8/18: Connecting Our Communities: Welfare System & the Prison Industrial Complex
Connecting Our Communities: Welfare System & the Prison Industrial Complex
Queers for Economic Justice is helping to broaden the current conversation around Reproductive Justice by highlighting the experiences of low-income queer and transgender folks who navigate the welfare system and prison system.
Join Queers for Economic Justice as we begin a dialogue about the connections between the Welfare System and the Prison Industrial Complex. We will focus on reproductive justice in low-income queer and transgender communities and highlight the research and work that is being done to confront the systemic reproductive and sexual violence we face. The event will provide a space for community discussion and allow activists, community organizers and those most impacted by the Welfare System and the Prison Industrial Complex to share their knowledge. Additionally, we will begin brainstorming creative solutions to the problems we face (and overcome) daily.
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Highlighted Speakers Include:
MYA LAYLANI VAZQUEZ, TransJustice at the AUDRE LORDE PROJECT
Mya will be speaking about TransJustice’s campaign against transphobia in the Human Resources Administration.
MISS MAJOR, Organizing Director of Transgender, Gender Variant, & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP)
As one of New York’s best known drag queens, Miss Major participated in clashes with the police amid the Stonewall Riots. She was a member of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), and now is the organizing director of the TGIJP in San Francisco, CA and will speak around her work fighting the prison industrial complex.
TERRY BOGGIS, Director of CENTER KIDS, LGBT Community Center
Terry will be speaking about the challenges facing low-income queer and trans folks wanting to parent, and will be sharing information about the services available at Center Kids at the LGBT Center.
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
7:00 to 9:00 PM
16 West 32nd Street, 10th Floor,
New York, NY 10001
Please contact Reina Gossett at rgossett@q4ej.org or 212-564-3608 for more information or to RSVP
INCARCERATING PEOPLE “FOR PROFIT” IS IN A WORD….WRONG!
Even if one does not ask or pretends not to see the rope and the flashing red flag draped around the philosophical question standing solemnly at attention in the middle of the room, it remains apparent that the mere presence of a private “for profit” driven prison business in our country undermines the U.S Constitution and subsequently the credibility of the American criminal justice system. In fact, until all private prisons in America have been abolished and outlawed, “the promise” of fairness and justice at every level of this country’s judicial system will remain unattainable. We must restore the principles and the vacant promise of our judicial system. Our government cannot continue to “job-out” its obligation and neglect its duty to the individuals confined in the correctional and rehabilitation facilities throughout this nation, nor can it ignore the will of the people that it was designed to serve and protect. There is urgent need for the good people of this country to emerge from the shadows of indifference, apathy, cynicism, fear, and those other dark places that we migrate to when we are overwhelmed by frustration and the loss of hope.
My hope is that you will support the National Public Service Council to Abolish Private Prisons (NPSCTAPP) with a show of solidarity by signing “The Single Voice Petition”
http://www.petitiononline.com/gufree2/petition.html
Please visit our website for further information: http://www.npsctapp.blogspot.com
–Ahma Daeus
“Practicing Humanity Without A License”…