Category: Uncategorized

Maybe one good thing that can come out of George Zimmerman’s acquittal is a new awareness about “Stand Your Ground” laws and their unequal application in our criminal justice system. One victim of this inequality — whose “Stand Your Ground” pretrial motion was denied and whose case the Zimmerman trial helped publicize — is Marissa Alexander, a 32-year-old African-American mother of three, currently serving a 20-year jail sentence for firing a warning shot, without killing or injuring anyone, to scare off her husband (she had a restraining order against him, and he at one point admitted to abusing her). It’s a stark and troubling contrast: A woman was sentenced to 20 years for firing a gun without hitting anyone, while a man who fatally shot an unarmed teenager walks free.

The Zimmerman verdict has brought Alexander’s case increased media coverage, interest on the part of politicians and activists, and several petitions. And after Alexander was sentenced to 20 years, a group of attorneys who had not represented her during her trial took over the case, pro bono. They’re now waiting for the court to hear their oral arguments or render an opinion in her case. If the court reverses her conviction, it could order a retrial. Or it could determine that the “Stand Your Ground” motion should have been granted, giving Alexander immunity and ending the case.

Read more at Salon

Following the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, many feared that protests would turn into riots. Some people stoked those fears even further. Certainly, people were angry, but many channeled their rage and grief into positive, creative, artistic expression.

One example of this can be found at the Art Works Studio School, located in Mount Rainier, Maryland. Barbara Johnson, an artist, art teacher and the founder and executive director of Arts Works Studio School, explained to me in an e-mail that as soon as the verdict was announced, she and the program coordinator started texting each other: “We were both so upset. And we knew right away that we had to do something through Art Works to support the community. I said that we needed to do something. She suggested ‘painting it out’ and I knew that it should be silent painting.”

So, on Monday evening, around 30 people, ranging in age from 20 to 60, went to Art Works to express their pain through painting and drawing.

Johnson recalls: “I greeted people Monday evening and assured them that they didn’t have to ‘know how to paint’ and that they could paint in silence in our studio or sit in discussion in our gallery. Every single person came into the studio and painted. At times different people would stop painting and walk into the gallery to cry.”

For many, the experience was cathartic: “So many people said, ‘I feel better’,” recalls Johnson.

Read more at Care2

Rachel Jeantel was the last person to ever speak to Trayvon Martin, besides, possibly, his killer George Zimmerman.

Speaking to Jeantel on his cell phone as he walked toward his father’s house, Martin told her he was being followed. She advised him to run away from the man who would ultimately kill him. Jeantel testified that she heard a bump, the sound of wet grass and Martin saying “get off of me.” Then, the phone went dead, and she would never hear Martin’s voice again.

Speaking to Jeantel on his cell phone as he walked toward his father’s house, Martin told her he was being followed. She advised him to run away from the man who would ultimately kill him. Jeantel testified that she heard a bump, the sound of wet grass and Martin saying “get off of me.” Then, the phone went dead, and she would never hear Martin’s voice again.

On top of losing her best friend, Jeantel experienced the trauma of hearing some of Trayvon’s last words. And, as if that weren’t enough, Jeantel, in exchange for her testimony, was disrespected by Zimmerman’s lawyer and mercilessly criticized and mocked on social media.

But Tuesday, Jeantel was finally validated. Tom Joyner, the host of the radio show “The Tom Joyner Morning Show,” offered Jeantel a scholarship to any historically black college or university (HBCU) she wants to attend. There are approximately 100 HBCUs in the country, including Tuskegee University, Joyner’s Alma Mater. Joyner was moved by Jeantel’s testimony and her interview with Piers Morgan, though he didn’t understand why Morgan didn’t ask her about her plans for the future. So, Joyner invited Jeantel onto his show and said:

“Here’s my offer to you, if you want to graduate from high school and go to an HBCU, even if it’s not in Florida but especially Florida, like Florida Memorial, Edward Waters, Bethune Cookman or FAMU, if you want to do that, I want to help you do that… I will help you get tutors to get you out of high school, tutors to help you pass the SAT and I will give you a full ride scholarship to any HBCU you’d like.”

Read more at Care2

Russia’s feminist punk music protest collective Pussy Riot has released its first song since three of its members were imprisoned for staging an anti-Putin punk prayer protest in a Russian-Orthodox church in Moscow in 2012. Their latest song and video is called Like a Red Prison. The lyrics to the song are written out in English in the music video posted above. As you’ll see, Pussy Riot takes on the oil industry, the President Putin (“Your president is like an ayatollah in Iran”) hompphobia (“Homophobic vermin, out from history”) and sexism (“Fucking sexist, leave the hole alone.”)

Read more at Feministing

Here’s some good ovaries-related news, for a change. A North Dakota judge struck down a ban on medical abortions Monday. East Central Judge Wickham Corwin ruled that the 2011 state law outlawing the two drugs used in medical abortions was “simply wrongheaded” and violated the North Dakota and United States Constitution. Corwin wrote that “no compelling state interest justifies this infringement …” He also criticized an expert witness for the defense, Dr. Donna Harrison, the president the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, whose “opinions lack scientific support, tend to be based on unsubstantiated concerns and are generally at odds with solid medical evidence.”

This is great news for the state’s only abortion clinic, the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, and the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), which is representing them. Medical abortions make up approximately a quarter of abortions in the first nine weeks and are considered safe and effective. According to the CRR, the ban  “needlessly forc[es] women seeking an abortion to undergo surgery even when such a procedure may be medically inadvisable.”

Read more at Feministing

Singer, songwriter and all around musical genius Stevie Wonder announced that he wouldn’t perform in Florida or any states with “stand your ground” laws, at a concert in Quebec on Sunday, a day following the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin.

Wonder said to his audience: “The truth is that, for those that are being lost in the battle for justice, wherever that fits in any part of the world, we can’t bring them back. What we can do is we can let our voices be heard, and we can vote in our various countries throughout the world for change and for equality for everybody.”

He continued to spell out how he would fight for justice: “And I know I’m not everybody, I’m just one person, I’m a human being. But for the gift that God has given me, and for whatever I mean, I decided today that until the Stand Your Ground law is abolished in Florida, I will never perform there again. As a matter of fact, wherever I find that law exists, I will not perform in that state or in that part of the world.”

Read more at Policymic

Hours before George Zimmerman was acquitted for the death of Trayvon Martin, Lester Chambers, the 73-year-old soul singer, who was part of the 1960’s music group The Chambers Brothers, was physically attacked. Why? According to witnesses, it was because, while singing at the Hayward Russell City Blues Festival, he made the mistake of dedicating Curtis Mayfield’s Civil Rights anthem “People Get Ready,” to Trayvon Martin. So, Dinalynn Andrews Potter, a white 43-year-old woman, jumped on stage and pushed Chambers to the ground. Potter was arrested and Chambers was taken to the hospital.

See the attack at 4:20 in this video

Read more at Policymic

Citing the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit against Pennsylvania’s ban on same-sex marriage on Tuesday–and that’s fine for the state’s attorney general, Kathleen Kane, who announced on Thursday she won’t be defending the law.

Speaking at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Kane cited the Pennsylvania Constitution’s ban against discrimination and said, “It is now the time here in Pennsylvania to end another wave of discrimination.”

The audience cheered and clapped in response to Kane who was elected last year and is a possible gubernatorial candidate.

While Kane, a Democrat (duh), may be embracing marriage equality, the Republican Governor Tom Corbett favors discrimination and opposes same-sex marriage.

Unsurprisingly, his fellow Republicans are also upset that Kane is getting in the way of the homophobic status quo.

Pennsylvania GOP chairman Rob Gleason wrote in a statement that it is “unacceptable for Attorney General Kathleen Kane to put her personal politics ahead of her taxpayer-funded job by abdicating her responsibilities… She is blatantly politicizing the highest law enforcement office in our Commonwealth at the expense of a core responsibility of the Attorney General’s office… Pennsylvanians are left with the question, if Kathleen Kane’s political beliefs are the standard for law enforcement, what law will she ignore next?”

Read more at Care2

She is known as Belén. She is eleven years old and 14 weeks pregnant. She was raped repeatedly by her mother’s boyfriend over the course of two years. The mother claims the relationship that started when her daughter was NINE was consensual. Thankfully, Belén’s grandmother doesn’t see it that way, and she alerted the police to the abuse, which the boyfriend admitted to. There are several reasons even an anti-choicer would think Belén deserves an abortion:

• She is eleven years old.
• She is a rape victim.
• She is the victim of incest.
• The pregnancy poses a serious health risk to Belen.
• The health of the fetus is at risk

Belén’s doctors want to terminate. But they are afraid to. Because Belén happens to live in one of the five countries (along with El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Malta) that does not allow abortions under any circumstances. […]

Read more at Feministing.

Major trigger warning.  The hip-hop artist and actor formerly known as Mos Def and currently going by Yasiin Bey underwent the force-feeding procedure administered to some of Guantanamo Bay inmates on hunger strike. Over 100 prisoners are on a hunger strike, which started in February and 44 of them are being fed against their will. Bey made the video with the Human Rights organization Reprieve “to rally support for Guantanamo Bay prisoners who are on hunger-strike in protest against their detention without charge or trial” and to urge the Obama Administration to halt the force-feeding during the month-long day-time fast of Ramadan observed by Muslims. The video was released on Monday, to coincide with the start of Ramadan. The procedure performed in the video is based on a 30-page long Standard Operating Procedure manual on force-feeding Guantanamo Bay prisoners, which was leaked to Al-Jazeerain May. Jason Leopold describes the brutality of the procedure,

that requires them to wear masks over their mouths while they sit shackled in a restraint chair for as long as two hours… The prisoners remain this way, with a 61cm – or longer – tube snaked through their nostril until a chest X-ray, or a test dose of water, confirms it has reached their stomach.

At the end of the feeding, the prisoner is removed from the restraint chair and placed into a “dry cell” with no running water. A guard then observes the detainee for 45-60 minutes “for any indications of vomiting or attempts to induce vomiting”. If the prisoner vomits he is returned to the restraint chair.

Read more at Feministing.