Hi Friends!
Black and Pink is sending out a twice monthly e-newsletter to keep you updated about progress, action items and more great ways for you to get involved and stand in solidarity with our incarcerated LGBTQ community members!
Pen Pals!!:
This is a reminder to write your pen pal!! Sending mail is a great way for you to support a queer or trans prisoner.So if you haven’t written your pen pal recently; drop them a note!
If you don’t yet have a pen pal, there are lots of interesting, funny, smart, queer folks who would love to write with you! just scroll through the list and read some bios until you find some one or a couple of people who you’d like to write to!
Pen Pal Friendship:
Here’s a great story about one of the Black and Pink volunteer’s experience writing with his pen pal! You can watch Reed talk about writing Ken in this fun video!
Become A Sustainer!:
Black and Pink needs your help! As a volunteer run organization, we need the financial support of our community in order to continue our work. Your monthly contribution is an important part of the movement against the abuses and degradation of the Prison Industrial Complex. We appreciate your generosity! Visit our website to make a contribution and provide your support! Contributions can be made as little as $5/month and as much as $100/month, please give as generously as you can!
Current Call To Action:
Taking on the seemingly untouchable Prison Industrial Complex can, at times feel impossible. But there are ways to assist our friends on the inside by providing support and resources that folks in prison don’t have access to.
#1
Help eliminate prison rape by submitting your comments to the Department of Justice before Monday April 4th! Sexual Assault in prisons is an inexcusable and devastating practice, systematically perpetuated against incarcerated people, especially queer and trans folks behind bars. Please advocate for the end of abuse within prisons.Read Reverend Jason Lydon’s comments on the “Prison Rape Elimination Act National Standards” and submit your own comments through Just Detention International’s website. Quick, do it today!!
#2
Calvin Burdine received some national press nearly a decade ago when it became public that a sleeping lawyer and blatant homophobia led to his death sentence. Calvin was sentenced to death in 1983 as his public defender slept through significant portions of the trial. The prosecuting attorney was able to secure the death sentence while stating in his closing argument that, “sending a homosexual to the penitentiary certainly isn’t a very bad punishment for a homosexual.” When Calvin was sentenced to death his lawyer stood up and stated, “we have no objections your honor.” Homophobia in the court system can be a matter of life or death. After six dates with the executioner, in 1995 Calvin Burdine was finally granted a new trial. In 2002 Calvin’s sentence was commuted to life in prison with parole. A life sentence is 20 years, Calvin has now served, including good time credits, just over 49 years (which is 25 years in real passage of time). You can read the Village Voice story on Calvin HERE. So, what can you do?
Calvin has been given the opportunity to be paroled. However, he has no family, friends, or support on the outside. He is 57 years old and needs assistance creating a parole plan. This does not mean you need to be responsible for Calvin after he is released or that he be released to you address. What this means is helping Calvin find resources in Texas, taking some time to do some research and correspond through letters, and reviewing with him what the parole plan should look like. You can direct formal questions about the parole system to the Texas Parole Department – 512.406.5250. There are extensive resources about prisoner needs available HERE.
out please email Jason at blackandpink99@gmail.com.
It Really Works!! Report Back from Previous Call to Action:
Another pen pal of Reed’s wrote to him about threats she had received from her counselor. Reed asked Shaylanna if he could ask people on the outside to call the prison. After people called the prison, they began an investigation of the counselor’s behavior.
Reed says:
Shaylanna wrote me in November 2010 stating “I don’t talk to my counselor anymore. He’s such a jerk. He actually told me in my face, that if I wrote another complaint on him he’d rape me.” I had asked her how the mental health system was in her prison because she was feeling very depressed. Her request for a new counselor had been denied because the grievances weren’t followed up with properly. She asked me to contact the senior counselor, which I did, and now we I frequently call the counselor to check up on the situation, which should be resolved within a month. It was simple to do, and will make a big difference in her life!
Upcoming Events:
Sunday April 3, 11:30am-9:30pm
Silence Broken Conference; Legacies of Repression and Resistance
Northeastern University, Curry Student Center, 346 Huntington Ave
Speakers Include:
Ashanti Alston – Former Black Liberation Army Political Prisoner and steering committee member of the National Jericho Movement
Marta Rodriguez - Puerto Rican independence activist and member of the New England Committee to Defend Palestine
Jihad Abdul Mummit – Former Black Liberation Army Political Prisoner and chair of the National Jericho Movement
Viviane Saleh-Hanna - Activist Scholar and Assistant Professor of Crime and Justice Studies at the UMass Dartmouth
Jason Lydon - Minister of the Community Church of Boston as well as anti-racist, abolitionist, queer liberation organizer
Mauri Saalakhan – Director of Operations for The Peace And Justice Foundation; a Muslim-led, grassroots human rights organization.
Thursday April 21, 9pm-11pm
Newsletter Stuffing at JP Licks in Jamaica Plain
Come eat some ice cream or sorbet, stuff newletters and giggle with us on a Thursday night! It’s a great chance to hang out with people who also think that prison sucks while helping to send a newsletter to over 600 queer and trans prisoners.
thanks folks!
-black and pink volunteer crew
Posted under revolt
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The media isn’t getting her story right either. CeCe maintains her innocence for having to defend herself from the racist and transphobic attack on her. Youth, people of color, low income people, trans people, and feminine presenting people are at a systemic disadvantage in the criminal (in)justice system.” Visit her support website for more info on how you can get involved. We’ll be sending her a newsletter, and stuffing in friendly notes!
