Monday-Roundhouse Public Hearing on Detainees/Private Prisons. Time to show up & comment. Friday: March from Roundhouse to Governors’ Conference. Comments on Parkland visit and some common themes gleaned from Road Trip. Please share this post.And if that were not enough, a community conversation on Environmental Justice in Española on Sunday! Time to get out and raise your voices. At the end this post is a different perspective on the Parkland student rally in ABQ than the one presented in the Santa Fe New Mexican.
Update on Road Trip. We are on day 25 (Friday) of our Road Trip and we are beginning to identify some common elements where effective policies are being implemented in the cities we have visited. But these preliminary findings have really emerged from visits to only 6 cities: Baltimore, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Rochester, Montreal and Detroit. Before we attempt to summarize even preliminary findings, we want to work our way through the next segment of the trip, Cleveland, Madison, Minneapolis and Nashville, Montgomery and Jackson.
A few comments to our description of what we’ve found so far focus on the need for any recommendations we make being vetted by and actually implemented by our local partners, those who have done the work for many years. While not wanting to go into all the details of what we have found, it is certainly the case that in the five of the six cities we’ve investigated so far a shared theme is the long-time activists groups of each community being the driving force of social change, so sharing our findings with our community allies will certainly be the first and most important step in our recommendations. The challenge, as noted by reader Pelican Lee, is that these CBO’s are already over-extended doing the work they do, so identifying the time and resources to forge an alliance and a common set of achievable goals will be a formidable challenge. A goodly part of our inquiry in each city is something to the effect of: “How do you do the work you have been doing while finding time and resources to invent, advocate for and achieve policy to achieve equity?”
What’s Coming: Our usual blog will summarize the past week and highlight the actions of the coming week. Then on Tuesday, I’ll summarize a remarkable article from Resilience on how a different, more humanistic economy is possible, one that serves the 99%. Unlike so many of these explications, this one is tremendously accessible and readable while outlining the very specific tax policies that need to be made to achieve commonly shared progressive social policy goals. Mark Tuesday on your calendar. You will not want to miss this summary. Also coming next week will be a Green Fire Times article written by one of our readers, Lena Hakim, on living in Santa Fe without a car. Stay tuned.
Click here for this week’s packed events and actions or read on!
A Week for Action!
Protecting Those Most Vulnerable Community Conversation about Environmental Justice for Pregnant and Parenting Families. Sunday, July 15, 1pm-4pm. Northern New Mexico College. 921 N Paseo de Onate, Espanola. Please be on hand on July 15th for our presentation on “Protecting Those Most Vulnerable – Environmental Justice For Pregnant and Parenting Families in Northern New Mexico.” Speakers include TWU’s Jessica Riggs, Kathy Sanchez, and Beata Tsosie-Peña. Hosted by Tewa Women United and Yiya Vi Kagingdi Doula Project
We will be discussing the hexavalent chromium plume that is currently affecting our communities.
PLEASE RSVP FOR THIS EVENT USING THIS FORM: https://goo.gl/forms/Q6QcN22qviViWUQL2. This is a FREE event, but your RSVP on that form (in addition to this FB event page) will greatly help us in planning for food and other logistics.
Public Hearing on Immigrant Detentions
Public Hearing. July 16, Mon., 1pm-4pm @ Roundhouse Room 307. Multiple, actually many multiple sources have written to me asking that I do all I can to pack the room for this hearing. This is our chance to weigh in on private prisons, detainees, etc.
For those New Mexicans who have been asking “what can we do” about the ongoing immigration crisis in our country, please take note that on Monday July 16th at the Roundhouse in Santa Fe in Room 307, our legislature committee on Courts, Corrections, and Justice will have a public hearing from 1-4 about exerting more oversight on private correctional facilities in our state and there will be an hour of public comment, apparently between 3-4pm. This is opportunity to raise your voices and to engage with officials, law enforcement, and lawmakers about the crisis of immigration detention in our state.The room holds about 300, let’s make sure they need an overflow room. Please share this post with your personal lists and make plans to go with friends to this hearing.
We have to use this opportunity well and be focused and clear with our lawmakers about what our expectations are for the treatment of immigrants in this state. From a bulletin from Santa Fe Dreamers: “We have been in these prisons and our clients have been abused, are in mental health crisis, experience medical neglect, and are put in isolation. We have met people who have been sexually assaulted and one member of our trans-pod died in May. These corporations are not capable of keeping my clients safe and they are getting very very rich in the meantime. I think it is incredibly important that people show up at this hearing informed and organized with their comments and demands. There is only one hour for public comment and it must be used well. Inform yourself, be a deeply educated activist, and please show up ready to listen and share space with the whole community, especially those who have personal connection to this issue.” (If you don’t live in NM– you can organize and demand this hearing in your own legislature).
Here are a few links offered by SF Dreamers, as a way to get updated and oriented:
- From the Las Cruces Sun this week: https://www.lcsun-news.com/…/ice-new-mexico-ille…/747158002/
- From NM Political Report last October: http://nmpoliticalreport.com/…/inside-a-private-prisons-15…
- Here is the website for the committee: https://www.nmlegis.gov/Committee/Interim_Committee…
- As usual I suggest learning broadly about the issue of immigration detention from Detention Watch Network: https://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/
Once oriented, it is time to show up on Monday!
Protest at National Governor’s Conference July 20
When: Friday July 20 10:30 am- healthcare
- funding for education
- environmental protection laws
- women’s reproductive health and right to choose
- asylum seekers’ right to due process and family unity
- polices that restrain ICE from violating immigrants’ rights
- workers’ freedom to negotiate
- free speech rights to support legal boycotts and criticize other country’s violation of human rights
- voting rights
- Stricter gun control laws
- End to mass incarceration and no private prisons
Critique of Santa Fe New Mexican Coverage of Parkland Student Rally
On Wednesday, July 11, a group of Parkland students on a national tour made a stop in ABQ. Coverage in the New Mexican focused on those pro-gun protesters with signs at the student rally. One of our supporters who is active in the gun safety movement, Jade Gordon, sent me a note asking that we publish the Letter to the Editor Written by Harry Eberts, co- pres. of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence & pastor of S Fe Presby. Church. So, just in case the New Mexican doesn’t print it, I wanted you all to see it & get a much clearer picture of what a thoughtful, moving event was created by some very wise, courageous and inspiring kids.“ I was disheartened by your coverage of the Parkland students coming to Albuquerque on their nation-wide tour. The story should have been about their stories in responding to the tragedy of the Parkland shooting, but the two 8×5” photographs showcased a few counter-protesters, who were merely a minuscule side-note to a wonderful, inspiring and crowded gathering of people concerned about gun violence. The New Mexican did precisely what these gun activists wanted: To get front page coverage to further their cause of discrediting these courageous young people and the trauma they and thousands of others have suffered across the country due to gun violence. Focus on the youth next time. Show the amazing murals created by and about students affected by guns. Emphasize the courage of these students when adults have largely been silent and ineffective. They will lead us out of this horrible mess, not gun rights activists.”
At the end of this week of protest and testimony, you may want to blow off some steam and dance, dance, dance, SF Dreamers has assembled an all-star lineup headlined by Nosotros and Brian Hardgroove and Friends (many, very cool friends). Click here to get to the Actions & Events page and scroll to the bottom for details.
In solidarity,
Paul & Roxanne
Categories: Immigrant Rights, Social & Racial Justice & Immigration Reform
Paul & Roxanne, say ‘hello’ to Mad City for me! I was born and raised and influenced by the politics of that wonderful city. I’ll be very interested to hear your take on it these days, as I left Wisconsin in 1974.
Someone noticed how the New Mexican has been covering the “School Violence” issue. They are still re-framing the issue as one of “School Violence” rather than anything to do with guns. The New Mexican also ran the most rabid spittle inflected “Opinion” claiming that those poor kids were attacking gun owners, and America. That was shortly after the incident. Out in Las Vegas, the School Board decided to drug test test teachers in response to “School Violence.” Before the Election, the New Mexican, on a day with no 45 coverage ran an article in the sports pages, about him.
The New Mexican typically won’t run anything critical to their coverage unless it is from the right wing, and criticizing their “liberal” slant. That occurs when they run any factual news. They also play “Ask a Libertarian” whenever there is a real topic to discuss, like Racism. There are quite a few serious local issues, the New Mexican will not touch, or will gloss over. They have to keep the Realtors, Developers, and Tourism Industries happy.