Raising Cain...

Solidarity with peoples of the Amazon on Earth Day

The Amazon has over half of the planet’s remaining rainforest habitat and is home to more plants and animals than any other land region on Earth. Indigenous people in the Amazon forest live in a way that preserves and regenerates the resources they use. Unlike people in other cultures, they do not exploit plants and animals in this ecologically diverse region where they live.

In the last 40 years, industrial development, large scale agriculture and encroachment of western ideas and ways of doing things have destroyed 20% of the Amazon. In Peru over 75% of its Amazonian territory is now in the hands of oil companies. 

In this video, a group of Shipibo healers share what the Earth represents to them, and why it's so important that we stand with them in protecting the Amazon.

Learn more at Alianza Arkana.

 

Tell Secretary Napolitano to Abolish Solitary Confinement - Physicians for Human Rights

Thought I'd share this petition link from Physicians for Human Rights asking Janet Napolitano to abolish solitary confinement for people detained in immigration facilities:

Thousands of people awaiting immigration hearings in the US detention system are routinely held in solitary confinement. We know that this cruel and unusual practice causes serious and lasting psychological and physiological harm. The sometimes irreversible consequences — including panic attacks, paranoia, hallucinations, weight loss, and self-harm — are exacerbated for people who have endured torture, which is common among immigration detainees who have fled violence or persecution in their home countries.

Placing anyone in solitary confinement for prolonged periods is an outrage — in some cases even torture — but this practice is especially abhorrent in the immigration setting, where detainees are not being held as punishment for a crime and are usually unable to challenge their detention.

Urge Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to end solitary confinement in all immigration detention facilities. By ending this practice, the United States would send a strong signal to the international community that it does not tolerate torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading practices in its detention policy.

Sign the petition at secure3.convio.net

 

PHR has also published a report on the negative effects of solitary confinement:

Buried Alive: Solitary Confinement in the US Detention System (pdf download page)

 

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U.N. Expert on Torture Calls for Investigation of Use of Solitary Confinement

Treating immigrants civilly

Marco McMillian's Life And Death A Test For Civil Rights In The Mississippi Delta

Very interesting indepth article by Janell Ross (formerly a reporter at the Tennessean) on the death of Marco McMillian:

Before his mysterious death in late February, Marco McMillian had hoped to lead this community, running for mayor with a reform-minded agenda. McMillian, 33, was black, and the first openly gay person to vie for public office in Mississippi.

The nation’s first black president may have put gay rights squarely in the center of righteous and patriotic American struggles for equality during his second inaugural speech in January. And the Supreme Court is currently considering two of the most important gay rights cases in U.S. history. But the way McMillian’s life is understood, and his death investigated, is also a barometer of sorts on the state of American equality.

“There is some complicated, heartbreaking, truly tragic and important stuff going on in Clarksdale,” said Omowale Akintunde, a University of Nebraska professor and Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker. Akintunde came to town in early March to chronicle what he says is a story that America needs to see.

“What it tells us are some ugly truths about remaining bigotry and bias," he said, "even among those who have themselves been terrorized, exploited, excluded and demeaned.”

Read the full article at www.huffingtonpost.com

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Was Marco McMillian Killed in Mississippi Because He Was Black or Gay?

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Has the Deep South changed? Clarksdale, Mississippi is burning

AP drops ‘illegal immigrant’ from Stylebook

Yay! Good news from the Washington Post today for everyone participating in the "Drop the I-word" campaigns:

The Associated Press has dropped the phrase “illegal immigrant” from its stylebook, a victory for immigrant advocates who argue that the term is biased against the people it describes.

“The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term ‘illegal immigrant’ or the use of ‘illegal’ to describe a person,” a blog post from AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll explains. “Instead, it tells users that ‘illegal’ should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally.”

via www.washingtonpost.com

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