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No Justice Without Media Justice
(Via Feministing — where Samhita has been liveblogging from the National Conference on Media Reform in Minneapolis, MN.)
When we speak of a justice agenda we are talking about greater political, social and cultural changes that are plugged into an analysis of power that reform focused movements often times overlook. Many times it is a matter of semantics, since all of us working in justice are effecting change at the level of reform. We are usually working on strategic campaigns, limited in scope that create small pieces of change, but hopefully greater in impact. Collectively and through sharing pieces of our agenda these changes can become a justice movement.
The media reform movement has been around since the 90's and made its debut in 2003 when fighting the cross-ownership rules that are being challenged currently. One of the explicit differences between the media reform movement and the media justice movement is that media reform believes the appropriate end goal for media reforms is more diversity. Media justice believes that reform without a power shift leads to reproduction of status quo inequities. This means that without a redistribution of the means of media production and ownership, our media will not reflect the needs and issues of our communities.
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Politicians and Prostitutes
(Ed's note: WireTap is thrilled to see our very own, WireTap contributor and editorial board advisor, Samhita Mukhopadhyay on The Nation online as their guest blogger this month! Be sure to check out her fearless, insightful takes on timely issues in the news, and post a comment of support. Thank you for highlighting some of the brightest young leaders, The Nation!)
I think I saw at least three different bloggers (including myself) refer to yesterday's admission by NY Governor Eliot Spitzer's hiring of a sex worker with just the word "wow." Understandable, given Spitzer's legal history wherein he has gained recognition for successfully prosecuting prostitution rings. Quite a contradiction it seems, but alas we see time and again, political power -- which often manifests as hyper-masculinity -- produces powerful men that just can't keep it in their pants. It makes sense to descend into the preconditioned response of chastising a politician for abusing power and trying to (stupidly) get away with paying for sex, not to mention transporting a human for the purpose of paying for sex. I think we can all agree that if a sex worker is going to get prosecuted, he should as well. No questions. ...Read the rest of Samhita's post on The Nation online.
Celebrating 35 years of Roe v Wade
It is indeed something to celebrate that for 35 years we have managed to maintain the right to obtain legal abortions, despite animosity from those against women having the right to control their own reproductive health. But the fight has not been easy and the reproductive rights of women world-wide are tenuous because of the anti-woman, anti-choice policies mandated by conservative politicians in the United States. While we may celebrate the anniversary of Roe v Wade, let's not forget the fight it has taken to keep it alive and remind ourselves it has been a continual battle against laws that systematically and fanatically attempt to prohibit Roe's application. Laws such as the global gag rule that came into effect during George Bush's first term, the partial birth abortion ban held up by the SCOTUS this past year, or the Hyde Amendment a 30 year old law that severely restricts access to abortion by poor women and women of color, show us the fight to keep Roe alive and abortion accessible has been a difficult one.
Furthermore, it is important to remember during the anniversary of Roe v Wade, that reproductive justice for women is not just about the right to abortion. As a result of organizing groups such as Sister Song, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice and Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, among others the definition of choice has been expanded in scope and has led to the development of the reproductive justice sector. According to ACRJ,
We believe reproductive justice is the complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, economic, and social well-being of women and girls, and will be achieved when women and girls have the economic, social and political power and resources to make healthy decisions about our bodies, sexuality and reproduction for ourselves, our families and our communities in all areas of our lives.
A campaign for reproductive justice includes a more holistic approach to women's health, rights and the health of our families. Reproductive justice is not just about our right to choose, but about sex education, access to reproductive health services, health care, healthy families, immigration rights, queer rights and the fight against racism. It is the fight for all women, despite race, class, gender, sexuality ethnicity or citizenship status, to have the right to make healthy choices for their own personhood. A fundamental right that has been made invisible by an anti-choice movement that has pandered to the religious right.
Mainstream coverage in the fight for reproductive justice has been shifted to the right by right wing messaging that has become one of our greatest challenges. Anti-choice, or as some like to call forced child-birth propaganda, has pitted communities against each other, characterizing pro-choice folks as anti-family, irresponsible, anti-religious, anti-faith, promiscuous and anti-baby. Outside of the straight up shaming of women, the worst piece of messaging young women have received through the anti-choice campaign is that we are in some way deserving of our "ill-found fate" (be it pregnancy or STD's) because of bad choices we have made. Pro-lifers use imagery of happy families, religion and a supposed moral authority to cover up the vicious nature of anti-choice laws that diminish the lives of women and is a serious threat to our health and well-being.
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Act Now: Save New Orleans Public Housing
To update from my post on Tuesday about the demolition of four housing projects in New Orleans, activists yesterday stopped the bulldozers with a 30 person blockade.
Protesters wielding bullhorns and shouting "housing is a human right" stopped demolition at a massive public housing complex Wednesday in this hurricane-ravaged city in dire need of homes for the poor.
More than 30 protesters blocked an excavator from entering the fenced-off area of the B.W. Cooper complex. It was the first of what likely will be many standoffs between protesters and demolition crews that are tearing down hundreds of barracks-style buildings so they can be replaced with mixed-income neighborhoods.
As many had suspected all throughout, disguised in the language of "re-development" most of the redevelopment initiatives in post-Katrina New Orleans have been driven by greed and profit motives as opposed to moral and ethical commitments to the people that have been displaced from their homes, that should be given their right to return. New Orleans has shown us the lack of commitment our government has to protecting basic human and civil rights. It has also shown us the devastating and dishonest nature of disaster profiteering in communities of color and that clearly HUD is more interested in what developers want as opposed to what communities they are supposed to be providing housing for need.
Don't let the displaced and homeless people of New Orleans down in this holiday season.
TAKE ACTION NOW! Sign the petition to stop the demolition and to support SB 1668. Also, Ruckus has a list of other things you can do to take action. Finally, for more information on this check out Defend New Orleans Public Housing, Justice for New Orleans and People's Hurricane Relief Fund.
Geeks in the Woods
Sitting in the common area at Hollyhock retreat center, the location of the annual Web of Change Conference, on Cortes Island off the coast of British Columbia, I found myself staring out onto the beautiful Pacific Coast and finally getting a chance to reflect on the work that I have been doing for the past few years in technology and social change. Clearly the point of this innovative conference, given the serene location and resourceful community put together to make WOC happen. In the moments I was not spacing out and gazing off at the beautiful view of the Canada coast, I checked back in to see that I was surrounded by some of the most innovative thinkers in the world. It is rare in social justice/organizing work when one is given the opportunity to reflect on the state of internet organizing in a slow paced, partially wired, nurturing and nourishing environment. It is something I believe every movement needs a little more of; pause and self care.
Web of Change is an annual conference that brings together innovative, conscientious thinkers and leaders to discuss the different ways we can use web technology for social change. This years Web of Change certainly lived up to every expectation I had heard previously. The combination of brain power, location and access to hot tubs 24/7 has that kind of effect I suppose.
After five days of networking, collaborating and partying, I can say in reflection that the role of internet technology still holds currency in the current climate of organizing, leading and fundraising, to say the least. Specifically, I went to Web of Change representing the Youth Media Council and the work we are doing with regards to technology and organizing with our constituents and the greater social change internet community. I participated in a panel discussing the ways in which we can maintain political credibility while developing sites that support movement building. The objective behind sites such as Future5000.com, Mybloc.net, Youthmediacouncil.org, and WiretapMag.org, is to support organizing work as it already exists and to enable their work in new and nuanced ways.
We repped all these sites at this years Web of Change conference which consisted of some other heavy hitters such as Democracy in Action, Forest Ethics, EchoDitto or innovative new sites such as Host a Caucus. We were able to strategize and share the work that we are doing with respect to internet technology and social change, whether that be developing fundraising modules or developing social networking sites for social change activists or finding new ways to strategically design internet campaigns.
The rich conversations filled my brain with new ideas and ways to move forward with my different technology projects, but it also left me with a slew of questions. How can we get more money for our social justice campaigns online? The internet is full of money. How can we begin to direct some of that money toward making good in the world and spreading our knowledge through websites and actually have real money to fund these projects? Most of these projects run on passion and on very limited, if any, budget at all. While I love sharing the work that I am doing with youthmediacouncil.org, Feministing and here at Wiretap and am dedicated to continuing it, how do we make these projects sustainable?
Can you get with me on that?
U.S., Denial and the Culture of Violence
As I sat in the student center at my university yesterday, I got a chilling reminder of the shootings at Virginia Tech earlier this week. I looked around at the faces of people I didn't know and thought about their families and my own family and how awful it would be if something like that were to happen here. How would we recover?
What some are calling the worst shooting in United States history, the death of 32 Virginia Tech students was indeed deplorable. The media circus that followed was also deplorable. Shouldn't the families and victims be given some privacy to deal with the tragedy?
But also what is it about these isolated incidents that capture the national imagination? As other bloggers have noted, last weekend 65 Iraqis died and just yesterday another 183 in Baghdad alone. Why the hypocrisy? So far in 2007 there have been 27 deaths in Oakland County alone. Why have none of those deaths made headline news? Why does America only care about certain people's death? Do some people just deserve to die?
The strategic manipulation of stories by the mass media is to remind us that we had nothing to do with the problem. The solution this time has been simple, young Asian man, "loner," "mentally ill," certainly not one of our brightest and best, a character that rarely enters public discourse, and usually in the periphery. It gives us a scapegoat to not turn the attention back to ourselves, the possibility that the US produces a culture of violence and this isn't one isolated incident, but a continuum of death and bloodshed that has made this country what it is today. If we are not honest about this reality, I don' think it is possible for us to prevent this type of atrocity in the future.
As conservatives immediately talk about how this would not have happened if everyone had guns, neocons try and trace this students motivation to Islamo-fascist doctrine, and politicians underhandedly spin the tragedy to fit with their campaign, it is clear the point has been missed. And is gun proliferation plus increased security going to make us safer? I mean I know dumping out the liquid in your contact case makes you feel *much* safer on the airplane, but I mean really.
The United States is guilty by setting a precedent of violence, historically and today. There is a connection between our unjust invasion of Iraq with these examples of violence. If we don't accept that, we won't be able to prevent these things from happening in the future.
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Samhita Mukhop- adhyay is training and technology organizer at the Center for Media Justice and an editor of Feministing.com. She serves on the editorial board of WireTap.