physical or sexual abuse prior to their arrest and incarceration. We see the same in the UK, where 46 per cent of women in prison report having experienced domestic violence.

For women who have less access to resources including resources to help them cope with and address past trauma, as well as resources that everyone needs, such as safe housing, nutritious food, and health care the combination (of this and trauma or abuse) pushes them further along the pathway towards prison. This might take the form of defending themselves against abusive partners or ex-partners, or engaging in criminalised activities at the coercion of their abusive partners, or self-medicating using illegal drugs to cope with unaddressed trauma, which can lead to arrest and incarceration.

In your book, you talk about women resisting and organising while in prison. To what extent are they more inclined to do this than their male counterparts?

Victoria Law: Women arent more likely to resist and organise while in prison than their male counterparts, but their actions are less likely to be recognised as resistance or organising. For women, organising and resistance might look like helping other mothers navigate the legal paperwork around child custody. In some prisons, its also taken the form of contacting attorneys and organisations that can do know-your-rights training and teach them how to navigate and advocate for themselves in the family court system. In some states, this has led to organising to pass laws that stop the countdown to parental termination simply because a parent is in prison. But because parenting is often not viewed as a prison issue, we tend to overlook those efforts when were talking about prison organising. Instead, ideas about organising often revolve around actions taken by men riots, hunger strikes, and work strikes.

In what ways might the prison system fail women more than men?

Victoria Law: The prison system fails everyone. It throws people into a violent and chaotic atmosphere rife with racism and very little opportunity to do anything meaningful during their time behind bars. That said, there are gendered ways that imprisonment devastates womens lives. Prisons replicate many of the same dynamics of abusive partners; not only do they separate people from their families and support system however flawed those families and support systems might be but in prison, people are told when to get up, when they are allowed to eat, shower, go outside, and see their families. If people misbehave, they are locked in solitary confinement. This kind of ultimate control is a hallmark of domestic violence, but is standard prison practice. Then there are the egregious abuses that occur within prison, including physical and sexual violence by staff and inadequate medical care.

Trans women are more likely to be stopped, harassed, detained, and arrested than their cisgender counterparts. Its a phenomenon so common that its called walking while trans Victoria Law

Victoria Law: Women of colour are disproportionately targeted by the criminal legal system. Trans women of colour are disproportionately targeted by police because of both their race and their gender identity; because they are trans, they are more likely to be stopped, harassed, detained, and arrested than their cisgender counterparts. Its a phenomenon so common that its called walking while trans.

Many prisons are located in predominantly white rural communities. For many of the people who work in prisons, their only personal contact with people of colour is with those who are incarcerated. Many of them come to work with extremely racist ideas about people of colour, which manifests in so many different ways. It can look like staff believing that the person in the midst of a medical or mental health crisis is malingering. It can look like placing people in solitary confinement for minor behaviors. It definitely looks like not believing a woman who reports being sexually assaulted, especially when her assailant is a prison staffer.

The movements to defund or abolish the police have attracted global attention in recent years, particularly following the BLM protests last summer. What would police abolition look like in reality?

Victoria Law: If you want to look at abolition in action, look to your wealthier and whiter neighborhoods. You dont have the police presence thats so prevalent in poorer neighborhoods, (therefore you dont have people) being targeted, harassed, surveilled, and killed by the police. At the same time, you also dont have the young people in those neighborhoods being arrested for petty offenses. We also have to remember that, in the US, over half of all violent crimes are not reported to the police to begin with, so we already live in a society where police are not seen as purveyors of safety or an answer to violence.

I do believe that we can work towards a world where police can be abolished. We can start by demanding a defunding of the police and a redirection of those funds into the resources that communities need. Defunding needs to go hand-in-hand with allocating money to life-giving institutions. Putting our money, resources, and faith in policing and prisons has not kept us safer. What will make us safer is redirecting those resources to build stronger communities, support individuals and families, and create programs that address, rather than hide away from, underlying issues, preferably before they erupt into harm or violence. Its a slow build, but one that is necessary if we want to live in a safer world.

Prisons Make Us Safer: And 20 Other Myths About Mass Incarceration is out now via Beacon Press

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Busting the myths around mass incarceration and its impact on women - Dazed

Sharmila Tagore served as the chairperson of the CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification), the film-certification body of India, for seven years, from 2004 to 2011. During her tenure, the veteran actor actively worked towards expanding FCAT (Film Certification Appellate Tribunal) and enhancing its functions and the values it stood for. Yesterday, the sudden abolition of the film body evoked a sense of disappointment among many members of the film fraternity including Tagore.

She explains, I dont know the rationale behind this step but it concerns the film producers most certainly. Even if they come together now and make an application and appeal to the government, they can work it out but the problem is that no one wants to come together.

Sharing her support for the body, she says, In my opinion, FCAT served a very good purpose because it was a recourse for the producers to go to another source to moderate the CBFCs point of view. FCAT was an enabling body and a bridge between the producers on one hand and the civil society on the other.

Describing the role of the legal body headed by a retired judge, Tagore says, When I joined CBFC, there was already an FCAT in place. It was a body where if producers had a difference of opinion with CBFC and were not happy with CBFCs decisions of giving cuts or A-certificates, they could always go to FCAT and sort out their differences. Sometimes, FCAT went against us and sometimes, they upheld our views. So, FCAT had the final say.

Tagore firmly states that FCAT was a kosher and useful body and she would have never abolished it. In her words, During my tenure, I wanted to expand its mandate by referring to all the PILs that were initiated all over the country against films so that they could come under the mandate of FCAT considering it was a film body. The only film that we couldnt give a certificate to and couldnt go to FCAT with was Black Friday because the Bombay blast was sub judice at that time. So, Anurag Kashyap had to wait for the longest time.

So, how would the film industry function without the FCAT? It will be a hassle for a producer to go to the court because it is very expensive and it often leads to a lot of delay. And if a film isnt released on time, it may get dated and cause other problems including actors careers getting ruined for inordinate reasons and the audience losing their interest in the project, the Kashmir Ki Kali (1964) actor signs off.

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I dont know the rationale behind abolition of FCAT: Sharmila Tagore - Hindustan Times