Public i Contact

In the above article, Mike Griffin tells of his disillusionment
with the lack of support he feels that he got
from both the AFL-CIO and his local’s own national
union in the Staley lockout. This was perhaps the most
important and hard-fought struggle by labor in Central
Illinois in recent years. It began after Tate and Lyle, a London-
based multinational corporation in the sugar refining
industry, bought out the Staley operation in Decatur
in 1988. Up to that time, Staley had been a family owned
operation.
What the workers first noted about the changeover
was an increased disregard for safety issues. The workers
made complaints to the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) that investigated and found 298
violations of the safety code. Staley (the name was
retained by Tate and Lyle) was fined $1.6million. Even
after this, the workers complained that unsafe procedures
continued in a dangerous industry that uses highly toxic
chemicals such as propylene oxide and runs the risk of
explosion from starch dust as it converts corn into sweetener.
Labor relations continued to degenerate until 1993.
The straw that broke the camel’s back came in the
summer of that year when Staley demanded maximum
“flexibility” over the workforce. They insisted that workers
sign a contract that obliged them to give up the normal
8 hour work day and to work 12 hour days (with an
additional 4 hours overtime when the company felt it was
needed), three and four consecutive days in alternating
weeks. All workers would also be obliged to rotate
between day and night shifts. When the company would
not budge from this position in contract negotiations, the
workers became more militant. They began to rebel by
working to rule, i.e., doing no more than their jobs technically
called for. Staley claimed that they were going further
and sabotaging the work process by disposing of useable
product. The workers denied this, but the National
Labor Relations Board found that Staley’s charge was
credible. Workers who complained to the company were
retaliated against.
On June 27, Staley locked out approximately 760
workers. Following the example set by President Reagan
during the air controllers’ strike, Staley placed advertisements
in newspapers in other areas of the country and
hired replacement workers to take the jobs of the workers
it had locked out. Some of the workers, like Mike Griffin,
became “road warriors” and traveled around the U.S.,
Canada, and even Europe publicizing what had been
done to them and warning other workers that this is what
they too could find themselves up against. They held
meetings in Decatur that many of us from the C/U area
attended. Socialist Forum held support meetings in
Champaign-Urbana where Mike and other road warriors
came to speak. The workers held marches and demonstrations
in Decatur that attracted supporters from
around the country. Some of these supporters blocked
the gates of Staley and were pepper sprayed and arrested
by the police. The lockout and militant resistance lasted
approximately two and one-half years. The giant capitalist
multinational won. But as readers can see, Mike Griffin
is still fighting both the capitalist system that treated
him and his fellow workers so badly and the organized
labor leadership that he felt betrayed them.

      
more than locked-out and striking United
Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW)
members involved in the West Coast struggle
that idled thousands of grocery workers.
The grim reality is, however, that victory is
unlikely and more tragically, many workers
will never get their jobs back. Consider the
history of the UFCW leadership in struggles
where the International Union caved in with
little more than a whimper, then allowed
scabs to permanently replace long-term,
loyal union members. No one questions the
necessity of this struggle; it is extremely
important to every UFCW union member
in the retail grocery industry in the U. S. and
Canada.
Most problematic is UFCW leadership
(or lack of it) and their inability to strategize
or to provide leadership. Soon, the question
of their resolve must be raised as well. Well
before negotiations began, UFCW leadership
should have been developing a strategy
to deal with the enemy on a number of
fronts. Coalitions with union and legislative
allies, as well as the shopping public should
have been formed. The UFCW should have
understood the serious threat of the Wal-
Martization of their industry. That threat is
the vehicle driving the powerful coalition
determined to win at any cost. That is not to
say that this struggle was unwinnable; far
from it. You must know your enemy and
where to apply the thousand points of pain it
takes to defeat a determined enemy; and
above all else, you must recognize your
enemy. For years, the UFCW has assumed
those major retail grocers were allies and
that rank and file needs came second. Labor
leaders know there are no “silver bullets” in
labor disputes, as local Teamster leadership
perceived their valiant but poorly timed
efforts when they refused to haul from grocery
warehouses. Thus far, UFCW and
Teamster leaders have engaged a powerful,
well-educated enemy with tactics that have
not worked for decades, if ever. Unfortunately,
they sent their troops into battle nearly
unarmed and with no credible battle plan.
Looking back in UFCW history, UFCW
Local P. 9’s, struggle with Hormel Meats in
Austin, Minnesota, in the 1980s comes to
mind. The fight with Hormel turned into a
major fracas that drew nation-wide support,
support the international union could
not control. Assisting the struggle was independent
labor consultant, Ray Rogers and
his staff at Corporate Campaign, brought
on board by Local P. 9 leadership. The funds
and national support raised by Rogers made
it difficult for the national UFCW to throw
in the towel. In spite of that support and the
hopes of hundreds of thousands of union
supporters, the UFCW cut a deal with
Hormel, took over local P. 9, and replaced
the local leadership.Many dedicated UFCW
members watched in shock as their lifelong
jobs were permanently filled by scabs.
There have been many valiant struggles
by UFCW members, but the results are
nearly all mirror images with rank and file
members suffering the losses. Organizing
attempts by the UFCW have been as feeble
as their efforts to win struggles. Many
UFCW members live with poor wages, little
representation, and unjust working conditions.
The recent gathering of AFL-CIO leaders
on the West Coast may
appear as a gathering of
eagles to desperate striking
workers who have
needed their support since
the beginning and who
deserve it. But even buzzards
gather and soar
before they feast on their
prey. Make no mistake,
“the dog and pony show”
has begun and while the
house of labor makes militant
speeches and engages
in a little street theatre, the
national UFCW is quietly planning an “Exit
Strategy.” That’s what labor calls it when
betrayal is in the works. The movement will
be told through the bureaucratic labor news
about the victory they scored. They “saved
the union,” they will tell us, and they will
spend several years re-writing the history of
their betrayal. But, the truth will burn forever
in the hearts of the members and their
families who suffer the losses.
Recently, mainstream media have been
touting the involvement of Richard Trumka,
Secretary-Treasurer of the National AFLCIO,
suggesting that his leadership will
bring more militant strategies. Nothing
could be farther from the truth. My experience
tells me that the AFL-CIO will spend
some money, make a few seemingly militant
demonstrations, and then Trumka will enter
the negotiations and cut a deal. It will be far
from victory and none will be spared the
losses except the suits in the central offices
of the UFCW and the AFL-CIO.
The examples are endless and not
restricted to the retail food industry. The
Detroit News strike is another example.
After being shamed into a national rally in
Detroit, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney
led more than one hundred thousand supporters
through downtown to the biggest
block party in Detroit’s history; no militancy,
no sit-down, and no real effort to win
that struggle. The result was a stunning loss
that allowed scabs to replace most of the
valiant union workers.
The WarZone struggles in Decatur, IL,
that idled more than four thousand working
families at Firestone, Caterpillar, and Staley
is another example. When the AFL-CIO
refused to engage in those struggles under
the feeble leadership of former president
Lane Kirkland, the Staley local loaded up
busses and went to Bal
Harbor, Florida, to challenge
the AFL-CIO. After
Kirkland and his band of
bureaucrats descended on
Decatur a few months
later, it was learned that
Kirkland was not going to
offer any real support for
the Decatur unions. The
Staley local put together a
strategy with the help of
supporters across the
country to indict Kirkland’s
leadership. That
effort culminated in Chicago after protests
from the floor led to Kirkland resigning the
following day. At the 1995 convention in
New York, after Sweeney claimed the throne,
a meeting was set up between local leaders
from the Decatur struggles and top officers
of the new national AFL-CIO leadership
team, which called itself the New Voice.
Included in this meeting was Richard Trumka.
The New Voice leadership promised
massive support for the Decatur struggles,
support that never came. The New Voice
developed laryngitis almost immediately.
President Sweeney was supposed to accompany
the Staley local president to meet
directly with Neil Shaw, CEO of the Staley
parent, Tate&Lyle PLC, in London. Instead,
Sweeney went without the local leader and
cut a deal that betrayed the local union. No
support was ever provided to the Caterpillar
workers or Firestone workers and they were
ultimately forced to work side by side with
scabs, just as the few Staley workers who
returned to their jobs were.
But there was another betrayal suffered
by the Staley workers. In this case it was
their own national organization, the United
Paperworkers’ Industrial Union (UPIU). To
protest that lack of support, Staley workers
on two occasions went to the UPIU’s headquarters
in Nashville and were locked out of
the building by security. Local members
and leaders were brought up on dozens of
bogus charges and most damningly, the
entire membership and most of the local
leadership was evicted from their own
union hall by the same police that gassed
and terrorized them on the picket lines.
Trumka was confronted at a labor forum at
the University of Illinois a few months after
the betrayal in a painful lesson in accountability.
Months later Sweeney was picketed
in Madison, Wisconsin, as a large contingent
of Decatur workers carried a large
black coffin in front of the speakers stand,
signifying the death by betrayal of their
struggle. In a meeting with Sweeney after
the demonstration, Sweeney promised a letter
explaining why he withheld support
from the struggle. That letter never came.
The AFL-CIO secretly, or so they
thought, flew Father Martin Mangan, the
local priest who supported the struggling
workers and was arrested at the gates of Staley,
to Washington in an effort to stop the
protests. When that did not work and
Father Mangan continued his support,
Trumka flew into Decatur unannounced to
the media and met with about 50 plus angry
workers at St James Church, Father Mangan’s
parish. It was a tumultuous meeting
and Trumka was quizzed several times
about breaking his promises. Each time he
responded that the AFL-CIO, a confederation
with which national unions are affiliated,
cannot render support unless it is
requested by the national affiliate. Translation:
the New Voice leadership lied to us in
New York, but only after we played a key
role in their election. Trumka left Decatur
with no credibility.
Knowing this, how would you rate the
chances of humble grocery workers? Once
again, it is time for the big show. How do I
know? I saw the show before; I lived with the
betrayal. I am a former locked-out Staley
worker from the “War Zone,” Decatur, IL.
mgriffwzef@aol.com

      ,
the Free Trade Area of the Americas
(FTAA) will lower environmental standards,
force workers to compete across
borders for the lowest wages, enable
transnational corporations to slash health
care benefits and eliminate generic drugs,
facilitate speculative and predatory
investment in developing nations, and
throw out existing laws regarding mergers
and monopolies. In short, the FTAA
will usher in a new era of capitalist
exploitation on a hemispheric scale.
Moreover, as the unprecedented display
of military hardware and police forces
during the FTAA protests in Miami in
November 2003 demonstrated, the international
elites backing the FTAA rely on
local, regional, and national police forces
to keep their actions secret and to spare
them the wrath of protesters. Indeed,
“protecting” the FTAA ministers from the
tens of thousands of protesters who had
gathered in Miami turned that city into
an armed enclave where free speech was
curtailed, schools were closed, public
transportation was shut down, and civil
liberties were literally beaten into submission.
When combined with state funds,
corporate grants, and private donations,
Miami raised a total of $12 million to
fund these paramilitary operations.
Protesting against the FTAA meetings in
Miami thus also meant defending
democracy against an encroaching police
state.
THE FTAA AS “NAFTA ON STEROIDS”
The FTAA proposes to encircle the
entire western hemisphere, from the Arctic
Circle to the southernmost tip of
South America; it will encompass 800
million people in 34 nations in North,
Central, and South America and the
Caribbean, covering everybody but Cuba.
The FTAA thus amounts to an enlarged
version of the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA), which was a point
for debate in the 1992 elections and came
into effect two years later in 1994. Championed
as a crucial step in triggering a
new era of globalization, NAFTA was
supposed to build a global economy concurrent
with U.S interests, increase development,
and create more jobs in the U.S.,
Mexico, and Canada. But if the FTAA follows
NAFTA’s legacy, the outlook for
American labor is bleak; since the implementation
of NAFTA, nearly one million
U.S. workers have lost their jobs, mainly
in manufacturing industries that produce
textiles and apparel, vehicles, computers,
and electrical appliances. Here in Illinois,
according to a November 2003 brief
issued by the Economic Policy Institute
(EPI), NAFTA enabled companies to shift
production elsewhere, thus costing
44,325 jobs between 1993 and 2002.
Moreover, as higher-paid, skilled workers
move from declining industries to the
service sector, which pays on average only
81% of manufacturing jobs, wages are
driven down across the board. The AFLCIO
thus reports that, when adjusted for
cost of living, wages for non-college-educated
workers in the U.S. have decreased
steadily since NAFTA and that nearly
75% of the entire workforce is comprised
of this group. If NAFTA is any indication
of what the FTAA might do, we can anticipate
it leading to lost jobs and lower
wages.
While we should be alarmed about
what NAFTA has done to the U.S., its
effects on Mexico, presaging the FTAA’s
effects on the rest of Latin America, are
equally frightening. Since NAFTA was
passed, eight million Mexicans have fallen
into poverty, Mexican wages – which
were a whopping $5 dollars a day in the
first place – have gone down, and American
subsidies on agriculture have decimated
small farmers. In fact, one million
Mexican peasant farmers have been driven
into poverty since the passage of
NAFTA. “NAFTA on steroids,” as the
FTAA is described, will follow a similar
trajectory and drive down wages, cost
jobs, and shatter local communities.
While subsidized U.S. agricultural
products destroy local farmers in Mexico,
goods made in Maquiladora zones –
often by women under terrible factory
conditions – undercut U.S.-made products,
or simply take over the production
of goods once made in the U.S., triggering
a massive trade imbalance. In fact, the
EPI reports that “growth in imports of
195.3% from Mexico and 61.1% from
Canada overwhelmingly surpass export
growth,” meaning that we are buying
more from our NAFTA partners than we
are selling to them. The U.S. economy is
thus left with a tremendous NAFTAfueled
international trade deficit in goods
and services of almost $40 billion. Given
the likelihood that the FTAA will accelerate
the trends begun by NAFTA we may
expect the FTAA to expand our national
trade deficit, thereby further weakening
the chances of economic growth and
recovery in the U.S.
Furthermore, the FTAA proposes to
override local governance, literally creating
a supra-national set of rules made by,
enacted for, and enforced for the interests
of the few. For example, the FTAA’s Multilateral
Agreement on Investment
(MAI), modeled after NAFTA’s littleknown
Chapter 11, protects foreign
investors by allowing them to bypass and
sometimes overturn local environmental
and public health laws. Ralph Nader’s
Public Citizen explains that the MAIs will
allow investor-to-state suits, where corporations
sue governments and localities
for lost profits. One example is U.S.-
based Metalclad Corp., which claimed
that environmental zoning laws in one
Mexican state were unfairly restrictive
and so forced the government to pay $16
million in damages to the corporation.
Chapter 11 does more than just enable
U.S. companies to pick on poor Mexicans,
however, as the Loewen Group, a
Canadian funeral home chain, won $750
million from the U.S. government after a
Mississippi court held the chain responsible
for malicious and fraudulent business
practices. Imagine, a U.S. state court’s
findings being overruled by the NAFTA
star court! What U.S. law calls fraud,
NAFTA calls good business. Such findings
foreshadow a world in which the rule
of checks-and-balances and representative
government are trampled by the rush
for profit.
Fortunately, the most recent round of
negotiations in Miami in November 2003
slowed the pace of the FTAA. Pressure
from Brazil, a country that sees the FTAA
as U.S.-annexation and that led the dissension
that broke down WTO talks in
Cancún two months prior, led to what
some call FTAA-a la carte. Rather than
creating a hemispheric trade bloc by
2005, the Ministerial Conference agreed
on a lighter version of the FTAA that
includes more bilateral and sub-regional
agreements such as CAFTA, the Central
American Free Trade Agreement passed
in December of 2003. Critics say such
actions simply give the U.S. more puppet
strings to pull. Indeed, because President
Bush has been granted Fast-Track ability
to strike agreements without congressional
consent, he is able to use NAFTA, CAFTA, and other smaller trade agreements
to make deals that are sure to be
friendly to big investors and harmful to
human rights. The official Ministerial
Declaration nevertheless announces that
it remains committed “to a comprehensive
and balanced FTAA that will most
effectively foster economic growth, the
reduction of poverty, development, and
integration through trade liberalization.”
As we have demonstrated here, such
claims are little more than lies.
THE FTAA AND THE FATE OF DEMOCRACY
While the fight against the FTAA is
crucial for protecting jobs, wages, and
local governance, the recent protests
against the FTAA in Miami also demonstrated
how the FTAA is leading to the
production of a police state where civil
liberties are crushed in the name of
national security. Indeed, the $87 billion
approved by Congress for President
Bush’s War on Iraq in early November
actually included $8.5 million for Miami
to arm and train its police to fight what it
assumed would be hundreds of thousands
of violent anti-FTAA protesters.
Miami used the post-Seattle and post-
9/11 fear of public disturbances to raise
an additional $3.5 million.Mayor Manny
Diaz proudly announced that Miami’s
FTAA-spawned police state was “a model
of homeland defense,” despite widespread
outrage over the city’s tactics in repressing
protesters. Relying on such War
Against Terrorism terminology to
describe protesters turned those of us
exercising our constitutional rights into
potential terrorists. In anticipation of our
“terrorism,” Miami leased fire trucks to
use as water cannons. It bought saws,
jackhammers, stun guns, bicycles, pepper
gas, rubber bullets, and tasers for police
who at one point called themselves
“RoboCops.” Galloping in groups of a
hundred and more, police rode giant
horses along the march route, shadowing
our peaceful actions with a veritable cavalry.
The city police were reinforced by
U.S. Marshals, the Coast Guard, the Federal
Protective Service, and forces from
surrounding towns. In short, the FTAA
meetings enabled Miami to experiment
with a wide array of paramilitary techniques,
directed at protesters, meant to
curtail free speech, and which trampled
on civil liberties.
Nonetheless, the corporate mainstream
press portrayed events in Miami
as yet another struggle between the forces
of good (police) and evil (crazed anarchists
like us). As we demonstrate below
in commentary on photographs we took
at the main march in Miami, that narrative
is as full of holes as the promises
offered by NAFTA and FTAA supporters.
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES:
On the foul results of NAFTA, see
Celia Dugger, “Report Finds Fewer Benefits
for Mexico in NAFTA,” New York
Times (18 November 2003): A9; Down on
the Farm: NAFTA’s Seven-Years War on
Farmers and Ranchers in Alabama, a
2001 report by Public Citizen’s Global
Trade Watch, available at
www.citizen.org; and Robert Scott, The
High Price of ‘Free’ Trade, a report from
the EPI, available at www.epinet.org.
For coverage of the FTAA protests, see
Tom Hayden,“FTAA Ship Runs Aground,
But Party Goes On,” posted 30 November
2003 and “Miami Vice,” posted 20
November 2003, both on Alternet,
www.alternet.org; Rebecca Solnit, “Fragments
of the Future: The FTAA in
Miami,” posted 25 November 2003 on
Alternet; Jeremy Scahill, “The Miami
Model: Paramilitaries, Embedded Journalists
and Illegal Protests: Think This is
Iraq? It’s Miami,” posted on 24 November
2003 on CounterPunch, www.counterpunch.
org; and Indymedia’s stories and
links on www.ftaa-imc.org and Meghan
Krausch’s article in the December 2003
issue of The Public i, archived at
www.publici.ucimc.org.
For the big picture of how the FTAA
fits into globalization, see Ellen Meiksins
Wood, Empire of Capital (Verso, 2003),
130-168 and Amy Chua, World on Fire:
How Exporting Free Market Democracy
Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability
(Anchor, 2003), 229-294.
For websites full of information on
these topics, see Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen,
www.citizen.org; the economic and
human rights clearinghouse of Global
Exchange, www.globalexchange.org; debt
and deficit information at
www.epinet.org; and union and labor
perspectives at www.aflcio.org.
The Official FTAA site, with links to
Ministerial Declarations, is www.ftaaacla.
org; see materials posted by the
World Trade Organization at
www.wto.org; the World Bank’s reports
on “development” are available at
www.worldbank.org.

I know a type of discrimination. I know how it feels
to be unwanted in a space; to be perceived as not normal.
I have felt stares of hate that have burned through
my exterior as well as had my physical safety threatened.
On May 3rd I was involved in an altercation while
demonstrating against the invasion of Iraq. How that
altercation was handled by Champaign Police and later
by the City of Champaign was not only inappropriate,
but biased.
Officer Wills ran 15 yards at me from out of my line
of sight. At no point did he identify himself as a police
officer or give a command to desist behavior. I hit the
ground without knowing who my attacker was and my
left arm was pinned under my body. I was yelled at to
give my left arm and I was repeatedly hit in my left side
with a fist or baton because I failed to produce my left
arm for him.My right arm was jerked up my back. I was
not fighting my attacker back and I repeated over and
over that my left arm was pinned under my body and I
was trying to get up to give him my left arm. I heard
people around me state things like “don’t hurt her!”
“don’t hurt, Lori” which was the only thing keeping me
calm at that moment. I saw and heard nothing that indicated
a police presence; I thought I had been attacked by
an extremely heavy, enraged individual who opposed
my right to demonstrate against US policy.
When I was finally allowed to lift my torso and surrender
my left arm to my attacker, I was cuffed and lifted
to my feet to be escorted to a police car. I completely
cooperated with the officers, though I was never told I
was being arrested. I was never asked for my side of the
story. I was told that I had violated a city ordinance:
Section 23-21 Resisting/ obstructing a peace officer. I
had two options: plead guilty and pay the $175 ordinance
violation fee or fight the ticket in court.
Before any physical act, which could escalate a situation,
an officer is supposed to identify him or herself as
such and give a command to desist. This gives all
involved a chance to comply and cease all action or
reflexive behavior. In a non-violent altercation, an officer
should be able to break up the situation with verbal
instructions without ever touching any of the individuals
involved.
I had nine witnesses to my attack. I hired a lawyer. I
had friends and community members who were willing
to donate various resources including siting down to
discuss the incident with a lieutenant at the station.
And these are the things that separated my situation
with many people of color who find themselves in the
wrong place at the wrong time, scared and acting
reflexively, or financially unable to fight the injustices
done to them.
I had a bench trial. The officers lied on the stand,
claiming that they had announced their presence, that I
pulled my arm away from Officer Wills and that I lost
my footing and fell.According to all three officers, I was
never tackled. Despite the testimony from four witnesses,
Judge Ford ruled against me, but admitted that if I
had been charged at the state level, the outcome would
have been different because more than a preponderance
of evidence would have been needed to prove I
resisted a peace officer.
My lawyer submitted a post-trial motion to reverse
Judge Ford’s decision on the grounds that I was not
proven to have “knowingly resisted.” That the City did
not prove that I knew that the individual addressing me
was a peace officer for the City of Champaign (nor was
it supported by the facts surrounding the situation)
and that the finding that the statement “Police,”
whether said once or more than once would not have
been sufficient in the situation that presented itself. The
court ignored the fact that all officers testified that no
other commands or directions were given to me and
without directing specific commands to cease and
desist, it cannot be said that I “resisted the breaking up
of the altercation” when I was never directed by the
police to do so. The conclusion reached by the Court
that the officer could not do more is not supported by
the evidence or reasonable inference drawn there from.
The decision was not reversed and I paid my $175
fine with additional court costs which came to a grand
total of $245. After losing a total of five days of work,
paying my fees and a lawyer, and experiencing much
resistance from clerks both at the Champaign City
building and at the Champaign Police Department in
my efforts to obtain a copy of the police report – (they
don’t readily offer a Freedom of Information Act form
for citizens and discourage information seekers, claiming
that only lawyers can obtain copies of police
records) it is no mystery to me why someone who is
wrongly charged or mistreated by police due to their
race, beliefs, or sexual orientation does not fight the
corrupt system that is in place.

    The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism, which exposed the psychologies that
helped numerous Europeans believe that the accumulation
of money (which Saint Paul had called the root of
all evil) would lead to spiritual salvation, Max Weber
argued that capitalism had become an “iron cage” – one
that coerced humans into selling their bodies for wages,
slaving in assembly lines, and many other evils. For him,
the problem was not so much that humans were exploited,
it was that they had no choice in the matter; they
were born into a system with certain expectations they
could not change. Exactly one hundred years later, we
find that Weber was correct, but perhaps not in the way
he intended. Today, capitalism is an iron cage, figuratively
(and increasingly, with globalization) for most, but
also literally for the two million (YES, THAT IS 2 MILLION)
Americans locked behind the cold, iron bars of
prisons.
On January 22-24, 2004, scholars, activists, and poets
from across the nation met at the Levis Faculty Center at
the University of Illinois to discuss, debate, problematize,
and confront the very real cages that bar many citizens
from leading normal lives. The title of this conference
was “Education or Incarceration? Schools and Prisons
in a Punishing Democracy,” and it was made necessary
by some alarming facts – which are delineated in the
sidebar (facing page).
Given these startling facts, it was necessary for scholars
and poets to meet with local activists, community
members, and formerly incarcerated individuals to
make some sense out of the machinery of the prisonindustrial-
complex. The result was nothing less than
inspiring. Though the problem is gargantuan, and there
are no easy solutions, there are things that community
activists can do that will have a very real impact on the
local level. In the spirit of the conference, then, I will do
three things in this article. First, following Weber, I will
consider the problem of prisons as a structural problem
embedded in the social facts of capitalism we must live
with every day. Second, I will consider the impact of the
prison-industrial-complex on education. And third, I
will discuss local options for critical resistance against
this leviathan that cages so many mothers and fathers,
brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. Indeed, this
conference made me want to both cry in indignation
and slam my fist through a wall in anger. At the same
time I also found that what made me so upset could be a
rallying cry for change.
TO QUELL THE MODERN HYDRA: PRISONS AND CAPITALISM
One of the most important aspects of capitalism is
wage labor. It was not always the case that humans
labored for wages; in fact, it was only in the 16th and
17th centuries that wages were offered for work – which
occurred when merchants in cities such as London,
Boston, and New York discovered the fundamental law
for valorizing capital: they could make the most profit
for themselves by underpaying workers for their labor.
But to turn farmers and peasants into workers was a difficult
task, and it required the state to expropriate these
peasants, farmers, and Native Americans – meaning that
it had to steal their land so that they had no other choice
than to labor for a wage. There was massive resistance to
the re-structuring of society along capitalist lines, and
the most potent, deadly instrument in this shift was state
violence. Indeed, the first police system in England was
created for two goals: to prevent theft, and to enforce a
wage system of labor. And along with the police came
prisons, executions, and schools.
To enforce wage labor, capitalists needed new methods
of discipline and surveillance; in short, they had to
force workers into obeying their commands, and to constantly
watch over them to make sure that they were
obeying. Those that did not, or would not, were great
dangers to the system – and as such, they had to be punished.
The state made an example out of rebels by executing
them or, after the 1740s in Pennsylvania, by incarcerating
them. The idea was to remove the danger while
making an example of it; the message being that pirates
or workers who resisted the iron cages of capitalism
would be brutally murdered.
Thus, there was this peculiar contradiction that
developed. Capitalists needed laborers, but at the same
time they hated and feared them because they were
numerous and had the power to rebel (as was demonstrated
repeatedly in England and America). One potential
way to avoid this was to enslave Africans and Native
Americans, thereby raising the profit margin because
slaves deserved no pay – indeed, they were not even
human. Here, the many margins of the story collapsed
into a truly globalized system.Workers were offered substandard
wages, just enough to be better off than the
jobless; then they were drugged with imported sugar and
alcohol from the slave market economy of the
Caribbean. Workers, slaves, Indians, all stoned on sugar
and rum and yet hostile to the emerging cruel capitalist
realities, were bullied by emerging police states into
accepting their fates.
There was no way to avoid the contradictions of the
system, however. Slaves rebelled; crews mutinied; pirates
stole slaving ships and returned slaves to Africa; farmers
rose up against local and national governments. Other
methods of discipline were necessary to quell the manyheaded
monstrous Hydra, which is how capitalists
viewed the base of proletarians on which their profit was
built. The prison was effective; lock up those who might
make trouble.We have seen, since Ronald Reagan’s conservative
initiative to lock-up all drug users, the perplexing
effectiveness of this strategy. The keynote lecturer of
the conference, Ruthie Gilmore, professor of African-
American studies at Berkeley, made a stinging yet subtle
point: why is it that no one protests when it is stated that
2 million Americans are in jail? It is because the prisonindustrial-
complex has become so embedded in the fabric
of our society that we don’t even see it anymore. The
premature death inflicted by the prison-industrial-complex
it becomes no big deal. But we can see by looking at
its effects on education that Americans should be paying
more attention.
ANOTHER ARM OF THE STATE: PRISONS AND SCHOOLS
Christine Clark, a professor of Human Relations from
the University of Maryland, made one of the most obvious
yet provocative points of the conference: education
in America has always been two-tiered. There has been
education for the leaders, the managers, the bourgeoisie,
and then separate, unequal education for the workers,
the wage-laborers, the proletariat. Building on Clark’s
point, we can add that this is the point where racisim
enters the picture, because the managers were all white,
and the workers a motley crew of various ethnicities.
Clark’s argument is thus important for the ways we consider
prisons and schools. On the one hand, the managers
have been educated to rule over workers; they are
taught to buy into the American dream of unlimited
wealth; they are connected through elite fraternities and
sororities to other managers; they are given financial
resources to make the American Dream come true.
Indeed, we see this in our president, George W. Bush,
whose Yale degree in history has taught him very little
about past American human rights abuses that might
pollute the Dream, and everything about positioning
himself so that other elites give him the opportunity to
manage workers and common Americans. Elites are socialized into a culture of rulers through their schools.
On the other hand, workers have learned nothing better
than the lessons of discipline in their schools. Though
Michel Foucault argues convincingly that the function of
any school is discipline, the types of discipline imposed
will be different based on the class of pupils. One function
of blue-collar modern schools has been to teach
workers to enjoy wage-labor: the schedule is routinized
with bells and breaks; learning is kept at a basic level of
memorization; teachers invoke authority as the ultimate
manager; and pupils must mediate on the American
Dream, inevitably reaching the most important ideological
conclusion: if they work hard enough, they can
become the manager, the leader, the president. Yet they
rarely do – not because they don’t work hard enough,
but because the system is rigged. Their dreaming is a
form of discipline endowing the merit of hard work.
And they are also conditioned to accept that state violence
underlies the whole system of wage-labor. We can
see this especially in early 19th Century America. In May
1833, Jacob Abbot, a school principal, argued in his
“Description of the Mount Vernon School,” that discipline
was the sole function of schooling: “My duty is to
take measures to prevent future transgression, and to
lead those who have been guilty of it, to God to pardon.”
To prevent future transgression meant corporal punishment:
beating a child who misbehaves. In September
1849, an article in The Massachusetts Teacher claimed
that a teacher “is forced into a conflict before the school,
with one or more of his pupils, and the struggle is for the
supremacy.” One of the functions of schools, then, as
many of the presenters at the conference argued, was to
educate workers to accept their lot in life.
Schools became one method whereby the contradictions
of capitalism could be mediated.Wage-laborers are
necessary for profit, but in order to increase the profit to
its maximum, workers have to be assimilated into factories
– and this entails cooperation between workers from
different backgrounds who nevertheless shared the common
concern of exploitation. Schools became a beacon of
hope for the ruling classes. Capitalists hoped that educating
workers to enjoy work would make them less likely to
rebel, and the leviathan thus became more subtle.Workers
were schooled to love work; if they did not, instead
choosing to rebel, they were either executed, thrown into
jail, or impressed into the military (which enforced slavery
and the logistics of capitalist trade). The options were
not, and have not been, very good for workers.
What this conference demonstrated is that there is a
profound link between schooling and prisons in our
post-industrial age. As a third-industrial revolution has
led to more automated jobs, and as globalization coups
such as the FTAA have led to the movement of jobs
across borders where labor is cheaper, there is a decreasing
need for educated workers in the manufacturing and
service sectors. Why, then, are we educating the poor
working class these days? The answer is suggested by the
shocking fact that states like California are planning
prisons that will not open until 2040. The facts suggest,
as every conference presenter agreed, that we are teaching
poor, predominately black males that their only
option is prison – and we will build prisons to contain
these not-yet-born convicts we create.History has taught
that roving classes of unemployed workers, what Marx
called the lumpenproletariat, can cause immense trouble,
perhaps revolution. Thus, prison is no longer a holding
place for criminals; it is now housing for a whole
class of workers who are no longer needed, and in their
idleness, can cause nothing but trouble.
Certain schools, as Tonya McClary from The American
Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia argued,
actually funnel students into prisons. These students are
disciplined by ripped, outdated textbooks, broken windows
and desks, security lines that result in two-hour
waits to enter the school, and teachers who impress upon
them that they have no future. Thus, to prison they go.
THE TEETER-TOTTER OF CHANGE: ACTIVIST OPPORTUNITIES
This is indeed a sad state of affairs.Yet one of the most
important messages of the conference was hope. As
Ruthie Gilmore argued, though the PIC is far-reaching
and thus imposing, the very girth of the system means
that there are many, many opportunities for activism.
One peculiar thing about systems of domination is that
they have created, and do create, the very conditions for
their destruction. The very egregiousness of the problem
has made it visible, and the fact that it affects 25 million
Americans means that there are multitudes of indignant
individuals waiting to protest in ways that can change or
alter the system. Protests often seem futile when fighting
something so large as the prison-industrial-complex.
Yet as Robert Schultz, a prominent member of the
Midwest chapter of Amnesty International, argued at the
conference, politicians want you to believe that resistance
is futile, but it is not – indeed, only through resistance
is change possible. Amnesty International has
demonstrated the real impact organizations of protest
can have here in Illinois by pushing former Governor
Ryan to place a moratorium on all death sentences. The
power of resistance is also bright in California, the worst
of all prison states. There, activists such as Craig Gilmore
of the Education not Incarceration Coalition, and Rose
Braz, the Director of Critical Resistance – a movement
created to fight the prison-industrial-complex – have
successfully protested their way to a decreased prison
budget. The struggle is pushed on in Illinois by activist
scholars such as Erica Meiners, from Northeastern Illinois
University, and, Stephen Hartnett, here at the University
of Illinois who has been an inspiration to many
fledgling activists in training.
Change is a teeter-totter, and by applying force at one
end, we can shift the balance to a situation that is more
fair, more equitable, and more amenable to the pursuit
of happiness, to recall Professor Gilmore’s apt phrasing.
Here is where the conference reached its stride, for its
final panel, entitled “Practical Utopias,” moderated by
Professor of Education Policy Studies James Anderson,
stressed three things that we can all do on a local level to
fight the prison industrial complex.
First, we must go to our local courthouse and observe
trials. As Victor Goode, from Advocates for Basic Legal
Equality, Tonya McClary, Ruthie Gilmore, James Anderson,
and many local community members stressed,
packing a courthouse in support of a defendant demonstrates
to judges, juries, and prosecutors that the community
is watching and cares about who is sent to
prison. Doing this alters the strategies used by prosecutors,
and the sentences imposed by judges, because they
are accountable to the community rearing its beautiful
head. In fact, many judges seek harsh punishment for
criminals because they think it will get them re-elected.
We must show them that this is not the case.
Second, we can begin a cop-watch program, as one
local community member stressed. Programs of community
members following cops around the community
to make sure they do not racially profile, manufacture
evidence, or abuse defendants have been implemented in
Berkeley and in Eugene Oregon. Again, it is important to
show them that we are watching.
Third, we must establish trust, or what the political
scientist Robert Putnam calls “social capital,” in our
communities and schools. “Zero tolerance” policies are
not a cure, but a cause of imprisonment. Many of the
normal behaviors of children that were once handled by
community members are now handled by cops who have
no patience for adolescent behavior. As Rosa Braz pointed
out, we call the cops too much – and often when we
call them on someone else, they end up arresting us.
Doing these things can upset the system. If it taught
nothing else, the “Education or Incarceration?” conference
taught that even among the despair of a monstrosity
such as the prison-industrial-complex, there is hope
in activism and coalition building. If we band together
and make our voices heard, even those who shut the
doors on the iron cages of capitalism cannot afford to
ignore them.
For More Information, Please See:
James Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the
South, 1860-1935 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University
of North Carolina Press,1990).
Scott Christianson,With Liberty for Some: 500 Years
of Imprisonment in America (Boston: Northeastern
University Press, 1998).
Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York:
Seven Stories Press, 2003).
Sidney Willhelm,Who Needs the Negro? (Cambridge,
Mass: Schenkman Press, 1970).

Our visits are my only quality-time.
Fate demands your speedy growth.
My dream is to see you turn 18-years old.
Visits are what I long for.
To reveal all that my soul has stored.
My choices created a barrier between us –
My guilt demands that from this day forward
I do only GOOD DEEDS.
I pray that you feel my love for you,
And regret that I’m not there
To teach you, to school you,
To hold you when you’re scared,
To laugh with you when you’re happy.
Spiritually, you’re my ‘lil bro,my nephew.
You and your brother are the 8th and 9th
Wonders of the world,
Manifestations of the beauty
That life offers.

by Sr. Carol Gilbert, O.P.
Alderson Federal Prison,WV
As I wait for my medical clearance before I begin my
“landscaping” job, I thought you might be interested in
the costs of life here at Alderson:
1. Issued one pair of steel-toed shoes (men’s)
Shower thongs – $1
Tennis shoes – $50-70
Boots – $70 and up (special order)
2. No lock is provided for our small lockers. Stealing is
rampant.
Cost of lock – $7
3. Issued one thin cap and garden gloves OR wool green
army mittens with thumb & trigger finger
Hat, gloves, scarf – $20
4. Issued one pair of men’s long underwear
Long tops – $8
Long bottoms – $5
(both men’s)
5. 24 over the counter meds are sold. This is where you
are sent to treat yourself.
Yeast infection medication – $13
6. Grey sweat-shirts and sweat-pants are allowed after
4:00 p.m. and on weekends.
Cost – $14.20 each
7. Fruit and fruit juices are sold weekly for those who
can afford them
8. Fans, alarm clocks, watches, and typewriter ribbon all
must be purchased.
9. Only issued clothing is done in the main laundry. In
the housing units,
Wash – $.50, Dry – $.50, Laundry soap – $3-7.
10. And, of course, selling one’s body for pay is the last
resort for some of these women.
Excerpts from a letter dated October 2003, compiled by
Laura Stengrim

The real hell is in the cells, where we are alone
with ourselves and our thoughts. . . I am told when to
shit, to shower, to shave; I am fed slop not worthy of
pigs; I am psychologically abused and misused,
sometimes beaten, and all the while waiting, waiting
to be killed. The cell is not large enough to stretch
your arms out in, yet you are placed in it for years on
end. For the lucky guys whose families can afford to
buy and send them a TV or a radio, they will at least
have these items as a great time-killing device, as
something to help you forget that you too are here
for a killing.
I am overwhelmed by the psychological changes
and physical humiliations of death row. But amidst
the daily degradations, the constant harassment, and
the perpetual denial of my human rights, the thing I
think about the most is the fear. The fear. It is always
here, just around the corner. This is a world of violence,
hostility, loneliness, and SADNESS. . . I only
hope that I can maintain my sanity and endure.

  one year
ago, on a cold January
Saturday morning, I sat
down in front of my computer
and tuned in the
Pacifica newstream covering
the Washington, D.C.,
anti-war protest. Rev. Al Sharpton had just
taken the stage. Although I don’t remember
much of what he had to say, I do remember
being struck by his charisma, undiminished
even by my crackling speakers and slow
internet connection. And I remember
thinking, “This man should be president” –
of course, then and now, it was and is quite
clear that Al Sharpton would not win the
Presidency in 2004. But as I sit here writing,
the question as to why Sharpton will not or
cannot win – and others questions like it –
are foremost in my mind.
Watching the Democratic primary race
unfold over the past few months has been
an interesting affair. Of the seven candidates
still in contention at the time of this
writing, four – Joe Lieberman, John Kerry,
Wesley Clark, and John Edwards (and, to a
lesser extent, Howard Dean) – share a
strong set of controlling features, including
a mild token liberalism, a general inability
to say anything very strong about the current
state of affairs as it relates to poverty,
health care, the continuing demise of the
middle class, or racialization, and an
unwillingness to transcend the foreign policy
terms set to them by the political right
(they all “strongly support our troops in
Iraq”). In light of these unifying themes, all
supposed “differences” recede, and the candidates
appear virtually indistinguishable.
But above this generalized, undifferentiated
political noise rise the clear, progressive
voices of Al Sharpton and Dennis
Kucinich. Both are solidly and consistently
liberal in their thinking, and neither
exhibits the fatal Democratic flaw of
retracting or qualifying under pressure.
Both their campaigns raise many interesting
issues. However, much is often said
about the role of progressive politics and
grassroots campaigns in transforming
national culture, so that doesn’t need to be
repeated here. Instead, I want to focus on a
less obvious, more reflective – but by no
means less pressing or critical – question:
namely, the relationship between Al Sharpton
and the white liberal caucus.
The question goes something like this: If
a forceful, well-spoken, charismatic
African-American candidate with roots in
the civil rights movement and a decadeslong
career demonstrating continued commitment
to human rights, international
diplomacy, and a myriad other “liberal
issues” were to come along, we would all
jump aboard….Right? The importance of
this phenomenon, the
repeated disregard that
white liberals have had
for Sharpton and his
“serious” political candidacy,
cannot be ignored
and demands analysis.
I am aware of two
objections that are
repeatedly employed to
dismiss Sharpton. The
first is that he is powerhungry
and egotistical –
that his “decades long
career in civil rights”
has been motivated by
his desire for influence and attention. This
however, in all honesty, is not any real
objection at all, since calling a politician
egotistical is about as insightful as calling a
banana yellow; its superficiality alone, or
the fact that Sharpton alone among politicians
is referred to as egotistical, suggests
that something deeper is at work.
This leads directly to the second, more
substantive objection: namely, that Sharpton
“lacks integrity,” as evidenced by the
Tawana Brawley imbroglio. And here we
reach what seems to me to be the very heart
of the matter. White liberals, by and large,
have felt free to denounce Sharpton at this
point, because they have mostly misunderstood
the true radicality of the worldview
espoused by Sharpton,Martin Luther King,
Jr., and the whole civil rights movement,
and therefore have not properly interpreted
Sharpton’s actions. Justice, as articulated by
King and advocated by Sharpton and others,
is not merely the “raising up of the
oppressed” – it is a raising up at the
expense of others. In other words, it is
absolute, preferential treatment of the
oppressed – even and especially when this
means offending the privileged – at all levels
of society without apology. Practically
this means – and this is where Sharpton
comes in – that one always believes the
word of a young black woman over that of
a white police officer and that one doesn’t
apologize when one
turns out wrong. Therefore,
in my view, it
seems as if Sharpton’s
refusal to apologize at
this point indicates
rather than negates his
integrity and consistency
– he understands
what the civil rights
movement really meant,
and his white liberal
detractors do not.
One final factor which
seems to me decisive in
the white liberal dismissal
of Sharpton and misapprehension
of the civil rights movement is discomfort
with the sometime source of its motivation.
In his decisive formulae King, for
instance, talked about sister- and brotherhood
under God. It is a great historical
hack-job, and the source of much misunderstanding,
that many refuse to interpret
King along the lines which he chose to
interpret himself. It is therefore an open
question to me whether the out-of-hand
dismissal of Sharpton’s political candidacy
has something to do with the fact that he is
Reverend Sharpton. Another way to ask
this question is to wonder whether the general
lack of interaction between white
activists and black activists might not have
something to do with the fact that, historically,
much of black activism has happened
“in church.”
What then remains to be said about the
other progressive candidate, Dennis
Kucinich? Mainly this: That, with great
respect for his integrity, consistent advocacy
for progressive concerns, and political
platform in general, he is, notwithstanding,
boring. He is quiet, level-headed, uncharismatic.
These might be great qualities in a
legislative official, but not in a national
leader. And qualitative judgments aside,
there are also strategic advantages to supporting
Sharpton over Kucinich. For example,
progressive politics generally has a particularly
hard time making inroads into the
deep South, where the two key voting populations
are the African-American and the
conservative white communities. Kucinich,
whose political base consists almost entirely
of white, liberal folks not from the South,
has very little chance of building a movement
in this region – and, historically, presidential
elections are not won without
making inroads into the South. Sharpton,
on the other hand, has a strong, committed
following in Southern African-American
communities.
So reflections on the Kucinich campaign,
for my purposes here, serve up the
same demanding question. Why do we
white liberals generally prefer him to
Sharpton? Sharpton, in addition to being
“right” on the issues, is charismatic, exciting,
and would, if properly supported, certainly
have a better chance at shaking
things up than traditional white liberal
candidates. For me, the answer to this question
has something to do with the way in
which white liberal culture and white liberal
preferences (for instance, the preference
to avoid all religious rhetoric) defines and
limits the progressive political discourse.
The result for white activists, of course, is
lost opportunities and failed coalitions.
More serious still, however, is the continued
disregard for minority voices and
minority agendas in our political culture.

I feel privileged to have read Claudia
Lennhoff’s statement on the current projects
undertaken by CCHCC. Similarly I feel privileged
to have read Lennhoff’s written material
and whatever else has been written about
her from Internet searches. (By the way, the
CCHCC data collected through the Internet
and other sources are part of a more comprehensive
research project on the promise and
prospects of health care grassroots movements
towards the actualization of a single
payer health care system in the United States.
CCHCC was selected for this project because
it is the oldest continuously operating organization
of its kind in the United States.)
Under Lennhoff’s most able leadership
CCHCC is soaring to new heights. I do not, or
even pretend, to say this lightly. Most social
movement efforts and the organizations that
represent them have to endure a substantial
number of challenges not only to survive but
also to reach the point where their work will
be heard and taken into account by policy
decision makers, the news media, and philanthropic
foundations. Indeed, as a public
health policy researcher, I cannot think of any
other organization that has done so much to
benefit the community in which it operates,
and as of late, to benefit the entire nation
(medical debt campaign, for example). I can
say with certainty that the models and campaigns
of organizing and advocacy developed
by Lennhoff and CCHCC will play a seminal
role in the ongoing national struggle towards
a just, fair, accessible, and affordable health
care system.
But what is so impressive about CCHCC is
that over its 26 years of existence and service
to the community and the nation, it has taken
a multi-issue strategy to the betterment of life
of its constituents (via gun control campaigns,
via dental access campaigns,Medicare
justice campaigns, and so on). It is through
such a multi-issue approach that people
become empowered to see and experience the
benefits of an inclusive decision making
process. In addition, CCHCC’s campaigns
seem to be premised on the recognition that
working within the local political structure is
much more effective than working exclusively
through the national political structure
(CCHCC’s work exemplifies the fact that the
only viable arena of American politics is local
politics.)
The significance of understanding and
working within the local political arena was
demonstrated (a) in research that was published
in the January 2003 issue of the American
Journal of Public Health, and (b) in
tobacco control research. As we have learned
from the tobacco wars, local politicians are
much more accountable to their constituencies
than national ones. With accountability
comes sunshine, and it is sunshine that grassroots
organizations like CCHCC are striving
for and are bringing to the community and
the nation.
It would be no exaggeration to state that
CCHCC is the jewel of the Champaign-
Urbana community, and an emerging powerhouse
in the efforts to eliminate health care
disparities and other related injusticies, locally
and nationally. I am looking forward to be
reading more about this great organization,
and the work of its charismatic Executive
Director (Claudia Lennhoff) and her staff.
Thanks so much for sharing!
Theo Tsoukalas, Ph.D.
PO Box 27690
San Francisco, CA 94127

The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)
includes the 34 nations, besides Cuba, that make up the
entire western hemisphere.
The North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) went into effect in 1994 and serves as the basis
for FTAA. Here is what the NAFTA years have seen:
• one million Mexican peasant families have been
forced out of farming
• eight million Mexicans have fallen from middle class
to poverty status
• income for self-employed Mexicans has fallen by 40%
• real wages in Mexico have gone down from $5 a day,
and the purchasing power for the minimum wage has
dropped by half
• birth defects and environmental diseases like hepatitis
are two or three times higher than the national average
in border factory towns due to toxins, unsafe drinking
water, and lack of proper sewage treatment
• wages for non-college-educated workers in the U.S.
have decreased
• 1,000,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the
U.S.
Negotiators agreed on a limited version of FTAA at
the Miami meeting, which slows down the prospect for
reaching a hemispheric trade bloc by 2005, as originally
scheduled. The U.S. will still make mini-deal bilateral
trade agreements and is working on a regional agreement
with Central American countries (CAFTA).
The city of Miami raised a total of $12 million to
host the meeting of the FTAA, $8.5 million of which
came from Congress as part of the $87 billion Iraq
package. City Police worked with U.S. Marshals, the
Federal Protective Service, and the Coast Guard to prepare
for up to 100,000 protesters.
Sources include Global Exchange, Public Citizen,
and the AFL-CIO.

     of June 21, 1934,
everything seemed normal at Coney Island in New York City.
The beach was crowded with men, women, and children dipping
into the water after a long day at work. Somewhere in this
scene, a group of men decided to remove their bathing tops and
perform calisthenics on the beach. The next day, The New York
Times reported the scandalous incident. This was the second
day in a row that men had refused to cover their chests in public.
The men were arrested and rushed to the county courthouse.
Fortunately, Magistrate William O’Dwyer saw nothing
wrong with shirtless men in the public sphere and released
them without penalty. To this day, the ease with which these
men earned the right to go topfree stands in stark contrast to
the efforts put forth by members of the opposite sex. For
instance, approximately sixty years later a woman went to jail
for going bare-breasted while hiking in an isolated area of the
Osceola National Forest. She was also forced to endure five
months on probation, fifty hours of community service, and
payment of $600 for various fines and fees. Canadian Evangeline
Gordon suffered a similar, if less extreme, fate in 1998 for
swimming topfree in a city swimming pool.At 64 years old, she
was deemed a “threat to society” and, therefore, forced to spend
two days in jail.
Clearly, most women in the United States and Canada have
yet to earn the same right that men earned back in 1934. (I say
“most women” because in several places including New York
State and the city of Moscow, Idaho, they have earned the right
to go topfree in public). In order to expose this long-overlooked
form of gender discrimination, feminists around the world
have joined the Topfreedom Movement which holds that
women should have the right to go without a top at any time or
place that men have this right. Topfree groups including The
Topfree Equal Rights Association, or TERA, and Topfreedom
USA are built around the tenets of liberal feminism aimed at
creating equality for men and women alike. In an effort to reappropriate
women’s bodies back to the women that physically
inhabit them, members avoid the connotation-laden and heavily
stigmatized label “topless” in favor of the term “topfree.”One
of the core beliefs in the Topfreedom Movement is the idea that
women should be able to choose whether to wear a shirt or to
go topfree at parks, swimming pools, and other informal areas.
Many female proponents of topfreedom,myself included, have
never (and may never) removed their shirts in a public setting.
Their goal is not to encourage or require women to remove
their shirts, but rather to provide women with the same opportunities
that men enjoy.
Topfreedom fighters are often asked why, in an age of international
terrorism, war in Iraq, AIDS, and poverty, their movement
is worthy of our attention? Yet perhaps the real question
we should be asking is why our country is devoting so many of
its resources to controlling women’s breasts when other issues
so desperately need attention? What does our society gain from
the regulation of women’s bodies? Before addressing this significant
question, it is important that we discuss the breast’s position
within modern society and the arguments currently keeping
it covered.
In North American culture, the female breast is over-laden
with contrasting and paradoxical meanings. The breast has consistently
played a central role in the perception of women as
divine idols, sexual deviants, consumers, mothers, citizens,
employees, and medical patients. It is both a symbol of the
scared role of motherhood and, at the same time, of the erotic.
For the most part, the status quo has been to treat women’s chests as inherently different from men’s chests
and therefore worthy of different treatment in
the public sphere.As a guest columnist for USA
Today argued in the July 6, 1989 edition of the
newspaper, “Bare-chested and bare-breasted
are not the same,” and should not be treated as
if they are the same. Others argue that allowing
women to be topfree in the public sphere will
lead to increased cases of sexual assault and will
be harmful for children. Yet women’s breasts
are not part of the human genitalia and, thus,
are sexual only in the way that a woman’s legs
or arms are sexual. Just as men are expected to
control themselves in the presence of women’s
legs, arms, and necks, they can also control
themselves in the presence of women’s breasts.
Similarly, given the fact that most babies are
initially nourished by breasts it is ridiculous to
claim that exposure to those same breasts is in
any way harmful to children. Advocates of the
status quo allege that topfreedom goes against
common courtesy and community standards,
but I fail to see how forcing a woman to
degrade herself and her child by breast-feeding
in a restroom or to expose her body only in
areas that profit from her exposure is anything
but an insult to a community.
This last argument touches on one of the
main reasons that modern society refuses to
relinquish control of the female breast. Our
society has produced a political economy of
the breast where the female body is sold as a
commodity. This profit-driven system
requires that women’s breasts be strictly regulated
and restricted to certain areas so that
they can be sold and exploited in magazines,
on television, and in various
adult establishments. If women
were allowed to have control
over their own bodies, covering
or uncovering their chests whenever
they pleased, certain consumer
markets would suffer
financial losses without this huge source of
revenue. If the general public was privy to the
reality of what the average female body actually
looks like, as opposed to the images of
glossed-over models and actresses that people
see so often in the media, perhaps our society
would appreciate women of different shapes
and sizes and begin to respect older women in
the same way that they currently respect older
men. If women were to view the truth about
themselves and the women around them, perhaps
they would stop worrying so much
about their supposedly inadequate appearances
and compete for the educational opportunities,
jobs, and privileges that their male
counterparts tend to take for granted.
Women’s health and overall well-being also
suffers in our current system. Requiring
women to cover their breasts in situations
where men are not required to
do so teaches women that their
bodies are unacceptable and
objects of which they should be
ashamed. Correspondingly,
topfreedom advocates argue that
when women are ashamed of
their breasts they are less likely to breast-feed
their children, perform breast self-examinations,
and get regular mammograms and
check ups from a physician. Fortunately, as
women develop the sense of bodily agency that
the Topfree Movement advocates, they will be
better equipped to avoid feelings of body
shame and be able to take care of themselves.
Surely there would be a marked decrease in the
number of cases of eating disorders, low selfesteem,
depression, and breast implant disasters
in a world where topfreedom is the norm
for both genders.
Ultimately, the Topfreedom Movement is
about exposing and deconstructing a cultural
assumption that has done much to make
women’s lives more difficult than need be. The
notion that women and men are equal and
therefore deserving of the same rights and
opportunities for choice is central to the tenets
of our democratic society. The laws that prohibit
women from taking off their shirts when
men are free to do so are not only discriminatory
but harmful to our entire social order.
With the Topfreedom Movement, American
women are finally approaching a level of
equality and liberation that has never been
available to them in the past.
For more information, visit these websites:
h t t p : / / w w w. t e r a . c a / i n d e x . h t m l ,
http://right2bare.tripod.com/right2bare/index
.html,http://www.topfreedom.com/index.
html,http://www.topfreedomusa.0catch.com,
http://www. g e o c i t i e s . com/womens
_choice_org/topfreedom.html.

Robin Jensen is a graduate student in the department of Speech
Communication. She studies issues pertaining to gender, social
justice, rhetoric, and visual communication.

’    -- 
 that comes along frequently.What kind
of racist nut would create a game called
“Ghettopoly” and fill it to the brim with every
conceivable racist stereotype about ghetto life?
In the game, “playa’s” must choose between
playing as a 40 ouncer of malt, a marijuana
leaf, an “oozie”, a pimp, a basketball, crack
cocaine, or a hoe. They then try to jack, steal,
and deal their way to riches in a format similar
to the classic Monopoly game. The cultural
references are obvious and offensive principally
to African Americans, but also target
other groups such as Latina/os and Asian
Americans. Once the game began to be sold
widely at Urban Outfitters, response was
swift. Protests and boycotts abounded and
Urban Outfitters, Yahoo.com, and Ebay soon
halted distribution of the game. The creator,
David Chang, a 28 year-old Pennsylvania man
whose family emigrated from Taiwan to the
U.S. when he was eight-years old, was vilified
as a racist. Hasbro Inc. filed a suit against
Chang for creating “irreparable injury” to
their monopoly franchise with his game’s
“highly offensive, racist content”.
While it is easy to proclaim that Chang has
gotten his just desserts and commend the
banishment of this racist product, are Chang
and his game really just bad apples to be cast
away so that we can resume our travels down
the path of racial harmony? Or is the outrage
and toppling of Chang merely another cog in
the machine of American racism? Chang’s
inspiration for the game didn’t come from
some developed hatred for African Americans,
Latina/os, Asian Americans or other
ghetto inhabitants.He wasn’t some misguided
student who strayed from America’s teachings
of diversity and racial understanding. His
inspiration for the game was watching MTV
and mainstream depictions of ghetto life.
Chang was a good student, who learned
the lessons of contemporary American racial
politics well and applied them cleverly for his
own personal gain. He said that he created
Ghettopoly “not as a mean to degrade, but as
a medium to bring together in laughter” and
that the goal was to laugh “at ourselves and
how we each utilize the various stereotypes.”
His mistake was not that he held these mainstream
beliefs, but that he expressed them in a
way that highlighted them. The ugly stereotypes
Chang displays are the cornerstone for
much of our government’s public policy
toward the ghetto and the prevalent intellectual
disdain toward hip-hop culture that says;
people of color are fine as long as they are
educated and indoctrinated to write, speak
and behave in “acceptable” ways. In
showcasing these views through
his work, Chang allowed
himself to be the most
convenient scapegoat
both for
minori ty
groups looking
to hold
someone accountable
for this daily racism
inflicted upon them and
also for those complicit with
racism who perpetuate these
stereotypes, but like to view themselves
as non-racists.
You see, this was business as usual in
America; an individual acts with the backing
and blessing of institutional racism. The
minority community is understandably
upset. The individual gets crucified. The
institution is vindicated and the minority
community is appeased. So we’re supposed to
just shake our heads sadly at Chang’s
response on his website: “Ask yourself; Is Jay
Leno a racist because he made a comment
about Asian people eating dogs? How about
Snoop Dog, on his TV show on MTV, is he a
racist too?” It may be a poor defense that
doesn’t justify his racist game, but aren’t these
still good questions? Even if the answer is
“Yes, and David Chang is a racist too” then
why is he the only one getting punished and
are we going to do anything to change that?
He asks whether it was his skin color or the
content of his speech that made people so
angry. I suppose the answer depends on the
person, but the simple difference in treatment
that he receives is some evidence of racism
that we are all being complicit with. The only
way it will ever change is if all of us interested
in racial equality become less self-interested.
It shouldn’t take a personal tie to a particular
situation to change it.
The first petition I found protesting the
game contained this text, “Designed by an
Asian American, (someone who would not
be knowledgeable of the TRUE African
American perspective), it features all of the
stereotypical messages & images that have
suppressed blacks for decades.” In assuming
the impossibility of Asian Americans
understanding the African American
perspective, what hope does that
leave for a general empathy
that is necessary to
vanquish bigotry?
Perhaps this
is the
same line of
thinking that
caused the 103.9 FM
Philadephia radio station
DJ, Tarsha Nicole
Jones, to begin a “Chinkopoly”
segment in which callers were
encouraged to contribute their own
“property names” based on racial stereotypes
of Asian Americans. Asian Americans
who called in to complain were ridiculed.
Another popular response was “Why doesn’t
he make Chinkopoly?” as if denigrating one’s
own race makes it ok to denigrate others. As
usual, the greater trend of people of a minority
group being held responsible and
attacked for the actions of a member of their
group continued.
So while Chang’s reflection of hip-hop culture
is certainly racist, that doesn’t necessarily
make his detractors any more enlightened in
the field of social justice in this country.
Chang even refers to Hasbro’s suit on his site
by encouraging readers to learn more about
the history of Monopoly (and Anti-Monopoly)
as an example of a major corporation trying
to maintain control over the profit derived
from a traditional game. Do the racist elements
to his game give us a right to root for a
major corporation trying to crush a little
entrepreneur? Why is so much less being done
to attack Urban Outfitters? Not only did the
chain carry Ghettopoly, but they’ve sold a
“Chinaman” Halloween costume that stereotyped
those of Asian descent and have contributed
thousands of dollars to the campaign
of Senator Rick Santorum, who made headlines
for his equation of homosexuality with
incest and beastiality. As groups mobilized
against Chang and wrote letters to Hasbro
encouraging them to sue, thousands upon
thousands of game units were sold at Urban
Outfitters stores or via the internet. Even after
the controversy peaked and the game was
pulled, Chang’s site continues to be backlogged
with orders for the game, and demand
for the game has pushed some retailers to sell
the game for upwards of eighty dollars.
Who are these people so eager to purchase
the game? Are they supposed to be some kind
of racist nuts too? I don’t think cutting the
supply of Ghettopoly will inflict some sort of
drastic change on their conceptions of race.
What about all of us who were proud of ourselves
for recognizing the racism inherent in
the game, but had no constructive response
to the greater problem at hand? Do we seriously
believe that learning and avoiding
actions on the list of the “101 things that
make you a racist” will actually prevent our
complicity in deep-rooted American traditions
of racism and bigotry? Patting ourselves
on the back each time one of these racial incidents
occurs and we respond “correctly”
doesn’t remove our role as accomplices no
matter how many times we tell ourselves that
it does. So in a way, I want to thank David
Chang as he has given us yet another opportunity
to see that racism is not some sort of
dying fad. He has reminded us that, in our
society, color of skin is a large determinant of
the legitimacy of speech on racial issues and
that as usual, the fairer fare better. He has
demonstrated that people of color and those
empathetic with us are more likely to destroy
each other than actually address any of the
deeper social constructs of race. We need to
work to change that. So will we learn his
lessons and begin work on the tremendous
task at hand, or will we sacrifice him in our
role in maintaining the racist status quo?
The next time we encounter a social red
flag like “Ghettopoly” let’s focus our outrage
on building rather than destroying.

Xian Barrett is an Academic Professional at
the University of Illinois and has resided in
Champaign for over 13 years. He has written
on issues of race for a number of publications
including Asianathlete.com and the
Kumamoto Japan International Magazine.
His White half likes to level racial slurs at his
Chinese half in a “time-honored traditional”
way. He can be reached at
xianb8@yahoo.com

In his article,Walter Feinberg refers to the
university’s firing of Professor Leo Koch.
Koch was fired by the president of the university,
David Dodds Henry, during the
academic year 1959-60. Koch was fired
because he responded to a letter to the editor
in the Daily Illini bemoaning the fact
that there was so much “petting” (a 1950s
word for feeling the body of one’s date) going on at fraternity
and sorority parties. Koch argued that if mutually consenting
students could have sex without being ostracized or
penalized, one would not see this kind of activity at parties.
Unfortunately for Koch, a right-wing religious zealot had
a daughter attending the university who sent her father a
copy of Koch’s letter. At the time, the university was seeking
authority to launch a major bond issue (always the bottomline
in matters like this). The zealot contacted the administration,
other parents, and law-makers in Springfield arguing
that the university should not be permitted to issue the
bonds so long as it had people like Koch on the faculty. He
declared that Koch’s letter was part of a communist plot to
destroy the morals of American youth and he demanded that
Koch be fired. Since Koch was a biology professor in what
was then called the Division of General Studies, he was not
tenured. But he was still entitled to academic freedom and
freedom of speech.
Both the ACLU and the American Association of University
Professors (AAUP) entered the case in defense of Koch.
David Danelski, then a U of I political science professor
whose specialty was constitutional law, was one of the
lawyers who worked on the ACLU’s legal brief against the
university. Danelski later told me that he was called into the
office of the chair of the political science department and
told that he did not have a future at the U of I because of his
work on the case. Danelski, a superior teacher whose course
in constitutional law I had taken, felt he had to leave the university,
much to the benefit of his subsequent students at
Yale, Cornell, and Stanford. As usual, the abuses compound
when someone abused seeks remedy, and the university was
the big loser.
In addition to the organizational support for Koch, students
and at least one faculty member (Professor Harry
Tiebout of the philosophy department) demonstrated for
Koch’s reinstatement. I was among them.We carried a coffin
labeled “Academic Freedom” to the front of the University
YMCA where we had a little rally and a symbolic burial.We
felt it was too risky to have a rally on university property.
Indeed, students were warned by the administration that
there would be severe sanctions if they joined a traditional
parade that used to march down Green Street with pro-Koch
signs.
The national AAUP found that Koch’s firing was a severe
infringement of academic freedom. When President Henry
refused to relent, the university was placed on the AAUP’s list
of universities and colleges that were flagrant violators of
academic freedom. The list was regularly published in the
AAUP’s reports to its members. After several years, the local
chapter of the AAUP decided to pressure the national organization
to remove the university’s name from the embarrassing
list. They argued that the U of I was not as bad as the
others on the list, and that the university had agreed to purchase
an insect or butterfly collection from Koch. By that
time, I had returned to the university to teach and was an
active member of the local chapter. I opposed the local’s
position, but the leadership of the local was adamant. They
were successful in getting the national AAUP to take university
off of that list even though the university had not
extended to Koch the only adequate remedy, reinstatement
and recognition of his rights under both the U.S. Constitution
and the canons of academic freedom. This had an enormous
impact upon me as a young assistant professor, and
was one of the reasons for my leaving the local AAUP chapter
to participate in the formation of a different organization
that would not be so compromising, the Union of Professional
Employees (UPE). I am very pleased that the local
AAUP chapter has now taken such a forthright position in
defense of faculty rights.
Belden Fields graduated from the U of I in January 1960
and has taught political science there since 1965.