The sj blog of ur nightmares

St. Lois police claimed that Bernard Scott, 44 committed suicide in the jail where he was taken on a minor traffic violation. Actually after detention Scott had abdominal pain and bleeding but police blocked paramedics who were going to take him to the hospital. After Scott lost conciseness with a stiff muscles, cops called another ambulance and told the doctors that Bernard Scott hanged himself. Probably police could get away with it, but Scott survived and recalled everything: “Why would I hang myself? I was in on traffic tickets… the first ambulance driver wanted to take me with him, but the guy wouldn't let me leave.”

It’s hard to say why cops did this cruel and absolutely mad shit. Anyway they should be sentenced for murder attempt!

Once slavery was abolished in 1865, manufacturers scrambled to find other sources of cheap labor—and because the 13th amendment banned slavery (except as punishment for crimes), they didn’t have to look too far. Prisons and big businesses have now been exploiting this loophole in the 13th amendment for over a century.

“Insourcing,” as prison labor is often called, is an even cheaper alternative to outsourcing. Instead of sending labor over to China or Bangladesh, manufacturers have chosen to forcibly employ the 2.4 million incarcerated people in the United States. Chances are high that if a product you’re holding says it is “American Made,” it was made in an American prison.

On average, prisoners work 8 hours a day, but they have no union representation and make between .23 and $1.15 per hour, over 6 times less than federal minimum wage. These low wages combined with increasing communication and commissary costs mean that inmates are often released from correctional facilities with more debt than they had on their arrival. Meanwhile, big businesses receive tax credits for employing these inmates in excess of millions of dollars a year.

While almost every business in America uses some form of prison labor to produce their goods, here are just a few of the companies who are helping prisoners pay off their debt to society, so to speak.

Whole Foods. The costly organic supermarket often nicknamed “Whole Paycheck” purchases artisan cheese and fish prepared by inmates who work for private companies. The inmates are paid .74 cents a day to raise tilapia that is subsequently sold for $11.99 a pound at the fashionable grocery store.

McDonald’s. The world’s most successful fast food franchise purchases a plethora of goods manufactured in prisons, including plastic cutlery, containers, and uniforms. The inmates who sew McDonald’s uniforms make even less money by the hour than the people who wear them.

Wal-Mart. Although their company policy clearly states that “forced or prison labor will not be tolerated by Wal-Mart”, basically every item in their store has been supplied by third-party prison labor factories. Wal-Mart purchases its produce from prison farms where laborers are often subjected to long, arduous hours in the blazing heat without adequate sunscreen, water, or food.

Victoria’s Secret. Female inmates in South Carolina sew undergarments and casual-wear for the pricey lingerie company. In the late 1990’s, 2 prisoners were placed in solitary confinement for telling journalists that they were hired to replace “Made in Honduras” garment tags with “Made in U.S.A.” tags. Victoria’s Secret has declined to comment.

Aramark. This company, which also provides food to colleges, public schools and hospitals, has a monopoly on foodservice in about 600 prisons in the U.S. Despite this, Aramark has a history of poor foodservice, including a massive food shortage thatcaused a prison riot in Kentucky in 2009.

AT&T. In 1993, the massive phone company laid off thousands of telephone operators—all union members—in order to increase their profits. Even though AT&T’s company policy regarding prison labor reads eerily like Wal-Mart’s, they have consistently used inmates to work in their call centers since ’93, barely paying them $2 a day.

BP. When BP spilled 4.2 million barrels of oil into the Gulf coast, the company sent a workforce of almost exclusively African-American inmates to clean up the toxic spill while community members, many of whom were out-of-work fisherman, struggled to make ends meet. BP’s decision to use prisoners instead of hiring displaced workers outraged the Gulf community, but the oil company did nothing to reconcile the situation.

From dentures to shower curtains to pill bottles, almost everything you can imagine is being made in American prisons. Also implicit in the past and present use of prison labor are Microsoft, Nike, Nintendo, Honda, Pfizer, Saks Fifth Avenue, JCPenney, Macy’s, Starbucks, and more. For an even more detailed list of businesses that use prison labor, visit buycott.com, but the real guilty party here is the United States government. UNICOR, the corporation created and owned by the federal government to oversee penal labor, sets the condition and wage standards for working inmates.

I wrote a post a while back about how some people are very good at getting away with doing intentionally creepy things by passing themselves off as just ~awkward~.

Recently, I noticed a particular pattern that plays out. While creeps can be any gender, there’s a gendered pattern by which creepy men get other men to help them be creepy:

A guy runs over the boundaries of women constantly

He makes them very uncomfortable and creeped out

But he doesn’t do that to guys, and

He doesn’t talk to guys about it in an unambiguous way, and

When he does it in front of guys, he finds a way to make it look deniable

And then some women complain to a man, maybe even a man in charge who is supposed to be responsible for preventing abuse in a space

and he has no idea what they are talking about, since he’s never the target or witness

And he’s had a lot of pleasant interactions with that guy

So he sympathizes with him, and thinks he must mean well but be have trouble with social skills

And then takes no action to get him to stop or to protect women

And so the group stays a place that is safe for predatory men, but not for the women they target

For example:

Mary, Jill, and Susan: Bill, Bob’s been making all of us really uncomfortable. He’s been sitting way too close, making innuendo after everything we say, and making excuses to touch us.

Bill: Wow, I’m surprised to hear that. Bob’s a nice guy, but he’s a little awkward. I’m sure he doesn’t mean anything by it. I’m not comfortable accusing him of something so serious from my position of authority.

What went wrong here?

Bill assumed that, if Bob was actually doing something wrong, he would have noticed.

Bill didn’t think he needed to listen to the women who were telling him about Bob’s creepy actions. He didn’t take seriously the possibility that they were right. 

Bill assumed that women who were uncomfortable with Bob must be at fault; that they must be judging him too harshly or not understanding his awkwardness

Bill told women that he didn’t think that several women complaining about a guy was sufficient reason to think something was wrong

Bill assumed that innocently awkward men should not be confronted about inadvertantly creepy things they do, but rather women should shut up and let them be creepy

A rule of thumb for men:

If several women come to you saying that a man is being creepy towards them, assume that they are seeing something you aren’t

Listen to them about what they tell you

If you like the guy and have no idea what they’re talking about, that means that what he is doing is *not* innocent awkwardness.

If it was innocent awkwardness, he wouldn’t know how to hide it from other men

Men who are actually just awkward and bad at understanding boundaries also make *other men* uncomfortable

If a man is only making women uncomfortable but not men, that probably means he’s doing it on purpose

Take that possibility seriously, and listen to what women tell you about men

daddy issues

friend zoned

In case you’ve never heard of the Helms’ Amendment of 1973, here’s an article on it.

It doesn’t matter why you’re doing it or what your intent is. A trans woman’s appearance is always related to her experience of being trans and a woman, and mocking her appearance always connects to cissexist and heterosexist ideals of female acceptability.