Standing with the Pelican Bay Hunger Strikers

Over 6000 prisoners in the Secure Housing Unit at Pelican Bay Prison are striking to protest inhumane living conditions, as described in this article:

http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/07/thousands_of_ca_inmates_show_solidarity_with_hunger_strike.html

Here are some troubling statistics:

-The prison population has grown 400% over the past twenty years. (Critical Resistance)

-Between 1990 and 2006, prisoners in California grew by 73% (PPIC)

-People of color comprise 69% of the prison population (Critical Resistance)

-In June 2009, the number of new inmates in Indian country was 11, 357--nearly 5 times the national average. (BJS)

Keep updated on the ongoing Pelican Bay hunger strikes here at this blog.

Other resources...

Local Organizations:

All of Us Or None

Critical Resistance

California Coalition for Women Prisoners

Further Reading :

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In the Age of Colorblindness

Michelle Alexander

Prison/Culture: An Illustrated Introduction

Mark Dean Johnson

Critical Resistance to the Prison-Industrial Complex: A Special Issue of the Journal Social Justice

Primetime Prisons on U.S. T.V: Representation of Incarceration

Bill Yousman

(Available now at the ROMC Library)

Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis and Opposition in Globalizing California

Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Are Prisons Obsolete?

Angela Y. Davis

Assata: An Autobiography

Assata Shakur

(These books not yet available at the ROMC)

Happy Pride Week!

Now that you're all (hopefully) recuperated from celebrating Pride last week, time for some queer-friendly summer reading... Check out these amazing new titles that we just got in at the ROMC Library:

Until recently, immigration scholars have left out the experiences of gays and lesbians. In fact, the topic of sexuality has only recently been addressed in the literature on immigration. The Sexuality of Migration makes significant connections among sexuality, state institutions, and global economic relations. Cantú situates his analysis within the history of Mexican immigration and offers a broad understanding of diverse migratory experiences ranging from recent gay asylum seekers to an assessment of gay tourism in Mexico.

In this pathbreaking work, Jasbir K. Puar argues that configurations of sexuality, race, gender, nation, class, and ethnicity are realigning in relation to contemporary forces of securitization, counterterrorism, and nationalism. She examines how liberal politics incorporate certain queer subjects into the fold of the nation-state, through developments including the legal recognition inherent in the overturning of anti-sodomy laws and the proliferation of more mainstream representation.

The essays in Queer Globalizations: Citizenship and the Afterlife of Colonialism bring together scholars of postcolonial and lesbian and gay studies in order to examine from multiple perspectives the narratives that have sought to define globalization. Contributors include Joseba Gabilondo, Gayatri Gopinath, Janet Ann Jakobsen, Miranda Joseph, Katie King, William Leap, Lawrence LaFountain-Stokes, Bill Maurer, Cindy Patton, Chela Sandoval, Ann Pellegrini, Silviano Santiago, and Roberto Strongman.