You wrote your book based on your nine-year prison sentence. Tell us how you wound up in the “belly of
the beast,” as you put it, and why you decided to write the book.

I was convicted of assault with intent to rob. It was my second offense as an adult, and was ignited from
the gang culture I was involved in (Zone 8). Some of my homeboys went to a local school and jumped some
guys. The police didn’t know the perpetrators, but they knew it was a gang.

The local gang squad investigated the case, and when they looked at the list of gang members, my name was
on top of the list. I had a long history with one of the detectives, and one of the people assaulted was his
nephew, so all the cards were against me.

I was convicted based upon who I was as a young black male – like I describe in the book, as an urban terrorist
with no opportunity, no room for hope, no room to change.

Instead of saying “here’s this young man, let’s get him some kind of help,” the only help offered was “let’s
lock him up, let’s get him off the street, let’s send a message back to his neighborhood that this will not be
tolerated under any circumstance.”

Upon going to prison, I was still influenced by the Zone 8 thinking, but eventually began to write my father for
the first time (who was also in prison). When he wrote back, he said something very powerful, which was “we
all make mistakes. But it’s not about making mistakes, it’s about learning from our mistakes.”

God being the best planner, he had us together at the same prison about a year later. The relationship I developed
with my father had a great impact on me, it began to transform my life and gave me the building blocks to
build a better me during my nine years.

During that time I knew I wanted to write a book, but I couldn’t find the time because I was in the thick
of the fight in prison. I needed to live through it and come back to tell it.

That’s what made the story more potent, coming back and living for four years at home and
living through what I’ve lived through out here, and making it more relevant to the people here as
well as to my incarcerated brothers and sisters.

What do you think the biggest misconception is about the prison system?

That it fixes the problem. That it’s a place to cast men and women away, and then the problem will
be dealt with. That is far from reality. It’s a quick fix to lock somebody up, but not a permanent fix.
It’s crazy.

Right now the whole f*cking community is in the prison system; everybody knows somebody
who’s been locked up. Someone has been involved in the prison system in some form. If we
think that’s the solution, we’re twisted. People don’t want justice, they want revenge,
particularly in an urban environment. When my son gets murdered by another young man, all I
see is locking him up. I don’t want to look at the circumstances that may have caused it. I have
no empathy or sympathy for this man. All I can think about is myself and my son.

But other communities look at the whole picture, they embrace everything – the person who got
killed, as well as the person who did it. “He needs help, let’s find him some help.”

We don’t do that – we lock him/her up, throw away the key, and go on about our lives. Then we wonder why
years later the same crimes are happening. Because we didn’t deal with the problems that caused the first
crime. It comes from feeling we are powerless people, more so mentally, to address that problem.

But we do have the power. Whether in the Black community or the Latino community, it has not always been
like this – violence and crime have not always been at the center of how we deal with each other. But it has
become the center, because those who control our communities have made it the primary way, because it’s the
profitable way. Through the music, the videos, and ultimately through locking us up.

If you were given the opportunity to create a new prison system, what would you do differently than what
we have now?

I think we need to evaluate each human being, so we understand the impact of these young men and women
committing crimes. Why are they committing crimes? The system now just writes us off as criminals, as if
we were born to commit crimes, and not looking at the circumstances.

Look at the 13th Amendment, which legalizes slavery. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as
a punishment for a crime, shall exist...” That prompts many people to be convicted, the prison system being
the new form of slavery, which is based on monetary gain. Private companies invest in prisons, where prisoners
are working at factories, making furniture, license plates…they’re working these jobs for ten, twenty
years, and when they get home, they can’t even get the same damned job.

Let’s break this system down, piece by piece, and really analyze how it is affecting human society. Most prisons
are built in rural areas, and become the economic base of that community. Families who couldn’t find
jobs now have jobs, and they are passed down through generations.

Urban environments, where most of these young men and women in prison are from, are a surplus of wealth
to these rural communities. That’s something that needs to be reevaluated.

A lot of people don’t realize when they commit crimes, you’re creating jobs for police, prosecutors, judges, etc.
If we can reevaluate this, we can take all this money and put it into intervention and prevention. That would
be my solution.

You write about following by example. Your father was in prison, you wound up in prison, and you didn’t
want your sons to go to prison. What is your relationship now with your sons?

With my oldest, our relationship is up and down, since I wasn’t able to be there early in his life. That void in his
life was filled in the same way mine was, with negative influences.

Unfortunately, my son has grown up in the same neighborhood I did, and his mother did. He lost his mother
at the age of 2, and not having his mother or his father, only aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and being co-parented
by the same neighborhood that co-parented me, it has forced my son, consciously and subconsciously,
to want to be Jo-Jo.

I’ve been home nine years; my son is 17 this year. There’s been some conflict. The reputation of who I
used to be is the man he wants to be, not the man I am now.

I tell him, I am a living example and testimony of how to get to prison. Now, I’m a living example and testimony
of how not to go to prison. So which one do you want to follow?

My son was raised by his grandparents. I honor and love them to death, but it had a negative impact on our
relationship. My mother undermined me as a man. I enrolled him in Malcolm X Middle School, figuring it
was African centered. But I also gave him the book, going to the school doesn’t mean nothing if you don’t
know who the man is.

My mother was like “he don’t need to read this book, it’s too big, it’s too thick.” And I’m like, what? He’s in
school. But she never had an education, so how can she really see the value of what I’m trying to do for him?
I had to fight a lot of these dynamics in our community. The greatest one was the question of if I would remain
changed, or if I would go back to how people knew me, as Jo-Jo.

My oldest son, unfortunately, got caught up in that fight. It’s only now that people really beginning to see,
“Dude is serious. Ain’t no going back to Jo-Jo, ain’t no going back to what he used to, he’s doing what he’s
supposed to.”

So people, in particular my mother, are slowly but surely being won over. What I want is more reflection in
our community, reflection on what other fathers do. I’m not afraid to speak about it and put it out there so the
healing process can begin for us as a community.

What are the lessons you hope young men, women, and newly paroled people get from your journey?

Never give up on yourself, because change is possible. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will. When
you run into an obstacle, you can overcome it. Might not happen that day or that night, but perseverance and
endurance is what is necessary to overcome that obstacle. My father shared with me some wisdom from the Honorable
Elijah Muhammad; the race isn’t to the fastest, but the one who can do it to the end. That’s my motto
this past nine years.

I think it’s important in the community for people to see that I’m not trying to get my book published – my
book is published. I’m not trying to open a bookstore – I have a bookstore. And they’ll see, “wow, dude ain’t got
no grant, dude’s books ain’t really selling – he’s piecing this together without no major income. He’s doing great things in
the community, things that people with money in the community are supposed to be doing.” That’s important,
because it shows people they can do it too.

What are you doing now?

I’m working at the Shop (Urban Network Bookstore). We hold community meetings, just trying to get people
more involved. We’re going to start doing movie nights and book discussions too.

I always try to make comparisons between different communities, because they’re so important. Like Malcom
X taught, the white man could teach us a lot if we look at it the right way.

So regarding certain movies, instead of chastising people for watching a movie, sit down and watch it with
them. Then talk about it – why did you like the murder? What was so important about him having this big gun?
Why did that excite you? It’s no different than Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry with the big ‘ole .357. But
most people in the white community didn’t want to run out and get a .357 and be Dirty Harry, because that isn’t
what is promoted as the value of being a man in that community.

But in our community, whether through Scarface, etc., those elements of manhood are promoted as the only
avenues to provide for our families, and men embrace that subculture and we get locked into it. So I want to
start dialogues in order to start breaking that down.

My relationship with the people keeps me humble. When a parent calls and asks for advice about their
child and what they’re going through, I can relate because that’s what I’m going through.

I don’t really sit around and vibe on the fact that I’m an author now, or a community activist. One title I really
detest is “motivational speaker” because they don’t do what they’re supposed to do. I understand the game and
politics of it, but you lose touch with the people when you attach yourself to these titles.

I’ve got the commitment, and I’m not gonna lose. I rely on my prison experience. If I can make it through that
hell, I can make it through anything. But there’s a lot of people looking for help who don’t have that Teflon
skin, and when you bullshit them when they reach out to you, it perpetuates that hopelessness.

You don’t realize you might be the last chance of hope for that person. The best thing I can offer anybody is to
show that I’m walking the walk, making my way out of nowhere, and making a dollar out of 15 cents.

Is there one question you wish people would ask, that they never do?

Why don’t I smile much? (laughs)

An adequate assessment of just one pre­sentation will be difficult; to express how powerful and moving the entire conference was will be even harder.
Most impressive was the wide-ranging scope of the program. Tracks (or areas) covered in­cluded Youth Media, Popular Education, How-To, INCITE! Women of Color/Trans People of Color, Media Policy, and the Kids’ Track.
The organizers were dedicated to represent­ing grassroots media and everything that encom­passes, including low-watt radio, zine-making, street art (graffiti, stencils, wheatpastes, chalking), etc.

Media outlets, organizations and collectives from across the U.S. were represented, including: The Empowered Fe Fes from Chicago, a support and action group of young women with disabilities, ages 13-24; People’s Production House, a media justice organization in New York; the Center for International Media, also from New York; 2-Cent Entertainment, a multi-media collective from New Orleans; and The Pocho Research Society, a Los-Angeles based collective of artists and activists.

It was a massive collaboration of ideas and strategies focused and invested in making media ac­cessible. No idea was too big, or felt out of reach, and no idea was too small or insignificant.
On Saturday, Adele attended the panel “Undoing Crime: Media to De-criminalize and De-colonize.” Journalists on the panel spoke about the sensational, class-based and racist coverage of crime typical of corporate media, and of their efforts to tell the real story about crime in the U.S., and also sto­ries about communities organizing to create new en­vironments and opportunities in high-crime areas.

The media’s spin on a story affects how we feel and whether we choose to mobilize. The corpo­rate media reports crime in a way that is immobiliz­ing, stokes fear, and seeks to restrict our actions.

As journalists and activists, it must be our purpose and mission to create and produce media that mobilizes people, holds others accountable, and is an ongoing, positive presence in our communities.

On Sunday, we gathered to watch a live U.S./Palestine video conference between activists here and in the Occupied Territories. This incredibly touch­ing discussion brought to light our common understanding and common struggles. Even across borders, we share the same vision, goals, and as one woman from Palestine noted, the same oppressors.

Everyone left the video conference empowered and unified; a feeling that ran through the weekend which brought people into each others’ lives and homes to work, dialogue, and build solutions.

Grace Lee Boggs, the renowned and revered Detroit activist, delivered the conference’s closing remarks. Wearing a t-shirt with her face on it, which she got from Invincible’s record release party and her 93rd birthday celebration the week prior, she paralleled the organizing ideas of young radi­cals in the 1960s to the AMC participants.

Young activists today, she said, focus on “what we can do,” rather than defining ourselves by oppression. Many meetings following the assassination of MLK were led by men giving fiery speeches, Grace recalled.

They often only succeeded in instigating more anger, and the people they mobilized became a faceless mass. Now, at the AMC, Grace observed women and proud queers at the forefront, and a movement that understands the importance of diversity and individual contributions.

Today’s young activists have learned valuable lessons from the past, she noted, and are working to create a concept of evolution based on love and care. Consequently, many in­dependent media projects are practicing a gradual revolution that brings new ideas, institutions and energy.

As an elder with 60 years of experience in grassroots activism, Grace encouraged the crowd to continue to find the power within us to maintain Detroit as a city of hope and transform our communities and countries.

The AMC also engaged the community surrounding the conference. Tours of Detroit were organized highlighting independent media, music, labor history, environmental justice, and urban agri­culture.

Clara chose the labor history tour. Labor ac­tivists Ron Lare and Rich Feldman spoke in front of UAW Local 600 outside the Dearborn Ford Riv­er Rouge Plant. They told the participants about a hunger march in 1932 on Miller Road where about three thousand unemployed workers, their families, and union activists were met by the Dearborn police, who fired on the crowd and killed five.

They also learned about the “Battle of the Overpass” where Walter Reuther and others were at­tacked and badly beaten by the Detroit Police and Ford’s “Service Department” goons for passing out pamphlets on the Miller Road overpass. “Old Harry Benet’s [the head of Ford’s Service Department] boys don’t like no union noise,” one tour participant sang while we listened to the story. The group then visited the empty shell of the Packard Plant in Ham­tramck.
The tour guide, Clara recalled, said a Mexi­can woman and UAW activist had commented that what the U.S. needs is more immigration so work­ers can learn the concepts of revolution from Latin America. “That was probably one of the best things I heard on the tour,” Clara said.

On Tuesday, Adele had breakfast with a number of women of color from the SPEAK! Col­lective, and everyone agreed this was the only con­ference they’d ever attended that felt like home.

There was never a question of belonging, nor was there a need to reference one’s resume in order to feel part of an exclusive network. “We wondered if ‘conference’ was the right word for the AMC,” Adele recalled. “But we realized it is exactly the right word.” The energy of the AMC was so unique that it has raised the standard for what a conference should be, and what others should aspire to achieve.

Yes, it was that good.

*****
Please visit the Allied Media Conference web­site for a more thorough overview of the tracks, presen­tations, and issues covered: http://alliedmediaconference.org

Dear supporter of independent media,

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In recent months, Critical Moment has suffered a loss of ad revenue. Several long-time advertisers, struggling with their own financial difficulties, have been forced to cut back on advertising.

The CM collective has taken a number of measures in order to cut costs, including printing in black and white and reducing the size of each issue. We are committed to rebuilding and expanding our advertiser base (our largest single source of revenue), and building alternative fundraising avenues.

What is more, we have several new volunteers in the collective dedicated to creating high-quality, truly progressive media for Southeast Michigan and beyond.

Yet despite our best efforts, we are facing a budget shortfall that threatens our ability to continue printing. In the face of these financial problems, Critical Moment needs you to help us get back on our feet.

Support Critical Moment today with a donation of $15 or higher, and you will receive a one-year subscription. Make a donation of $50 or more, and you will receive a copy of the classic “Detroit: I Do Mind Dying” by Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, a must-have for anyone interested in the history of Southeast Michigan.

To sweeten the deal, the person who makes the first $50 donation will also receive a new hardcover copy of Seymour Hersh’s “Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib.”

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Onward,
The Critical Moment Editorial Collective

Paul Abowd, Matthew Cross, Clara Hardie, Chris Lee, Carmen Mendoza-King, Adele Nieves, Bryan G. Pfeifer, Fred Vitale

a guy told me how to pick up a girl
at a bar
he compliments something
arbitrary
like her shoes
asks her if she comes here often,
what her favorite candy is,
what her favorite drink is, and
believes he sounds charming,

he’ll be the same guy
once he’s middle aged
and married,
that goes up to a cashier
and says,
“if there’s no price tag,
doesn’t that make it free?”
and cracking up
he won’t notice that the cashier’s laughter
isn’t natural, but

small talk, the artificial
fruit flavoring of life,
a series
of prepackaged conversations

no surprises
efficient language,
bad jokes
and kind gestures
mass produced.

journalists go to school to learn how to write
sound bites for newspapers,
and feel qualified to analyze
political science,
like a wild life painter
who has never been in the wilderness
using colors he learned to make associations,

candy tastes cherry
when it’s been dyed with red 40
and it tastes lemon
because of yellow 5 and yellow 6,
with no real difference in flavor
it will taste the way we think it should.

i was at a public clinic
to get an s.t.d. test,
it turned out to be
a harmless heat rash,
but in the waiting room
i ran into a girl i kinda know.

neither of us were visibly sick,
i said hi and she said it back
the conversation was a
modified starch
strictly avoiding the usual questions of

“how are you doing?”
“what brings you here?”
i did not want the word to get around
that i might not be as desirable
as i appear

so i told her i liked her shoes,
then seeing the magazine rack
asked if she had read the new
time or newsweek,
she responded that she didn’t like
consumer driven writing
it lacks substance. and

sensing my awkwardness,
she said, “i was eating out the other day, and
i noticed some pain,
i think it might be an infection
from a cavity i had filled.”

i faked a laugh, “that’s what brings me here too,”
short, sweet, and to the point.

"Rosetta Street"

"U.S. 285"

"Stranded"

The University of Michigan continues to hold hands with Coca-Cola following the January release of an investigative report on the company’s facilities in India. Many states in India have banned Coca-Cola from being sold within their borders over concerns about pesticides in the products. New Delhi activists smashed Coke bottles in August 2006 and protested shops where the drinks were on sale.

Alternatively, the UM administration is satisfied with a letter from the company promising to address environmental issues raised in the report that violate the U’s ethical Code of Conduct for vendors. Unsatisfied students maintain that Coke’s neglect of the Code should get it kicked off campus.

Coke Accused of Environmental Abuse

In November of 2004, Students Organizing for Labor and Economic Equality accused Coca-Cola of violating the U’s ethical Vendor Code of Conduct (VCC), established in 2003 to set an ethical and socially responsible standard for vendors’ business practices. Students filed a complaint with the VCC Dispute Review Board, which cited environmental abuse in India and union busting through the murder of labor organizers in Colombia. The Coca-Cola case is the first to test the VCC process.

Specific allegations against Coke in India included depletion of water in extremely drought-prone areas. Students referenced the Kerala High Court’s December 16, 2003 ruling that Coca-Cola’s extraction of ground water was illegal. The largest Coke plant in Kerala was shut down by a march of thousands of community members.

Students asserted that Coke plants had damaged farmers’ livelihoods by polluting surrounding ground water and soil. They said, Coke also distributed its toxic waste byproduct to farmers under the guise of fertilizer.

Tested in July 2003 by the BBC at the University of Exeter, dangerous concentrations of cadmium and lead were found in the sludge being put on crops by farmers with their bare hands. Coca-Cola denies knowing the “soil additive” would threaten health of farm workers.

The fourth complaint was the presence of pesticides found in Coca-Cola products on the market in India. In August 2003, a Delhi-based NGO called the Centre for Science and Environment released findings of high concentrations of DDT, malathion and lindane in the products. They contained 24 times the standard amount of pesticide residue for bottled water sold in the European Union. Believed to affect the liver, kidney, and neural and immune systems, lindane was the most commonly found pesticide, present in 100 per cent of the samples. Some contained 140 times the proposed level of individual pesticides in soft drinks.

Coca-Cola refused to print pesticide percentages on product labels despite the legal demands of Indian governmental bodies.

Students Take Action

In July 2005, a national commission of six students and seven university officials first convened to set a fair, independent
assessment protocol for investigations in India and Colombia. After it consulted with stakeholders over three months, five subject-matter experts helped draft guidelines which were all rejected by Coke.

Fed up with the corporation’s attempt to control the process of developing independent investigation guidelines, student representatives pulled out of the commission in October 2005. They claimed Coke was hiding behind the commission as new cases of human rights violations surfaced in Turkey, Indonesia, Guatemala, and Peru. The remaining group would eventually dissolve.

U of M cut $4.1 million-dollar contracts on the 2006 New Year. Coke missed UM’s second deadline requiring them to name third-party monitoring groups and protocols to investigate allegations in India and Colombia. After four months of banishment, Coke informed the university on April 10th that it would allow two specific organizations to assess its practices in India and Colombia. The contract was renewed within two days.

Jump-started by SOLE, the Coalition to Cut Contracts with Coca-Cola (CCCC) was then a 5,000-student group consisting of 20+ student groups. They acted as messengers for the affected communities in India and Colombia.

CCCC did not approve of Coca-Cola’s choices for independent third-party assessors: the United Nation’s International Labor Organization (ILO) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). Two weeks prior to the reinstatement of Coke the student coalition presented a packet of information to administrators. The packet advised against the ILO’s investigation in Colombia, insisting that the UN agency was closely tied to Coke. TERI was also deemed illegitimate as an independent third-party assessor.

A press release from the India Resource Center (IRC) called attention to Coca-Cola India Limited’s sponsorship of the group (University of Michigan Reinstates Coca-Cola Contract Prematurely April 12, 2006). IRC supports movements against corporate globalization in India and has been a close ally with UM students. TERI’s website lists Coca-Cola amongst 69 members of the TERI–Business Council for Sustainable Development, India. Having conducted various projects for Coca-Cola regarding water resources, one survey published by TERI in December 2001 named Coca-Cola among the most responsible companies in India.

The press release also mentions a 2003 Earth Day event organized by TERI: the Vice-President for Public Affairs and Communication at Coca-Cola India was a keynote speaker. Twelve days after this information was presented to the administration, uniformed coalition members received phone calls from the media asking for student reactions to Coke being brought back. Their response, “It is now clearer than ever that the University administration is accountable to corporate money - not to its obligations to respect human rights, worker rights or the student body,” CCCC members wrote to the Michigan Daily (Coke restored behind students’ backs April 13, 2006).

Investigation in India

Six plants were studied by TERI in the villages of Kaladera, Mehndiganj, Nabipur, Nemam, Pirangut, and Sathupalle. Amit Srivastava (IRC) noted that plants in Plachimada and Ballia were absent from the list though these communities have been some of the most vocal in protesting Coca-Cola’s practices.

Coca-Cola claims, "Our compliance with regulations and standards has been validated”, in a response to the TERI report posted on www.cokefacts.com. Although TERI declares that Coke generally meets government guidelines, it adds, "Absent or weak governmental regulations and norms should be countered by strong company policies and self regulated norms." Currently, the company's own standards to safeguard soil, groundwater, and water bodies remain unmet or are inadequate. Compliance with existing wastewater requirements "should be ensured at the earliest," the report advises. TERI also suggests that Coke promptly adopt more stringent criteria for the quality of wastewater applied on land around bottling plants, which may identify the source of faecal coliform and other physicochemical pollutants present in treated wastewater of almost all the plants assessed.

According to the IRC, alleged pollution of water and land around plants were "not examined in detail by the assessment". TERI reported that the rates of wastewater infiltrating the soil could not be verified at any of the sites though it is prescribed by state pollution control boards. According to the IRC, Coca-Cola failed to provide TERI with Environmental Impact Assessments from all six plants. Srivastava maintains that "if TERI was truly independent of Coca-Cola, they could have pressured the company to provide the EIAs". TERI's report implies that structures to measure environmental impacts are either missing or insufficient. The organization recommends that Effluent Treatment Plants be redesigned to more efficiently remove pollutants from wastewater byproduct and include flow-measuring devices.

TERI gave specific recommendations for half of the assessed plants, noting that the Kaladera watershed is overexploited and that Coke’s “operations in this area would continue to be one of the contributors to a worsening water situation and a source of stress to the communities around". TERI identifies Mehndiganj and Nabipur’s aquifers as "critical to overexploited condition" as well. Regarding the year-round cultivation of water-intensive crops such as rice in both areas, TERI condones respect for riparian water rights.

Resentful Communities

TERI encourages assessment of water availability "from a perspective that is wider than business continuity" when choosing locations for bottling plants. TERI relayed that some communities harbor resentment, believing “that the setting up of water intensive units, such as a Coca-Cola plant, does not add value to the local area". For example, "The community in Kala Dera, where the report has recommended a shut down, is very happy with the news. Likewise, other communities in India that have campaigned against Coca-Cola’s abuses of water resources are quite glad that their concerns have been validated," Srivastava related.

TERI promotes Coca-Cola "proactively joining hands with farmers, local governments, and other stakeholders to develop and implement measures for improving the water scenario". Possible measures include supplying piped drinking water to more communities; setting up water-harvesting structures; establishing sprinkler and drip irrigation systems; or setting up social infrastructures such as educational or health institutions.

Suggesting compensations such as these could be seen as TERI letting the company off easy. The IRC, which acts as a telephone line between villages affected by Coke plants in India, takes a harder line: "Coca-Cola must cease all its bottling operations in water-stressed areas in India immediately". Srivastava agrees with TERI that Coke should instantly act to meet company guidelines on pollution.

Students React

"It seems to me that the report concludes quite incontrovertibly that Coke is in violation of the Vendor Code of Conduct," said Sayan Bhattacharyya, a Rackham Graduate School student and member of CCCC. At a campus forum with university administrators, Bhattacharyya and other students demanded that the university suspend purchasing on these grounds.

In a letter to the editors of the Michigan Daily (1/17/08), a Senior member of CCCC, Lindsey Rogers, wrote, "As students, we cannot assume that the University is acting in our best interest or the best interest of the community - local, national or international. Rather, we must be prepared to be the conscience of this university. We must insist that the University uphold its own standards and values."

The University says it will reassess its relationship with Coca-Cola once a report from the ILO is released on the company’s labor practices in Colombia. Student activists are considering filing more complaints with the university regarding Coca-Cola’s oppression of unions in Turkey and Indonesia.

SOLE was launched into the public eye yet again following the sit-in. It also made sweatshops a hot topic on campus. The issue is unavoidable: University apparel, from hoodies to baseball caps, are produced amidst gross human rights abuses and labor law violations. SOLE advocates the “Designated Suppliers Program,” an initiative to relocate production of collegiate apparel to pre-approved factories.

Although many major universities have signed on – including the entire California state system and the University of Wisconsin-Madison – Ann Arbor’s administration has long been dragging its heels. The arrest, unprecedented in recent years, came as a surprise. President Coleman’s explicit refusal to participate in an open dialogue was also puzzling for a group whose sit-ins regularly produced agreeable outcomes. A 1999 sit-in under former president Lee Bollinger yielded a Code of Conduct for licensees in-line with SOLE’s demands.

The following year, another sit-in resulted in affiliation with the Workers’ Rights Consortium, an NGO that monitors conditions in UM-apparel-producing factories. It was natural for SOLE to expect a positive response from both Coleman and the Regents who espouse progressive values in theory, if not in practice. Then again, the president is a career anti-activist who took similar action against protesters during her tenure at the University of Iowa. While administrators didn’t acquiesce to student requests, Coleman’s antics landed the story in newspapers around the world.

Backlash from this violation of the right to non-violent protest has translated into increased support for the DSP. Unions wanting to support freedom of association abroad as well as at home rallied around the arrested students. Donations rolled in from organized labor, various other allies, and even two regents, allowing the students to pay off a collective $6,120 in court costs and fines. Such generous solidarity only strengthened SOLE’s drive to speak out for the too-often voiceless population of campus workers.

We are beginning to work in solidarity with those in Michigan who enthusiastically support this struggle, and continue to fight against sweatshops. SOLE’s advocacy is thriving at home and abroad. Locally, SOLE is in solidarity with the Graduate Employees’ Organization, who represents the university’s GSIs and other graduate employees, as they negotiate their new contract with the university. We hope the University bargains in good faith and we are prepared to work with GEO to make sure this happens.

To build ties with other campus workers and to thank them for their support following the arrests, SOLE held an employee appreciation breakfast in the lobby of the business school, and there is another planned for early March 2008.To further increase awareness about justice for workers, we co-sponsored, with Migrant Immigrant Rights Awareness and the Inter-Humanitarians’ Council, a Human Rights lecture by Ian Robinson on immigrant rights issues.

On February 21, we will be screening a powerful documentary on garment workers in China called “China Blue.” In the longer term, SOLE is preparing to work against a Michigan ballot initiative with the Orwellian title “Right to Work.” The initiative would make it harder to unionize and undermine organized labor in the state of Michigan. We will also advocate a ballot initiative that will charge the Michigan legislature with ensuring affordable healthcare for all. While Coleman’s decision to arrest SOLE members was a setback, we continue to move forward and organize for all workers to be treated fairly and with dignity.

Beginning in 2000, students in the U.S. began studying in Havana free at the Latin American School of Medicine (LASM). Originally 500 students were offered scholarships annually. This has been increased to 1,000 for the seven-year medical school program. The only condition is that the students make a commitment to serving poor communities in the U.S. after receiving their medical licenses.

Chinere Knight and Ese Agari of Detroit, both graduates of Cass Technological High School, began their studies at the LASM in Havana in the fall of 2007. Knight heard about Cuba’s cutting edge status in medicine from her mother, Desiree Ferguson, who visited Cuba in 2001 for the National Conference of Black Lawyers. Ferguson was co-chair of the international gathering.

Over 3,400 students from 23 countries, mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean, are already at the LASM, also studying free. The school was established in the wake of the terrible hurricanes that caused many deaths and extensive damage in Central America in 1997.

“It showed you that, yes, we are in America and we have all these resources, but once you go through the bureaucracy and you go through the prejudice and the bias, you might not get the assistance that you should,” Knight told the Michigan Citizen, a Black news weekly in Detroit that published a feature article on these students in August 2007.

Detroit City Council member JoAnn Watson helped facilitate Knight’s and Agari’s scholarship process, logistics and fundraising with many supporters of Cuba in Metro Detroit.

The Rev. Dr. Lucius Walker Jr. spoke to the Detroit City Council about the Cuban medical school program in December 2006. Walker, Director of the Inter-Religious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) and founder of Pastors for Peace, was the keynote speaker for the Jan. 21, 2008, annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. rally in Detroit. Pastors for Peace administers the scholarship process for the Cuban medical school program. The first graduating class in the program with students from the U.S. received their diplomas in December 2007, along with their colleagues from all over the world.

Such events are in stark contrast to the U.S. where, confronted with an educational system rife with institutional oppression and massive economic barriers, poor, working class and students of color are virtually excluded from pursuing medical degrees, as well as higher education in general. Entrance exam fees and tests alone can cost thousands of dollars. Poor students in the U.S. wanting to obtain an M.D. are regularly forced to go deep in debt through often high-interest loans, or rely on loved ones also facing potential economic disasters such as layoffs, foreclosures and bankruptcies, particularly in Michigan.

The majority of U.S. students who have graduated from the LASM or are currently in the program are people of color and/or women. This reflects the demographics of the Cuban medical system. In the U.S. medical system, it’s just the reverse.

Cuba: A Beacon of Hope

A December 2004 New England Journal of Medicine article, “Affirmative Action, Cuban Style,” cites health indicators in Cuba as being “on par with those in the most developed nations.” According to the World Health Organization, Cuba has twice as many physicians per capita as the U.S., and the infant mortality rate is less than most cities in the U.S.

Much of this information is kept from the American public by the corporate media, but many North Americans caught a glimpse of the realities of Cuba’s medical system in Michael Moore’s latest documentary SiCKO! In the film, Moore brings rescue workers, sick from their exposure to pollutants in the wake of the attacks of 9/11, to Cuba, in hopes that they might receive the medical attention they are being denied by the for-profit health care system of the United States. Not surprisingly, they receive the care they need.

With a population of about 11 million, and facing severe obstacles due to the criminal blockade the U.S. has unilaterally imposed on the country, Cuba has sent more than 60,000 medical personnel to countries on every continent since its first internationalist brigade of 56 medical personnel to Algeria in May 1963. Cuba’s supply of medical personnel to the world exceeds even that of the World Health Organization.

But no Cuban doctors are allowed in the U.S.

Despite a dire need for healthcare services in this country, the blockade prohibits Cuban healthcare professionals from entering the U.S. The effect of this blockade was starkly exposed during Hurricane Katrina when Cuban medical personnel – with vast experience in dealing with tropical storms – were mobilized and ready to assist those devastated by the hurricane and subsequent floods. Both they and Venezuelan medical personnel were on planes, waiting on tarmacs in their respective countries. They were refused entry by the U.S. government, while mostly poor Black people were left to languish and die from a lack of basic medical equipment or untreated ailments.

Students like Agari and Knight are intent on remedying this situation by studying in Cuba and then returning to the U.S. to practice in their communities. They see hope for humanity in Cuba where becoming a doctor is motivated by humanitarian internationalism, not profit

"If we do want to improve our level of health and eradicate diabetes and hypertension, than we need to figure out some alternative way to do it. I think Cuba’s medical system offers that,” Knight told the Citizen.

Part of what motivated Knight was her work as a volunteer in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The experience, according to the Citizen, strengthened her belief in the social responsibility of medical professionals. While volunteering, she conducted interviews with other volunteers, and began studying the official procedures of FEMA and its terribly inadequate response to the disaster.

Knight added, “You have an obligation to work, when you come back to the U.S., in an underrepresented community, where there’s need. And you dedicate yourself to that for your entire career. I said, ‘that’s not a problem, I do that anyway.’”

People called the campaign every day in January to sign up to go to Lansing on Jan. 29, when a demonstration took place outside the Capitol Building prior to Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s “State of the State” address. Activists are pressuring the governor to use her emergency powers under the law to declare a state of economic emergency and impose a moratorium to halt foreclosures for a five-year period.

MECAWI organizers report that the Jan. 29 demonstration has received the endorsement of the Greater Lansing Area Network Against War and Injustice. Activists with the North Star Center, a radical community group in Lansing, contacted MECAWI to also lend their support.

The editor of a community newspaper in Benton Harbor called about the demonstration and offered to set up a town hall meeting to publicize the campaign for a moratorium. She stated that 60 percent of the homes in that predominantly Black city are in tax foreclosure.

A Growing Campaign

The response to the demand for a moratorium is overwhelming.

On Dec. 13 community activists leafleted and petitioned a mortgage fair sponsored by state Attorney General Mike Cox at Cobo Hall in Detroit. Activists were ejected from the hall by security for attempting to give moratorium information to the thousands of people attending in an effort to find some relief from the foreclosure process. Only banks and lenders were allowed to give out information inside. Undaunted community activists distributed moratorium literature outside.

A Detroit News article on Jan. 5 reported on a MECAWI community moratorium meeting and channel 2 Fox News reported on MECAWI’s call. At this meeting many living in Metro Detroit participated including United Community Housing Coalition coordinator Ted Philips, who is involved in stopping tax foreclosures in Detroit. Philips advised on how to forestall evictions and told meeting participants about show-cause hearings Jan. 7-9 for Wayne County tax foreclosures which activists leafleted.

The moratorium campaign was also bolstered by an hour-long community radio and television program hosted by Agnes Hitchcock on Jan. 5. MECAWI organizer and people’s attorney Jerry Goldberg was Hitchcock’s guest and reported an overwhelming positive response to the moratorium call. On Jan. 9 Goldberg was interviewed by the public radio station in Boston. MECAWI received an e-mail from a woman in Massachusetts who heard the interview on her local NPR station and was moved by the foreclosure crisis in Michigan that Goldberg described. She sent a donation along with a message of solidarity.

From Jan. 9 to 13, a crew from the government-run Korean Broadcasting System in South Korea met with MECAWI activists. The KBS television station is putting together a one-hour documentary on the subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S.

According to MECAWI organizer Mike Shane, “The KBS crew came to Detroit from Florida. They said they thought much of the crisis in that state is from investors losing money from the practice of ‘flipping’ houses. In Detroit the producers could see that a much deeper crisis is at work, a crisis of unemployment, racism and urban degeneration.”

Shane said that the KBS crew was “stunned” by what they saw in Detroit and expressed disbelief that nothing was being done by the government to help people. “Like in so many other places around the world, the Korean TV team had held a view of life in the U.S. based on Hollywood lies, and at first they couldn’t comprehend that the richest country in the world has such dire poverty, with so many people losing their homes.”

The KBS crew followed MECAWI activists to a neighborhood in northwest Detroit on Jan. 12 where Thelma Raziya Curtis faces eviction from the home her daughter owns, a home that has been part of her family for decades but is now in foreclosure. Curtis was interviewed extensively and filmed as she went about her daily activities.

Organizers went door to door in the neighborhood, distributing literature, petitioning and talking to residents about Curtis’ plight and the struggle for a moratorium on all foreclosures and evictions. Everyone expressed concern for Curtis’s situation and many asked to be contacted if necessary for more support.

At the Jan. 5 community meeting participants unanimously agreed to fight to keep Curtis in her home. An emergency response task force is in place to plan an action to prevent the bailiff from evicting Curtis.

The KBS crew filmed a block on Strathmoor Street where 10 out of 12 houses stood empty, where most of them had items taken by poor people looking to make a little money from bricks, pipes, abandoned furnaces and the like. They filmed other areas in Detroit with block after block of fields and vacant homes.

On Jan. 11 MECAWI organizers and community activists packed a hearing of the Housing Task Force of the Detroit City Council hosted by progressive Council member JoAnn Watson. The participants overwhelmingly supported the foreclosure moratorium campaign.

Watson reported that a resolution was passed unanimously by the City Council in late December calling on Gov. Granholm to declare a state of emergency in the city and a moratorium on foreclosures. She said that legislation was being drafted to beef up the city’s blight ordinances so that banks and financial institutions would face stiff fines for abandoning foreclosed homes and allowing them to be stripped. Progressive attorneys are drafting language that other municipalities will be able to use as well. Foreclosures in the metro Detroit area are up 100 percent from a year ago, with over 72,000 homes now in foreclosure.

Build the movement!

Says Goldberg, “The racist and predatory lenders aren’t going to solve the crisis they’re responsible for. Nothing is abating the situation. All the proposals are like putting a thumb over a bursting dam. The only way to get a state of emergency declared and a moratorium on foreclosures is by mass pressure. Our task is how to build this movement.”

For more information on the struggle for a moratorium on foreclosures in Michigan, call or visit www.mecawi.org.

“Never in my wildest imagination, did I think I would ever see something like this in the United States,” Carlos Torres, a Chilean refugee now living in Canada told me half way through the forum. The sentiment was repeated again and again by Latin American visitors who were there as emissaries from the World Social Forum (WSF). It was radical, it was militant, it was feminist, it was anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, it was queer, it was loud and lively and it was brimming with love, kindness and a deep sense of solidarity. The slogan of the USSF was “Another World is Possible, Another US is necessary.” It was interpreted both as another U.S. and another “us” meaning the left has to reinvent itself. And it was a major step forward for the World Social Forum movement.

The idea of a U.S. social forum came from a couple of people who went to the 2001 WSF in Brazil and then brought a few more with them in 2002. They formed a group called Grassroots Global Justice and began the process of organizing a U.S. Social Forum, firmly in the WSF spirit. One of them Fred Ascarate, then with Jobs for Justice, now with the AFL-CIO, explained to the opening plenary that “It took this long because we wanted to do it right by building the necessary relationships among the grass roots organizations and ensuring the right outcomes.” And the right outcomes were to create the conditions to unite the disparate grassroots people’s movements around the U.S. across race, age, sector and region. They got the idea from the WSF but they took it beyond where anyone else has managed to go, except perhaps in Mumbai.

In Nairobi, poor people demanded a significant place in the WSF planning process and in Atlanta, they had one. The National Planning Committee represented what they call national and regional “base-building” groups, whose base is mostly poor and working class people. It seemed to this observer that the forum shifted the balance of power on the American left to the poor and oppressed from the middle class. Time will tell what impact this will have. Every plenary focused on building alliances among the myriad of grass roots movement across the United States. Most emphasis was on a “black-brown” alliance to combat the racism that divides African Americans from their Latino and immigrant brothers and sisters. But there was a lot of focus on student/ labour alliances and environmental issues were completely linked to social justice issues. Support for gays, lesbians and transgendered people who have been major targets of the Bush administration seemed universal. The forum ended in a People’s Movements Assembly, where various regional and issue caucuses presented their resolutions. Several new national networks were formed and the bonds of solidarity were deeply forged among those who are usually divided.

People left with the commitment to organize social forums in their regions, cities and neighbourhoods. Over the course of the week, the social forum became a synonym for creating a movement of movements everywhere. “People are asking me when Atlanta has ever seen something like this “Jerome Scott of Project South and veteran Atlanta activist speaking of the opening march. “I’ve been reflecting on that and my answer is Atlanta has never seen anything like this. The Civil Rights movement was mostly African American and last year’s May 1 st (immigration rights) demo was mostly Latinos but this march was the most multi-national action I have ever seen. It was beautiful.” Most of every one of the 900 workshops over four days was filled to the brim with activists who were sharing strategies in everything from food security to community/labour alliances to a new taking back our cities movement against gentrification. The plenary speakers were majority women, people of colour, and young people. There was not a single left-wing star among them. In a culture obsessed with celebrity, the organizing committee decided they didn’t need any, even the good ones. None of the big NGO’s in the United States were on the planning committee.

The idea that foundation- funded, majority white, centrist and Washington dominated NGO’s and think tanks have hijacked the left was present throughout the forum. These groups were welcome to participate but not in a leadership capacity. Another extraordinary feature of the forum was the role of indigenous people who led the opening march and participated on several panels as well as their own plenary. Much of the vision came from them. After talking about the melting of the glaciers, Faith Gemmill from the REDOIL (Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Land) in Alaska said, “Our people have a prophesy that there will come a time in the history of humanity when people are in danger of destroying ourselves. When that time comes, a voice will arise from the North to warn us. That time is now. I was sent here to give you part of our burden to speak up now against the greed.” And Tom Goldtooth who represents the Indigenous Environmental Network on the national planning committee said, “”We must talk from the heart and shake hands with one another.

A prayer has taken place that this spirit is going to grow. No matter who we are we must demand not reform of a broken system but transformation. We need to organize from the grassroots.” And many did speak from the heart. The plenary on Katrina was stunning to me. While I certainly followed the immediate aftermath I had no idea of the continuing efforts to white wash New Orleans. Dr. Beverley Wright speaking from the floor said, “our parents and our grandparents fought to buy a house to pass on to their family and they are trying to take that away from us when they talk about turning the place we lived in East New Orleans into a green space. They’re not talking about turning the place rich white folks live into green space. “ Another community leader said, “Katrina is both a reality and a symbol. If you work in justice, if you work in health care, if you work in housing, you are in Katrina.” One of the most powerful speeches was from Javier Gallardo from the New Orleans Workers Centre. A guest work from Peru, he explained that when African Americans were displaced, hundreds of workers, like him, had been brought in from Latin America for Gulf Coast reconstruction and their employers names are on the passports. Their ability to stay in the U.S. is dependent on the employer. He said that there is now a practice that when the employer is finished with the workers, he sells them to another employer for $2,000 each. “What is that?,” he asked. “We call it modern day slavery. They want to divide us but the old slaves and the new slaves can join together and together we can defeat them,” he continued to thunderous applause.

The old slaves/new slaves metaphor wove its way through the rest of the forum in the powerful idea of a black-brown alliance, that veteran activists said would transform left- wing politics in the United States and especially in the South where the vast majority of the working class is now black and brown. Another impressive feature of the forum was the handling of conflict. When the Palestinian contingent objected that they were the only group not permitted to speak for themselves in the anti-war plenary, the organizers read their letter of protest to the next plenary. When the report of the indigenous caucus was stopped at the end of their allotted time by the moderator of the Peoples Movement Assembly by removing their mike, they took grave offense and felt silenced. Within ten minutes most of the indigenous people in the room were on the stage with the consent of the organizers. What could have been an explosive divisive moment with a lot of anger and hurt was handled with incredible skill by both permitting the protest and making sure it was interpreted in a way that created unity rather than division.

I had the feeling that a new culture of solidarity was being born, one we tried for in the feminist movement but never quite accomplished. Of course there were weaknesses in the forum. While strongly rooted in the traditions of the Civil Rights movement by the symbolic location in Atlanta and the presence of veteran civil rights activists, there was less discussion of working class or even feminist history.

Yet the impact of those movements were strongly felt in the powerful female leadership present everywhere and the strong emphasis on workers issues and organizing. None of the big environmental groups were present. While the issue of the war and U.S. imperialism had pride of place, the mainstream anti-war movement had little presence. The forum organizers bent the stick quite far towards poor, working class, indigenous, queer and people of colour groups and perhaps this was necessary to create the kind of movement really capable of making change in the United States. In her famous speech at the 2002 World Social Forum in Brazil, Arundhati Roy famously said, “Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. “

It wasn’t a quiet day in Atlanta but I could hear her shouting there, “What do we want? Justice. How will we get it? People Power.”