[552] in peace2
IMMEDIATE ACTION ALERT: SIT-IN AT DPH (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aimee L Smith)
Sat Feb 24 15:12:03 2001
Message-Id: <200102242011.PAA03433@nerd-xing.mit.edu>
To: peace-list@MIT.EDU, greens-announce@MIT.EDU
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Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 15:11:46 -0500
From: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>
Dear Rad MIT folks,
Check out attached urgent call to action.
Any support you can manage to give would be great!
(My interpretation of "CORI" is after we lock folks up, let's
not let them work so that we can drive them right back
behind bars and create a self-fulfilling prophesy: "once bad,
always bad..." guess that is why we just can't execute people
fast enough...)
Kazi Tore is a former political prisoner (convicted for sedition...
in spite of the repeal of the Sedition Act over 200 years earlier...)
He has been a mover and shaker in the struggles to end the death penalty,
improve prisoners rights and conditions, support families of prisoners,
and to challenge police brutality.
Councilman Turner allied with and was out front at the anti-death penalty
and anti-police brutality March that had been organized by Kazi's
organization, Boston Coalition for Mumia, from Roxbury to the UMASS
presidential debate site to protest outrage at both parties' work against
civil liberties and racial justice.
The other folks listed below are no doubt cool folks as well (I just
don't happen to know them.)
------- Forwarded Message
Subject: Fwd: IMMEDIATE ACTION ALERT: SIT-IN AT DPH
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 01 10:18:14 -0400
From: Scott Cooper <smcooper@mediaone.net>
PROTESTORS "LOCKED DOWN" IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Starting on Thursday, Feb. 22 at 1pm, demonstrators have been in the
Massachusetts DPH non-violently protesting the new DPH regulations on
the CORI (Criminal Offender Record Investigations) check. Currently,
there are five freedom fighters who have been locked down in the
building, including councilmember Chuck Turner, former political
prisoner Kazi Toure, Jamie Suarez-Potts, Mary Moore, and Mary
Corcoran.
CORI is a shorthand nickname for "criminal offender record
information," which the Department of Public Health along with other
public departments and private social service agencies have been
required to do a check on for all potential employees or volunteers.
If applicants have committed any of the crimes listed from perjury to
murder, they can be permanently disqualified from employment in those
agencies. This means that people who have already served their time
in prison will have an extremely difficult to impossible time getting
jobs in any agency or organization that relates to social service, or
receives federal or state funding. This is a historical throwback to
the Jim Crow era which kept draconian control over the lives of
people just coming out of slavery. Like Jim Crow, CORI regulations
are another form of slavery seeking to keep people of color the poor
people under strict control and remaining disempowered. Our society
continues to punish people even after they have served their time in
prison and paid for their crimes. This obsession with punishment leaves
little avenue for people to restore their lives after incarceration,
and in fact only stimulates more prison growth as people face more
dead ends and are incarcerated again. We need to stop the growth of
prisons, stop the stigmatizing of communities of color as criminal,
stop the obsession with punishment, and stop the virtual enslavement
of our communities.
On Thursday, 27 people met with the commissioner of the Department of
Health to persuade him to oppose the CORI regulations. He said that
morally he was against the regulations, but he was too scared to do
anything. As of now, the five locked down protesters are currently
on the second floor of the Department of Health, with State Police
keeping anyone else out. They have stayed overnight and are planning
to stay until Tuesday. We have called them the Washington Five.
This action will challenge the dominant mindset the continues to
criminalize, penalize, and incarcerate people of color and the poor.
Come Stand With Us!
We need:
1. More people to join those who are locked down. They have a
way of getting you in.
2. A demonstration is scheduled for Monday 12 noon outside the
building. Show solidarity!
3. A public hearing and demonstration is scheduled for Tuesday
10 am. Show solidarity and give your testimony!
4. Food, clean socks, soap, and blankets are needed for the five
locked down, and those who choose to join them.
Location: 250 Washington Street (Downtown Boston), Near Boston City =
Hall
For more information, call Kazi Toure at (617) 257-7518.
------- End of Forwarded Message
