Monday, March 30, 2020: Escalating Interpersonal and State Violence in the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic

This Monday March 30th at 1pm on KPFA Radio's Women's Magazine, Margo Okazawa-Rey  talks to four young feminist leaders in the anti-violence and anti-sexual assault movement who are present or former Brown University students,  to look at the less visible and less talked about aspects of the Coronavirus.  They look at what is happening interpersonally and in the home, and how the Shelter in Place Policy affects women and other folks in precarious and already-vulnerable positions, especially people with disabilities and incarcerated persons.   And they look at what happens when you consider race and class as critical aspects of their experiences.  They discuss the emerging data and observations regarding the increasing violence in various forms that are resulting from or exacerbated by the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Camila Pelsinger, senior at Brown University, is a leader sexual violence prevention on campus, including as a coordinator for the Brown University Sexual Assault Peer Education program.  As Vice President of Brown’s student government, she developed a transformative justice program to support community-based approaches to addressing harm that prioritizes the needs of victims and survivors.

Rose Houglet, sophomore at Brown, covers gender issues and campus activism for campus publications and volunteers as a Sexual Assault Peer Educator. She also conducts gender-based violence research that examines community intervention methods at Rhode Island middle and high schools.

Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu (pronounced: tim-koo-loo), a graduate of Brown, is the Founder and Executive Director of Project LETS, a national grassroots organization led by and for folks with lived experience of mental illness/madness, Disability, trauma, and neurodivergence. Their work and community-organizing specialize in building radical peer support collectives and community mental health care structures outside of state-sanctioned systems of “care,” grounded in principles of anti-racism and Disability, Transformative, and Healing Justice.

Xochi Cartland is a junior at Brown University. With a background in Disability Justice, she  is a staff member at Project LETS and is Student Coordinator, alongside Camila, of the Transformative Justice Program. Her primary interest resides in building grassroot infrastructures for responding to harm and violence that operate outside of institutions.

Click here to listen to the show. 59:50 min

https://www.sinsinvalid.org/blog/10-principles-of-disability-justice

Monday, August 8, 2016: SHOUT THEIR NAMES Town Hall

This week, Women’s Magazine features excerpts from SHOUT THEIR NAMES, a Town Hall held at the Eastside Arts Alliance in Oakland on July 31st 2016. In response to preventable and tragic deaths, advocates at the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) held this Town Hall to call attention to the ongoing crisis occurring at California Institution for Women (CIW). The program features an overview of the situation at CIW and comments from the families of several women who have born the brutal impact of the crisis.

Dear Community,
In response to another preventable and tragic death, advocates at the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) are reaching out to ally organizations in the Bay to call further attention to the ongoing crisis occurring at California Institution for Women (CIW). CIW is at 130 percent capacity and has a suicide rate that is 8 times the national average for people in women’s prisons, and 5 times the rate for all California prisons.  We will be holding a Town Hall on Sunday, July 31st at the Eastside Arts Alliance in Oakland and want to invite your organization to endorse and be part of it.

The injustice and conditions of abuse and violence at CIW are happening inside and outside of prison walls across the country. Too often, lives are being lost to state violence and the majority of lives stolen are Black and Brown, queer and transgender. At CIW, people are dying as a result of direct neglect by cops, and from medical and mental health neglect. Outside, women are being killed by police. In 2013, Kayla Moore, a Black trans woman was killed by the Berkeley police in her home. On May 19, 2016, a Black woman named Jessica Nelson Williams was killed by San Francisco police in the Bayview neighborhood. There are no shortage of examples of punishing people and communities who have survived generations of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia with policing, incarceration and neglect.

Just a few weeks ago Shaylene Graves, a 27 year old Black woman, died from this state violence. She was six weeks away from her release. Before Shaylene, Erika Rocha committed suicide. Erika was 35 years old and had been incarcerated for 21 years. She was one day away from her Youth Parole Hearing. Last November, five people at the CCWF women’s prison were physically abused, sexually harassed and placed in solitary confinement by prison guards. They are planning to bring a suit against the CDCR.

Legal advocates with CCWP are working with and supporting survivors inside and family members outside to get much needed attention and support to those suffering behind these walls. We are reaching out to you because more needs to be done.

We hope that the Town Hall Meeting on Sunday, July 31st, 2016 from 3-5pm at the East Side Arts Alliance can help us connect these struggles and bring more attention to the ongoing crisis at CIW. We hope that you will endorse the event, share the information with your networks and come to Eastside Arts Alliance on July 31st. To endorse the town hall, please email info@womenprisoners.org.

Join us in demanding justice for Shaylene, Erika and all lives stolen by the CDCR and the police. BRING OUR LOVED ONES HOME ALIVE!

In Solidarity,

California Coalition for Women Prisoners

Click here to listen to the entire show. 59:50 min

This program was recorded by Mary Salome and Emily Charles of Queer in Your Ear Productions. For the full recording of the Town Hall go to: https://soundcloud.com/queer-in-your-ear

Also on today's show:
Women's Community Calendar

Monday, November 2, 2015: Conversation with Palestinian Feminists

Nadera Shalhoub Kevorkian and the Jerusalemite Women's Coalition

From Jerusalem, we speak with Nadera Shalhoub Kevorkian, professor of criminology at the Hebrew University, and a member of the Jerusalemite Women’s Coalition.  The coalition issued a call for protection to the international community last week.

" WE ARE CALLING FOR PROTECTION AND URGENT ACTIONS TO PREVENT FURTHER AGONIES, UPROOTING, DEMONIZATION, AND SUFFERING."

Listen now or Get MP3. 26:37 min

A Palestinian woman and child pass through an Israeli checkpoint in
Issawiyeh, a neighborhood in Jerusalem, on 15 October.
(Oren Ziv / ActiveStills) electronicintifada

"We, the women of occupied East Jerusalem, are politically orphaned. We are victims without protection, as the Palestinian Authority has no right to protect us in our city, and the Israeli state treats us as terrorists that should be humiliated, attacked, violated, and controlled. The guerrilla state style tactics used in occupied East Jerusalem, be it the attacks on Palestinians in the streets, the beating of the young and old, the attacks on children going to and from school, the invasion of violent settlers to our neighborhoods and homes, the control of our life, water, cell phones, internet, mobility, health, economy, and accessibility to other resources, have situated us in human cages—segregated, restrained by Israeli laws and security theology, unable to know what to anticipate and what will come next." From the Jerusalemite Women's Coalition Call for Protection.

Rabab Abdulhadi and the Commemoration of the Edward Said Palestine Cultural Mural

"You can't be for justice somewhere and not be for justice everywhere."

"...part of the college education is learning how are you going to be part of a better world, part of a better community..."

Rabab Abdulhadi, professor of Ethnic Studies and Race and Resistance Studies at San Francisco State University talks about the commemoration of the Edward Said Palestine Cultural Mural, the only one of its kind on a U.S. college campus.  The mural was held up for several years due to fierce opposition from Zionist organizations and campus administrators, but was unveiled in November 2007.

Listen now or Get MP3. 21:34 min








The annual commemoration celebration and banquet on Wednesday, November 5th, 6 to 9 PM will feature a performance of the one-woman show, “Palestine,” by Najla Said, daughter of Edward Said. The event will be held at Jack Adams Hall, 1600 Holloway Ave, San Francisco.




Click here to listen to entire show. 59:50 min

Event:

SCREENING: A New Color: The Art of Being Edythe Boone
Wednesday, November 4, 7-9 PM
Impact Hub Oakland
2323 Broadway, Oakland, CA

Director Mo Morris and Artist Edythe Boone along with Muralists Miranda Bergman and Cece Carpio will be engaging dialogue around art and activism following the film screening.

Doors open at 6:30 pm 

Learn more at anewcolordocumentary.com
Editor: Maureen Gosling
Executive Producer: Jed Riffe

Cinematographer: Peggy Peralta