Public i Contact

The Earth extends her arms to us;
Revealing through her nature the
changing condition of our existence.
She bends and twists,
Deflecting the swords of
Our foolishness,
Our arrogance,
Our gluttony,
Our deceit.
Unbridled by red alerts or amber warnings,
Her ire gives rise to monsoon winds,
Jarring us from the stupor of
Our academic impunity;
Our disjointed convolutions,
Our empty promises; our
black and white dreams.
Filled with unruly discontent,
we yearn to dominate her mysteries;
reducing her to microscopic dust,
we spit upon her sacredness,
tempting the fury of her seas.
We spill our unholy wars
upon her belly’s tender flesh,
blazing dislocated corpses,
ignite her agony and grief.
Still, in love with her creations,
she warns of our complacency
to cataclysmic devastation,
rooted in the alienation of
our disconnection
our rejection,
our oppression,
our scorn.
And still, we spin ungodly
tantrums of injustice
against her love,
against ourselves,
against one another.
When will we remove blindfolds from our eyes?
When will we stretch our arms—to her?
When will the cruelty of our
Hatred cease; teaching us to
abandon the impositions of
patriarchy and greed?
Oh! that we might together renew
Our communion with the earth,
She, the cradle of humanity;
She, the nourishment of our seeds;
She, the beauty of the song within;
She, the wailing that precedes.

Naomi Klein spoke at the University of
Illinois in late October about a liberation
movement that began in South America
on September 11, 1973. It was a liberation
movement for the international corporation.
The current American economic
crisis is a direct result of this liberation
(deregulation) of corporations. A shocked former
Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan testified to a
congressional committee that he had mistakenly believed
that rational self-interest would preclude the need for
more regulation of the financial sector.
It is sometimes claimed that the failures of the Iraq
occupation indicated a lack of planning. Klein found that
this was not the case, that the plan used was a particularly
severe form of policies routinely applied by the International
Monetary Fund. The Bush administration expected
to create a democratic and economic powerhouse in Iraq
as a result of their policies. Their failure in Iraq was the
inspiration for Klein’s new book, The Shock Doctrine: the
Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman believed that
state interference in the economy was the cause of market
underperformance and instability, and that it was dangerous
to political liberty. He was so confident of the connection
between political liberty and a free market that he suspected
that a free market would spontaneously generate political
liberty. He had been teaching these ideas, sometimes referred
to as market fundamentalism, for some years at the University
of Chicago when a unique opportunity presented itself.
The opportunity was the 1973 Chilean coup against
elected President Allende. A group of Chileans trained in
Friedman’s economics had the ear of General Pinochet,
who led the coup. Moving quickly, using what Klein calls
the shock doctrine, they privatized state industries, gave
international corporations a nearly free hand, eliminated
the social safety net, and waited for the spontaneous
appearance of prosperity and liberty. Instead, the economy
sank into deep recession. The measures were so wildly
unpopular that a police state was required to keep them in
place. The general prosperity that is necessary to a stable
democracy did not emerge. Only the newly liberated international
corporations did well. What had gone wrong?
The liberation of corporations was tried over and over
with similar results. It was tried in much of Latin America
and later in parts of the dissolved Soviet Union. Most
recently, it has been tried in the United States, producing a
reverse Robin Hood effect in which the wealthy prosper at
the expense of general prosperity. The police state is not yet
much in evidence in the United States, but the ongoing
expansion and privatization of the security apparatus are
more dangerous to democracy and liberty than to terrorists.
In retrospect, it is clear that the lack of adequate economic
regulation caused the triumph of greed over the
public good. The result was not a free market, but only
free corporations. The notion that some regulation is
needed to preserve a free market may seem counterintuitive.
Media scholar Robert McChesney has demonstrated
that a functional free press did not arise spontaneously in
early America, but was rather partly a result of government
policy that supported it. It is now evident that the same
must be true for a functional free market.
In discussing how to prevent such excesses of greed,
Klein emphasized the importance of a democratic culture
and of not trusting the government. She said that a culture
of democratic activism is essential to the prevention of the
exploitation of disasters to the benefit of the wealthy, as in
the ongoing US financial sector bailout fiasco.
Klein is self-described as from the Left, but her emphasis
on suspicion of the state is something a Libertarian
would heartily endorse. Howard Zinn’s warnings that we
must never forget that the interests of the government are
not the interests of the people come to mind.
Klein gives us reason to hope that there is an emerging
consensus between the democratic Left and democratic
Right. It might resemble the Progressives of a century ago,
who set out to curb the excesses of the Gilded Age, a time
similar to our own. We’ve tried the extremes of complete
state control of the means of production and of corporate
control of the means of production. They have failed
repeatedly in similar ways, producing police states and an
absence of general prosperity.
The balance between the interests of the people as a
whole and the interests of the individual that is enshrined
in the Constitution, if applied to the economy, offers an
alternative that is viable, although an anathema to the fundamentalists
of the Left and Right. Klein warned against
fundamentalisms of all kinds, emphasizing that in our
exploration of good public policy regarding the economy,
a free and open conversation is critical.
This conversation is nowhere more needed than
between the United States and Latin America. The shock
doctrine was visited on Latin America first, and some of
the most interesting resurgences of democratic economic
policy are found there as it recovers from the damage. No
one knows what form or degree of regulation of the economy
is best, or even whether or not there are multiple
forms that work well. But we certainly know that the
extremes do not work.
For more information on Naomi Klein’s publications,
see www.naomiklein.org. A recording of her appearance
on Focus 580 on October 30, 2008 is available from the
AM/Focus580 archives at www.will.illinois.edu. See
www.robertmcchesney.com for information on Robert
McChesney’s work regarding the free press.

Like millions of others around the world, I shed tears at
10:00 CST on November 4 when Barack Hussein Obama
became the 44th president of the United States. I cried
because my daughters, first time voters, were able to see
their faith in democracy work. They, if only ephemerally, are
proud to be American citizens, feelings that their great and
grand mothers had been denied despite their pained labor to
give birth to this moment. I was filled with extremes of joy
and sadness at a watershed moment along the Black freedom
struggle continuum, a struggle with which I am intimately
tied: conceived during Emmett Till and the fall of Jim Crow,
born screaming into the fire of Civil Rights and Black Power.
I shared the singular happiness of a global community.
As much as I am surreally proud, I can’t shy away from
my responsibility to critically engage the moment with its
ironies and contradictions beyond those offered by the
media: the connections with Illinois (Lincoln and Obama)
or that a Black family will be moving into the house built by
enslaved men of African descent which, according to Alice
Walker, is the family for whom those men had labored.
I find irony in the symbolism of Obama who is as much a
testament of personal will and spiritual favoring as the work
of a culture industry committed to constructing fantasies. In
this instance, Obama has emerged despite the earliest laws of
the colonial era being designed to prevent his arrival.
The Virginia Statute of 1662 shifted common law practices
of children following the status of their father to following
that of the mother. This change was intended to make slavery
inheritable through the body of Black women so that mulatto
children of white men would not be able to inherit the father’s
property, including the property of whiteness. Similarly, antimiscegenation
laws were intended to preserve white women’s
wombs, also the property of white men, for the transference
of white men’s assets—only. Yet here, the male child of a
white woman from Kansas and a Black man from Kenya has
inherited the throne as a hero in a dramatic tragedy.
In Obama-the-commodity, we see the compression and
homogenization of an “African American” identity so that
Obama-the-man would become a symbol of change and
hope, of boot-straps achievement at a time when Black,
Brown and Red people are witnessing the worse global economic
disaster since the Depression. The Obama-brand has
been prepped and packaged for consumption as a talisman
against despair in a culture of commodity fetishization.
It is even more ironic that a man who ostensibly represents
the end of U.S. apartheid in a way that Mandela signaled the
beginning of the end of apartheid in South Africa would, in his
first few days as president-elect, aligns himself with forces that
would deny the end to the apartheid suffered by Palestinians.
This stance produces not only sadness, but visceral fear.
I realize critiquing Obama is almost sacrilegious. I
called my 82 year old mother—the matriarch, political
pundit and fashionista of the family—to find out if she
had been able to finally deliver her state—Missouri. I
expressed my concern over the Obama-brand. She called
me a “player hater.” Generally more critical of political performances
than I and known to make calls to CSPAN, she
chose to critique Michelle’s election night attire. “That
dress was ugly,” she said. “Mom”, I said, “these people are
masterful illusionists. I bet you believe reality shows are
really real. I’m talking about policy statements and you’re
talking about fashion statements. Sounds like you’re the
“player hater.” I can’t talk to you right now. Bye!”
Obama is a victory in the ongoing struggle. For my mother,
and so many others, signs of wonder are being searched
for in American politics. I pray their faith will be rewarded.

As an historian of American educational
history I am still in amazement of the
recent political events. November 4, 2008
will go down in history as a milestone
moment in American history. For the first
time in the history of the nation a person of
color, Barack Hussein Obama, was elected
President of the United States of America.
The election of Obama was both a
moment of pride and amazement to many
people I have talked to since the election. I
have heard countless people say how proud
they are of the election results, because
America had finally progressed enough
with regard to race relations to elect an
African American President. Similarly, I
have talked to many people who are still in
disbelief that Obama, because of his race,
actually won. What strikes me the most in
these conversations are the differing ironies
that shaped the way people thought about
race and its role in this presidential election.
This is especially true considering
Obama did his best to ignore race as a factor
altogether.
Most ironic to me in this presidential
campaign and election were the conversations
I had with people who wondered
(even questioned) if Obama could be elected
President. Race—far more than merit or
qualification—was a foremost consideration
in the conversations, and it proved to
me once again that there is no logic to race.
Regardless of the circumstances, conclusions
people draw because of race are without
question illogical and illogic does not
beget logic.
Take for instance the profiles of the
President-elect and the outgoing President.
Obama, an always top of his class Columbia
and Harvard-educated Senator and former
Constitutional Law Professor at the
University of Chicago, has been a success
at everything he has done in his adult life.
No one should question whether he is
qualified to be President. Yet, many in the
general electorate and some in the media
questioned whether he was qualified, and
the conversations I had with friends and
colleagues questioned whether the fact that
he was a person of color would upend his
chances at the presidency.
On the other hand, President George W.
Bush proudly self-professed to never being
a quality student in college or life before
his ascendancy to the Presidency, and as
President his excessive decisiveness without
much deliberation has forced this
nation into two unnecessary wars, economic
recession, intellectual mediocrity,
and global disrepute. Despite his inept
presidency, and the immense challenges he
leaves for President Obama and the American
public, I have yet to talk to anyone
who has questioned whether Bush was
elected because of his race. Still, it was race
that played a role in both candidates’ elections.
Because of his race, Obama could
never be so inept and still be elected
(twice), and because of his race, the public
never expected or required Bush to be as
qualified as Obama to be considered for
the highest post in the land.
Notwithstanding, race in both ideology
and practice is always evolving, and the
election of Obama is living proof that it
changes, slowly but surely, every generation.
In the words of President-elect
Obama, “If there is anyone out there who
still doubts that America is a place where
all things are possible; who still wonders if
the dream of our founders is alive in our
time; who still questions the power of our
democracy, tonight is your answer.”
Obama, to my generation and older, had
beaten the odds. He won the presidency
despite his race and the role race continues
to play in our society. When he spoke these
words in Grant Park that election evening,
I was watching it with my wife and our
three year old son, Langston.
As I glanced down at my son, tears filled
my eyes because it dawned on me that, for
him, the image of an African American
President will be normal. He and his peers
(regardless of their ethnic or racial background)
will come of age assuming that
people like Obama are suppose to be president.
Langston will be seven years of age
when Obama’s first term ends; he would be
eleven years old, if Obama is elected to a
second term. All he will know in his early
childhood is an African American President.
So when people say to him, as they
did to me as a child, that “if you work hard
and do well in school, then one day maybe
you will become the President of the United
States,” he can think of Barack Obama
and his momentous rise in 2008 and say,
without the same reservations, “Yes I Can.”

In 1963 four little girls, Denise McNair (11 years old),
Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins,
all 14 years old, were preparing for their lessons at the
16th Street Baptist Church when BOOM! A bomb exploded
in the church killing all four girls and severely injuring
many others. This heinous act prompted many men and
women to anger and they set out to kill whomever they
thought was guilty of this crime. Two of those angry people
were Diane Nash and Reverend James Luther Bevel,
strategists and architects of several of the most memorable
events and major accomplishments of the Civil Rights
Movement: Bloody Sunday, the Children’s March, the
March on Washington, and of course, the Birmingham
Project, which later became known as the Selma Right to
Vote Campaign.
When recounting the events of September 15, 1963
Reverend Bevel told me that he and some others felt that,
“any man that blows up little girls ought to die” and that
they seriously considered killing the man they all believed
was guilty of this act: ‘Dynamite Bob,’ a well known member
of the local KKK. The connection between the deaths
of the girls and the election of Barack Obama on November
4, 2008 is that Reverend Bevel and Diane Nash decided
not to be a part of a plot to kill Dynamite Bob and
instead went home and devised what they felt was the
appropriate response to the killing of the four girls. They
decided that getting black people the right to vote was the
best way to alleviate the anger, frustration and pain. They
knew that the negative energy permeating the black community,
and the country at that time could be used as a
tool for change.
My good friend, Ken Salo, reminds me often that ‘History
Matters,’ which is why I used history to transition into
my own personal thoughts about “Oba-Messiah” (just kidding)
being elected as President of the United States of
America. I am well aware that there is a vast history that
created the context for the right to vote campaign, but I
was asked to describe November 4, 2008 from my perspective.
After a long day of electioneering, my wife Carol and I
made our rounds to the Obama Party at the American
Legion where 99.9% of the crowd was African American.
We all wore t-shirts with President Obama on the front
and empowering statements on the back. Some were cautiously
optimistic about the results while others were guaranteeing
a victory. The common theme was that everyone
was waiting to erupt, one way or another. Because of
Carol’s county board race, we chose to run by the Champaign
County’s Brookens Institute to check the vote
counts. That’s where we heard the announcement that
Barack had won the election. Based upon the tremendous
support Barack received from white America and we were
in a room that was 99% white, we thought there would be
excitement, especially from the Democrats, but to our surprise,
Mr. “Big Al” Kurtz (recently appointed to the County
Board in district 7) and his wife Linda, seemed to be the
only people in the room who shared our jubilance! We felt
like screaming for joy and horror at the same time, so we
thought it best to just leave. Upon leaving we decided to
visit with Rev. Bogan and Ruth, who had decided to bring
the change in at home. After a short stay and a sharing of
thoughts with them, we went home to be with our children.
Of course, Jelani (my 13 yr old son) was following
the results on TV and we were just in time to see Barack
make his acceptance speech at Grant Park. I went to Amir’s
(my 7 yr old son) bedroom and woke him up so he could
see the first black President elected in the United States. I
wanted my two African-American boys to see the results of
years of sacrifice, commitment, optimism and vision. I am
relieved to know that this memory is forever etched in
their minds. It was our ‘Mandela Moment’ and it simply
felt good!
It was a relief of sorts because black folks in America
have always wanted to feel like America was our home and
today it feels more like home than ever before. The mental
chains that Carter G. Woodson spoke of many years ago
are all symbolically broken because of the election of
Barack Obama. All accepted images of white supremacy
have been demolished, with the election of Obama being
the final and most fatal blow. The last symbol of white
male superiority and colonial rule fell on November 4,
2008 and the whole world knows it. I am pleased that
black people in America can now loosen their grip on the
repressing thoughts of black inferiority. Black coaches
winning championships and individuals being great in
sports, especially in those typically known as ‘white sports’
such as tennis and golf, gave the oppressed/repressed
group of blacks in America some semblance of our ability
to achieve. However, to witness the American people,
black people for sure and white people in particular, supporting
and actually voting so enthusiastically for a black
man over a white man, is different from a personal
achievement by Serena, Venus, Tiger, Tony Dungy, or Doc
Rivers. This was a blow to the ignorant ideology of white
supremacy (the worshipping of skin color) and it was
delivered by a democratic majority of American citizens. I
could just hear that crowd at Grant Park yelling, “Tell me
what Unity looks like, this is what Unity looks like!”
Watching Michelle and Barack Obama non-violently
handle the attacks on their character and beliefs reminded
me again of what I learned from members of the civil
rights movement. That lesson is that education mixed with
action will always be victorious, even if you don’t see the
outcome immediately. They all agreed that educating people
was the equivalent of empowering people and that
eventually educated, inspired people would produce just
outcomes. They said the purpose of non-violence is to
train oneself to have the patience to educate and the
capacity to expose the ignorance of violence. Could Diane
Nash and James Bevel see Barack Obama as the President
40 years after they made the proposal to their colleagues to
work on the right to vote? What better crash course on the
benefits of that strategy than the landslide victory of
Obama? The support for a black man (remember the single
drop of African blood) by a vast majority of Americans
and citizens of the world, implanted a seed of hope that
must be nurtured in order to bloom, but it can never be
erased, because it is now another part of history that really
does matter.

On October 15, Rich Trumka, the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO spoke to, and
answered questions from local AFL-CIO delegates to the Champaign County AFL-CIO.
Also present were apprentices from two of the local craft unions.
The AFL-CIO had been working very hard to turn out its members in November to
vote for the Obama-Biden ticket. Trumka, himself, had stumped in a number of states
with significant labor union members. His main message was always the same: racism is
the greatest evil that plagues the United States; too many white workers harbor racist sentiments;
and, they better get over it on election day because another Republican administration
would be a disaster for working people.
While Trumka gave a strong pitch for Obama, he also said that if Obama were elected,
the AFL-CIO would pay close attention to see to it that the Obama administration
did not behave the way that the Clinton one did by adopting neo-liberal, free-trade
policies that hurt labor both in the United States and abroad. The AFL-CIO is very
concerned about some of the people who have been advising Obama, like former Clinton
Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin. Other free-trading figures from the Clinton
administration, like Lawrence Summers and Laura Tyson, are also of concern to
the AFL-CIO. The organization has drawn up a list of people for several key cabinet
and subcabinet positions who would be more favorable to working people and for
whom the AFL-CIO would advocate.
The AFL-CIO worked very hard for the Obama election and poured hundreds of millions
of dollars into the campaign. According to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, in the
last four days of the campaign 250,000 union volunteers made 5.5 million phone calls and
visited 3.9 million union households. Labor leaders have claimed that union outreach was
crucial in Florida, Indiana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin where 67% of AFLCIO
unions’ members who voted, did sos for Obama and only 30% for McCain, according
to Peter D. Hart Research Associates.
Aside from wanting a say in the appointments to the Treasury Department, the unions
are pushing for a stimulus program to create jobs, extension of unemployment benefits,
increased financing for food stamps, a rescue program for automakers, and, very importantly,
passage of The Employee Free Choice Act that would force employers to recognize a
union if a majority of workers signed a card supporting one. This would eliminate the need
for open voting in which some employers intimidate and even fire workers who advocate
for the creation of a union. This is strongly opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and
will require determination on the part of Democrats in the Congress, and pressure on some
Republicans in the Senate where the Democrats will not have a veto-proof majority.

When Gordon Brown, the current Prime
Minister of Great Britain, announced that
his government’s response to the financial
crisis was to “recapitalize” British
banks by buying shares in them, while at
the same time extending deposit guarantees,
it amounted to a coup d’etat, or
more precisely, a coup du monde. Britannia literally ruled
the world for a moment—at least the world of finance.
As soon as Brown announced the plan, other governments
in Europe and elsewhere, and most notably here in
the US, all having previously announced very different
plans, fell over one another to announce that they would
do the same as Brown. The reason they did so is they
feared that if they didn’t, customers would take their
deposits out of all other banks and put them in Brown’s
British banks. That’s economics.
The reason they now all say Brown is a very smart person
is they would rather have us believe they were persuaded
than bullied. That’s politics.
The lesson we should draw from this is that we live in
one global financial community. There is no protection in
boundaries nowadays. Anyone watching the movements
on the stock exchanges would come to the same conclusion.
The indices of exchanges in the US, Canada, Mexico,
Brazil, Britain, Germany, Russia, Japan, China, Australia
and elsewhere move up and down with eerie synchronicity.
If they are not in synch, it is probably because they are
closed by the authorities.
The lesson is we need to think in terms of world government.
I’m not saying we should create one: we already
have one, ramshackle and ad hoc as it may be. Government
and business leaders coordinate with each other all
the time, in and outside the framework of global institutions
such as the IMF and the United Nations. There are
tacit understandings as well as frightened phone calls; and
of course there are formal agreements, such as the WTO.
Beyond trade promotion, these contribute to the standardization
of law, accounting and numerous other practices.
Maybe there should be a formally recognized and differently
structured world government; maybe not. That can be
debated another time. But beyond debate already now is that
we need to think in terms of world government as much as
we think in terms of global economy. The reason is that the
consequences of policies spread the world over. The current
financial crisis is global; the recession will be global; and any
policies to deal with financial institutions or the recession will
have to be global too. Gordon Brown just showed us why.
The global problem lurking behind both the financial
crisis and the recession is low wages. Here in the US, wages
stagnated during the past thirty years while output and productivity
grew. But the worst is not here; it is overseas in
China, India and elsewhere, where output grows faster with
production techniques rapidly modernizing, but where
wages are much lower and are growing only slowly. Modern
products efficiently produced using workers making around
$1 per hour: that is a recipe for huge business profits.
Huge profits cause no trouble when productively
invested or pleasurably consumed. However, when recipients
of profits choose to save the money instead, that presents
a challenge to the financial community. Of course the
challenge is welcome; that is how the finance industry
makes a living; it is a challenge nonetheless.
A central promise of capitalist finance is, if you earn your
money, your money will earn for you. So you work, borrow,
cheat, steal, or inherit: and now the financial community
has to take that money and get it to earn returns for you.
Think of brokers, bankers, financiers and all the rest as
matchmakers, trying to bring together your money and a
productive return-yielding project. If they get too much
money, they run out of good matches. But they don’t turn
away business, saying “sorry!” because that is bad for reputation
and earnings. Just like third world matchmakers
make any match for a bride that earns the fee, even to
pimps in far off lands, these financiers take your money to
less reputable ventures. One day it all comes out, that billions
or trillions are lost. And instead of too much investment,
there is suddenly too little, because everyone is
scared, suspecting there is still too much money floating
around for it to be safe.
You can complain about the corruption; it doesn’t help.
The real problem is not the human character; it is too
much money looking for investment opportunities.
Now suppose wages rise all over the world. There would
be more demand for products, so more good investment
opportunities. At the same time, there would be less profit,
so less money looking for investment opportunities. Investment
becomes straightforward, so the bloated finance
industry shrinks to a proper size. Everything will get better,
for quite a while. This would be good global policy.
Of course, with well-organized labor all over the world,
in China, India, Viet Nam, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil,
Mexico, as well as of course in Europe, Russia, the US and
Japan—all enjoying good wages with benefits and a
healthy sense of entitlement—you can imagine things
eventually going too far: too many investment opportunities
and no profits left to invest. Stagflation and the bad old
70s return. Time to elect a new Reagan. But—Oh dear!—
where is the foreign cheap labor going to come from then?

On October 29th, the Rally for Quality Education brought
together various unions, students, campus workers and allies.
Over 200 people showed up to display their opposition to
increasing tuition, wage cuts and limitations on the freedom of
speech. Also being questioned was the University’s perpetual
excuse of budget cuts and economic woes to justify making
students and workers bear the brunt of balancing the budget.
When attendees marched to the Swanlund Administration
Building, administrators refused to acknowledge the rally in
any way. This lack of action on the part of the administration
shows that they do not consider the needs of their students
and workers to be a priority. While an e-mail from Chancellor
Herman expresses a commitment to maintain access to a quality
education and concern for the welfare of the campus community,
the actions of the administration contradict this. In the
near future we are going to continue to see an increase in ideological,
financial and social changes, both on campus and at
the national level. It is imperative that we continue to raise our
voices and make our concerns heard, even if the issues at stake
do not directly impact us. “If not you, then who? If not now,
then when?”

With the newly opened Urban Outfitters on Green Street,
we are not only inviting yet another huge corporation to
suck money out of our community; we are also furthering
our town’s gradual corporatization. Urban Outfitters is a
unique corporation because it manages to be one of the
most successful, mainstream clothing stores in America, yet
it also maintains an independent, hip persona. This persona
is a simple facade, a way for consumers to buy into a seemingly
alternative lifestyle, but, for several reasons, this chain
is also much more deceptive than most other corporations.
The man behind the corporate conglomerate is known
for shying away from the public eye and rarely gives interviews—
why? A Conservative Republican, Richard Hayne
has donated $13,150 to the now ex-Senator Rick Santorum,
who infamously equated homosexuality with bestiality
and incest. And yet, Urban Outfitters sells several
different t-shirts endorsing Democratic presidential candidate
Barack Obama and it has also sold t-shirts with gay
pride messages such as “I like girls that like girls.” His acts
show that he is quite the antithesis to his consumer base.
By buying these products, consumers can believe that
they are advertising goodwill and supporting a company
that actually enacts it. Unfortunately, it appears that their
money is actually flowing back to people who propagate
Conservative values such as homophobia.
Not only that, Hayne has also admitted that most of
Urban Outfitters clothing is manufactured in Third World
non-union shops. It seems a purportedly alternative corporation
would be against placing orders with such infernal
factories, yet it apparently engages wholeheartedly in
such ill-gotten enhancements of their bottom line.
Urban Outfitters represents not only the fantasy of
street fashion and the lifestyle that goes with it; it also presents
itself as a suitable place for countercultural youth to
congregate. However, this is nothing more than a moneymaking
idea from the mass conglomerate’s marketing
board. For example, the Urban Outfitters on Green Street
has already hosted a local band, the Headlights. On the
surface this may seem like an act of goodwill, a way for the
company to reach out to loyal customers and become integrated
into the community. In reality, hosting such events
is just another attempt to polish up its image as a young,
hip store in order to sell even more overpriced shirts.
Another way this mainstream corporation manages to
appeal to the alternative crowd is by ripping off the
designs of independent companies and selling them in
Urban Outfitters stores across America. Over the years,
many independent companies have accused Urban Outfitters
of stealing their designs and marketing them as their
own. Some of the independents that have listed such
grievances are fairly well known, including recognizable
brand names such as Johnny Cupcakes, Crownfarmer, and
Princess Tina. Urban Outfitters’ attack on Crownfarmer
was particularly sinister. First, the company purchased a
Crownfarmer design and then when controversy erupted,
took the design off the shelves. Unfortunately, the same
design resurfaced with minor adjustments, now under the
Urban Outfitters label. The makers of the design were
never consulted or informed of the decision. They later
blatantly copied another Crownfarmer design and sold it
under the Urban Outfitters label.
With this self-serving corporation now sucking dollars
out of our own community, what can we do? One answer is
the typical grassroots approach of protest. In Vancouver, a
group operating under the name Urban Counterfeiters
launched a successful protest right outside an Urban Outfitters
by passing out pamphlets encouraging people to boycott
the business. The store agreed to pull from its shelves
the object of the protest, a Crownfarmer Canadian Maple
leaf design shirt, if the group stopped handing out pamphlets.
In 2005, a group of high school students in Santa
Cruz, California passed out flyers outside another Urban
Outfitters, encouraging boycotts because of the company’s
support of ultraconservative, homophobic Rick Santorum.
Even though Champaign-Urbana is now home to its
own Urban Outfitters, that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth fighting
the conglomerate’s hypocritical practices. When we fight
Urban Outfitters, we also fight against the corporatization of
our own town, which is always a worthy cause.

Forty years ago, in
1968, Project 500
brought a large number
of African American
students to this
campus for the first
time. While this was a
welcome response to demands that had
been make upon the university by campus
and community activists after the
assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr., it did not begin smoothly. Some of
the students did not have living accommodations
ready for them, some did
not have their financial aid packages
ready, and some found difficulty getting
into courses.
The frustrated students initially congregated
on the Illini Union patio. When
it began to rain, they moved inside the Union. They
demanded to see Chancellor Jack Peltason and, when the
building closed and he had not appeared, they refused to
leave the Union. They were ordered to leave, and when
they did not the police came in with bat-sized clubs and
arrested the students for “mob action.” The male students
were taken to the stadium, and then to jail. The female students
were loaded into a truck and told that they were
going to be transported to their housing. Instead, they were
taken directly to jail.
On the week-end of November 7th and 8th of this
year, there was a 40th anniversary reunion of people who
had been recruited in Project 500. One of the events was
a press conference, called by local activist Terry
Townsend, to demand an apology from the Chicago Tribune
for inflaming passions against the students in its
articles at the time. The paper had contended that the
students were rioters who had cost the taxpayers over
$50,000 in damages by their destruction of Union property.
It ran a cartoon that portrayed the students as a dog
that was biting the hand of the taxpayers who were feeding
them so generously. Terry Townsend reported that
the actual cost of any damage to the building was
$3,812.19, and that most of that consisted of labor costs
to clean up. It also was reported that at least one instance
of damage was caused by a union employee who threw a
chair at one of the students that missed the student but
broke a window.
While many of the people who attended the reunion
obviously had fond memories of their time at the University,
they also carried scars from how they were initially
treated. There seemed to be a consensus among those
attending the press conference that there was a need for
some of the former students to draft a report on what actually
happened so that the Tribune’s reporting does not stand
as an unchallenged historical record of what really happened
on September 9, 1968 in the Illini Union.

If you close your eyes and picture “homeless,” what would
it look like? Do you see a person? What does this person
look like? What is this person wearing? Is the person
female or male? What is she/he doing?
Some of you may have seen that person who regularly
rummages through the dumpsters at their place of employment
or their favorite restaurant. Still others think of the
person who asks them for a few bucks as they walk down
Walnut Street. Some may see an entirely different person,
perhaps a friend or a relative, an image that differs from the
mainstream portrayal of “homeless.” Alas, the homeless figures
that many of us see are simply artificial ideas of “homelessness.”
These static views live in our minds as untested
stereotypes and beliefs. In some powerful ways, this figure
of “homelessness” also serves as a false excuse to turn away
from the structural injustices and inequalities that shape our
lives, allowing us instead to chalk up homelessness to “individual”
problems—a plight of the mumbling, crazy woman
or the drunk guy on the bench.
In reality, the person asking for change on the street is
only a tiny part of an ambiguous group generally termed
“homeless.” The National Law Center on Homelessness
and Poverty estimates that there are 3.5 million people who
experience homelessness in the U.S. in a given year. And as
a result of current economic policies, we are seeing a rise in
the number of people living in cars, on the streets, and in
shelters not designed for housing. Grandmothers and
grandfathers are sleeping in their cars because the money
from their pensions and Social Security is not enough.
First-time homebuyers are being tossed out on the street
because of sub-prime mortgages from unscrupulous lending
companies.
Unfortunately, these are not new issues; we simply see
more clearly now how people become homeless. In reality,
people experiencing homelessness are often indistinguishable
from the housed working poor in the U.S., save one
factor, the lack of housing. Many of the working poor,
however, are also very close to slipping into homelessness,
often with only one paycheck standing between them and
eviction. Hence, living on the edge is not the result of individual
decisions—it is a policy-driven economic reality
perpetuated by years of pro-business policy.
U.S. labor history exposes decisions made in the late
1800s to solidify the use of wage labor, separating people
from subsistence labor associated with the home. We also
know that decisions were made to keep people at the
mercy of employers, as laws were passed to criminalize the
movement of “tramps” from place to place, securing them
as a relatively immobile, yet unhoused, body of workers.
These measures established an expendable workforce that
we see in place today, embodied in the figures of the working
poor, both housed and unhoused.
It is only when we acknowledge this history that we can
begin to create effective solutions with those who are most
in need. One obvious policy would be to increase availability
and accessibility of affordable housing. Funding should
be made available on a federal level so that cash-strapped
cities and regions could provide for this need. Job security
would also be improved through stricter regulation of
employment practices. Homelessness and transient movement
between regions should be supported or at least
decriminalized, with the recognition that personal mobility
is necessary to secure employment. These are but a few of
the multiple avenues through which U.S. policy could support
the interests of people rather than capital. These
avenues represent a structural response to a structural issue.
Yet, in Champaign-Urbana, as across the country, we persist
in trying to “end homelessness” through programs that
promote “personal” change and transformation; interventions
that seek to heal the individual, not the system. For example,
service recipients are asked to improve themselves through
classes, counseling, and money savings programs. This individualistic
approach is a result of a persistent misconception
of homeless individuals as the “undeserving poor,” a group
marked by their difference from other people living in poverty
and seen as responsible for their “condition.”
As a result of this misconception, shelters and transitional
living centers assist individuals in molding themselves to
fit back into capitalist ideals, so they can “make a living” and
“get by,” without ever disrupting the economic system of
injustice. But these programs are largely unable to provide
individuals with a space to define their own conditions of
life. Instead, they operate under sets of rules which are
designed to deter behaviors seen as deviant or destructive.
But real change requires an investment in humanizing
processes that allow those who have been disempowered
to define their own conditions for living. This is not a
novel idea; for example, in 1966, the United Nations
declared a Human Right to Adequate Housing, stating that
“[Housing] strategies should reflect extensive genuine consultation
with and participation by all social sectors,
including the homeless and the inadequately housed and
their representatives and organizations.” Nowhere is this
recognition of the human right to participate more needed
than in the work to end homelessness.
Here in Champaign-Urbana, for example, service
providers are often forced to offer services that coincide with
governmental beliefs about what is considered the “best”
way to address homelessness, rather than offer services that
arise from the real needs of people who use the services. This
detachment from needs exhibits itself on multiple levels. For
example, an individual who receives a disability check that is
too small to pay the rent cannot simply walk into the welfare
office and ask for more money. Similarly, a cursory glance at
available grants reveals which groups of people are currently
privileged by the government as “deserving”. Women with
children, in general, receive much of the available funding,
while single men, not labeled as “veteran” or “disabled” are
eligible for little to no funding. Yet, this doesn’t change the
fact that there are single men who also have basic needs and
should have a right to services.
What this points to, clearly, is that we need to change
our methods of addressing poverty and homelessness.
However, this change requires that we first transform our
notions of “deserving” and “undeserving,” as we seek to
humanize our understanding of poverty and homelessness.
Our current methods of funding are based on this
notion of deserving/undeserving, which eliminates the
question of need and the question of rights, such as
whether people have a right to housing.
What would policies based in human rights look like? For
one, we know that the interests of capitalism are for cheap
labor, which is antithetical to the interests of laborers. Thus,
we must strive to regain the economic safety-nets lost as a
result of the economic policies of the last two decades. Along
with this, we must work to bring those who are most exploited
to the decision-making table. And we must become proactive
as service recipients, service providers, and community
members, instead of waiting for federal and state governments
to dictate who is deserving of having their basic needs met.

ON SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, non-western
ways of knowing, learning and living were
experienced at a day-long community symposium,
In Beauty, It is Restored: Media
Activism, Indigenous Women’s Epistemologies,
and Scholarship, sponsored by Native
American graduate students at UIUC.
The symposium presentations framed
the importance of respecting different
worldviews, in our efforts to ground our
scholarship in our humanity. Grandmothers,
mothers, brothers, students, and professors
gave voice to the survival of Chicana/
o, Mississippi Choctaw, Zapotec,
Yaqui, Hopi, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara,
Diné, and Apache Peoples within our communities
and within the academy. There
was no concentration on one sole way of
“being.” Instead, through a willingness to
be self-reflective about participants’ histories
and experiences, the question of how
to remain human was revisited throughout
the day.
California based legislation, Proposition
21, Hopi identity and boarding school experiences
were the focus of a panel on “Media
Activism: Community Issues, Voices and
Perspectives.” The panelists’ work aimed at
disclosing oppressive issues and marginalized
histories. How their project fit into their
everyday lives and the wider social contexts,
(i.e., language issues, social and cultural
resources, community power and institutions)
created unique perspectives related to
producing a collective vision of justice in
communities, through media mobilization.
One of the most compelling sessions,
“Leaving a Legacy for the Next Seven Generations:
Indigenous Women’s Epistemologies,”
inspired listening with the heart and
respect for every aspect of our human reality.
Through tears, female narratives presented a
life journey where ways of knowing are
informed by how one grounds self to environment
and how genealogy is attached to
land. The theme of the panel was infused
with care and respect for
indigenous language as a
mechanism that embodies
ways of knowing and
acknowledgement of our
relationship with the nonhuman
beings with whom
we share the earth. Central
here was an understanding
of how languages are
embedded social meanings
that encompass ways of
being, including the manner
in which land is experienced
differently as a result.
Institutions of higher education, too often,
exist without compassion, are ahistorical,
objectify beings (human and non-human) and
are spaces that do not allow for grieving and
healing of past collective violations and betrayals.
In the panel, “Truth and Tradition: Trusting
Our Histories and Stories to Decolonize Scholarship,”
UIUC graduate students addressed the
question of: how does one remain human
within a structure that has an epistemology
and a language of hierarchy, competition, and
domination? The panel shared their process of
rethinking values, language, meanings and
relationships within a course on Decolonizing
Methodologies, led by Larry Emerson, a Dine
teacher and scholar. The course guided students
to recognize themselves as the methodological
lens. Through an experience of laughter,
grief, and tears, they began to develop a
language to carry and restore a vision of hope
for the next seven generations.
Diné prayers opened and closed the
symposium in a way that asked for human
beings to be reconnected to a way of life
that is healing and restores kinship, harmony,
balance and beauty. For, ultimately,
it is through these values, and not theory,
that truth can emerge and restore our communities.
It is in this that we are reminded
that we are all here, not because of the
institution or the professors, but because
of our ancestors’ dreams for us. It is in this
way, that beauty can be restored and prevail,
even during the most perilous times.

ON AUGUST 18, 2006, SEVEN young African American lesbians
traveled to Greenwich Village in New York City from
their homes in Newark for a regular night out. When walking
down the street, a male bystander sexually propositioned
one of the women. After refusing to take no for an
answer, he physically assaulted them. The women tried to
defend themselves, and a fight broke out.
The women were charged with Gang Assault in the 2nd
degree, a Class C Felony with a mandatory minimum of
3.5 years. Patreese Johnson was additionally charged with
1st Degree Assault. Chenese Loyal, Lania Daniels, and
Khamysha Coates accepted plea offers. On June 14th,
2007 Venice Brown (19), Terrain Dandridge (20), Patreese
Johnson (20), and Renata Hill (24) received sentences
ranging from 3.5 to 11 years in prison.
The prosecution of the New Jersey Seven for defending
themselves against a homophobic attack illustrates the
state’s disregard of street harassment and the ridiculous
expectation that women and trans folks should not defend
themselves. Dwayne Buckle, the bystander who attacked
the women, sexually propositioned Patreese and followed
them down the street, insulting and threatening them: “I’ll
f**k you straight, sweetheart!”
Buckle’s violent harassment of the women should not be
seen as an isolated incident not requiring a response. Only
one year earlier in 2005, Sakia Gunn, a fifteen year old black
lesbian from Newark was stabbed to death on a downtown
Newark street corner after verbally rejecting the advances of
two men. For the seven women trying to return to Newark
after a long night, Buckle’s attack terrifyingly echoed the circumstances
of Gunn’s murder. If they had not defended
themselves, the consequences could have been deadly.
The district attorney office’s decision to charge the
women with Gang Assault in the 2nd degree, a Class C
Felony in New York State, further perpetuates the violence
against women of color initiated by Buckle. Charges such
as “Gang Assault” with mandatory minimum jail sentences
function as a form of legal lynching. Historically lynching
has been used to repress communities and normalize violence
against women of color.
Defining a gang as two or more people present during an
altercation allows judges and state’s attorneys to selectively
inscribe deviancy onto certain bodies (see New York State
Law 120.06). Given the statistically verified practice of racial
profiling and the historical practice of defining women of
color as non-normative, it is not surprising that women of
color continue to be the fastest growing prison population.
The case of the New Jersey Seven demonstrates that pathologizing
women of color occurs both on the street and in the
courtroom. Not only do Buckle’s remarks exemplify the daily
violence women of color face, but the trial proceedings also
mark the state’s role in normalizing this violence. According to
the New York Times, “Justice Edward J. McLaughlin of State
Supreme Court in Manhattan, showed little sympathy for the
women’s contention that taunts from Dwayne Buckle had left
them no choice but to defend themselves” (New York Times,
6/15/07). After dismissing the women’s lawyer’s request to
consider the influence of Sakia Gunn’s murder on the case,
Justice McLaughlin quoted the nursery rhyme, “Sticks and
stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me”
(New York Times, 6/15/07). Considering Justice McLaughlin’s
comments and harsh sentencing, especially in the context of
Sakia Gunn’s murder, the state’s grim options for women of
color are revealed: confinement or death.
ORGANIZING TO FREE THE NEW JERSEY FOUR
Following the 2006 trial, Venice Brown (19), Terrain Dandridge
(20), Patreese Johnson (20), and Renata Hill (24)
entered Bedford Hills Correctional Institute and Albion
Prison with sentences ranging from 3.5 to 11 years in
prison. The three women who accepted plea offers began
to negotiate life with even more severe limitations on
access to housing and jobs. The families of Venice, Terrain,
Patreese and Renata began to work with local New York
activists to appeal the ruling and support the women. In
the absence of support from national gay and lesbian organizations,
FIERCE (www.fiercenyc.org), an organization
advocating for queer youth of color in New York City,
became the primary group raising money and awareness in
support of the imprisoned women.
While the appeals process has proven to be slow, the
collaboration of family members, supporters and the probono
legal teams has paid off. On June 13, 2008 the New
York Appeals Court overturned Terrain Dandridge’s case,
dropped all the charges and cleared her record. The court
also granted Renata Hill a new trial. On June 23rd Terrain
Dandrige was reunited with her family and the following
day traveled with her mother, Kimma Walker, to speak at
the San Francisco Dyke March and the New Jersey Four
Solidarity Evening with Angela Davis.
Although Terrain’s long awaited release from Albion
Correctional Facility is a victory, it is important to remember
that Terrain still unjustly spent 673 days (2 years) of
her young life in prison because of wrongful prosecution
and conviction. The three women, who accepted appeals,
Chenese Loyal, Lania Daniels, and Khamysha Coates, still
have felony charges that prevent them from getting jobs,
registering for housing and other unjust discrimination.
Renata Hill still awaits a new trial. Venice, sentenced to 5
years and Patreese, sentenced to 11 years, remain incarcerated,
awaiting appeals to be heard this fall. The three
women will continue to navigate the legal system until the
day comes when their stories will finally be heard.
FREE THE NEW JERSEY FOUR
Three women still remain in prison and three women continue
to experience the effects of an unjust felony charge. The
Midwest NJ7 Solidarity Collective encourages you to support
these women. Contact natalie@all7.org or treva@all7.org
and visit http://www.freenj4.wordpress.com for information
on how you can get involved.

SURVEILLANCE IS AT AN ALL TIME HIGH across the land. In
schools, hospitals, stores, theatres, and street intersections,
surveillance cameras have become commonplace. The Big
Brother we feared in 1968 is now here in 2008, masquerading
as homeland security, with a complicit corporate media
that conjures the U.S. as the “good guy” on the world stage,
irrespective of how many people die, are displaced, or incarcerated
at the hands of U.S. foreign and domestic policies
The passing of the Uniting and Strengthening America
by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and
Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 or simply the PATRIOT
Act took things to a whole new level—so much so that our
biggest enemies are not Islamic terrorists but our own government’s
deception and impunity. The possibilities for
surveillance, linked to our heavy reliance on technology,
are countless. In fact, the surveillance carried out 40 years
ago by the FBI’s COINTELPRO can more easily (and legally)
be carried out today by agents of Homeland Security,
who now benefit from the protection of the PATRIOT ACT
and access to much sophisticated technology that was
available 40 years ago.
With these concerns in mind, we asked two prominent
scholars working on issues of the prison industrial complex
to briefly share some thoughts about surveillance in the U.S.
Stephen Hartnett, Associate Professor of Speech
Communications at the University of Illinois
BD: Could you please give us a brief history of surveillance.
SH: Oh, boy! You know we’ve got to talk about slavery
if we’re going do this. Folks need to understand that back
in the plantation days under slavery, the populations were
strictly divided into house slaves and the field slaves. Surveillance
back then took the form of an overseer; a hired,
white working-class overseer who, whenever the slaves
messed around or tried to do anything would, he whip
them on the spot. So surveillance took the form of a pair
of eyes watching a body. The punishment was physical.
And, the punishment was immediate.
At the end of slavery, with reconstruction, all the
slave codes were abolished. And the South had to pass a
new series of laws to criminalize the now freed black
population, in order to keep their labor cheap. So in the
South, they passed a series of laws pertaining to surveillance.
For example, over in South Carolina following
the civil war it was illegal to spit. So, you could look
back at the jail rolls and see tens of thousands of newly
freed, former slaves getting arrested for spitting. In
North Carolina, it was illegal to walk on public grass. So
if it was a particularly nice sunny day and you sat down
on the lawn to have your lunch, Bingo, man! Arrested!
So surveillance then took the form of using the law to
criminalize black bodies.
Following the civil rights movement, the surveillance
took a new aspect and now it’s high-tech. Today we have
surveillance cameras monitoring black populations. And
this is where the drug war comes in. The drug war provided
the technological means to use surveillance within the black
community. And we know, for example, that the user rates
of drugs are equal amongst white kids and black kids in
high school. But if there are more police and more surveillance
in a black neighborhood than in a white neighborhood,
then of course the black kids are going to get busted.
So we’ve reached a new stage of surveillance, where
incarceration is a direct consequence of the amount of surveillance
in any given neighborhood. And from my perspective,
that’s simply a postmodern reflection of those
long standing slave codes.
BD: So now on the South Side of Chicago we now have
what is known as blue light district.
SH: Oh, yeah! We got blue light districts in Chicago.
You know California passed this law called the STEP Law.
It actually makes it illegal for groups of four or more to
stand on a street corner together, because that counts as a
gang. So any gathering of more than four boys on a street
corner, they’ll get picked up by the juvenile police and get
taken in, fingerprinted, and entered into a gang data base.
I guess that’s another thing folks should know. These
databases in California are amazing. What they’ve got now
are called Crime Enhancement Laws. If I’m busted, I get
say five years. If I’m busted but I have a record of being in
a gang, I get an enhanced sentence. But, what we’re finding
is that if they get this one kid, and they put the screws on
him—they get that kid to talk—he starts naming names
and so this database is expanding exponentially. The problem
is that a lot of the kids listed on that gang database
aren’t gang-bangers. They’ve just been named.
And so this is another form of surveillance; and, what
we’re basically doing is criminalizing entire communities,
entire neighborhoods.
BD: So it’s all a kind of new Red Scare—a Gang Scare
where long lists are developed, as modern day blacklists?
SH: That’s exactly what it is! And the facts are startling!
If you look under the Bureau of Justice statistics—this is
all available on line—the vast majority of murders in
America every year are committed by middle class white
men. But those surveillance database are pegging 13, 14,
15 year old Chicano and Black kids in the wrong neighborhoods.
So these are the kids getting locked up.
Ruth Gilmore, , Director of the American Studies
Program at the University of Southern California
AD: What are some issues that you see as key to understanding
surveillance in the U.S.?
RG: One of the underlying principals of U.S. political
culture is that the U.S. must always have an enemy, which
must always be fought and can never be vanquished. That
is one of the foundational pieces of U.S. political culture: a
perpetual enemy who must always be fought and can
never be vanquished. And if we look back to U.S. history,
we see that the enemy’s face changes all the time, but that
enemy is always there.
The enemy is often foreign, such as every Communist
on the planet for 70 years; and, often within the territory,
such as Native Americans and people in slavery and Mexicans
in the Southwest and Chinese throughout the country
and so on and so forth. So the US must always have
this perpetual enemy.
Over the centuries of the U.S. becoming the most powerful
nation-state in the history of the world, in terms of its
military and economic power, it has development and perfected
various systems of surveillance—various ways of
keeping an eye on people. And keeping an eye on people
in order to identify—and one might call “profile”—and
then find certain kinds of enemies.
The level of surveillance in the United States is incredibly
deep and it involves all different kinds of social and economic
actors. So much so, that there is the kind of machinery of
surveillance, such as whatever is taping or listening to our
telephone conversation today, cameras at street intersections,
the swipe cards and other materials that people use to come
and go from work now, that don’t just let one in the door but
record that you went through the door. A metal key leaves
no record. It just is a metal key that opens the door rather
than says who went through the door when.
There are many, many other forms of surveillance
which in their constant perfection become an economic
sector that in its increased power, lobbies for more surveillance
in society, so that they can have grants and contracts
to do their work.
Then there’s a way in which ordinary people, the modestly
educated women and men in the prime of their life
also participate, however unwittingly, in the surveillance
society. For example, think about how many of us now
wear photo ideas as though they were jewelry. This is
extremely symbolic of the way in which we have all become
so accustomed to being constantly surveilled in such a way
that the surveillance in this society is highly militarized.
AD: Can you contrast surveillance in the U.S. with its
practice elsewhere?
RG: The United Kingdom is a good example for comparison.
The UK is probably one of the most surveilled societies
in the world. I think every square inch of the United
Kingdom has a camera trained on it. The whole country is
being filmed all the time. Even with that level of surveillance
which is not benign, the incidence of criminalization
and incarceration there is one-tenth of what it is here. So
while surveillance is deep in the UK, its outcome is not the
same as in the United States. In the United States, the outcome
is very often criminalization and incarceration.
AD: How does surveillance link to undocumented
workers?
RG: We all get sort of frenzied up about surveillance
and the ways that the politics of fear affects all of our society,
all the time. And, certainly, one of the key issues that
has captured people’s attention throughout the US these
days revolves around the issue of people who are not documented
to work. (I will not use the word “illegal” to
describe any human being.) But there are so many people
in the United States today who are not documented to
work and persistently we see government—governmental
bodies at all levels—trying to figure out ways to surveil
those people. And all kinds of people, who are documented
to work, are mistaken if they think that the surveillance
of those without documentation is going to secure those
with documentation. It won’t.
And the people who are between those not documented
to work and those of us who are documented are, of
course, all the people regardless of citizenship status, who
have been convicted of felonies. They are the people who
are the in-between category of folks, without rights. And
that in-between category opens us all up for peril. Not
because those people have been in prison or had been
convicted and now are loose; but, rather, because of the
ways in which their citizenship rights have been chipped
away—which means that everyone else is next.

WHEN THE ABU GHRAIB PICTURES surfaced,
showing the systematic torture of
detainees by United States military
forces, the American public was shocked
and outraged. Subsequent exposes
detailing the horrific uses of waterboarding
and the degrading treatment of prisoners
at Guantanamo Bay have continued to offend American
sensibilities.
While these examples have dominated the media and
focused the issue to American torture in foreign countries,
citizens of Illinois should know that “interrogation” tactics
and methodical torture have had a local presence for
decades. From 1973 to 1991, Sergeant Jon Burge of the
Chicago Police Department and other officers in Area Two
Police Headquarters used electric shock, mock execution
and suffocation to elicit confessions from approximately
100 African Americans.
Jon Burge served in the United States military during
the Vietnam War as a military police officer where he
received training in interrogation. Burge learned of the use
of electric shocks as an interrogation technique during his
service in Vietnam. It is common knowledge that US
forces used field phones to provide electro-shock torture
to suspects in Vietnam. Other veterans in Burge’s company
have reported that they participated in the electrical torture
of Viet Cong suspects using hand cranked field
phones. A fellow MP serving at a similar time with Burge
stated: “It would not take much effort however for someone
like Burge to pick up this knowledge, even if he were
not directly involved. It’s not rocket science.”
Burge returned to Chicago as a highly decorated war veteran.
He then became a police officer for the Chicago Police
Department in 1970. During Burge’s first years on the force,
he again earned numerous commendations for his work.
Jon Burge was soon promoted to detective and sent to Area
Two Headquarters as the Commander of the Violent Crimes
Unit. Burge’s return to Area Two not only marked his promotion
but also a return to his neighborhood.
In Burge’s youth, the area was 93% white. It had undergone
a population shift to 14% white by Burge’s arrival as
an Area Two Commander in 1972. Many in Burge’s community
were upset at the “infiltration” of minorities into
what was traditionally a white community. Soon after his
promotion, Area Two Police Headquarters received the
“House of Screams” moniker, due to the systematic torture
promoted by Burge and his fellow officers.
Starting in 1972, African Americans began alleging that
Commander Burge and fifteen other officers were engaging
in the use of electrical shocks via hand cranked field
phones, suffocations using plastic bags and typewriter
bags, mock executions, and beatings in order to elicit confessions
for trial. Courts, judges and lawyers often would
not believe the torture victims because there were no
marks showing evidence of abuse.
Most of those alleging abuse were poor African Americans
and they were accusing middle class white policemen,
so their claims were frequently discounted. Prosecutors
used the confessions and those alleging abuse were
sentenced to lengthy prison terms, some even receiving
the death penalty. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who was
State’s Attorney when these abuses took place, has denied
Burge and his fellow officers tortured. Then, things began
to change.
In February 1982, Andrew Wilson killed two police
officers after a robbery on the South Side of Chicago. In
response, Burge and the Chicago Police engaged in a draconian
dragnet to find the killers. As a detective who
worked for the Chicago Police said, “It was a reign of terror.
I don’t know what Kristallnacht was like, but this was
probably close…Their idea is you go out and pick up
2,000 pounds of nigger and eventually you’ll get the right
one.” The Police caught Wilson not due to the dragnet but
because one of the many innocent African Americans
caught up in the dragnet happened to know Wilson had a
car that fit the police description. Wilson was brought to
Area Two, interrogated, and confessed to the murders of
the two police officers.
But during his trial, Wilson alleged that the police had
used torture to get him to confess. Wilson stated that he
was physically assaulted and received an eye injury.
According to Wilson, officers also suffocated him with
plastic typewriter bags to make him pass out. He also told
how Burge and his subordinates used electric shocks via
hand crank field phones to his genitals, fingers and ears.
When Wilson was able to dislodge the field telephone wire
clips from his ears, Burge’s officers handcuffed Wilson to
two rings across the room. This positioning caused Wilson
to sustain burns on his chest caused by the room’s radiator.
Wilson was still found guilty and sentenced to prison.
In 1989, Wilson sued the Chicago Police Department
for their use of electrical shocks. The People’s Law Office
represented Wilson in this lawsuit. Soon after the lawsuit
started and the torture of Wilson was revealed, the People’s
Law Office began receiving anonymous letters from the
Chicago Police Department. These letters gave explicit
details of Burge’s torture of African American suspects.
One letter stated Burge had a group of “asskickers” who
engaged in torture and “weak links” who were not
involved in the systematic abuse of suspects.
The anonymous writer also stated that the hand crank
field phone and bags belonged to the Sergeant and that
Burge encouraged their use. It was also alleged that State’s
Attorney Richard Daley chose not to investigate complaints
against police. The communications concluded by
suggesting the names of others who were in jail due to torture.
When the Peoples’ Law Office spoke with these men,
they found out Burge and his fellow officers tortured those
men as well. The list of those alleging abuses by the Chicago
Police Department quickly ballooned.
The Illinois Supreme Court ruled that defendants
received their injuries while in police custody. Juries
concluded that constitutional rights were violated and
that there was a policy whereby the police were allowed
to abuse certain suspects. The City of Chicago even
admitted that “savage torture” took place under Burge’s
command at Area Two. A special prosecutor from the US
government said that one would have to be a “chump”
to deny that torture took place. But what has come of
these admissions?
Due to Wilson’s suit and the anonymous letters that
exposed “Burge’s asskickers” and their systematic torture,
Burge was removed from the police force in 1993. Two
other officers were suspended without pay. As of 2007, the
City of Chicago has had to pay out over $20 million to the
victims of “The House of Screams.” Yet, there has been no
criminal accountability. No charges were ever filed against
Jon Burge or any of the 15 officers accused of the brutality,
because the statute of limitations for assault and battery
has elapsed. Yet, the officers have not yet escaped prosecution.
The US Attorney in Chicago subpoenaed five to ten
officers to bring them before a grand jury in June to see if
they engaged in perjury and obstruction of justice, by
denying their use of torture for decades.
The City of Chicago has spent over $9 million defending
the officers after admitting that these officers engaged
in “savage torture.” Their costs will continue to skyrocket
defending these officers against impending federal perjury
and obstruction charges. Mayor (and State’s Attorney
during the Burge torturing) Daley was outraged
when former Governor Ryan pardoned four of Burge’s
victims and commuted seven others to life imprisonment.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan is currently fighting
fiercely against those calling for new trials for the 25
victims of Burge torture, who currently languish in Illinois
jails. Should these be cases that Chicago should
spend money on to defend? Should they even be cases
that the City wants to win?
The use of torture, guilty or innocent, is antithetical to
American values enshrined in the Constitution. It is antithetical
to the presumption of innocence. If we are to say
that torture at Guantanamo Bay and other US sites
abroad is morally wrong, then we must also apply a similar
standard to Chicago officials and those officers who
engaged in torture.