Abolish prison labor.

Though the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and made involuntary servitude illegal within the U.S., it managed to preserve slavery in another form; penal labor (Center for Human Rights Education). Under Section 1 of the law:

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” (Crime Report, Find Law). As written and in practice, the amendment creates a class system that allows convicted members of society to be exploited against their will (The Nation).

Happy Friday! And welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily.

When the rioting happened at the Capitol last week, I couldn't stop thinking about how that place was built by enslaved Black people. I was reminded of it again when we saw videos of Black custodial staff cleaning the site in its wake. And again, when news sources noted that it's likely that prison labor would replace the broken furniture.

Prison labor is slavery with a new name. We must abolish prison labor as part of our efforts to dismantle the prison industrial complex.

Thank you all for your support. This newsletter is made possible by our subscribers. Consider subscribing for $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Boycott companies that use prison labor. You can find a list of them here.
Learn which specific policies uphold prison labor in your state. This spreadsheet by Samuel Sinyangwe is a good place to start.
Learn about the "Abolition Amendment" proposed last December, and encourage Sen. Merkley to reintroduce the legislation in this new session of Congress.

GET EDUCATED

By Juan Michael Porter II (he/him)

Though many think that the current prison-industrial complex was born out of the 70s or mid-90s, it actually began immediately after the Civil War. In a move to invalidate the newly gained rights of emancipated Black people, southern states passed racially motivated laws— called “black codes,” “pigs laws,” and “Jim Crow”—that sent thousands of Black citizens back into slavery through the prison system (History, National Geographic). Under these statutes, a Black person could be incarcerated for violations as arbitrary as loitering, having debt, being unemployed, or making “attitudinal infractions,” i.e., not showing “proper deference” to white people (History, PBS).

As Douglas A. Blackmon revealed in his documentary and Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Slavery By Another Name – which reviews county prison records in southern states – this exploitative system effectively extended slavery into the 20th century (PBS, NYTimes, Wall Street Journal). To compensate for lost revenue previously earned on the backs of kidnapped Africans, the government coordinated with industry leaders through these laws to falsely arrest as many as 200,000 Black citizens and force them into brutal and legally sanctioned slave labor without pay (The Conversation, Washington Post).

Slavery was effectively rebranded as "convict leasing" while continuing its most despicable aspects, including auctioning off Black citizens, delivering severe beatings, working people to death, and keeping them locked up for life (Washington Post).

Convict leasing was “officially” abolished in 1941, but revised under the Justice System Improvement Act of 1979. This act created the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (Al Jazeera, Bureau of Justice Assistance), which purports to provide inmates with post incarceral job training. In reality, it rents them out to businesses as a cheap labor force (The Guardian). Sentenced inmates are legally required to work unless they have been declared medically incapable (Federal Prison Bureau). They meet this mandate by working at the facility where they are serving time or through Federal Prison Industries (AKA UNICOR), which administers and markets their low-wage contracts to private companies as a “cost-effective labor pool” (Vox).

On a national average, inmates are paid 14 cents to 63 cents an hour (Prison Policy). In Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, and Alabama, they are paid nothing (The Guardian). Meanwhile, they are required to pay for basic necessities—such as hygiene products, soap, and socks (Mother Jones)—at inflated prices in an exploitive scheme that replicates sharecropping by keeping them locked in debt (US News, Vox, Pacific Standard).

Meanwhile, though participation in UNICOR’s outside work program is billed as by choice and even a reward for inmates in good standing, refusal to comply can result in punishment as severe as solitary confinement, a form of torture that has been proven to drive people insane (NPR, The Atlantic, Wired, PBS).

Forced labor takes place at immigrant detention centers as well through a “voluntary work program” that has been sued six times for taking advantage of and coercing detainees to participate, all while paying them $1 to $3 an hour (Truth Out, NYTimes).

By contrast, UNICOR presents itself as a good deal by paying inmates up to $17 an hour, though after deductions are applied, the program reports that their takeaway is on average 23 cents to $1.15 an hour (Economist, UNICOR). Even this system is rife with abuse, with reported wage theft sans recourse often occurring (Mother Jones, The Guardian). For all its talk about providing on-the-job training, the program ignores the reality of rampant employment discrimination that ex-offenders face following their release (Politico) and has yet to report interceding on behalf of even a model prisoner.

UNICOR compromises inmates’ safety. It operates 24 hours a day and restarted operations for over 63,000 workers nationwide during the pandemic (Marshall Project, Washington Post). It also requires federal agencies and state universities to purchase prison labor manufactured products—ranging from air filters to office furniture—unless they receive a waiver for an unavailable product (Economist, NBC News, Inside Higher ED).

This means that the U.S. Capitol will have to replace any damaged furniture during the failed insurrection with products built by an underpaid prison forced disenfranchised of its right to vote (Refinery 29, Prison Policy).

The 13th Amendment may have abolished slavery, but as written, its opening statute ensures that inmates, who are disproportionately Black people, remain in shackles with—as the prison abolitionist Ruth Gilmore has argued—very little that is worthwhile to do (NYTimes). Keep in mind that Black people make up 33% of the US’s prison population in the US, even as they make up only 13% of the entire country’s population (USA Facts, Pew Research). For all of UNICOR’s claims otherwise, recreating slavery does not result in convicts’ redemption.

On January 26, 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order instructing the attorney general to “reduce profit-based incentives to incarcerate” by eliminating private prison contracting at the federal level (White House). While the gesture might seem purely symbolic, it does return 14,000 incarcerated individuals to public prisons. The Obama administration found these prisons “were more dangerous and less effective at reforming inmates than facilities run by the government” (NBC News, Criminal Justice Programs).

This initial step did not happen overnight. Nor does it fix Biden’s support of the Crime Bill of 1994, which helped increase prison incarceration, or eliminate the use of privately-run immigration detention centers (Washington Post, AP News). But it does signal that when we amplify these issues, change can happen.

It is essential to call on our legislators to remove the statutes requiring federal agencies to purchase prison-made goods and boycott any business that refuses to divest of these services. As was proven by the social-media-driven boycott against Ivanka Trump’s shuttered fashion line and #DeleteUber campaign, hurting a business’ reputation is a key component to making them change (Glamour, The Atlantic, Washington Post).

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Slavery still exists in the prison system, partially due to Section 1 13th Amendment
Former inmates face reduced opportunities for success due to employment discrimination.
Slave labor disproportionately affects Black people and continues to be revamped every time it is shot down.
Providing education to inmates is a key component towards reducing recidivism.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.

Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza

Nicole Cardoza 9/17/20 Nicole Cardoza 9/17/20

Abolish ICE.

This is the third time I've referenced forced sterilizations in our newsletters over the past two weeks. And this time it's with a new and harrowing story. It's heartbreaking to see how our history keeps repeating itself, and the lasting implications of generations of violence against communities of color. This story is still developing, but our persistent action will ensure this conversation doesn't fade away. The violence that's been happening at these camps are an act of genocide.

If you're enjoying these newsletters, consider making a contribution to support our work. You can give one-time on our website, PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza), or subscribe for $5/mo on our Patreon.

– Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Sign United We Dream’s petition to release immigrants and asylum‐seekers at detention centers.
Support the GoFundMe of Dawn Wooten, a Black single mother of five who risked her job and safety as a whistleblower.
Call your senators and urge them to defund ICE, which operates under DHS.
Follow and support the voices that have been telling us about the atrocities happening at detention centers: Project South, Georgia Detention Watch, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, and South Georgia Immigrant Support Network

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

This week, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General about “medical neglect” practiced at an ICE facility in Georgia. Dawn Wooten, a nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC), reported that the facility was underreporting COVID-19 cases and not correctly testing or protecting staff and detainees (The Intercept). She also reported that the immigrants are being subjected to a high rate of hysterectomies without “proper informed consent” (The Intercept).

“I became a whistleblower; now I’m a target. But I’ll take a target any day to do what’s right and just, than sit and be a part of what’s inhumane.”
Dawn Wooten

Before we continue, I think it needs to be made clear that the allegations of medical neglect during a global pandemic alone should be enough for us to call for change. The forced separations of families are enough to call for change. In fact, the fact that these detention centers even exist is more than enough for me. We need to abolish ICE for the system itself, not just because we're hearing more allegations about forced sterilizations.

The latter allegation in particular has spurred lawmakers and advocacy groups into action. Organizers of the complaint, along with Wooten, include Project South, Georgia Detention Watch, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, and South Georgia Immigrant Support Network, and consists of the voices of detained immigrants that have “reported human rights abuses including lack of medical and mental health care, due process violations, unsanitary living conditions” since 2017 (Project South). They've been rallying to close this facility – and others – for years, and detainees have specifically complained about the rough treatment from the same gynecologist that's accused (AJC).

168 members of Congress sent a letter urging DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to investigate the allegations (Congresswoman Jayapal website). They're demanding to know the status of the investigation by September 25th (NPR).

These allegations are horrifying. And, these allegations are nothing new. As we discussed in two newsletters over the past two weeks, our country has a history of medical violence, particularly against women and women of color. These procedures are sexist, xenophobic, racist, and ableist, and often homophobic. And they’re an act of violence against marginalized people, many of whom rely on the same institutions for their protection.

To understand this, we have to start with eugenics, the practice of improving the human species by “breeding out” disease, disabilities, and other characteristics from the human population (History). The concept gained traction in the U.S. in the early 1900s with the creation of the Race Betterment Foundation, led by John Harvey Kellogg – yes, that Kellogg (History). Through their “registry” of “pedigree” status and a series of national conferences, they promoted the idea that to improve the country, we needed to preserve the racial status of those that inhabit it (History). This meant that people that did not fit this category – including immigrants, Black people, Indigenous people, poor white people, and people with disabilities – needed to be maintained.

Via CNN: Eugenics had won such mainstream acceptance that Americans competed in "fitter families" contests at state fairs during the 1920s.

From this, 31 states sanctioned sterilizations. Many were presented to individuals as “protective” measures to prevent their “undesirable” traits from passing to others. But many more were nonconsensual, performed when patients believed they were receiving other forms of care (The Conversation). And although the programs initially targeted men, they quickly evolved to focus on women and women of color – particularly as the country began to desegregate.

From 1950 to 1966, Black women were 3x more likely to be sterilized than white women, and more than 12x the rate of white men (The Conversation). Hospitals in the South let medical students practice unnecessary hysterectomies on Black women, a practice so common it was given the euphemism “Mississippi appendectomies” (The Cut).

The U.S. Indian Health Service (IHS) applied forced sterilized over 3,000 Indigenous women in the U.S. in 1973 and 1976. A study from two years earlier found that at least one in four Indigenous women had been sterilized without consent (Minn Post).

In California alone, over 20,000 people were sterilized, and were disproportionately Latinx, primarily individuals from Mexico (Smithsonian). During that time, anti-Mexican sentiment was spurred by theories that Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans were at a “lower racial level” than white people (Internet Archives).

Via The Conversation: A pamphlet extolling the benefit of selective sterilization published by the Human Betterment League of North Carolina, 1950. North Carolina State Documents Collection/State Library of North Carolina

By 1976, over 60,000 people were recorded sterilized in 32 states during the 20th century (Huffington Post).

Although the Supreme Court moved to end these practices in 1974, these practices are still happening. Between 1997 and 2010, unwanted sterilizations were performed on approximately 1,400 women in California prisons, which primarily targeted women of color (Fox News). A judge in Tennessee offered those incarcerated thirty days off jail time if they volunteered for vasectomies or contraceptive implants, saying that he hoped repeat offenders would “make something of themselves” (Washington Post). Ten states still require transgender people to obtain proof of surgery, a court order, or an amended birth certificate to update their driver’s licenses – and 17 states require sex reassignment surgery to update birth certificate gender markers (The Daily Beast). And there are still terrifying stories of forcible sterilizations happening on people with disabilities deemed constitutional by the courts (Rewire News).

There’s been jokes and memes floating around that we’re “officially” living in the dystopian Handmaid’s Tale. But we’re not. We’re living in the reality of the United States. And when we distance ourselves from this painful reality, we allow it to persist. As investigators race to verify these allegations, we cannot continue to allow any injustices to continue in these spaces. We must keep listening and supporting to the voices that have been shouting this to us for years – that these institutions must be dismantled. The costs are far too great.

Key Takeaways

A whistleblower filed a complaint against ICE for “medical neglect" at the detention camp she worked at, including mass hysterectomies without detainees' content
Forced sterilization was a state-sanctioned practice, often funded by the federal government, that disproportionately impacted women and women of color during the 19th century
Forced sterilizations procedures are sexist, xenophobic, racist, and ableist, and often homophobic
Unwanted sterilizations are still happening today

ARCHIVES

Abolish prison labor.

TAKE ACTION

GET EDUCATED

KEY TAKEAWAYS

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Abolish ICE.

TAKE ACTION

GET EDUCATED

Key Takeaways

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT