Signal boosting: “The guards were organized criminals”

Concern over the treatment of inmates is generally my litmus test for how thought-out someone is with the concept of social justice. They’re an incredibly easy group to demonize–hell, even being accused is all it takes for some juries to condemn some defendants–and once that work is done, otherwise knowledgeable people can fumble and overlook the human rights abuses. Often the temptation is to immediately think of the unrepentant serial criminals, especially the violent ones, rather than appreciating that a wide range of individuals are imprisoned for a wide range of activities, some of which have relatively low social cost.

Even so, I have objected to the mistreatment of high-profile murderers in my local prisons because I have good reason to believe it doesn’t stop there.

Susan Ashline, on behalf of an inmate named Jon Fontaine, posted Fontaine’s writings on his lawsuit against the prison that housed him. What’s quite remarkable is that Fontaine screencapped his former guards’ public Facebook postings, which actually helps him corroborate some of his accusations.

Over the past four years, I’ve communicated with a few dozen people by mail, most wanting to know what prison is like. I’d tell them if they’ve seen any “reality” shows about prison, New York prisons are nothing like that. There is no professionalism, no respect. I’d write them, “They literally put unconvicted criminals in charge and let them do anything they want. It’s legal organized crime.”

I’d go on and list all the things officers do, from singular assault to gang assault, murder, rape, planting weapons and drugs, selling weapons and drugs, extortion, and more.

Some believe me, some don’t.

If the public isn’t convinced by the criminal prosecutions now that the Office of Special Investigations was formed to replace the Inspector General’s Office (which was made up of former corrections officers);

If they’re not convinced by the federal charges brought by the US Attorney General’s Office, which stated brutality in New York’s prisons has reached critical levels;

If they’re not convinced by the tens of millions of dollars New York pays out each year to settle lawsuits brought by inmates;

Just look at the corrections officers’ own public statements. They’re playing their positions.

Many thanks to those officers for contributing to my credibility.

Read more about it here.

Self care Saturday, April 29: I’m not at all bitter

Anyone criticized by the Church is probably a decent person:

Camara was still a Catholic priest, and had his moments waffling back-and-forth on a number of positions where his theology wrestled with his morality. I only specifically respect his ability to identify an attempt at manipulation within human rights discourse–this idea that social problems can be solved is often met by opponents with changing the topic, rather than examining the specifics or entertaining the possibility that we’re on to something. Proles apologizing for Capitalism seem to me eager to dismiss the injustices of our stratified societies as inevitable rather than easily resolved by, say, eating the rich. (I’m only half-joking).

As ever, there are no heroes, and I could write about Camara’s less palatable positions another day. Today, we just celebrate this particular gem of snark.

-Shiv

So the brownshirts are here

What strikes me immediately is that they’re being organized by people who have been caught on film, rather unambiguously, assaulting people.

I mean the police were more than happy to arrest and charge 230 people on inauguration day with felony rioting for the actions of 4 identified vandals but they can’t pursue assault charges on the most open and closed case that could possibly be served on their desk?

A new fight-club “fraternity” of young white, pro-Trump men is being formed, its organizers claim, to defend free-speech rights by “Alt-Right” leaders and engage in street fighting.

Kyle Chapman, a California activist arrested earlier this month in a clash in Berkeley between anti-fascist protesters and pro-Trump demonstrators, announced this week he is forming the Fraternal Order of Alt Knights (cleverly called “FOAK).

Chapman, who uses the Internet meme “Based Stick Man,” says his new militant, highly-masculine group will be the “tactical defensive arm” of the Proud Boys, another group that shows up at pro-Trump rallies looking to rumble with counter-protesters.

“We don’t fear the fight. We are the fight,” Chapman said in a recent social media post announcing FOAK’s formation.

“I’m proud to announce that my newly created Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights will be partnering with Proud Boys,” Chapman said, with the “full-approval” of its founder, Gavin McInnes.

McInnes is a co-founder of Vice (although he and the magazine severed ties 10 years ago) and more recently has been a frequent guest on FOX News and a contributor for the racist site VDARE where he denigrated Muslims and called Asian Americans “slopes” and “riceballs.”

Now described as a “neo-masculine reactionary,” McInnes calls his Proud Boys a “pro-West fraternal organization.”

Others describe it as the military arm of the Alt-Right.

I’m sure law enforcement is on the case with just as much enthusiasm as the antifa crackdown, right? [Edit April 28, 2017: Scratch that. Those same defendants have all had an additional 7 felonies added to their charges. All 210 of them. Just a reminder–they connected 4 people to the actual acts of vandalism.]

-Shiv

Good news Friday: Alberta finally socializes abortion access

Alberta Health Services recently announced that coverage of Mifegymiso, a 1st trimester abortifacient, will be provided as part of its provincial medicine.

The decision from Rachel Notley’s NDP government makes Alberta the second province in Canada to say that it will offer universal access to Mifegymiso, a two-drug medical abortion kit that received an important endorsement from an expert committee on Thursday.

“The Alberta government strongly supports women’s reproductive health options,” Tim Kulak, a spokesman for Alberta Health, said in response to questions from The Globe and Mail. “In light of the [Common Drug Review] Canadian Drug Expert Committee’s positive listing recommendation, Alberta will be taking steps to make this drug available free of charge to all women in Alberta who may need it.”

Related: Canada considering global fund to counter Trump abortion directive

The province does not yet have a firm date for when public funding will take effect.

Other provincial governments canvassed by The Globe said they need more time to consider public funding for the medication, which became available in Canada in January, usually at a price of $300.

Right now, women have to pay that cost out-of-pocket unless they have a private health insurer that covers the drug.

Some provinces, including Manitoba and Ontario, said they would wait for the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (pCPA), which negotiates confidential deals on behalf of the provincial, territorial and federal public drug plans, to reach an agreement with Celopharma Inc., Mifegymiso’s Canadian distributor.

“This [pCPA] process will occur before we make a decision whether to add Mifegymiso to our provincial drug formulary,” a spokeswoman for the government of Manitoba said by e-mail.

Every province except New Brunswick – which earlier this month promised public funding for the abortion pill – has been saying for months that it would not move to cover Mifegymiso until the Common Drug Review, which advises the public drug plans on whether to cover new medications, weighed in.

The CDR’s expert committee released its final report on Thursday.

As first reported in The Globe, the document endorses public reimbursement for Mifegymiso because of its safe and effective record, and its cost competitiveness with surgical abortions.

“We’re delighted. [The report] really is good news,” said Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, which represents abortion providers in Canada and the United States. “Now I think we really will see [Mifegymiso] expanding to the more rural areas and it can finally live up to its promise of increasing women’s access to very safe, effective abortion care.”

The only down side to good news is that there’s not much to add. Hurray!

-Shiv

Four Signs Your Trans Healthcare Opinion is Cissexist Claptrap

At some point during my career of fact-checking the trans-antagonistic self indulgent wankery that passes for journalism these days, things started to blur together. I could play a game called “Who Said It: Transphobic Radical ‘Feminist’ or Catholic Priest?” when examining the statements and sometimes mix them up, their tangled logic and moralistic aggression seemingly borrowing from one another to the point of being difficult to tell apart. In this morass I began to notice a number of repeated rhetorical tricks frequently present in these anti-trans hit pieces, tricks which I’ve documented below. These rhetorical devices often obfuscate the increasingly-clear evidence to their hypothetical questions, which are themselves posed to give the impression of being unanswerable–so just go with your gut. You know, the gut that’s more willing to accept a conspiracy theory than some statistics.

And so, here we are, four red flags common in cissexist healthcare op-eds.

1. It positions “trans” and “healthy” as mutually exclusive.

[Read more…]

Parent’s perspective on BBC’s “Transgender Kids: Who Knows Best?”

The United Kingdom’s exports of trans-antagonism is a mystery as-of-yet unexplained to me, but I know it’s a lot of fact-free nonsense. If the stakes weren’t so damn high, I would be bemused. I’m working on yet another piece on BBC’s trainwreck documentary–a word cloud that illustrates the not-so-subtle prejudice in which the work was formed (hint: if the words “happy” and “trans” are only mentioned as mutually exclusive outcomes, your work is cis supremacist as fuck). But in the mean time, I thought y’all might appreciate a parent of a trans kid’s perspective on the entire pseudollectual ordeal. (emphasis original)

I am horrified with the segment on the distinction of men’s and women’s brains. No-one is genuinely claiming that transgender girls have a girl’s brain filled with kittens and roses as totally distinct from a boy’s brain filled with trucks and beer. The phrase ‘girl’s brain in a boy’s body’ is a colloquial shorthand that some transgender people have used to explain that they feel their identity is an innate part of themselves and not a choice or a whim. No-one means this literally. And the brain is one of the least understood parts of the body, there is a lot we still don’t know. Claiming that transgender advocate are perpetuating old fashioned gender stereotypes and propagating restrictive gender boxes is utter nonsense – I tell my transgender daughter that she can play with any toys she likes, I have no time for minimising her potential through old fashioned sexist stereotypes.

This parent knows their history, that’s for damn sure! Kudos.

The show presented Zucker and Blanchard as experts – it did not explain how widely discredited their work and their approaches are. When it did highlight criticism, it presented it as criticism from ‘transgender advocates’, not including the criticism from respected academics who criticise the quality and robustness of their research and their conclusions.

Yep, I noticed that too!

Who exactly is a ‘transgender advocate’ was never explained – it was presented as the fearsome, mysterious group, so powerful and threatening (if this lobby is so very strangely powerful, why are transgender people’s rights so regularly trampled on in life and in the media?).

Louder for the people in the back please.

Read more here.

-Shiv

The Guardian’s readership continues to depress me

“Sisterhood” discourse is deader-than-dead, yet The Guardian‘s readership clings to it like a fucking life raft.

On the topic of cis and trans women “having differences.”

To say we are the same is ridiculous.

Paging all cis people. I repeat: paging all cis people.

Nobody is making this argument.

 

Will somebody help me tell The Guardian’s readers to smarten the fuck up already? I mean, kudos for keeping straw farmers in business, I guess, but this shit is getting tiresome.

-Shiv

“The Church hasn’t been targeted by threats of violence”

…but that’s not going to stop them from starting their very own morality police:

A church in Alabama is well on its way to having its own police force. On Tuesday, Alabama state senators voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill that would allow Briarwood Presbyterian in suburban Birmingham to have its own cops. Now the proposed legislation heads to the desk of Governor Kay Ivey, who was sworn in days ago after Robert Brentley resigned in disgrace over a sex scandal.

Alabama SB 193 is sponsored by Republican Majority Leader J.T. “Jabo” Waggoner, who has represented the district for nearly 30 years, making him one of the longest-serving and most powerful senators in the state legislature. The bill would endow the church with the power to “appoint and employ one or more persons to act as police officers,” and would give members of the church police department “all of the powers of law enforcement officers in this state.”

And my “favourite” part–they’re not even responding to any measurable, actual threats:

Briarwood administrators have admitted that the megachurch hasn’t been targeted by threats or violence, such as that endured by mosques around the country.

Man, how many white people need to worry about “Sharia” with churches like these?

Perhaps the cherry on top–if the queer community organized in its own defense to account for police incompetence, we’d be called vigilantes. It’s not like minorities have had to do that before.

-Shiv