The New Jim Crow   most significant word / sentence / paragraph and then justify it in the margins

We're getting down to our final three days together, time to get to work!  Here is the introductory guide to your action.  Once you have that complete, you'll move onto the specifics for your non-violent direct action.  Part of your project requires some background research, here are some relevant non-violent direct action resource links.

Economic meltdown tribunal final writing:

Your job is to step out of your assigned role and consider criteria for judgment (influence, power, gain, etc.) about each group’s historical responsibility in causing the financial meltdown.

Write a paragraph on each role, explaining the percentage of responsibility (a total of 100%) with supporting reasoning and evidence from the role-play, film, your own research, and class readings and the criteria for judgement for their responsibility.

Economic Meltdown Trial packet can be found here

NAFTA/TPP comparison  here

NAFTA debrief questions  (select three and answer for class on Friday, April 29)

• How is NAFTA likely to affect the poor in Mexico?
• How is NAFTA likely to affect the environment?
• Which groups are likely to benefit from NAFTA?
• Will NAFTA tend to create jobs in the U.S. or eliminate them?
• How is NAFTA likely to affect the number of Mexicans immigrating to the U.S.
• How would you respond if someone asked you whether Mexico (or the U.S.) benefited from NAFTA?  Why?
• How do you think NAFTA has affected or might affect you personally?
• On the day that NAFTA took effect, Jan. 1 1994, the Zapatistas, an armed group made up of largely poor and indigenous farmers in the Mexican state of Chiapas, launched a rebellion against the Mexican government.  Why might they have chosen that date to begin their uprising?
• Make a list of what you think might increase or grow due to NAFTA?

5th period FIVE POINT PLAN

1. Decriminalize drugs
2. Good quality rehabilitation services for all inmates involved with drug crimes, including good quality mental health care, savings plans and training programs for reintegration into society
3. No mandatory minimums, life without parole, death penalty, or three-strikes laws - it must be on a case by case basis
4. No more private prisons, or private prison lobbying
5. Programs to educate police officers and law officials on civil rights and U.S. history; to make sure the justice system does not make arrests due to geography or racial profiling; ultimately lowering the rate of incarceration that stems from social inequality (i.e. lack of jobs, unemployment, health care, housing, etc)

6th period FIVE-ish POINT PLAN

1. decriminalize drugs; and after prison provide adequate rehabilitation and care programs must be   in place to help everyone out of the criminal cycle by relocating funds from the war on drugs

2. We believe that in order to correct the justice system, we must eliminate all forms of capital that 

is a result of the incarceration system; abolish private prisons and nationalize the justice system   to eliminate profit motives

(the function of prison should be rehabilitative)

(abolish mandatory minimum sentencing and the sentencing disparity between powder and crack cocaine)

(prisoners should not be taken advantage of by companies or individuals) 

(prisoners should be educated and given fair wages while in prison) 

(fair wages in prisons with a means to transition out of prison with financial resources) 

(change the legislation surrounding the war on drugs)

TALKBACK PAPER DUE MONDAY, APRIL 25

A talkback paper allows you the space to reflect on a topic by starting with an issue that you find most pressing, and then fully exploring that issue:  its origins, its relationship to other issues, the possibilities for change, etc.  Possible questions to get you thinking and writing might include:

• What is the problem with prisons in the United States?
• How does your 5 point plan change the way we see prisoners and the prison industrial complex in the United States?
• What connections do you see between this unit and any other we’ve studied this year?

• What is the root cause of the prison-industrial complex?