Ben Jules

D'Ici et d'Ailleurs

95 notes

thesmithian: …legal scholar Michelle Alexander writes that many of the gains of the civil rights movement have been undermined by the mass incarceration of black Americans in the war on drugs. She says that although Jim Crow laws are now off the books, millions of blacks arrested for minor crimes remain marginalized and disfranchised, trapped by a criminal justice system that has forever branded them as felons and denied them basic rights and opportunities that would allow them to become productive, law-abiding citizens… more.

thesmithian:

…legal scholar Michelle Alexander writes that many of the gains of the civil rights movement have been undermined by the mass incarceration of black Americans in the war on drugs. She says that although Jim Crow laws are now off the books, millions of blacks arrested for minor crimes remain marginalized and disfranchised, trapped by a criminal justice system that has forever branded them as felons and denied them basic rights and opportunities that would allow them to become productive, law-abiding citizens…

more.

(Source: thesmithian)

72 notes

fyeahafrica: How a secret manuscript became a global bestseller Nelson Mandela’s biography The Long Walk to Freedom became an international bestseller and is being made into a film. But the famous book may never have seen the light of day if it wasn’t for the bravery and persistence of another Robben Island inmate. “We were housed in individual cells, each cell had a window looking out into the corridor. Warders patrolled day and night, lights were on 24 hours a day.” Mac Maharaj was one of four long-term prisoners on Robben Island secretly collaborating on the first draft of the autobiography of Nelson Mandela - along with other Africa National Congress activists Ahmed Kathrada and Walter Sisulu. “Mandela had to write every night. He wrote on average 10-15 pages with very little reference material - he wrote by discussion and recollection,” says the 76-year-old. “The next morning it would circulate to Kathrada and Sisulu for their comments, which would come back to me to transcribe. And the next night he would write another 10-15 pages.” Both men would sometimes feign illness so they could stay in the grounds and spend their time working alone in the prison quadrangle. Writing was strictly a night time affair, but this was their opportunity to discuss the copy and the edits. Their determination to write overcame the fear of being caught. “We were living in a society where the history of our struggle was not covered anywhere - not even in academia. Everything in history was the history about the white man. “So that in itself was an exciting exercise to put down on paper the life of one man who was so central [to the struggle], and whose autobiography was really a political autobiography. One had a sense that Mandela had already become a national and international figure and that it would be an inspiration to read our history.” [read more]

fyeahafrica:

How a secret manuscript became a global bestseller

Nelson Mandela’s biography The Long Walk to Freedom became an international bestseller and is being made into a film. But the famous book may never have seen the light of day if it wasn’t for the bravery and persistence of another Robben Island inmate.

“We were housed in individual cells, each cell had a window looking out into the corridor. Warders patrolled day and night, lights were on 24 hours a day.”

Mac Maharaj was one of four long-term prisoners on Robben Island secretly collaborating on the first draft of the autobiography of Nelson Mandela - along with other Africa National Congress activists Ahmed Kathrada and Walter Sisulu.

“Mandela had to write every night. He wrote on average 10-15 pages with very little reference material - he wrote by discussion and recollection,” says the 76-year-old.

“The next morning it would circulate to Kathrada and Sisulu for their comments, which would come back to me to transcribe. And the next night he would write another 10-15 pages.”

Both men would sometimes feign illness so they could stay in the grounds and spend their time working alone in the prison quadrangle. Writing was strictly a night time affair, but this was their opportunity to discuss the copy and the edits.

Their determination to write overcame the fear of being caught.

“We were living in a society where the history of our struggle was not covered anywhere - not even in academia. Everything in history was the history about the white man.

“So that in itself was an exciting exercise to put down on paper the life of one man who was so central [to the struggle], and whose autobiography was really a political autobiography. One had a sense that Mandela had already become a national and international figure and that it would be an inspiration to read our history.”

[read more]

(Source: )

63 notes

kilele:

Rencontres de Bamako 2011 - Vivez les pieds dans l’eau (2009) by© Elise Fitte-Duval

“In Dakar, five minutes of rain suffice to flood the suburbs of Pikine, Rufisque and Guédiawaye, which sprouted anarchically on former swamp land. In 2010, the rainfall reached the highest levels in thirty years. The goal of my photo-story is to show the everyday lives of people who survive in stagnant water for six months of the year. It is a reminder of the need for urban planning in the face of climate change.”

Elise Fitte-Duval is from Martinique, seen via LaLettre

(via )

47 notes

One doesn’t always have to be able to express coherently why or how one is getting screwed to know one is getting screwed. People get that the social order has broken down to the point that accountability is only for the little people anymore. Tea Partiers understand this, though they blame entirely the wrong people, and their Objectivist authoritarian mindset means that they are incapable of being any kind of assistance in solving the problems that got us here. But they do have a legitimate sense that society is out of kilter, and that accountability for elites is a thing of the past. Protesters in the Occupy movement also understand that justice is not being done, even if each person has their own sense of exactly what those injustices look like…

People are only going to get more and more angry until they start to see some justice. Remarkably, though, our elites don’t even seem to get the idea that there were even misdeeds that require any accountability. That’s a recipe for increased acrimony and conflict. If bipartisan fetishists and various pearl clutchers want more public unity and less fractious political discourse, they should start looking into how to satisfy the public’s yearning to see justice done to those who continue to profit at their expense.
David Atkins, “Justice.” (via ryking)

0 notes

Fallout: After a Nuclear Attack - Photo Gallery - LIFE

WARNING: Some images in this gallery are graphic in nature and might be disturbing to some viewers. | In light of recent rumors and heightened fears around nuclear weapons — from rumblings of rogue nations seeking arsenals to the specter of terrorists acquiring “dirty bombs” — LIFE.com recalls the horrors visited upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on those cities during WWII. Pictured: A mother and child sit amid rubble and burned, skeletal trees in Hiroshima four months after the city was leveled by the first-ever atomic bomb used in wartime — a bombing that hastened the end of World War II and sparked debates about the justification of nuclear arsenals that rage to this day. Approximately 80,000 people were killed outright in Hiroshima; 60,000 more died of injury and radiation by the end of the year.

212 notes

life: A French nuclear test at Mururoa, French Polynesia — In the years since the test, and other tests like it, researchers have established a link between France’s nuclear explosions over the Pacific ocean in the late 1960s and 1970s and the high incidence of thyroid cancer in Polynesia. France carried out some 40 atmospheric atomic tests in Polynesia from 1966 to 1974. A looks at the terrifying — and often eerily, unsettlingly beautiful — testing of atomic and nuclear bombs: Terrible Beauty: A-Bomb Tests

life:

A French nuclear test at Mururoa, French Polynesia — In the years since the test, and other tests like it, researchers have established a link between France’s nuclear explosions over the Pacific ocean in the late 1960s and 1970s and the high incidence of thyroid cancer in Polynesia. France carried out some 40 atmospheric atomic tests in Polynesia from 1966 to 1974.

A looks at the terrifying — and often eerily, unsettlingly beautiful — testing of atomic and nuclear bombs: Terrible Beauty: A-Bomb Tests