“Kick the Kickbacks” film showing, March 18th @ the IMC

The Illinois Campaign for Prison Phone Justice proudly announces the premiere showing of our video, “Kick the Kickbacks” on March 18 at 7:30 p.m. at the Independent Media Center.  This 18 minute, locally made production features interviews with C-U residents Mary Haywood-Benson, Terri White and Nancy Willamon, all of whom share their experiences of paying outrageous phone charges in order to communicate with their loved ones in our jails and prisons. These women will join Chicagoans Miguel Saucedo and Greg Gaither after the video for a panel discussion about prison phone services.

The title of the video refers to the site commissions (the “kickbacks”) that the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) charges on each and every phone call. Users pay $4 for a phone call, and 76% of that (about $3) goes right back into the coffers of IDOC. In 2012, these kickbacks came to nearly $12 million.  The Illinois Campaign believes that these kickbacks should be eliminated.

For several years, a nationwide mobilization has been pressuring  the Federal Communications Commission FCC) to put a cap on phone charges for calls from prisons and jails. Our Illinois campaign filed a lengthy report with the FCC in January on this issue. At the video showing we will provide further updates on the national and statewide actions on prison phone justice.

The video showing is free and all are welcome. Light refreshments will be served. The attached flyer has more details. Please circulate.

Date: Wednesday, March 18

Time: 7:30 p.m.

Place: Independent Media Center, 202 S. Broadway, Urbana

March!

For March’s meeting we are reading various articles and a poem from classical anarchist thinkers and activists which I have listed below.

Join us on Sunday, March 15th from 4-6pm at the IMC (downstairs in the Family Room)

Happy Re@ding!

Equal Opportunity in Education by Michail Bakunin

Anarchist Communism: It’s Basis and Principles by Peter Kropotkin

Anarchy and Violence by Errico Malatesta

Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty by Emma Goldman

To Tramps by Lucy Parsons

Manifesto of the Mexican Liberal Party by Ricardo Flores Magon

Nationalism and the Road to Happiness for the Chinese by Ba-Jin

The Gods and the People by Voltairine de Cleyre

 

February’s Discussion: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

Join us for our next discussion! We’ll be finishing up Roxanne-Dunbar Ortiz’s work, “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States”. 

Sunday, February 15th 4-6pm at the IMC in Urbana.

Reclaiming MLK’s Radical Roots

This is happening at the IMC on January 25th!

CUCPJ and UCIMC will host “Reclaiming MLK’s Radical Roots” as part of a national effort to bring the #BlackLivesMatter movement into the New Year.

We’ll have invited readers, music, and refreshments, and an open mic. Bring your favorite King speeches and reflections on them, or we’ll supply copies of his more radical writings.

Too often in mainstream media we see a whitewashed Martin Luther King. But if King had been only a dreamer, they wouldn’t have shot him. His words and actions of nearly fifty years ago were controversial at the time and remain profoundly radical today.

We want to revisit his example to bring forth a 21st Century grassroots movement. We continued to be haunted by what King called the triplets of “racism,” “materialism,” and “militarism.” Now more than ever we need a “radical revolution” against the New Jim Crow―mass incarceration, police brutality, and a criminal injustice system keeping African American youth in shackles. What can we understand of today’s situations in the light of Martin Luther King’s vision, and where does it lead us?

January 25, 2-4 p.m. at the Independent Media Center (202 S. Broadway, old Urbana post office). In the main floor Sun Room.

Sponsored by Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice and the U-C Independent Media Center.

Facebook event page can be found here.

January Meeting

Next CU Radical Reading Group meeting:

When: Sunday, January 18, 4-6pm

Where: Independent Media Center, Family Room, 202 South Broadway Ave., Urbana

We will be discussing the first six chapters of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by revolutionary/historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (we will discuss the remaining chapters in our February meeting).

For those who are unable to obtain a copy of the book, Kristina has an extra copy for folks to borrow.  Email her at curadicalreading@gmail.com.

We hope to see you there.

 

Die-In at UIUC Monday December 8th.

Hey folks, this is tomorrow. Please show up if you are able.

 

“In light of the recent decisions concerning Black lives in America, join us for a peaceful Die-in this Monday at the Alma Mater in protest against the injustice. We will be walking out at 11 am to meet at Anniversary Plaza where further instructions will be provided. The protest will begin at 11:30 at the Alma Mater. Wear all black!” #beingblackatillinois #BlackLivesMatter #handsupdontshoot #icantbreathe #UIUC

UIUC Die-In Facebook Event Page

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

For January and February we’ll be reading Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s book, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. There’s plenty of time to get a copy and start reading!  Exact dates and times will be posted ASAP. We’ll be meeting at the Independent Media Center in Urbana, IL.

“Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire.

In An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: “The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them.”

Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples’ history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative.” (From the publisher.)

 

 

Building Our Radical Community

If you are interested in exploring radical ideas, practices, music, and books or are just looking for radical community, consider meeting up with us! For more information please browse previous posts and get in touch with us. Hopefully we’ll be posting about a meetup date soon.

There is strength in numbers!

Speaking of Starhawk…

Our Starhawk reading was really inspiring for me. It was good timing too because of Spring slowly creeping into Central Illinois. I wanted to post a talk I found quite useful that Starhawk gave at Harvard Divinity School and follow it up with a link to Common Ground’s class page where you will find listed an Urban Permaculture class being taught by Carey Smith!

 

 

April Meeting Change!

Just so folks are aware, we will not be meeting at the regularly scheduled day/time next month. I think we’ve got something in the works so check back soon! If you’re interested in being added to our email list please contact us at curadicalreading@gmail.com or find us on facebook at www.facebook.com/groups/CURadicalReading

Picnic anyone?

peace / kristina