DEACONS FOR DEFENSE

searchingforknowledge:

deejaybird:

In Bogalusa, Louisiana, 1964, civil-rights workers were surrounded by a horde of Ku Klux Klansmen. A Black man named Charles Sims saw that the chief of police was merely observing what could have been lots of bloodshed. Charles Sims walked over to the police chief and told him: “You better stop `em. Cause if you don’t, we’re gonna kill them all.” The top cop saw armed Black men staked out in protective formation around the building housing the civil-rights workers. There was no Klan violence that night. Sims later declared, “That night a brand-new Negro was born.”

Cross burning ended suddenly in Jonesboro, Louisiana, the night that a cross was set on fire in front of a clergyman’s house. The Deacons for Defense and Justice began busting shots at the KKK as the torch touched the cross. The Klan departed and never repeated that trick.

In early 1965 Black students picketing Jonesboro high school were confronted by hostile police and fire trucks with hoses prepared to hose the Black students until a car of 4 Deacons emerged and in view of the police, calmly loaded their shotguns. The police ordered the fire truck to withdraw.

During a 1965 summer demonstration, white hecklers turned violent and threw a brick which struck a Black woman, Hattie Mae Hill. The white mob surrounded the car the Deacons were using to aid the terrified woman. As the white mob closed in on Deacon Henry Austin, he fired point blank into the chest of Alton Crowe who was in the front of the mob. While Crowe survived, the fun of beating up on Blacks died that afternoon in Bogalusa.

No longer able to attack Black people without fear of retaliation from gun-wielding Deacons, the Klan began to lose its power-hold on the region. With the threat of violence greatly diminished, the Deacons for Defense and Justice’s visibility declined. After 1968, the Deacons were inactive. The wife of one of the last surviving Deacon leaders says “I became very proud of Black men. They didn’t bow down and scratch their heads. They stood up like men.” SALUTE.

Movies are needed on this shit.

Source: deejaybird

Reblogged: bradicalmang

 

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Literary Awards

 

Deadline:

February 15, 2013

Website: 

http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/litawards/index.htm

Three prizes of $3,500 each are given annually for books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction (including creative nonfiction) published in the previous year. Books by writers who were born in or are residents of Virginia or, in the case of nonfiction, books with a Virginia theme are eligible. Submit four copies of a book published in 2012 by February 15. There is no entry fee. Send an SASE, call, or visit the website for the required entry form and complete guidelines.

Library of Virginia, Literary Awards, 800 East Broad Street, Richmond, VA 23219-8000. (804) 692-3500.

Georgetown Review Press

Poetry Manuscript Contest

Deadline:

February 15, 2013

Entry Fee: 

$20

Website: 

http://www.georgetowncollege.edu/georgetownreview/submissions/poetry-manuscript-contest

A prize of $1,000 and publication by Georgetown Review Press is given annually for a poetry collection. D. A. Powell will judge. Submit a manuscript of 48 to 80 pages with a $20 entry fee by February 15. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Georgetown Review Press, Poetry Manuscript Contest, P.O. Box 227, Georgetown College, Georgetown, KY 40324. Steven Carter, Editor. 

Sarabande Books 

Morton and McCarthy Prizes

 

Deadline:

February 15, 2013

Entry Fee: 

$27

Website: 

http://www.sarabandebooks.org

Two prizes of $2,000 each and publication by Sarabande Books are given annually for collections of poetry and fiction. For the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, submit a manuscript of at least 48 pages; Susan Mitchell will judge. For the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, submit a manuscript of 150 to 250 pages of stories, novellas, or a short novel; Edith Pearlman will judge. The entry fee for each award is $27, and the deadline is February 15. Send an SASE or visit the website for the required entry form and complete guidelines.

Sarabande Books, Morton and McCarthy Prizes, P.O. Box 4456, Louisville, KY 40205.

Kamau Bell

fatherswrites:

Even in the early morning hours as I drive to work I see young women obviously on their way to ‘school’ getting harassed. Often I will see cars pull up close to the curb and slowly follow a female along. I can’t prove that they are harassing that young women but I also have no doubt it is happening. Luckily for me I don’t even have the guts to approach a woman I have been introduced to much less walking up to a woman I don’t know on the street. This serves as a good lesson. Share with the boys in your life.

 

Totally Biased: NYC Women Talk Cat Calling: The women of NYC are sick of being harassed on the street so Kamau tries something different—treating them with respect. Afterwards, Kamau provides tips for men who want to make a change.

fatherswrites:

Even in the early morning hours as I drive to work I see young women obviously on their way to ‘school’ getting harassed. Often I will see cars pull up close to the curb and slowly follow a female along. I can’t prove that they are harassing that young women but I also have no doubt it is happening. Luckily for me I don’t even have the guts to approach a woman I have been introduced to much less walking up to a woman I don’t know on the street. This serves as a good lesson. Share with the boys in your life.

 

Totally Biased: NYC Women Talk Cat Calling: The women of NYC are sick of being harassed on the street so Kamau tries something different—treating them with respect. Afterwards, Kamau provides tips for men who want to make a change.

 

 

LAUREN

This is hard to watch but worth it - Combat rape/violence against women is real. 

Posted on Sunday, December 23rd 2012, by thisblackdaffodile

'Arrest us all'

When hundreds of women descended on Nagpur district court armed with knives, stones and chilli powder, within minutes the man who raped them lay dead. Raekha Prasad reports

 

The Guardian, Thursday 15 September 2005

 

A year ago Usha Narayane was about to embark on a new life. A call-centre worker with a diploma in hotel management, she was 25 and about to travel north from her home in the centre of India to begin a managerial job in a hotel in Punjab. The job would transport her not only geographically but also socially.

Like her neighbours, Narayane is a dalit, an "untouchable", at the bottom of the caste ladder. Schooling and literacy are rare among the women of Kasturba Nagar, the slum neighbourhood in the city of Nagpur where she grew up. She was unmarried, preferring to work and study. Yet nobody resented her success. Instead, they had high hopes for the girl. But Narayane went nowhere. Today, she is in her family's one-room, windowless home, awaiting trial for murder.

At 3pm on August 13 2004, Akku Yadav was lynched by a mob of around 200 women from Kasturba Nagar. It took them 15 minutes to hack to death the man they say raped them with impunity for more than a decade. Chilli powder was thrown in his face and stones hurled. As he flailed and fought, one of his alleged victims hacked off his penis with a vegetable knife. A further 70 stab wounds were left on his body. The incident was made all the more extraordinary by its setting. Yadav was murdered not in the dark alleys of the slum, but on the shiny white marble floor of Nagpur district court.

Laughed at and abused by the police when they reported being raped by Yadav, the women took the law into their own hands. A local thug, Yadav and his gang had terrorised the 300 families of Kasturba Nagar for more than a decade, barging into homes demanding money, shouting threats and abuse.

Residents say he murdered at least three neighbours and dumped their bodies on railway tracks. They had reported his crimes to the police dozens of times. Each time he was arrested, he was granted bail.

But it was rape that Yadav used to break and humiliate the community. A rape victim lives in every other house in the slum, say the residents of Kasturba Nagar. He violated women to control men, ordering his henchmen to drag even girls as young as 12 to a nearby derelict building to be gang-raped.

In India, even to admit to being raped is taboo, yet dozens of Yadav's victims reported the crime. But the 32-year-old was never charged with rape. Instead, the women say, the police would tell him who had made the reports and he would come after them. According to residents, the police were hand-in-glove with Yadav: he fed the local officers bribes and drink, and they protected him.

When one 22-year-old reported being raped by Yadav, the police accused her of having an affair with him and sent her away. Several others were sent away after being told: "You're a loose woman. That's why he raped you."

Nagpur is counted among India's fastest-growing cities. Yet the experience of the women of Kasturba Nagar is a parallel tale of how everyday life in India's back streets is stuck in the past. Splashed across the country's news- papers, the gory image of Yadav's blood on the courtroom floor was a lesson in the consequences of a state unable to protect the weak and the vulnerable.

After Yadav's murder, powerful voices were raised supporting the lynch mob. Prominent lawyers issued a statement saying the women should not be treated as the accused, but as the victims. One retired high court judge even congratulated the women. "In the circumstances they underwent, they were left with no alternative but to finish Akku. The women repeatedly pleaded with the police for their security. But the police failed to protect them," said Justice Bhau Vahane.

Two weeks before the lynching, Yadav came to Narayane's house on several successive days, threatening to throw acid on her and rape her. He targeted her, she says, because she was outspoken and her brother-in-law, a lawyer, had verbally stood up to Yadav. "He raped only poor people whom he thought wouldn't go and tell, or if they did, wouldn't be listened to. But he made a big mistake in threatening me. People felt that if I were attacked, no woman would ever be safe."

Although Narayane has been charged with Yadav's murder, she claims she was not at the court when it took place but in the slum collecting signatures for a mass complaint against him. Among the charges levelled against her are some of India's most serious offences, including "anti- nationalist" crimes amounting to treason. "The cops say I planned the murder; that I started it. They have to make someone a scapegoat," she says. She believes she has been singled out because she has been the police's most vociferous critic. Her education gave her the confidence that inspired the community to act, she says.

In the week before the lynching, people started to talk about taking action against Yadav. He disappeared, sensing boiling anger. Narayane and her brother-in-law bypassed the local officers and went straight to the deputy commissioner. He gave the family a safe house for a night and promised to search for him.

On August 6, hundreds of residents smashed his empty house to rubble. By evening they heard Yadav had "surrendered" and was in custody. "The police had said he would be in danger if he came back. They suggested he surrender into their care for his own safety."

The next day he was due to appear at the city's district court and 500 slum residents gathered. As Yadav arrived, one of his henchmen tried to pass him knives wrapped in a blanket under the noses of the police. After the women protested, the accomplice was arrested and Yadav taken back into custody, but not before he threatened to return and teach every woman in the slum a lesson.

Hearing that Yadav was likely to get bail yet again, when he returned to court, the women decided to act. "It was not calculated," Narayane says. "It was not a case that we all sat down and calmly planned what would happen. It was an emotional outburst. The women decided that, if necessary, they'd go to prison, but that this man would never come back and terrorise them."

On the day of Yadav's hearing, 200 women came to the court armed with vegetable knives and chilli powder. As he walked in, Yadav spotted one of the women he had raped. He called her a prostitute and threatened to repeat the crime against her. The police laughed. She took off her sandal and began to hit him, shouting, "We can't both live on this Earth together. It's you or me."

It was a rallying cry to an incensed mob. Soon, he was being attacked on all sides. Knives were drawn and the two terrified officers guarding him ran away. Within 15 minutes, Yadav was dead on the courthouse floor. But his death has not brought the women peace. Five were immediately arrested, then released following a demonstration across the city. Now every woman living in the slum has claimed responsibility for the murder. They say no one person can take the blame: they have told the police to arrest them all.

But it is Narayane who is in limbo as she waits for her case to be heard. "After the murder, society's eyes opened: the police's failings came to light. That has irritated them. The police see me as a catalyst for the exposure and want to nip it in the bud."

They face a fight. Narayane is loudly unrepentant. "I'm not scared. I'm not ashamed," she says. "We've done a good thing for society. We will see whether society repays us".

__________________________

Usha Narayane

Sometimes when an entire community is being brutalized, it takes just one brave person to turn the situation around. For 15 years the mud alleys of the main slum in the central Indian city of Nagpur were ruled by a thug named Akku Yadav and his band of killers, rapists, and extortionists. The slum residents are of the Dalit caste—untouchables—and their complaints were never taken seriously by the local police. The criminals were from a higher social rung than their victims and besides, they had the money to pay baksheesh--bribes.

>via: http://www.giraffe.org/option,com_sobi2/sobi2Task,sobi2Details/catid,0/sobi2I...

__________________________

A Visit to Kasturba Nagar,

Nagpur, India

by Jenn Walters-Michalec

The M. Night Shyamalan Foundation recently returned from an amazing visit to India. After three-years, our skills training program for the women of Kasturba Nagar has been completed and a post-grant evaluation trip ensued.

India: Rape Victim’s Death

Demands Action

Reform Sexual Assault Laws, Treatment of Survivors

December 29, 2012

Demonstrators hold candles during a candlelight vigil for a gang rape victim who was assaulted in New Delhi on December 29, 2012.

© 2012 Reuters

This murderous gang rape is a sobering reminder of the pervasive sexual violence that women and girls across India suffer. The government needs to act now to prevent sexual assault, aggressively investigate and prosecute perpetrators, and ensure the dignified treatment of survivors.

       —Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director

The death on December 29, 2012, of a 23-year-old student who was gang raped and assaulted should spur decisive action by the Indian government to combat sexual violence, Human Rights Watch said today. The attack catalyzed massive nationwide demonstrations and reopened public debate about reforming India’s inadequate laws and practices concerning sexual assault.

The woman, a paramedical student whose name has not been made public, and a male friend were traveling in a private bus in New Delhi on December 16 when five men and a youth under 18 raped and assaulted her and beat her friend. The woman suffered severe injuries and was transferred to a hospital in Singapore, where she died. The police have arrested the accused and are expected to file charges in the first week of January 2013.

“This murderous gang rape is a sobering reminder of the pervasive sexual violence that women and girls across India suffer,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director. “The government needs to act now to prevent sexual assault, aggressively investigate and prosecute perpetrators, and ensure the dignified treatment of survivors.”

The New Delhi gang rape highlighted the widespread problem of sexual violence in India, Human Rights Watch said. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, 24,206 rape cases were registered in India in 2011, and experts say the number of unreported cases of sexual assault is much higher.

Following the New Delhi attack, the Indian central government formed a three-member commission headed by former Indian Supreme Court Chief Justice Jagdish Sharan Verma, to “review[] the present laws so as to provide speedier justice and enhanced punishment in cases of aggravated sexual assault.”  While the government’s swift action to create a commission to review punishment for aggravated sexual assault is an important step, reform of the criminal law and procedure, plus improved treatment of survivors, is needed to ensure justice for sexual assault victims, Human Rights Watch said.

Strengthen Mechanisms to Implement Laws and Support Survivors
The Delhi gang rape reflects a much larger problem of sexual violence in India, Human Rights Watch said. While officials responded swiftly and promised speedy justice, the attack followed numerous reported sexual assaults in the country, including against women with disabilities and dalits. For example, on December 27 the media reported that a girl in Punjab committed suicide a month after she was gang raped because police were unwilling to register her complaint or arrest the accused.

State security forces have at times been implicated in sexual assault, but the government has not taken action against them. For example, in October 2011 police in Chhattisgarh were accused of sexual assaultof an adivasi teacher, Soni Sori, while she was in their custody. There still have been no arrests and prosecutions in the alleged rape and murder in 2004 of Manorama Devi, who was taken into army custody from her home in the northeastern state of Manipur.

In May 2012, about 90 civil society organizations and individuals, including Human Rights Watch, wrote to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging reforms in responses to sexual assault and calling for greater police accountability. The groups called on the Indian central government to constitute a high-level task force to develop a coordinated response to gender-based violence, especially sexual assault; instruct state governments to monitor police handling of sexual assault reports and investigations, and hold accountable officers who mishandle their duties; and fund an existing scheme for financial assistance for rape victims and monitor its implementation.

The level of care – including counseling – provided to the New Delhi gang rape victim and her family, demonstrates that political will can ensure support and care for victims of sexual assault, Human Rights Watch said. But this only followed public outrage and demonstrations after the attack. Human Rights Watch research has found that survivors usually find it difficult to register police complaints, and often go from one hospital to another even for a medical examination, and often report suffering humiliation at police stations and hospitals.

India does not have a uniform protocol for medical treatment and examination of survivors of sexual assault, making responses ad hoc and unpredictable, and in the worst cases, degrading and counter-productive. This is reflected in the continued use of the so-called “finger test,” which Human Rights Watch documented in a 2010 report. While conducting medical examinations, many doctors record unscientific and degrading findings, which involve noting the “laxity” of the vagina or hymen, apparently to determine whether the victims are “virgins” or “habituated to sexual intercourse.” Often doctors, police, and judges look for evidence of “struggle” or “injuries,” especially hymenal injuries, in the medical examination report, discrediting those who do not report such injuries.

The Indian government should establish national standards and a uniform protocol for the medical treatment and collection of medical evidence in cases of sexual assault, and to eliminate the use of finger tests on sexual assault survivors, Human Rights Watch said.

“The Indian government needs to adopt and enforce measures to ensure the dignified treatment and examination of sexual assault survivors,” Ganguly said. “Dignity and accountability should underscore the police and medical responses to sexual assault throughout India.”

Urgent Need for Comprehensive Law Reform on Sexual Assault
Indian civil society organizations have long called for laws on sexual assault to be reformed. Under current criminal law, India does not have a general definition of sexual assault. It only defines rape (penile penetration), “outraging the modesty” of women, and “insulting the modesty” of women. Indian law does not recognize the offense of marital rape.

It is especially difficult to prosecute members of the security forces implicated in sexual assault and other human rights violations. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act provides effective immunity to members of the armed forces who are accused of sexual assault and other abuses. Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code provides effective immunity to police and other security forces by making it mandatory for a prosecutor to obtain permission from the government to initiate criminal proceedings against public servants.

The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2012, which was introduced in the lower house of the parliament on December 4, introduces a definition of “sexual assault” but limits it to all forms of penetrative sexual assault. Rights groups in India have, however, consistently pressed for a comprehensive definition of sexual assault, which includes both penetrative and non-penetrative forms of sexual assault. Instead, the bill retains the archaic definition of “outraging the modesty of a woman” to cover all forms of non-penetrative sexual assault and harassment. It does not introduce any special procedural protections for survivors who report sexual assault by police officers or members of the armed forces.

“Law reform efforts should be comprehensive and minimize the risks and delays that sexual assault survivors now endure,” Ganguly said. “Police officers, soldiers, politicians, and civil servants should not be above the law for sexual assault or anything else.”

Death Penalty Not the Solution
After the December 16 gang rape, high-level government officials announced that they will pursue harsher penalties for rape, including the death penalty. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an inherently irreversible, inhumane punishment. A majority of countries in the world have abolished the practice. In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution by a wide margin calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions.

“For politicians, supporting the death penalty is an easy but ineffectual way out,” Ganguly said. “It is much harder, but more effective, to revamp the response of police, doctors, forensic specialists, prosecutors, and judges to sexual violence. Survivors deserve an effective, coordinated response to sexual assault.”

southasianhistory:

Pictures from protests and

demonstrations in New Delhi

Thousands of college students, teachers and activists rallied in New Delhi over the weekend, clashing with riot police near the India Gate. The protests were set off by the brutal gang rape of a medical student on a city bus on Dec. 16. (via)

(via inothernews)

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