"Heavy" Sunday Evening Reads
A Not-So-Subtle Look At How We Fight For Justice.
One of my favorite documentaries is Harlan County USA, directed by Barbara Kopple — it was the winner of the “Best Documentary” feature film Academy Award in 1977. Kopple let her camera and the area’s bluegrass music tell the powerful story of Kentucky coal miners and their wives rising up to fight for their livelihood and their lives.
See the end of this post for a bit about how Crime and Punishment plans to mark its one year anniversary, coming on or about September 15!
The “Heavy” part of today’s title is in contrast to a previous weekend reading selection I posted a month or so ago. The articles I’m sharing today may be a heftier lift than in my previous post, but the times, I think, call for it.
The bravery and personal sacrifice of ordinary people amaze me: Whether they fight for their basic needs, like safer working conditions and a living wage, or risk their their own lives to save others as so many did 21 years ago today.
From the coal workers’ strike in Harlan County, Kentucky in the 1970’s to today’s coal miners’ strike in Alabama (500 days and counting) and Amazon and Starbucks employees working for union representation — these are the current “good fights” with the same themes as our previous ones: workers finally fed up with their lot at the hands of company executives and refusing to work another minute under their current conditions. And these are the struggles that going forward, just might make our system more fair. I’ve gathered a few additional readings to illuminate the continuing fight for social, economic and environmental justice, and I’ll let you decide if we’re moving in the right direction.
First up on this reflective Sunday is an article from CNN that discusses what might be the most important contract negotiation in decades, between the Teamsters Union and UPS.
While there are competing services at FedEx (FDX), the US Postal Service and Amazon's own delivery service, none of them have the capacity to handle more than a small fraction of the 21.5 million US packages that UPS moves daily… The union has not gone on strike against UPS since a nearly two-week protest in 1997. If the union does go on strike, it would be the largest strike against a single business in [the] nation's history.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/05/business/ups-teamster-union-strike/index.html
This deeply researched piece by ProPublica, published this month, details the nightmarish and deadly pollution in Birmingham, Alabama, that has plagued historically Black neighborhoods in the northern part of the city for over a century. Too many industries located in one place, primarily plants that produce coke used by steel mills, have turned the north end of Birmingham into one of the most polluted areas of the country: “The air in north Birmingham residents’ lungs and the soil beneath their feet became more contaminated than in nearly any other corner of America.”
By the spring of 2020, the century-old industrial plant on Birmingham’s 35th Avenue was literally falling apart. Chunks of the metal doors fronting several of the 1,800-degree ovens — which heat coal to produce a fuel called coke — had broken off and tumbled to the ground. With the doors damaged, the toxic chemicals they were supposed to contain within the ovens leaked out at an accelerated rate. The fumes should still have been captured by a giant ventilation hood that had been put in place to suck up emissions. But that system was broken, too, causing plumes of noxious smoke to drift across the city’s historically Black north side, as they had done so many times before.
On a final, and more uplifting note, The Guardian recently published an article discussing a partnership in Rapid City, South Dakota, between the Lakota Tribe elders and county prosecutors. This agreement started to shift certain cases from the traditional courts to a court comprised of Lakota elders called the “Oyate court, or people’s court, which employs a process based on Native culture and aboriginal peacemaking principles that stress healing over punishment.”
It turns out this relatively new collaboration is working so well it has served as a model for other prosecutors across the country. We’ve got to try something different, and favoring “healing over punishment” and getting “to the root of the problem” might help our justice system reach more equitable, inclusive solutions.
“When people get in trouble, just locking them up won’t help,” said Chris White Eagle, a Cheyenne River citizen who sits on the circle of elders. “With Oyate court we look deeper into trying to heal them. We get to ask the questions the courts don’t ask. Get to the root of the problem.”
Speaking of reflection, to mark the one year anniversary of Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor in America, I plan to take a look back at why I started this newsletter, why I’ve chosen the topics I’ve written about, and where I hope to take this newsletter in the next year or so. I’ve just used a lot of “I’s” in the last sentence, but rest assured I write this newsletter for you—I want to help us learn together by curating historical and current information on what specific laws, policies and cultural attitudes help rig our social and economic system to favor the wealthy over the poor, and to discuss ways that together, we can make our country more fair and just. I’d love your feedback, so get ready to give me constructive criticism, share what topics you’d like me to tackle next…and/or add some praise if you’d like! I’m also working to rustle up a few gifts for a giveaway to those who might choose to support this endeavor with a paying subscription.
In the meantime, let me know what you make of the articles I’ve shared tonight. Have you seen the documentary, Harlan County USA? Let’s discuss in the Comment Section below.
And as always, you can sign up right now for a free or paid subscription. Thanks in advance for your support!
I'm poor because I was "treated" to a long illness that ended with a transplant surgery. Over 11 long years. My trajectory was never to "rich" or anything close to that. I knew I was from the middle class - and that was fine with me. But when you're struck down by dire health issues, you are pretty much DONE. I don't fit in anywhere now. I read newsletters by smart people so I can feel "in conversation" with them. I'm a survivor and sometimes I don't even know why. But I'm still here, and alive and well-educated. And actually very healthy. I read books, too - something most people don't do anymore - I miss those book discussions and working in academic settings.