Ahmed Mohamed isn’t the only student of color to be handcuffed for a science project
In 2013, Kiera Wilmot, then a 16-year-old at Florida’s Bartow High School, was arrested and recommended for expulsion after a science experiment using aluminum foil and toilet bowl cleaner malfunctioned in her biology class. But the examples don’t end there. Just last year an L.A. teacher was suspended for his students’ project.
(Source: mic.com, via chaoswolf1982)
These 7 Household Names Make a Killing Off of the Prison-Industrial Complex
Once slavery was abolished in 1865, manufacturers scrambled to find other sources of cheap labor—and because the 13th amendment banned slavery (except as punishment for crimes), they didn’t have to look too far. Prisons and big businesses have now been exploiting this loophole in the 13th amendment for over a century.
“Insourcing,” as prison labor is often called, is an even cheaper alternative to outsourcing. Instead of sending labor over to China or Bangladesh, manufacturers have chosen to forcibly employ the 2.4 million incarcerated people in the United States. Chances are high that if a product you’re holding says it is “American Made,” it was made in an American prison.
On average, prisoners work 8 hours a day, but they have no union representation and make between .23 and $1.15 per hour, over 6 times less than federal minimum wage. These low wages combined with increasing communication and commissary costs mean that inmates are often released from correctional facilities with more debt than they had on their arrival. Meanwhile, big businesses receive tax credits for employing these inmates in excess of millions of dollars a year.
While almost every business in America uses some form of prison labor to produce their goods, here are just a few of the companies who are helping prisoners pay off their debt to society, so to speak.
- Whole Foods. The costly organic supermarket often nicknamed “Whole Paycheck” purchases artisan cheese and fish prepared by inmates who work for private companies. The inmates are paid .74 cents a day to raise tilapia that is subsequently sold for $11.99 a pound at the fashionable grocery store.
- McDonald’s. The world’s most successful fast food franchise purchases a plethora of goods manufactured in prisons, including plastic cutlery, containers, and uniforms. The inmates who sew McDonald’s uniforms make even less money by the hour than the people who wear them.
- Wal-Mart. Although their company policy clearly states that “forced or prison labor will not be tolerated by Wal-Mart”, basically every item in their store has been supplied by third-party prison labor factories. Wal-Mart purchases its produce from prison farms where laborers are often subjected to long, arduous hours in the blazing heat without adequate sunscreen, water, or food.
- Victoria’s Secret. Female inmates in South Carolina sew undergarments and casual-wear for the pricey lingerie company. In the late 1990’s, 2 prisoners were placed in solitary confinement for telling journalists that they were hired to replace “Made in Honduras” garment tags with “Made in U.S.A.” tags. Victoria’s Secret has declined to comment.
- Aramark. This company, which also provides food to colleges, public schools and hospitals, has a monopoly on foodservice in about 600 prisons in the U.S. Despite this, Aramark has a history of poor foodservice, including a massive food shortage thatcaused a prison riot in Kentucky in 2009.
- AT&T. In 1993, the massive phone company laid off thousands of telephone operators—all union members—in order to increase their profits. Even though AT&T’s company policy regarding prison labor reads eerily like Wal-Mart’s, they have consistently used inmates to work in their call centers since ’93, barely paying them $2 a day.
- BP. When BP spilled 4.2 million barrels of oil into the Gulf coast, the company sent a workforce of almost exclusively African-American inmates to clean up the toxic spill while community members, many of whom were out-of-work fisherman, struggled to make ends meet. BP’s decision to use prisoners instead of hiring displaced workers outraged the Gulf community, but the oil company did nothing to reconcile the situation.
From dentures to shower curtains to pill bottles, almost everything you can imagine is being made in American prisons. Also implicit in the past and present use of prison labor are Microsoft, Nike, Nintendo, Honda, Pfizer, Saks Fifth Avenue, JCPenney, Macy’s, Starbucks, and more. For an even more detailed list of businesses that use prison labor, visit buycott.com, but the real guilty party here is the United States government. UNICOR, the corporation created and owned by the federal government to oversee penal labor, sets the condition and wage standards for working inmates.
One of the highest-paying prison jobs in the country? Sewing American flags for the state police.
WOOOOOOOOOOW
(via snizardtheesnailwizard)
Police Killing of Unarmed Native American Continues To Receive Little Media Attention
The tragic case of Corey Kanosh, 35, has received very little media attention, in spite of the growing outrage over police shootings of unarmed, innocent citizens. In Corey’s case, we are not dealing with an African American man shot by white cops, but an unarmed Native American man who was suspected of crimes that he was later proven innocent of, who was given only seconds before police opened fire on him.
Corey was a member of the Paiute Tribe of Utah. In spite of the historical injustices committed by the State against Native Americans, his story has received virtually no national attention. Now, his friends and family have been pushing to move the legal process forward, but so far they have only raised a tiny amount of money.
“The hold up on progressing has been due to lack of money to fund the oh so dreaded legal process,” they explain. “We need your help. Please help us on our way to get this case back up and ready. It’s time to take on the unwilling non-cooperative Millard County Sheriffs Department.”
Corey was shot by a Millard County sheriff’s deputy after he was wrongly suspected of car theft.
Sheriff’s spokeswoman Lindsay Mitchell explained that a 911 call was made about the theft of a car from the Kanosh Paiute Indian Reservation. But Corey had nothing to do with that.
Unarmed Paiute indigenous man innocent of all crimes killed by white cop in 10 seconds
(via grayrockheartbreak)
Ralkina Jones tells police at station: ‘I don’t want to die in your cell’ – video
In video released by Cleveland Heights police, Ralkina Jones tells an officer
‘I don’t want to die in your cell’
about 15 hours before she is found dead at the station. Jones is seen in the bodycam footage, shot on 25 July, a day after her arrest, asking about her cell and telling police she needs to take medicine for various medical conditions. Jones was found dead in her cell on 26 July
Cleveland Heights police said Jones was found to be “lethargic” at about 7pm on Saturday night and taken to a local hospital for treatment. She was treated and released back to jail a few hours later, and found to be fine in periodic checks throughout the night. Police said she had been administered a prescribed medication for high blood pressure during her incarceration. She was found dead on Sunday morning.
Jones’s death comes about two weeks after another black woman, Sandra Bland, died in a Waller County Jail cell in Texas. Authorities have determined Bland’s death to be a suicide, but her family members question the veracity of the investigation.
It also comes on the same weekend that a Black Lives Matter rally held in downtown Cleveland nearly turned violent when local police discharged pepper spray at participants protesting for the release of a 14-year-old African American boy, who police were holding for being intoxicated on a local bus. The boy was eventually released to his mother. /source/
#SayHerName is once again actual in the US. As you noticed, such cases can’t be named ‘isolated’ cause they are quite periodic and we still have to demand #Justice for black female victims of cops. Ralkina Jones knew well that it’s lethally dangerous for her to stay at the police station. Because racism is not over and #PoliceBrutality is still the big problem of our law Enforcement system. #StayWoke
#RalkinaJones #SayHerName #Cops #Police #PoliceBrutality #PoliceViolence #BlackLivesMatter
#StayWoke
(via punlich)
fulltenWoman Publicly Sodomized in Gas Station Parking Lot by Cops Because they ‘Smelled Weed’
Charnesia Corley was on her way to the store to get medicine for her sick mother last June when she was detained by police for allegedly running a stop sign. Within minutes, this routine traffic stop turned into a waking nightmare.
The deputy who pulled Corley over asked her to step out of the vehicle after “smelling what he believed to be marijuana.”
However, during a search of Corley’s vehicle, without her consent, no illegal plants were found. But this sadistic cop wasn’t done just yet. He knew deep down that this woman’s story about getting medicine for her mother was a lie, and she must have been smuggling this evil plant inside her body somewhere. The deputy then handcuffed Corley and placed her into the back of his cruiser.
Being a male, the deputy felt that it would be in poor taste to penetrate this woman’s bodily orifices himself, so he called a female deputy over to conduct the public roadside sodomy in a politically correct fashion.
Upon arriving, the female deputy ordered the handcuffed woman out of the car and into the parking lot.
“She tells me to pull my pants down. I said, ‘Ma’am, I don’t have any underwear on.’ She says, ‘Well, that doesn’t matter. Pull your pants down,‘”
Because Corley didn’t immediately prostrate herself to be vaginally raped by a peace officer’s appendages in search of an illegal plant, the deputy charged her with resisting arrest.
In spite of her verbal protests, Corley was then stripped down in public and forcefully penetrated by this public servant — in the best interests of society, no doubt.
“I bend over and she proceeds to try to force her hand inside of me. I tell her, ‘Ma’am, No. You cannot do this,‘” Corley explained.
Corley maintains that at no time did she ever consent to be sodomized by deputies.
Who is “served” by the actions of these officers? Who exactly are the police “protecting” by publicly humiliating and sexually assaulting this poor woman in a gas station parking lot?
Please share this article with your friends and family to help wake them up to this very real American Horror Story.
Think this is an isolated incident? Think again. Earlier this year we reported on the story of Jennifer Stelly, who is just a few miles down the road from Charnesia Corley. When Stelly and her boyfriend were returning from a visit to the beach, they were stopped by four officers who claimed that her boyfriend “smelled like weed.” Within minutes, Stelly was in handcuffs and found herself thrown up against the police cruiser with cop fingers inside her body. The evil and rapacious actions of these Texas cops were caught entirely on their dashcam. /source/
I guess we all DO want to protect this girl and our relatives from such a blatant injustice. We can’t ignore the fact that police abuse their power, The freedom of a human being bordered by the freedom of the other human. But here we see the violation of the rights of American citizen, here we see the violence and brutality by the cops. That’s the real threat. Cops on duty did something we cannot accept, we gotta make this story public! This is the only way to demand #justice. We the people have the right to protect ourselves from police, cause THEY do extremely opposite to “serving & protecting” things.
#Corley #Police #Cops #Houston #TX
#StayWoke
Please boost this
That’s fucking disgusting.
have you heard about this/will you boost this? I think this is really important.
(via oldred100)
A Cop Killed A White Teen And The #AllLivesMatter Crowd Said Nothing
On the evening of July 26, Zachary Hammond pulled into the parking lot of a Hardee’s in Seneca, South Carolina. Seated next to him was a young woman who had arranged to meet someone there to sell a bag of weed. It’s unclear what Hammond knew about the transaction, but neither the 19-year-old nor his passenger had any idea that the buyer was actually an undercover police officer. Moments later, another officer fatally shot Hammond.?????????
Here’s What Happened When An Alabama Cop Threatened to Murder a Black Man
In May of 2013, Alexander City, Alabama police officer Troy Middlebrooks was secretly recorded proposing the murder of a black resident, saying that he could hide evidence in order to make the proposed killing look like it was in self-defense, according to a report published by the Guardian Tuesday morning.
But after Vincent Bias, the man Middlebrooks proposes killing in the recording, played the tape to the Alexander City police chief and mayor, the officer was allowed to keep his job, and the city paid Bias $35,000 in a private settlement to avoid publicly being sued, according to the report. In the recording, Middlebrooks can be heard saying that [Bias], whom he allegedly referred to as “that nigger” off tape, “needs a god damn bullet.”
Same old story. Cop gets a paid holiday and the future murder victim gets insufficient hush money to get the hell away from his murderer.
Two weeks, tops, after this cop gets off his holidays? I’m willing to bet that Vincent Bias “turns up dead”.
This is fucking BLATANT disregard for human life.
(via princedorkface)
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/03/1408341/-Psychologist-openly-admits-he-trains-police-officers-to-shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later S-I-G-N-A-L B-O-O-S-T
(via brightnessdavar)
Sandra Bland Becomes The Latest Victim Of The ‘Marijuana Smear’
Sandra Bland was high on marijuana — while she was incarcerated in the Texas jail where she eventually died — according to Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis. Mathis reportedly said in a text message to an attorney representing the Bland family that “[l]ooking at the autopsy results and toxicology, it appears she swallowed a large quantity of marijuana or smoked it in the jail.”
If true, this allegation suggests that security in this jail facility is extraordinarily lax. How does marijuana make its way to an incarcerated individual in the first place? And how does that individual manage to smoke or eat a “large quantity” of it without jail officials noticing?
Picture taken of scene where Sandra Bland allegedly “hung herself”, moments after the body was “found” was just released. And of course, no one is buying it.
Police are claiming that Sandra took the trash bag out and tied it to the partition on her shower, and then used it to hang herself with.
Problems with this explanation:
- Trash bags/cans are not allowed in jail cells because any lose items are considered a danger to the inmates. If it’s not bolted down to the floor, it’s basically not allowed in a cell
- If the police are right and the picture was “taken right after the body was found with no changes made to the scene” then why did they replace the trash bag?
- The bag she allegedly used was a “black industrial sized” trash bag, which was not only unlike the white one shown above, but it wouldn’t have been strong enough to hold up her body
- The partition she “hung herself” from is shorter than her. Sandra was a little over 6 ft, and the partition was about 5 ft.
- There were no lacerations or bruises on her neck consistent with a hanging.
#StayWoke
I’m sick