Big pimping

April 10, 2011

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Big Tobacco is at it again!

by Carol O. McGruder

A new documentary is making its way through the major cities of the United States. The film, GhettoPhysics: Redefining the Game!, is an intriguing movie about power dynamics. Its provocative premise tells us what history has already demonstrated time and time again: No matter how often the players of “the game of life” might change, the game itself remains the same.

The film makes the case that at any given point, one is either an exploiter or an exploitee, either a player or getting played or, in the vernacular of the street, one is either “a pimp or a ho” – and occasionally one is both at the same time. And while many people might wince at the politically incorrect analogy, it certainly does get your attention. On so many different levels, this film is dead on point.

“GhettoPhysics” is interspersed with footage and words of wisdom from real life pimps and prostitutes juxtaposed against historical events and thought provoking commentary from the likes of KRS-One, Cornel West, Rev. Ishmael Tetteh, Ice-T and former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. While the movie has a much larger metaphysical message, the pimp and ho analogy is used to illuminate how corporations and governments prey upon and exploit the average Joe.

Interestingly enough, while the movie shows some of the world’s worst exploiters, it neglected to mention the most powerful, deceptive and predatory industry of them all, Big Tobacco.

Yes, Big Tobacco is the Mack Daddy of all corporate pimps; in fact, they wrote the book on Big Pimping. And thanks to the magical power of their corporate shields, they have even created a new classification, “Teflon Pimps,” because it is the one industry that no matter how often it is sued, taxed, regulated or maligned, always manages to come out on top. Big Tobacco might take a licking, but it always keeps on ticking.

Any loss that it even appears to incur is simply passed on to its millions of addicted customers, all the while continuing to use its billions in profits to work the master plan: keep selling its deadly products at all cost. Big Tobacco is a player’s playa; it knows when to come down hard and intimidating with its elite battery of highly paid executives, attorneys and scientists. And it equally knows when to quietly deflect attention by using – pimping – the front groups that they keep on call to do their bidding.

Big Tobacco is a player’s playa; it knows when to come down hard and intimidating with its elite battery of highly paid executives, attorneys and scientists.

And as “GhettoPhysics” so poignantly points out, the more things change the more they remain the same. In some instances there is never even a pretense of change. This is no better demonstrated than the recent revelation that three nationally recognized African American organizations submitted letters to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) questioning the proposed ban on the use of menthol in cigarettes.

Over 80 percent of African American adult smokers smoke mentholated cigarettes. When President Barack Obama signed the historic Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in June 2009, he gave the FDA the authority to regulate cigarettes. One of the provisions of the act was the banning of all flavors in cigarettes – all flavors, that is, except menthol. Other flavors, like chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, were banned because it was widely “recognized” that these flavors masked the harshness and awful taste of tobacco and could encourage young people to begin smoking and subsequently become addicted to cigarettes.

And though 95 percent of young Black smokers initiate smoking with mentholated cigarettes, the health and welfare of these young people were not a priority of the legislation. Menthol’s exclusion from the list of banned flavorings prompted seven former secretaries of health, including Drs. Joseph Califano and Louis Sullivan, to write a joint letter vehemently opposing the exclusion of menthol from the banned flavors – with Califano going on to say that the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act as written relegates “Black children to the back of the [public health] bus.”

Only after a summer of agitation about menthol’s exclusion was an 11th hour amendment – initiated and co-authored by Congresswoman Donna Christensen, D-V.I., and the Congressional Black Caucus – added to the legislation that forced menthol to the top of the newly formed FDA Tobacco Product Scientific Advisory Committee’s (TPSAC) “to do list.”

This brings us to Big Pimping or Big Tobacco at its finest. TPSAC was mandated to investigate and issue a recommendation on whether menthol should be banned like the other flavors. So TPSAC has been holding public hearings and gathering “scientific” evidence in order to make its decision. It should be noted that no such hearings or “scientific” evidence were deemed necessary to ban the other flavors.

At the hearings, Big Tobacco has paraded an all-star cast of executives and scientists to provide expert testimony before the TPSAC. The official tobacco industry line is that, menthol or no menthol, people will die anyway from smoking, and since the vast majority of Blacks “prefer” menthol it would be unfair to Black smokers to ban menthol.

In a bold move that only a serious player would have the nerve to make, Big Tobacco is actually positioning the menthol question as a civil rights issue, as they infer that Black folks are grown enough to decide how they want to kill themselves and that, while government regulations might protect others, it should not interfere with the free will of Blacks! They also claim that they have no idea why most Blacks smoke menthol cigarettes. But we know why …

Marie Evans victim of Lorillard’s predatory marketing

Marie Evans

During the 1970s and ‘80s, the tobacco industry preyed on America’s inner cities. The makers of Newports, Kools and Salems fought hard for market domination, aggressively targeting low income Blacks and more than doubling the number of African American menthol smokers.

A Boston jury recently awarded the family of Marie Evans $152 million in punitive and compensatory damages from Lorillard Tobacco Co. because in the late ‘50s, Lorillard gave out free Newport cigarettes at the Orchard Park housing project and enticed children to smoke. Marie Evans was one of those children; she began smoking at age 13 and smoked for 40 years before dying of lung cancer at 54.

In the late ‘50s, Lorillard gave out free Newport cigarettes at the Orchard Park housing project and enticed children to smoke.

The lawsuit is believed to be the first of hopefully many that will hold cigarette companies responsible for targeting Black children by giving away cigarettes in urban neighborhoods. Imagine the “burden of proof” submitted into evidence that would compel a jury in the United States of America to place the value of the life of a Black woman at $152 million.

Though Blacks start smoking later in life, and smoke fewer cigarettes per day, they have a harder time quitting. Big Tobacco wants us to believe that menthol is simply a coincidental “taste preference” for Blacks.

They want us to believe it is not a starter product for the tens of thousands of Black youth who are seduced by menthol’s smooth, soothing flavor. Big Tobacco wants us to believe its claims that menthol’s addictive chemical properties have no additional morbidity implications for the 47,000 Black folks who die every year from tobacco related diseases

While Big Tobacco can deny their predatory practices and make their own absurd legal and scientific arguments before the FDA, they still desperately need Black front groups to make the case that Black smokers are being unfairly treated when they receive equal protection under health policy laws. This relationship between the tobacco industry and Black leadership groups was documented in a 2004 research paper entitled Smoking with The Enemy: Black leadership groups and the tobacco industry (Yerger & Malone, 2004).

The article, written by two researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, used previously secret but now publicly available internal tobacco industry documents released during litigation to document how the tobacco industry gave money to and systematically cultivated relationships with almost every major African American organization. These relationships were cultivated for three purposes: 1) to increase tobacco use among African Americans by creating and maintaining positive images of tobacco and tobacco companies, 2) to use African Americans to defend tobacco industry policy positions and 3) to defuse public health efforts from within African American communities.

Over the years, many African American organizations have unwittingly become “hos” for Big Tobacco, not seeming to fully grasp that their good names give the tobacco industry respectability and help maintain the deadly silence that is killing Black people. However, there are others who knowingly take the money and run.

Over the years, many African American organizations have unwittingly become “hos” for Big Tobacco.

Getting back to “GhettoPhysics,” these organizations actually pimp and ho at the same time. They ho by running interference for Big Tobacco, by putting a Black face on the same old tobacco industry rhetoric, and they simultaneously pimp their own people by providing Big Tobacco entrée to their communities, offering up their young and old alike to the wolves in wolves’ clothing – no pretense of a sheep here.

The three groups who surfaced this time are the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE). These groups urged the TPSAC to consider the negative implications of a ban – Blacks might stop smoking – and to discount any scientifically unsubstantiated evidence on menthol. In the past all three of these groups have benefited from Big Tobacco’s largesse and in fairness it must be said that at one point in time the tobacco and alcohol industries were the only corporations interested in giving money to the Black community.

But it is a new millennium and that largesse hasn’t been the case for decades. Frankly, we don’t know what has transpired in recent years between Big Tobacco and these groups. But it is certainly interesting to note that with record unemployment, foreclosures, the widening academic achievement gap, health inequities and the huge across-the-board economic setback of Black America, these Black leadership groups would find it important to devote their precious time, energy and limited resources to ensuring that Black folks are not kept from their deadly menthol cigarettes. What a sad day.

Dynamic attorney Sharon Eubanks served as the director of the Tobacco Litigation Team, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, on the landmark Kessler decision. Her soon to be released book, “Continuing Bad Acts,” documents her experience as lead counsel on this case during the G.W. Bush administration.

Especially in light of the just released U.S. Surgeon General’s report on smoking, Dr. Regina M. Benjamin, who lost her own mother to lung cancer, is on the case. CORE, NBCC and NOBLE might want to speak with her.

Her report states that there is no safe level for smoking, that damage to smokers and non-smokers alike is immediate, that cigarettes are designed for addiction and that people need to stop smoking any way they can. Taking out the menthol would be a great start; the poison wouldn’t go down quite so easy.

African American tobacco control experts want Black leadership groups to stand up for prevention programs for Black youth and effective cessation services for the millions of overburdened, stressed out Black folks who desperately want to stop smoking; to get the tobacco industry out of Black communities; to make elected officials and health departments take these issues seriously and provide adequate resources and attention to deal with them; and to stand up so Blacks will no longer be a footnote and a bargaining chip in negotiations on the health policy needs of white America.

The tobacco industry and their front groups are quick to point out that cigarettes are a legal product for adult consumers. And that is true, but it is equally true that in 2006, Judge Gladys Kessler of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia found Philip Morris (Altria), R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co., British American Tobacco Ltd., Lorillard Tobacco Co. and Counsel for Tobacco Research-U.S.A. guilty of federal racketeering under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

The only difference between these tobacco companies and the Mafia is that Big Tobacco is incorporated and they use the magic of marketing and the power of addiction to get their victims to voluntarily kill themselves. In her 1,653 page ruling, Judge Kessler wrote that the “defendants have marketed and sold their lethal products with zeal, with deception, with a single-minded focus on their financial success, and without regard for the human tragedy or social costs that success exacted.” She stated further, “The evidence clearly establishes that the Defendants have not ceased engaging in unlawful activity.” Big Tobacco sought to appeal her decision, but it was upheld in 2009.

It is unacceptable for African American organizations to represent the interests of or take money from the industry responsible for 47,000 Black deaths a year. Forty-seven thousand Black deaths is equal to the deaths of 9/11 occurring every month of the year, plus one every week during Black History month. Forty-seven thousand Black deaths a year is more than the deaths from all of the other preventable causes of death – AIDS, homicides and accidents – combined.

It is unacceptable for African American organizations to represent the interests of or take money from the industry responsible for 47,000 Black deaths a year.

Crack cocaine has ravaged our families and our communities; we have a visceral reaction when we even hear the word “crack.” It is violent, it is immediate, it is in your face.

We must learn to feel the same way about Kools, Newports and Salem cigarettes because they are responsible for the 47,000 Black people who quietly disappear every year. More importantly, we must feel that way about the industry that makes it happen.

Big Tobacco knows that their business is simply a numbers game. The more young people who can be enticed and addicted, the more customers for them. The more they can delay, stall and confuse the public health process – in banning menthol, restricting predatory targeting or increasing cigarette taxes – the more time they have to addict another generation. Black leadership groups have no business helping them.

By the way, you can check out the film at http://www.ghettophysics.com. Evolution is the revolution!

Breaking newsflash: The Lorillard and R.J. Reynolds tobacco companies are suing the U.S. government to block the TPSAC from even reviewing the evidence and making a non-binding report to the Food and Drug Administration about menthol cigarettes.

Carol O. McGruder can be reached at cmcgruder@usa.net.

“Israeli army strikes Gaza after school bus hit” – Deconstructed

First, let’s look at what has happened in Gaza in the past week:

• On Friday, April 1, Israeli forces assassinated a 24-year-old member of a Palestinian resistance group in Gaza.
  
• On Saturday, April 2, the Israeli air force assassinated three members of the group.
• On Tuesday, April 5, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian in northern Gaza, reportedly unarmed and not part of any resistance groups.
  
• On Wednesday, April 6, at dawn Israeli forces bombarded Gaza in three air strikes, injuring four people, including two women (one of them pregnant) and a child.
• On Wednesday afternoon hundreds of children in Gaza participated in a march asking the international community to protect them against ongoing Israeli raids and attacks.
• On Wednesday night the Israeli Air Force bombarded several areas of Gaza, causing extensive damage; at least one resident was injured.
  
• On Thursday morning, April 7, the resistance group that had suffered four assassinations fired mortars at a nearby Israeli town, which injured two people on an almost empty school bus, the bus driver and the one student (16) who hadn’t already been dropped off. The bus was on a road also often used by Israeli military vehicles.
  
• Thursday at noon Israeli forces bombarded Gaza, killing five people and injuring over 40.
• Thusday evening Palestinian resistance forces all agreed to a ceasefire to try to prevent the violence from increasing.
• Israel ignored this and continued its air strikes against Gaza, killing still more Gazans.
  
• In all, Israeli forces killed 14 people within 24 hours and injured dozens.
  
• Among those killed were a mother, her 21-year-old daughter, and an elderly man.

Following is how AP reported on this. This story is on hundreds of newspaper websites around the country:

Israeli army strikes Gaza after school bus hit

By MATTI FRIEDMAN

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli aircraft and ground forces struck Gaza on Friday, killing two Hamas gunmen and three civilians

No mention in either the headline or the lead paragraph that Israeli forces killed a total of 14 people in the past 24 hours, including a mother, her  daughter (injured another of her children), and an elderly man, and that they injured dozens of others.

in a surge of fighting sparked by a Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli school bus the day before.

No mention that this rocket attack was sparked by Israeli forces killing five Gazans in the preceding few days.

Just over two years after rocket fire from Gaza triggered

Israel had already broken the cease fire three times, killing seven Palestinian, which is what triggered the rocket fire.

a devastating Israeli military offensive in the territory,

which killed approximately 1400 Palestinians, at least 773 of them civilians – hundreds of them children.

Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers seemed on the brink of another round of intense violence.

AP still chooses not to mention the five Palestinians in Gaza that Israeli forces had killed in preceding days.

In Thursday’s attack, Gaza militants hit an Israeli school bus near the border with a guided anti-tank missile, injuring the driver and badly wounding a 16-year-old boy. Most of the schoolchildren on the bus got off shortly before the attack.

ADDENDUM: While AP emphasizes the Israeli claim that all civilian & children’s deaths are accidental, it  appears that AP made no effort to determine whether the resistance targeting a school bus may have been accidental. Reuters reported on  Saturday:

“‘It was not known that the bus targeted on the outskirts of Gaza carried schoolchildren,’ spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters, adding that the road where the bus was travelling was often used by IDF vehicles.”

By Friday morning, Israel’s ongoing retaliation

AP calls the Israeli action retaliation (for two injured, one with minor injuries) but fails to note that the rocket attack was retaliation (for the killing of five people).

had killed 10 Gazans – five militants, a policeman and four civilians – and wounded 45. The dead Friday included three civilians killed by Israeli tank fire and two militants killed in an air strike, both near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis.

Still no mention of the mother and children.

Hamas, which had largely held its fire since Israel’s last major offensive, claimed responsibility for the bus attack.

Had the bus been full, broader Israeli retaliation would have been all but inevitable and the region – already destabilized by the popular revolts sweeping the Arab world – could have been drawn into another war.

It’s odd to put such speculation in a news article, especially when AP left out so many newsworthy facts.

It is unclear if Hamas was trying to provoke a new conflagration, if it was not fully in control of all of its fighters, or if it believes Israel would pull back before invading Gaza again.

Again, it’s odd to put such speculation and commentary in a news article, especially when AP left out so many newsworthy facts.

Israel was condemned internationally after the last incursion.

“Incursion” is an odd word for the massive invasion by Israeli forces that was condemned in detailed reports issued by numerous highly respected international organizations.

Hamas said the rocket attack was in retaliation for the killing of three fighters in an airstrike earlier in the week. At around midnight Thursday, with Gaza rocked by explosions, the organization announced a cease-fire.

This was actually announced earlier and included all sectors of the Gazan resistance. The announcements about this also spoke of the 21-year-old killed on Tuesday, whom AP never mentions in the report.

But the Israeli strikes continued, hitting Hamas facilities and smuggling tunnels.

And many other facilities. AP also fails to mention that the tunnels are a response to Israel’s suffocating siege of Gaza, noted by groups such as Christian Aid.

Electricity lines and transformers were damaged, causing power blackouts in some parts of the territory, according to Jamal Dardsawi, a spokesman for Gaza’s Electric Distribution Company.

While AP speculated about what would have happened if the nearly empty Israeli bus had been full, there is no mention here about what electricity blackouts are actually doing to Gazan patients on respirators, in hospital operating rooms, etc.

In Israel, studies at some schools near Gaza were canceled Friday because of concerns for the students’ safety.

No mention of schools in Gaza, whose students have been injured, one killed, and parents killed and injured.

Palestinian militants launched nine mortars and rockets into Israel, causing damage to at least one building, the military said. Israeli casualties have been kept low thanks to reinforced rooms and early warning systems.

and the fact that the Israeli military, thanks to Americans’ $8 million per day to Israel, is the fourth or fifth most powerful military in the world.

Matan Vilnai, the Israeli Cabinet minister in charge of the home front, told Army Radio that Israel was acting to deter attacks. “We are acting as we see fit so that this type of fire will not continue, and so that the people behind the fire will regret it,” Vilnai said.

Israel’s education minister, Gideon Saar, said in a briefing with reporters that any civilian casualties in Gaza were unintentional and that Israel did not target “anyone except the terrorists.”

AP fails to report that numerous international investigations have found evidence indicating that Israel has often targeted civilians.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday condemned the bus attack and expressed concern over civilian casualties in Israel’s strikes. He called for “de-escalation and calm to prevent any further bloodshed.”

Thousands of rockets from Gaza have hit Israeli towns and cities since 2001.

AP fails to mention that these have killed a total of approximately 20 Israelis. AP also fails to mention that during the same period Israeli forces have killed thousands of Gazans, including numerous children.

Israel’s attempts to stop the rockets have included military incursions and covert operations abroad aimed at disrupting Hamas’ efforts to procure arms.

AP again gives the Israeli narrative. It fails to report that Israeli military incursions and covert operations preceded Gazan rockets.

In February, a Palestinian engineer was seized from a sleeper train in Ukraine and showed up several days later in Israel,

The normal way to report this would be to state that Israel kidnapped a Palestinian engineer in the Ukraine.

where he has been charged with masterminding Hamas’ rocket program.

Once again, AP emphasizes Israeli claims without including countering claims.

Last year a Hamas operative was assassinated in Dubai, and Israeli agents are widely assumed to have been responsible. Israel identified the man as a Hamas agent responsible for obtaining weaponry from Iran.

Again, we get the Israeli narrative, and only the Israeli narrative.

This week, Sudan accused Israel of being behind an explosion that killed two in Port Sudan. The blast was thought to be linked to arms smuggling to Gaza. Israel would not comment.

AP doesn’t bother supplying any information about the two human beings in Port Sudan who were just killed.

——

Ibrahim Barzak contributed reporting from Gaza City, Gaza Strip.

Yet, the story was written and edited in Israel by Matti Friedman, a journalist who may have family ties to the Israeli military.

#

In case anyone is curious about what occurred before this period, March had seen increased Israeli hostilities, including tightening the siege and a gradual escalation of Israeli  military attacks that killed 15 Palestinians, including 5 children, while another 90 Palestinians, including 22 children and 6 women, were wounded.

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The Making Of “The Future:

Watch This & Discover the Story Behind

Ty Bello’s Inspiring Song

Posted on Tuesday, April 12th, 2011 at 10:28 AM

By BellaNaija.com

Ty Bello‘s call to action song, “The Future” has made an impact on the radio and online as it provides an apt reminder that our future is in our hands.

In this short documentary by Joel Benson, Ty shares her inspiration for the song and what she hopes the song will achieve.

 
Video below.

The Future from Joel Benson on Vimeo.

Side Note
For everyone who has been asking about Ty’s hair, here is her response from a recent interview with Hi Magazine

 
Question: Well, you’ve told me about creating and photography and music. You’re one gorgeous lady, from the release of The Future online, asides from wide adoration for the song, your skin and hair have also taken Center Stage, what is your secret? What is your beauty ritual? What is going on with your hair, where is this hair from?
Ty Bello: Okay let me put it this way; I don’t really spend a lot of money on cloths, if I am ever splurging at all it is always on me. I take care of my hair a lot and then also I have very soft hair, its curly but it’s not as full as it looks. That’s as far as I can say.

Photo Credit: Ty Bello Studio/Hi Magazine

<p>TY Bello - The Future from Kemi Adetiba on Vimeo.</p>

 

Watch Now – “From the Heart of Black Nova Scotia”

By Tambay, on March 16th, 2011

Directed by Sylvia Hamilton, the 30-minute film takes a look at the lives of a group of black students in their predominantly white high school in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the daily reminders of racism they face, ranging from abuse, to exclusion.

They work to establish a Cultural Awareness Youth Group, a vehicle for building pride and self-esteem through educational and cultural programs. With help from mentors, they discover the richness of their heritage and learn some of the ways they can begin to affect change.

Watch below:

 

ZIMBABWE:

THE SHORT STORY COMPETITION

CALL FOR ENTRIES

 

The Intwasa Short Story Competition is an annual literary event seeking to promote original creative writing talent in both English and Isindebele. The competition has two awards; the Yvonne Vera award for best short story in English and the N. S. Sigogo award for best short story in isindebele. The prize for each award will be $500.

There is also a junior section of the competition open to high school students in Zimbabwe. The prizes for the junior sections will be $200 for each award.

The English Award is named after the late Dr. Yvonne Vera who is arguable one of the best writers writing in English to emerge out of Bulawayo and Zimbabwe as a whole. The Ndebele award is named after Ndabezinhle S. Sigogo. Mr. N. S. Sigogo was a prolific writer and probably the most published Ndebele writer with over two dozen publication to his name.

The Short Story Competition is supported by Hivos, Africalia Belgium, Rural Libraries and Resources Development Programme (RLRDP) and Turn Up College.

The deadline for submission for the short story competition is 15 July 2011. Adult stories should not be more than 3000 words. The maximum words for junior stories should be 1500. Stories can be sent to Info@Intwasa.org or Info.intwasa@gmail.com. Hard copies can be sent to Intwasa at 403 Fourth Floor, LAPF House, 8th Avenue and Jason Moyo Street. Bulawayo . Stories should be clearly marked Senior or Junior Section.

For more information about Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo visit www.intwasa.org

 

The Correspondents Program

The Glimpse Correspondents Program is for talented writers and photographers with a passion for storytelling and a knack for finding truly unique stories. The program is open to anyone who will be working, volunteering, or studying outside of their home country for at least 10 weeks. Correspondents receive the following benefits:

• $600 stipend
• Professional editorial support
• Career training in travel writing and photography
• Publication on Glimpse.org and the Matador Network

To learn more about the Correspondents Program, check out the program requirements, frequently asked questions, and the program dates and deadlines .

Applications for the Fall 2011 Correspondents Program are now open! You can apply here for the program.

Reading and photos by Glimpse Correspondent Ian Bass

Reading and photos by Glimpse Correspondent Molly Beer

Comments are closed.

 

Open to Women Journalists Worldwide:

Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship

 

Deadline: 27 May 2011

The International Women’s Media Foundation is now accepting applications for the 2011-12 Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship, named for the 1998 IWMF Courage in Journalism Award winner and The Boston Globe correspondent who was killed in Iraq in May 2003.

The fellowship will run from September 2011 to March 2012. The application deadline is May 27, 2011.

This program, created with Neuffer’s family and friends, aims to perpetuate her memory and advance her life mission of promoting international understanding of human rights and social justice while creating an opportunity for women journalists to build their skills.

One woman journalist will be selected to spend an academic year in a tailored program with access to Boston-area universities as well as The Boston Globe and The New York Times. The flexible structure of the program will provide the fellow with opportunities to pursue academic research and hone her reporting skills covering topics related to human rights.

The Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship is open to women journalists whose focus is human rights and social justice. Applicants must be dedicated to a career in journalism in print, broadcast or online media and show a strong commitment to sharing knowledge and skills with colleagues upon the completion of the fellowship. Excellent written and spoken English skills are required. A stipend will be provided, and expenses, including airfare and housing, will be covered.
Application Checklist

Completed applications must be received by the IWMF on or before May 27, 2011. Incomplete applications and applications that arrive after the due date will not be considered.

The following items constitute a completed application:
• Completed application form (including signature and date)
• Two completed recommendation forms
• English assessment form (for non-native English speakers only)
• Current resume or CV
• Three work samples

Applications should be submitted electronically when possible to neuffer@iwmf.org. If it is not possible to submit your application electronically, it can be submitted by mail, either regular post or international courier, to:

Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship
International Women's Media Foundation
1625 K Street, NW, Suite 1275
Washington, D.C. 20006
USA

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the goal of the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship?

The goal of the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship is to provide a woman journalist with a transformative experience that will impact her career by offering her the opportunity to conduct research at leading academic institutions and build journalistic skills. The Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship seeks to impact public awareness of human rights journalism by encouraging dialogue and discussion about critical human rights issues.
2. Who is eligible to apply for the fellowship?

The Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship is open to women journalists worldwide whose work focuses on human rights and social justice. Journalists working in the print, broadcast and Internet media, including freelancers, are eligible to apply.

Applicants must have a minimum of three years of experience in journalism. Non-native English speakers must also have excellent written and verbal English skills in order to fully participate in and benefit from the program.

3. Where will the fellowship take place?

Each fellowship will be tailored specifically to the recipient. Working with the IWMF, the fellow will design a program that will enable her to pursue academic research while improving her ability to cover human rights and social justice by increasing her journalistic skills.

The fellow will be based at the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts as a research associate during the research component of the fellowship. During the journalism portion of the fellowship, she may spend time at the Boston Globe or The New York Times.

4. How many fellows will be selected?

One journalist will be selected for the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship each year.

5. How will the fellow be selected?

The fellow will be selected by a committee made up of family and friends of Elizabeth Neuffer and IWMF board members. Candidates will be judged on their completed applications, the caliber and promise of their work on human rights and social justice, and their personal statements explaining how the fellowship would be a transformative experience.

Finalists for the fellowship may be interviewed by the IWMF.

6. When will the selected fellow be notified?

All applicants will be notified about the committee’s selection by June 2011.

7. When does the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship program begin?

The nine-month program will begin in September and end in May of the following year. The program will include both an orientation session at the start of the fellowship and a wrap-up at the end. The fellow must complete the entire program.

8. What expenses will be covered during the course of the fellowship?

A fixed stipend will be provided to cover housing, meals and ground transportation during the fellowship. Round-trip economy airfare will be covered from the fellow's home country or city to Washington, D.C., and from Washington, D.C., to the fellowship city. The fellow will also receive health insurance during the program. The fellowship does not provide salary or honoraria.

For fellows from outside of the United States, the fellowship also covers the costs of applying for and obtaining a U.S. visa.

The fellow will be fully responsible for any additional incidental expenses and other costs.

9. Will family members be able to accompany the fellow?

Family members are welcomed to accompany the fellow; however, IWMF will not be responsible for any arrangements or expenses related to family members, including support of visa applications.

Questions? Email neuffer@iwmf.org.

Downloads:

• Application form >>
  
• Recommendation forms >>
  
• English assessment form >>

More information here.

 

 

Lockdown High:

When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse

Annette Fuentes. Verso, $26.95 (210p) ISBN 978-1-84467-681-1

In this well-argued book, Fuentes, a journalist with a special interest in children's issues, sums up the "slippery slope" from the school to the jailhouse: "If yesterday's prank got a slap on the wrist, today those wrists could be slapped with handcuffs." Her book is packed with the anecdotally eye-catching and hard, persuasive data ("African-American students were 17 percent of the entire public school population, but account for 34 percent of all out-of-school suspensions and 30 percent of expulsions"). She reviews the legislative history (e.g., Safe and Gun Free School Act, 1994) that buttresses these developments and the "security industry" that profits from it, and she concludes with an assessment of "alternative paths to safe schools." The proper education of children, her book warns, is not promoted when "[h]orseplay on the playground or a shove in the hallway is no longer just youthful shenanigans [but] disorderly conduct and assault." Fuentes's detailed and daunting investigation of the "lockdown" philosophy and practices as "the criminal justice model" that shapes security and discipline in our schools is a wakeup call. (May)

__________________________

• Kirkus' Review

>via: http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/non-fiction/annette-fuentes/lockdow...

__________________________

Report From Lockdown High:

Fear Vs. Facts

On School Safety

An excerpt from a new book arguing that “punitive, zero tolerance strategies”—from metal detectors to clothing bans—aren't as effective as their popularity suggests.

By Annette Fuentes

Friday, Mar 11, 2011

More than 5,000 NYPD school safety agents patrol the hallways of New York City's schools. But are they making them safer? Is there a different way? The following adapted excerpt from “Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse,” by Annette Fuentes (Verso, May 2011) finds anecdotal reports and statistical evidence that tighter security does not always make for safer schools.

Herb Mack recalls the first day he and Ann Cook, co-founders of the Urban Academy, came into the old building that now houses their alternative public high school. “I took the hand-held metal detectors and locked them in a closet,” says Mack. There were walk-through scanners, too, installed at entrances to the old Julia Richman High School, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. A dozen School Security Agents, as the school police are known in the Big Apple, used to search students every morning with both kinds of scanners. It took six months to get permission from the city’s Board of Education and then Mack had the scanners torn down from the doorways. Until then, they were never used. “We didn’t for a day walk through the things. You couldn’t possibly have a welcoming school if you lined kids up to be searched. Our feeling is the only way to have safe schools is to have the kids be willing to talk to you and to the security folks about the problems they anticipate,” Mack says. “We have probably a hundred windows at ground level. We have thirteen entrances to the building. If they want to get a gun in, they can push it through a window. The scanners are such a political decision.”

 

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Annette Fuentes

Then there was the “cage,” an eight-by-twelve foot, floor-to-ceiling wire box that occupied part of the old guidance counselor office. “We thought that it must have been a storage space and thought it was strange that there were no shelves for papers or boxes. We didn’t know what it was,” Mack recalls. “A year or two after we’d been here, a woman came in who used to be the assistant principal for guidance. She said, ‘This was my office.’ We asked her about the metal box and she said, ‘Oh, that was the place we locked the kids up in until the police came.’” Mack and Cook tore the cage down, too, and made the office into a large, open space for teachers’ desks and a common room for students.

The Urban Academy opened in 1995 as the anchor among six alternative public schools—four high schools, a pre-kindergarten through eighth grade school and a program for autistic children—that operate as autonomous entities within the eighty-year-old building, now known as the Julia Richman Education Complex. Altogether 1,800 students attend classes in the complex, a haven for students who may not fit in the traditional setting offered in the city’s regular public schools.

The Urban Academy, like its founders, is a pioneer in the small school movement that has been embraced by progressive educators and, in a limited way, by New York City’s education officials as an antidote to the impersonal, overcrowded and ineffective high schools that came to dominate the largest public school system in the nation. The Urban Academy’s 120 students are a diverse swath of the city itself, and many landed there after unsatisfying stints at other schools that failed to engage them or stifled them with regulations.

While the school is nationally recognized for its success as a small school, one component of the philosophy behind Mack and Cook’s success that often escapes detection is their approach to security and discipline. Tearing down the scanners was both a literal and metaphorical statement of the Urban Academy’s rejection of an authoritarian, corrections-like strategy for making their students and classrooms safe. “There is a difference between security and discipline,” says Mack. “Discipline is talking to kids. We have a culture but it certainly isn’t one in which the normal discipline takes place.”

Security in the old Julia Richman building was under the direction of school security agents, who were put under the control of the New York Police Department in 1998 by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. A dozen SSAs would supervise the morning ritual of student scanning and searching, after which six officers were dispatched to other duties, leaving a full-time staff of six. One long-time female SSA who had good rapport with students and embodied the approach to security that Mack and Cook favored was made supervisor, after lobbying by the co-directors. She sets the tone for the other officers by dealing respectfully with students. “We work closely together. She understands that security is provided by her talking to the kids. It’s a very important part of the building,” Mack explains. “We don’t take any transfer agents. We take them right out of the training program so they haven’t been socialized into abusive practices. Our supervisor makes them understand that there are no confrontations with kids. We’ve had situations where they’ll say, ‘You have to watch out for so-and-so because there might be a problem.’ Kids are our best safety valve. And that’s because they know they can talk to us.”

Each of the schools within the Julia Richman complex has its own culture and its own principal, who can make decisions on everything, including dress codes. So when the city police decreed that students were forbidden to wear “do-rags” on their heads because they said it was gang attire, Urban’s administrators first checked with their constituents. “We went to kids and said, ‘Do you think we should outlaw do-rags?’” Mack says. “They said it’s not a gang thing, and we agreed with them. We became the only school in the building that didn’t outlaw do-rags. The other schools went along with the ban. That meant our security agents had to be willing to let us ignore what the police were saying. They were able to differentiate our kids from the others. We’ve established that the principal, not the SSAs or the police, run the school.”

As for incidents of violence or disciplinary problems, which Mack is required to report to the city Department of Education, well, he says there aren’t any. “I’ve never had any kind of incident to report. If the security agents get weapons, I haven’t seen them,” Mack says.

 

* * * * *

In a city whose schools and students are stereotyped as violent and failing, the success of the Urban Academy gives lie to the rationales behind the Lockdown High model of high-tech security equipment and harsh zero tolerance disciplinary policies in creating safe and secure schools. In fact, a mounting body of research contradicts the fundamental principles behind punitive, zero tolerance strategies as the most effective approach to school safety and discipline, while also revealing their harmful effects on children.

Authoritarian strategies have been predicated on a faulty foundation—the idea that school violence is epidemic and growing worse and demanding drastic measures at the cost of student rights and educational quality. Now, while it is true that violence and disciplinary problems have been and will always be present in schools to a greater or lesser degree, communities and administrators can choose to address them with strategies that are more appropriate to the basic mission of schools: to educate. By surrendering to the Lockdown High model, school board members, principals and teachers have abdicated their responsibility and lost the opportunity to make safety and discipline part of the curriculum. It is true that the zero tolerance is an appealing and often easier choice when schools face intense pressure to perform under federal testing mandates and budget cuts force out programs considered nonessential. And the political pressure behind punitive discipline policies and security fixes, such as metal detectors, can be enormous. But the failure of zero tolerance, reflected in the epidemic of students suspended and pushed out of schools, is becoming harder to ignore.

One of the first and now most widely cited studies on school violence and strategies for creating safer schools was published back in 1999 by Matthew Mayer and Peter Leone. The authors, professors of education, analyzed data on school crime from the National Crime Victimization Survey, which queried public school students from twelve to nineteen years old. Their findings suggested that schools with “a higher level of disorder” had more security measures, including metal detectors, locked doors, and security guards or other staff patrolling hallways, and that those very security measures may actually contribute to the school’s disorder. They called it a “cycle of disorder” in which restrictive controls in school create a “reciprocal, destructive relationship” with students, who “tend to engage in more acts of self-protection and live in a heightened state of fear.”

Acknowledging that some might argue that the presence of high-security measures is a necessary response to the disorder and violence, Mayer and Leone suggest a different interplay: “Creating an unwelcoming, almost jail-like, heavily scrutinized environment may foster the violence and disorder school administrators hope to avoid.” Schools with the least disruption, they found, were those where students understood the “system of law”—the rules of conduct. The solution, Mayer and Leone state, is “for schools to focus their efforts; effective communication rather than control is the best way to establish the legitimacy of the school’s system of law in the minds of students.”

A 2002 study of school violence and prevention by a private contractor and funded by the U.S. Department of Education offers a more nuanced and complex profile of conditions in schools than the view publicly espoused by education officials. It also offers more evidence to bolster Mayer and Leone’s theory that high security measures may be a cause of—not a solution to—school disorder. The DOE study surveyed public high school principals about crime in their schools and found that 60 percent of violence was concentrated in 4 percent of all schools. While urban schools with large numbers of low-income and non-white students tended to have the highest levels of crime, 36 percent of schools with high crime rates were in rural areas, contradicting “the image of school violence being solely restricted to central cities,” the study stated. And as in the Mayer and Leone study, it found that schools with higher crime rates were more likely to use security measures such as random metal detectors, police and security personnel. By contrast, schools with lower or no violent crime put a higher priority on counseling and violence-prevention education, including peer-mediation and conflict- resolution programs. Unfortunately, the study’s scope was limited and did not go beyond merely describing what exists to begin to answer the all important question: “whether programs were implemented in an effective way and/or significantly reduced the amount of violence in the school.”

 

* * * * *

After nearly two decades of zero tolerance and authoritarian discipline, the paradox persists. Why do schools with the most security measures and most punitive discipline still tend to have more reported incidents of violence or crime? If the punitive, policing approach were effective, then incidents and student suspensions should be going down. The fact that juvenile crime rates outside the schoolhouse continue to fall makes the situation inside even more incongruous.

In 2006, the preponderance of evidence that students and academic achievement were being damaged by the continuation of punitive discipline motivated the American Psychological Association to weigh in on the issue. At its annual convention, the professional organization released a report by its Zero Tolerance Task Force that gleaned evidence from two decades of research into school climate and discipline. Called simply “Are Zero Tolerance Policies Effective in the Schools?,” the APA taskforce, which included Indiana University’s Russell Skiba, answered the question with a resounding “No.”

The report identifies and then rebuts the fundamental premises behind zero tolerance policies, including the idea that serious school violence is “out-of-control”; that suspending students for misdeeds creates a better learning climate for other students; that punitive discipline is a deterrent to future misbehavior; and that parents and communities overwhelmingly support zero tolerance. The report also highlights the lopsided impact for black students, a result it attributes to poor teacher training and lack of cultural competence with diverse student populations. And most important, the psychologists address child and adolescent development and how zero tolerance is an inappropriate, even harmful strategy for correcting behavioral problems, especially those with emotional or neurological roots.

The report prescribes a series of reforms to school disciplinary policies, recommending a drastic scaling back of the most harsh punishments and adopting flexibility in disciplining individual students. In place of zero tolerance, the task force called for strategies to reconnect alienated youth within a school community that fosters connectedness among teachers, students, parents, and administrators. Improved training for teachers in classroom management and cultural competence are also vital.

Aron Goldman

Executive Director

Great piece. Here's the actual 2006 APA report:
http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/zero-tolerance.pdf

 

>via: http://www.citylimits.org/conversations/133/school-security

Al Sharpton, Cornel West:

Why Their Fight Is Good for Black America

from Race-Talk by Dr. Boyce Watkins

My heart sank as I watched Cornel West and Rev. Al Sharpton going at it on MSNBC’s show, “A Stronger America: The Black Agenda.”  Even host Ed Schultz had to shut down the bickering like a referee at an MMA fight that had gotten out of control.  Neither West nor Sharpton is the type to back down from their beliefs, and both were insistent upon making their points.

The focal point of the argument was none other than President Barack Obama.  West and his allies seem to feel that President Obama has left the black community at the doorstep of equality, while Rev. Sharpton is adamant in supporting the president’s bid for reelection.  Both men make valid points, for neither of their views can be readily dismissed.

Professor West seems to be hoping for a better America.  That would be a country where African Americans don’t simply vote for Democratic presidential candidates solely because they are not as bad as the Republicans.  He hopes for a country where the suffering of black people does not continue to be ignored by those we’ve supported with our hearts and souls.  Black men are incarcerated more in the United States today than during the height of apartheid in South Africa, our unemployment rates have regularly exceeded 15 percent, and our underfunded schools are sending kids into the world without the ability to compete.  West is right to vent his frustration.

Rev. Sharpton appears to be working as a political pragmatist.  He fully understands that not taking a stand for President Obama in the next election means that the Republicans are going to take over.  He also reminds black Americans that President Obama can’t do everything on his own.  On the other hand, Shaprton’s alliance with President Obama makes some critics wonder if the relationship benefits the entire black community or just Sharpton and Obama.

Clearly, having access to the White House can be a very good thing for the black community.  Even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. held the ear of President John F. Kennedy, who probably cared less for the black community than President Obama.  All the while, outside agitators like Cornel West are incredibly important when it comes to keeping all parties honest in their relationships.  Knowing that Cornel West and others stand watching at all times reminds both Sharpton and Obama that the community is analyzing the relationship to see if it actually bears fruit.  President Obama is quickly learning that the black community is not satisfied with public appearances and Motown celebrations.  More and more black folks are seeking a clear return on their political investment.

When it’s all said and done, the fierce debate between Sharpton and West, while disturbing, actually provides a healthy check and balance for African American leadership.  The pressure that men like Cornel West put on Sharpton and Obama may likely heighten their desire to engage in public activities that are designed to prove West and other critics to be wrong.  Having the United States Justice Department deal with the mass incarceration of black men might be a great place to start, for any form of courageous political action on the part of the Obama Administration might go a long way to bolster the support of those who’ve become disgruntled by the Obama Presidency.

As Rev. Sharpton reminds me during our frequent conversations, black leaders have never been in lockstep on every single issue.  Martin Luther King fought with Malcolm X, and Marcus Garvey fought with W.E.B. Du Bois.  Cornel West’s public battle with Al Sharpton is nothing more than a continuation of a relatively healthy tradition, but we must be sure to take the energy from this debate and translate it into productive activity.  The only thing that matters is the plight of the people and black leaders must keep this in mind.

 

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Sexual slavery in Edo State

 

This woman is almost certainly Nigerian, and just as certainly, she is likely to be from Edo State.  She was photographed having sex just off the Ramblas in Barcelona.  To most tourists who visit, the Ramblas is perhaps the most beautiful shopping street in Europe.  To her, it is degrading servitude.  As we know from the Channel 4 documentary Unreported World (see the previous post), she was probably forced to take a juju oath, which ensures she spends years and years as a prostitute in Europe paying off 50,000 Euros or more, in utter fear of the consequences of running away.

It seems there is a conspiracy of silence around this contemporary form of slavery in Edo State.  Its not hard to imagine why: the remittances keep flowing in, with 40,000 or more Bini prostitutes in Mali and perhaps the same number (or a lot more) again in Europe.  We know this is going on.  We know it is causing enormous suffering.  A lot of the girls imagine that they will only have to be prostitutes for a few months, and persuade themselves that they will find other work as a hairdresser etc.  It is only when they arrive in Europe and their Madam tells them the terms of the job that they realise their life is effectively over. 

Its long since time that a full-on campaign to challenge sex trafficking in Edo State began with civil society groups joining forces with the Edo State government and NAPTIP.  Their may need to be punitive state-specific legislation passed. 

We are all allowing this to happen, by looking the other way and dismissing Benin women as promiscuous and enthusiastic to do the work anyway.  We were in denial in Germany, 70 years ago, just as we are in denial today.

Posted by Jeremy at 7:26 PM

via naijablog.co.uk

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