Liberation Station, a Black-owned children’s bookstore in Raleigh, N.C., is closing less than a year after it opened on Juneteenth 2023, due to a series of threats.
violence
50th anniversary of the Walpole prison union
June 7, 2023Fifty years ago inmates at Walpole Maximum Security Prison in Massachusetts assumed the management of the prison for two months until the state and the prison guards’ union pressured the Corrections Commissioner to allow what became a violent retaking of the prison.
The incomplete struggle for democracy in Israel
March 22, 2023More than 25,000 women in red cloaks and white bonnets formed human chains in 70 locations across Israel on March 8, combining commemorating International Women’s Day with protests in opposition to the proposed laws to turn Israel into a theocratic dictatorship. Yet Palestinian women’s voices were missing.
Sexism, racism and incarceration in Brazil
November 17, 2019A report on a forum with Brazilian Black women activists in San Francisco on sexism, racism and incarceration in Brazil.
San Francisco is dangerous for youth
September 2, 2019D. Chêneville reflects on the dangerous situation youth face in San Francisco after learning that a 15-year-old he had just met was murdered.
Thousands of Mexican students STRIKE!
September 19, 2018On Sept. 5, 2018, a march of tens of thousands of students and other social groups flooded the UNAM campus in Mexico City to demand an end to porrismo, or pro-government thugs, used against students’ movements. Voices of several striking students are featured.
Revisiting Fanon
November 26, 2016Report of a discussion following the showing of the new movie “Concerning Violence” which took on Frantz Fanon and Black movements of the present.
Walking against indefinite detention
July 6, 2016Buddy Bell of Voices for Creative Nonviolence tells of their recent 150-mile walk across the state of Illinois on the issues of indefinite detention, solitary confinement and the racist U.S. prison system.
Review: Headscarves and Hymens
March 10, 2016A Review of “Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution” by Mona Eltahawy, reviewed by Adele an expert on the theocratic Right.
Against ISIS attacks in Paris and Beirut: Counter-revolution must be defeated everywhere!
November 23, 2015We condemn these horrific massacres and the reaction that feeds upon them. To destroy ISIS and all other counter-revolutionary forces will require a battle of ideas, even more than a struggle of arms.
Sandra Bland speaks for herself
September 3, 2015Excerpts of videos of Sandra Bland speaking for herself. She made the videos in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Bland died in Waller County, Texas, after being thrown in jail there for a manufactured traffic violation.
Transgender women murdered
March 7, 2015This year is setting a horrible record for the number of Transgender women killed across the U.S.
Women WorldWide January-February 2015
January 28, 2015A roundup of women’s news including the beating death of Tugce Albayrak who was attacked for stopping the harassment of two young girls in Germany; the attack against the film, “Vessel” at the Abortion Rights Festival in Stockholm, Sweden; and how at the Seeds of Peace International Camp in Maine the most intense conversations were among women.
Men Explain Things to Me — a review
“Men Explain Things to Me” by Rebecca Solnit is a book of seven essays that eloquently describe how patriarchy attempts to distract us from the fact that seemingly isolated incidents and seemingly separate oppressions are part of a system of profound and devastating violence.
No rehabilitation
July 7, 2014From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters
Oakland, Calif.—On June 14 Critical Resistance (CR), an organization working for the abolition of the prison system, held a community forum on California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation (CDCr). (Prisoners refuse to capitalize the “R” because there is no “rehabilitation.”)
The forum took up new [=>]
WOMAN AS REASON: Isla Vista murders fueled by misogyny
July 5, 2014When you are despised for who you are, as those murdered by Elliot Rodger were—and women are not the only ones on a list that includes any differently sexed person, immigrants and all minorities but especially Blacks, people with disabilities, and that’s only in the U.S.—then a revolution has to be more than an economic change, it even has to be more than “from each according to his or her ability, to each according to his or her need.” Revolution has to be so deep and total that all human relationships are transformed. To do so, it must be total from the start…
Tasing prisoners
August 13, 2012Kincheloe, Mich.—Recently, as I was awaiting a visit at the Control Center at Chippewa Correctional Facility, I observed three facility staff members around a computer monitor. I heard sound from a video they were viewing of an incident earlier that day involving staff use of TASER-manufactured electro-shock weapons on a prisoner in one of the [=>]
Queer Notes, July-August 2012
August 8, 2012by Elise
Brave were the marchers in this year’s Pride Parades in Warsaw, Poland; Riga, Latvia; and Split, Croatia. Heavy police protection was required at each march. While the Roman Catholic Church’s anti-Queer stand remains strong, an openly Gay man and a Transsexual person were voted into Poland’s Parliament in 2011 and a number of [=>]
Queer Notes, March-April 2012
April 18, 2012From the March-April 2012 issue of News & Letters:
Queer Notes
by Elise
A California Girl Scout put out a YouTube video asking the public to boycott Girl Scout cookies because she objects to a troop admitting a Transgender girl. While three Louisiana troops disbanded over the issue, a national Girl Scouts spokeswoman for the 100-year-old organization [=>]
Nurses demand safety
April 1, 2011Editor’s note: On Jan. 19, after months of inaction regarding the murder of Donna Gross at Napa State Hospital, the workers held a rally. Below we print excerpts from the talks.
Napa, Calif.–As graduating medical students we took an Oath of Hippocrates, with a special obligation not to do harm. Now I am asking the state [=>]
Women World Wide, Nov.-Dec. 2010
December 7, 2010by Artemis
Participants at the 25th National Gathering of Women in Paraná, Argentina, denounced physical attacks on feminists by right-wing Catholics who infiltrated their workshops on “Women, Contraception, and Abortion,” resulting in injuries. Feminists shouting “No More!” physically ousted the anti-abortion fanatics. That same night, thousands of women marched, singing chants against the dictatorship of the [=>]
Queer Notes, Nov.-Dec. 2010
December 5, 2010Queer Notes
by Elise
Marco Melgoza, seventh-grade student, protested anti-Gay bullies. With his dad Jerry Watson at his side, Melgoza carried the sign “Bullying Is a Weapon” outside his Middle School, Desmond, in Madera, California. He has been called names and been physically attacked. Melgoza joins people from San Francisco, to Utah, to New York City, from [=>]