newyorker--2020-01-17--A Tribute to My Teacher Gilberto Perez and His Eloquent Philosophy of Cinema

Gilberto Perez , who died in 2015 , at the age of seventy-one , was one of the great scholars and theorists of the cinema .
His peers agreed : they cited his book “ The Material Ghost , ” from 1998 , as the most influential work of cinema studies of that decade—tied with Jean-Luc Godard ’ s film “ Histoire ( s ) du Cinéma.
” He was also my teacher , and , later , my friend .
I studied under him at Princeton in the late nineteen-seventies , where he was the one and only professor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in 1980 , we met by chance at a MOMA screening a few years later , and remained in touch for the rest of his life .
Perez was as devoted and generous a friend as he was an inspiring teacher and an original thinker .
One of the last times that we saw each other , a year or so before his sudden passing , he told me that he was working on another book .
He said it was about “ the rhetoric of film ” and didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s here : “ The Eloquent Screen : A Rhetoric of Film ” was published , posthumously , by the University of Minnesota Press , in 2019 .
This month , I took part in a tribute to Perez at the Museum of the Moving Image ( organized by another of his former students , Malia Haines-Stewart ) , where we screened John Ford ’ s 1950 Western “ Wagon Master , ” a film that I ’ d first seen in his class on “ The Political Cinema : Ford @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filmmakers whose work he discusses extensively in the book .
The screening was followed by a discussion in which the critic James Harvey , the programmer Edo Choi , and I celebrated the book , which I consider to be a landmark in the history of cinema studies , or what I ’ d call the philosophy of cinema .
In “ The Eloquent Screen , ” Perez develops a grand theory of the cinema but doesn ’ t trumpet this theory in bold rhetorical declarations .
Rather , his theory steals in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ course of his meticulous discussions of specific moments and themes from a wide range of films .
The book is the act , or the performance , of a teacher : although written with graceful precision and sly wit , the book retains a tone of orality that , to me , is distinctly reminiscent of Perez ’ s voice—in particular , his classroom voice .
It evokes his presence with a deeply moving immediacy ; it also , like a screenplay , is a book that embodies the trace of performance .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ kind of performing , an expression that ’ s simultaneously personal and formal .
The modesty with which Perez develops his powerful ideas has that duality built into it ; the book ’ s arguments appear both sincere and ironic , and that combination of traits itself comes off not as a contradiction but as the very essence of the theory itself .
His idea is , in effect , a theory of multiplicity , and it arrives through the book ’ s carefully dialectical motion .
“ The Eloquent Screen ” is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and its composition masks the book ’ s vast scope and import .
The substantial introductory section is devoted solely to Ford—beginning with “ Judge Priest , ” continuing with “ Young Mr. Lincoln , ” ending with “ Wagon Master ” —and it ’ s something of a surprise in its modesty .
Perez ’ s analysis of the films is largely focussed not on classical tropes of rhetoric featured in Ford ’ s directorial method but on the deployment of rhetorical figures , within the context of the film , by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the films are discerning—one of the signal virtues of “ The Eloquent Screen ” is the acuity of Perez ’ s insights regarding the psychology of the action , the relationships of characters , the social and historical perspective embodied by a movie—but their theoretical underpinning , at the outset , is gradual and is centered on the very role and status of rhetoric in the history of critical thought .
Perez advances with the notion that rhetoric functions as something like the reality principle , the interface of speech and of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consideration of Ford ’ s cinematic rhetoric , which he interweaves with the political history of when the films were made , sustains his view of Ford as the most important American political filmmaker .
The second section , “ Cinematic Tropes , ” extensively considers the use of rhetorical analysis in literary theory .
There , offering a history and a study of classical tropes ( principally metaphor , metonymy , synecdoche , and irony ) , Perez considers their ubiquity in the composition of dozens of classic and modern movies , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” “ Shoah , ” Sembène ’ s “ Ceddo , ” Renoir ’ s “ Toni , ” Eisenstein ’ s “ Battleship Potemkin , ” Errol Morris ’ s “ Mr .
Death , ” Godard ’ s “ Band of Outsiders , ” and Kiarostami ’ s “ Close-Up.
” Again , Perez presents his ideas through careful considerations of the films ’ crucial moments and themes , the filmmakers ’ careers and real-world identities and contexts , and the rhetorical figures that he discerns in their work .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ work of other critics and theorists , which he assesses insightfully on the way to formulating his own illuminating views . )
That chapter tellingly concludes on a brief but bold discussion of two of the grandest of all ideas , truth and beauty , which he calls both “ goals ” and “ means of persuasion.
” On the heels of that divided unity , the third section , “ Melodrama and Film Technique , ” comes in , and it ’ s the philosophical lightning and thunder unleashed by the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The chapter ’ s very theme is unity in division , an artistic dialectic in action , and it gives rise to his powerful overarching concept .
First , Perez redeems the very notion of melodrama from its pejorative uses ; then he adduces its mode of “ exaggeration ” to the historical underpinnings and enduring core of the cinema .
In the process , he both relates the cinema to its roots in theatre and detaches the cinema from it .
In thrillingly exacting discussions of a wide range of movies—including Griffith @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Murnau ’ s “ Nosferatu , ” Stroheim ’ s “ Greed , ” Vidor ’ s “ Stella Dallas , ” Hitchcock ’ s “ Shadow of a Doubt , ” Mizoguchi ’ s “ The Life of Oharu , ” Malick ’ s “ To the Wonder , ” Wong Kar-wai ’ s “ In the Mood for Love , ” the Hughes brothers ’ “ Menace II Society , ” Mike Figgis ’ s “ Timecode , ” and Pedro Almodóvar ’ s “ Volver ” ( among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the exaggerations and artifices of melodrama are more than consistent with the evocation of emotional and social reality .
In fact , they ’ re central to it .
So , for that matter , is the full range of filmmaking and movie viewing , in particular , performance , to which Perez pays exacting attention—without losing sight of the centrality of direction to a viewer ’ s experience of acting .
Where the introduction and second section borrow concepts of rhetoric from the classical literary tradition ( as revised by modern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in effect , discovers new rhetorical tropes that arise strictly from within , and by way of , the cinema itself .
The crucial idea is that of “ identification , ” the subject of the book ’ s brief coda , with reference to Buster Keaton ’ s “ Sherlock Jr. ” For Perez , there ’ s no contradiction between a viewer ’ s awareness of watching a movie and being emotionally engaged with the movie ’ s characters , between noting brazen directorial interventions and getting carried away with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the movie at the same time .
Not only is it no contradiction—it ’ s a constitutive dialectic of the cinema .
That ’ s why , if I had to sum up “ The Eloquent Screen ” in three words , they would be the three-word motto that a teacher writes on a blackboard in “ Band of Outsiders ” : “ classic = modern.
” In “ The Eloquent Screen , ” Perez brings together films reflecting a wide range of industries , traditions , national cinemas , time periods , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to unite them , to find their coherences and similarities by means of probing analyses of their distinctively cinematic rhetoric .
In the process , he virtually defines ( indirectly and only by suggestion ) a term that has long dominated the discussion of movies : “ mise en scène , ” or staging , which refers to the relationship between text and image , drama and cinematic composition .
The book sets up the notion of a new classical tradition , a specifically cinematic tradition , one that ’ s based on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s new art form to borrow from existing forms to create its own new realm of experiences .
The films that he gathers and studies exemplify this tradition , which Perez considers in its unity .
But the book ends with an open door : it looks ahead to the question of what makes these and other films good—of artists ’ own response to that tradition , their modifications or even repudiations of it , and the very concept of artistic merit in relation to , and apart from , the cinema ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ evokes is a third book in a trilogy , one that would have been a work of cinematic aesthetics .
That the author isn ’ t here to write it is as much of a historical tragedy as his absence is a personal one .

In “The Eloquent Screen,” Gilberto Perez, who died in 2015, at the age of seventy-one, develops a grand theory of the cinema. Photograph by Quyen Dac Nguyen / Sarah Lawrence College
Gilberto Perez, who died in 2015, at the age of seventy-one, was one of the great scholars and theorists of the cinema. His peers agreed: they cited his book “The Material Ghost,” from 1998, as the most influential work of cinema studies of that decade—tied with Jean-Luc Godard’s film “Histoire(s) du Cinéma.” He was also my teacher, and, later, my friend. I studied under him at Princeton in the late nineteen-seventies, where he was the one and only professor of cinema studies. After I graduated, in 1980, we met by chance at a MOMA screening a few years later, and remained in touch for the rest of his life. Perez was as devoted and generous a friend as he was an inspiring teacher and an original thinker.
One of the last times that we saw each other, a year or so before his sudden passing, he told me that he was working on another book. He said it was about “the rhetoric of film” and didn’t say anything more about it. Now it’s here: “The Eloquent Screen: A Rhetoric of Film” was published, posthumously, by the University of Minnesota Press, in 2019. This month, I took part in a tribute to Perez at the Museum of the Moving Image (organized by another of his former students, Malia Haines-Stewart), where we screened John Ford’s 1950 Western “Wagon Master,” a film that I’d first seen in his class on “The Political Cinema: Ford, Eisenstein, Mizoguchi,” three filmmakers whose work he discusses extensively in the book. The screening was followed by a discussion in which the critic James Harvey, the programmer Edo Choi, and I celebrated the book, which I consider to be a landmark in the history of cinema studies, or what I’d call the philosophy of cinema.
In “The Eloquent Screen,” Perez develops a grand theory of the cinema but doesn’t trumpet this theory in bold rhetorical declarations. Rather, his theory steals in on cats’ feet, in the course of his meticulous discussions of specific moments and themes from a wide range of films. The book is the act, or the performance, of a teacher: although written with graceful precision and sly wit, the book retains a tone of orality that, to me, is distinctly reminiscent of Perez’s voice—in particular, his classroom voice. It evokes his presence with a deeply moving immediacy; it also, like a screenplay, is a book that embodies the trace of performance. Teaching is, of course, a kind of performing, an expression that’s simultaneously personal and formal. The modesty with which Perez develops his powerful ideas has that duality built into it; the book’s arguments appear both sincere and ironic, and that combination of traits itself comes off not as a contradiction but as the very essence of the theory itself. His idea is, in effect, a theory of multiplicity, and it arrives through the book’s carefully dialectical motion.
“The Eloquent Screen” is in three parts plus a coda, and its composition masks the book’s vast scope and import. The substantial introductory section is devoted solely to Ford—beginning with “Judge Priest,” continuing with “Young Mr. Lincoln,” ending with “Wagon Master”—and it’s something of a surprise in its modesty. Perez’s analysis of the films is largely focussed not on classical tropes of rhetoric featured in Ford’s directorial method but on the deployment of rhetorical figures, within the context of the film, by Ford’s characters. The analyses of the films are discerning—one of the signal virtues of “The Eloquent Screen” is the acuity of Perez’s insights regarding the psychology of the action, the relationships of characters, the social and historical perspective embodied by a movie—but their theoretical underpinning, at the outset, is gradual and is centered on the very role and status of rhetoric in the history of critical thought. Perez advances with the notion that rhetoric functions as something like the reality principle, the interface of speech and of art with real-world experience, and his consideration of Ford’s cinematic rhetoric, which he interweaves with the political history of when the films were made, sustains his view of Ford as the most important American political filmmaker.
The second section, “Cinematic Tropes,” extensively considers the use of rhetorical analysis in literary theory. There, offering a history and a study of classical tropes (principally metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony), Perez considers their ubiquity in the composition of dozens of classic and modern movies, such as “It Happened One Night,” “Shoah,” Sembène’s “Ceddo,” Renoir’s “Toni,” Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin,” Errol Morris’s “Mr. Death,” Godard’s “Band of Outsiders,” and Kiarostami’s “Close-Up.” Again, Perez presents his ideas through careful considerations of the films’ crucial moments and themes, the filmmakers’ careers and real-world identities and contexts, and the rhetorical figures that he discerns in their work. (Perez pays sympathetic attention to the work of other critics and theorists, which he assesses insightfully on the way to formulating his own illuminating views.) That chapter tellingly concludes on a brief but bold discussion of two of the grandest of all ideas, truth and beauty, which he calls both “goals” and “means of persuasion.”
On the heels of that divided unity, the third section, “Melodrama and Film Technique,” comes in, and it’s the philosophical lightning and thunder unleashed by the first two parts’ gradually brewing storm. The chapter’s very theme is unity in division, an artistic dialectic in action, and it gives rise to his powerful overarching concept. First, Perez redeems the very notion of melodrama from its pejorative uses; then he adduces its mode of “exaggeration” to the historical underpinnings and enduring core of the cinema. In the process, he both relates the cinema to its roots in theatre and detaches the cinema from it. In thrillingly exacting discussions of a wide range of movies—including Griffith’s “A Corner in Wheat,” Murnau’s “Nosferatu,” Stroheim’s “Greed,” Vidor’s “Stella Dallas,” Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt,” Mizoguchi’s “The Life of Oharu,” Malick’s “To the Wonder,” Wong Kar-wai’s “In the Mood for Love,” the Hughes brothers’ “Menace II Society,” Mike Figgis’s “Timecode,” and Pedro Almodóvar’s “Volver” (among many, many others)—Perez shows that the exaggerations and artifices of melodrama are more than consistent with the evocation of emotional and social reality. In fact, they’re central to it. So, for that matter, is the full range of filmmaking and movie viewing, in particular, performance, to which Perez pays exacting attention—without losing sight of the centrality of direction to a viewer’s experience of acting.
Where the introduction and second section borrow concepts of rhetoric from the classical literary tradition (as revised by modern theorists), the third section, in effect, discovers new rhetorical tropes that arise strictly from within, and by way of, the cinema itself. The crucial idea is that of “identification,” the subject of the book’s brief coda, with reference to Buster Keaton’s “Sherlock Jr.” For Perez, there’s no contradiction between a viewer’s awareness of watching a movie and being emotionally engaged with the movie’s characters, between noting brazen directorial interventions and getting carried away with the drama, between being inside and outside the movie at the same time. Not only is it no contradiction—it’s a constitutive dialectic of the cinema. That’s why, if I had to sum up “The Eloquent Screen” in three words, they would be the three-word motto that a teacher writes on a blackboard in “Band of Outsiders”: “classic = modern.”
In “The Eloquent Screen,” Perez brings together films reflecting a wide range of industries, traditions, national cinemas, time periods, techniques, and experiences, in order to unite them, to find their coherences and similarities by means of probing analyses of their distinctively cinematic rhetoric. In the process, he virtually defines (indirectly and only by suggestion) a term that has long dominated the discussion of movies: “mise en scène,” or staging, which refers to the relationship between text and image, drama and cinematic composition. The book sets up the notion of a new classical tradition, a specifically cinematic tradition, one that’s based on the power of the twentieth century’s new art form to borrow from existing forms to create its own new realm of experiences. The films that he gathers and studies exemplify this tradition, which Perez considers in its unity. But the book ends with an open door: it looks ahead to the question of what makes these and other films good—of artists’ own response to that tradition, their modifications or even repudiations of it, and the very concept of artistic merit in relation to, and apart from, the cinema’s classical style. What its ending evokes is a third book in a trilogy, one that would have been a work of cinematic aesthetics. That the author isn’t here to write it is as much of a historical tragedy as his absence is a personal one.


newyorker--2020-01-17--On the Trail: What Has This Long Primary Accomplished?

One thing I ’ ve been asking people during the past few weeks in Iowa is what they think this long , long primary process has accomplished .
Presidential hopefuls have been coming to Iowa for a year , or longer , in some cases .
The Democratic Party has been hosting debates since June , and the candidates have collectively held thousands of rallies , town halls , meet and greets , house parties , and canvassing events here and in New Hampshire , South Carolina , Nevada , and other states .
They ’ ve done interviews with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ television and online , sent countless e-mails , solicited tens of millions of dollars in donations , hired staff , trained volunteers , and built up gigantic , expensive operations able to operate both locally and nationally at the same time .
In one sense , this long pre-voting period has all been about amassing and displaying political strength .
And yet , in the past week , two big polls—one from CNN and the Des Moines Register , the other from Monmouth University—found that large numbers of people in Iowa are still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tracks with what I ’ ve found at campaign events here .
Even people who have been following along the whole time , who have gone out to see the candidates , and who think deeply about issues like health care or education—even some of those people , with just weeks to go before the caucuses , will tell you that they ’ re still weighing their options .
So what did the Democratic Party get for their yearlong pageant of a primary ?
On Monday , Cory Booker , the charismatic New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turn that charisma into support in the polls , dropped out of the race .
It was a reminder that , for as seemingly endless as this race has been , and , for as static as the top of the field has been since , say , the summer , much has happened this past year .
What began as a historically large Presidential field—twenty-eight people have formally been in this race at one time or another—is now down to about a dozen viable candidates , and four legitimate front-runners : Joe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Pete Buttigieg .
And what began as a historically diverse Presidential field is now down to a battle among those four white candidates .
It ’ s easy to say what each of the leading candidates got from this past year .
Biden has sharpened up since the summer , when he couldn ’ t seem to go a week without saying some dismaying thing about race or American history , and showed durability in the polls .
Warren and Buttigieg have been able to build up enormous ground operations , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ able to raise gigantic sums of money and move past a heart attack that raised questions about his physical ability to be President .
But what did the Party , and its voters , get ?
Early on , the size of the field was a source of pride for Democrats .
But the expectation was that the choices and contrasts would get clearer to see as we got closer to voting .
That hasn ’ t happened .
After a spring and summer of multiplying and competing health-care plans , education plans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the race in its final weeks isn ’ t a distilled fight between the left and center of the Party ; it ’ s a jostling for position among a foursome of candidates who overlap in different ways .
On Tuesday , those four leading candidates , plus Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer , met on a stage in Des Moines for the last official debate before voting begins next month .
The big issues were muted .
Instead of a debate between left and center , Tuesday night ’ s event @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where a late-breaking dispute between Warren and Sanders came to a head .
The day before , CNN reported that , back in 2018 , Sanders had told Warren that he did not believe a woman could win the Presidential election in 2020 .
The candidates were asked about it , and , after the debate ended , Warren continued the argument with Sanders before leaving the stage .
You ’ ve likely got your own opinion on the Warren-Sanders thing .
I ’ ve heard from many people this week who dismiss @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fair enough .
But , like the narrowing down of the Democratic field to all white front-runners , the Warren-Sanders dispute is about representation and the slippery concept of electability .
I tend to think that all voters should be talking about this stuff aloud , rather than working it out in their own heads .
But , on Tuesday , I also couldn ’ t help thinking of all the time spent on questions of health care at the Party ’ s early debates , and how the memory and outcomes of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the candidates to have a lucid debate about the topic now , at the end , when it matters most .

Subscribers to The New Yorker’s new 2020 election newsletter, On the Trail, received this piece in their in-boxes. Sign up to receive future installments.
One thing I’ve been asking people during the past few weeks in Iowa is what they think this long, long primary process has accomplished. Presidential hopefuls have been coming to Iowa for a year, or longer, in some cases. The Democratic Party has been hosting debates since June, and the candidates have collectively held thousands of rallies, town halls, meet and greets, house parties, and canvassing events here and in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, and other states. They’ve done interviews with hundreds of reporters, run ads on television and online, sent countless e-mails, solicited tens of millions of dollars in donations, hired staff, trained volunteers, and built up gigantic, expensive operations able to operate both locally and nationally at the same time. In one sense, this long pre-voting period has all been about amassing and displaying political strength.
And yet, in the past week, two big polls—one from CNN and the Des Moines Register, the other from Monmouth University—found that large numbers of people in Iowa are still open to changing their minds. That tracks with what I’ve found at campaign events here. Even people who have been following along the whole time, who have gone out to see the candidates, and who think deeply about issues like health care or education—even some of those people, with just weeks to go before the caucuses, will tell you that they’re still weighing their options. So what did the Democratic Party get for their yearlong pageant of a primary?
On Monday, Cory Booker, the charismatic New Jersey senator who was never able to turn that charisma into support in the polls, dropped out of the race. It was a reminder that, for as seemingly endless as this race has been, and, for as static as the top of the field has been since, say, the summer, much has happened this past year. What began as a historically large Presidential field—twenty-eight people have formally been in this race at one time or another—is now down to about a dozen viable candidates, and four legitimate front-runners: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg. And what began as a historically diverse Presidential field is now down to a battle among those four white candidates.
It’s easy to say what each of the leading candidates got from this past year. Biden has sharpened up since the summer, when he couldn’t seem to go a week without saying some dismaying thing about race or American history, and showed durability in the polls. Warren and Buttigieg have been able to build up enormous ground operations, particularly in Iowa. Sanders has been able to raise gigantic sums of money and move past a heart attack that raised questions about his physical ability to be President.
But what did the Party, and its voters, get? Early on, the size of the field was a source of pride for Democrats. But the expectation was that the choices and contrasts would get clearer to see as we got closer to voting. That hasn’t happened. After a spring and summer of multiplying and competing health-care plans, education plans, rural-America plans, and so on, the race in its final weeks isn’t a distilled fight between the left and center of the Party; it’s a jostling for position among a foursome of candidates who overlap in different ways.
On Tuesday, those four leading candidates, plus Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer, met on a stage in Des Moines for the last official debate before voting begins next month. The big issues were muted. Instead of a debate between left and center, Tuesday night’s event will be remembered for being the place where a late-breaking dispute between Warren and Sanders came to a head. The day before, CNN reported that, back in 2018, Sanders had told Warren that he did not believe a woman could win the Presidential election in 2020. The candidates were asked about it, and, after the debate ended, Warren continued the argument with Sanders before leaving the stage.
You’ve likely got your own opinion on the Warren-Sanders thing. I’ve heard from many people this week who dismiss the story as a media obsession. Fair enough. But, like the narrowing down of the Democratic field to all white front-runners, the Warren-Sanders dispute is about representation and the slippery concept of electability. I tend to think that all voters should be talking about this stuff aloud, rather than working it out in their own heads. But, on Tuesday, I also couldn’t help thinking of all the time spent on questions of health care at the Party’s early debates, and how the memory and outcomes of those past discussions made it impossible for the candidates to have a lucid debate about the topic now, at the end, when it matters most.


newyorker--2020-01-17--Mass Incarceration, Then and Now

Mass Incarceration, Then and Now

The U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world ; although the country makes up about five per cent of the global population , it holds nearly a quarter of the world ’ s prisoners .
David Remnick is joined by WNYC ’ s Kai Wright , the host of the podcast “ The United States of Anxiety , ” to talk about mass incarceration and the beginning of a movement against it .
Remnick also talks with Michelle Alexander , whose book “ The New Jim Crow , ” from 2010 , which was a best-seller for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policies have been a disaster for communities of color .
The poet and public defender Reginald Dwayne Betts , who was formerly incarcerated , reads from his book “ Felon.
” And we follow a man who returns home from prison to find a changed world .
In 2010 , Michelle Alexander ’ s best-selling book spelled out how mass incarceration harms communities of color .
Assessing its impact , she looks back , and forward , with David Remnick .
When Betts was sixteen years old , he was sent to prison @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In solitary confinement , he discovered poetry .
A few months ago , Jonathan was released from prison .
Our producer shadowed him to learn what emancipation feels like after two decades of being locked up .

Illustration by Golden Cosmos
The U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world; although the country makes up about five per cent of the global population, it holds nearly a quarter of the world’s prisoners. David Remnick is joined by WNYC’s Kai Wright, the host of the podcast “The United States of Anxiety,” to talk about mass incarceration and the beginning of a movement against it. Remnick also talks with Michelle Alexander, whose book “The New Jim Crow,” from 2010, which was a best-seller for nearly five years, identified how mass-incarceration policies have been a disaster for communities of color. The poet and public defender Reginald Dwayne Betts, who was formerly incarcerated, reads from his book “Felon.” And we follow a man who returns home from prison to find a changed world.
Taber Gable contributed original music for this episode.
Ten Years After “The New Jim Crow”
In 2010, Michelle Alexander’s best-selling book spelled out how mass incarceration harms communities of color. Assessing its impact, she looks back, and forward, with David Remnick.
Reginald Dwayne Betts Reads from “Felon”
When Betts was sixteen years old, he was sent to prison for his part in a carjacking. In solitary confinement, he discovered poetry.
Life After Prison
A few months ago, Jonathan was released from prison. Our producer shadowed him to learn what emancipation feels like after two decades of being locked up.


newyorker--2020-01-17--Photographing Impeachment Proceedings Against Three Presidents

Also some not-so-great photographers everywhere .
Well , and then there ’ s plenty of those , too , but the good ones will bubble up to the top in most cases .
I ’ ve been trying , using these old cameras , to do something that to me brings a little different view of what it is I ’ m looking at .
It ’ s not as if you even know what you ’ re going to get ahead of time .
I absolutely never know if I have anything good with this Graflex camera .
Too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you have all the things you have to do to set it up .
There is this wonderful book of pictures by Laura Wilson—she ’ s the mother of the three Wilson brothers , the actors [ Owen , Luke , and Andrew ] —who was one of the assistants to Richard Avedon when he did his work in the South and particularly in Texas , of taking his eight-by-ten camera and just meandering around and photographing people he saw .
He arrives at a ranch or something , and then he puts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them against it , and the light is there and he ’ s got all these assistants pulling the dark slide and doing everything .
But then he ’ s the one who squeezes the bulb or the cable release to make the picture .
When you ’ re doing it like I ’ m doing it or the few people that are shooting film now , we ’ re all pretty much doing it on our own , and we ’ re doing everything .
You ’ re having to figure out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shooting and what room it ’ s going to be in , and what place once you get to that room , and there ’ s nothing easy about it .
Then on top of that , you have these other seven or eight steps that you have to do in just the right order to make a picture .
For me , what ’ s the motivation ?
I think I just love the idea of trying to shoot something that might make you feel that it was 1952 or 1947 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ atmosphere .
Not always , but sometimes the atmosphere you can cut with a knife .
I ’ m trying to grab a little bit of that , and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn ’ t .
I would say , in fact , like most of photography , most of the time it doesn ’ t work .

Also some not-so-great photographers everywhere.
Well, and then there’s plenty of those, too, but the good ones will bubble up to the top in most cases. I’ve been trying, using these old cameras, to do something that to me brings a little different view of what it is I’m looking at. It’s not as if you even know what you’re going to get ahead of time. I absolutely never know if I have anything good with this Graflex camera. Too many things could go wrong, and you have all the things you have to do to set it up.
There is this wonderful book of pictures by Laura Wilson—she’s the mother of the three Wilson brothers, the actors [Owen, Luke, and Andrew]—who was one of the assistants to Richard Avedon when he did his work in the South and particularly in Texas, of taking his eight-by-ten camera and just meandering around and photographing people he saw. He arrives at a ranch or something, and then he puts up his white paper and then puts them against it, and the light is there and he’s got all these assistants pulling the dark slide and doing everything. But then he’s the one who squeezes the bulb or the cable release to make the picture. When you’re doing it like I’m doing it or the few people that are shooting film now, we’re all pretty much doing it on our own, and we’re doing everything. You’re having to figure out where you’re going to be shooting and what room it’s going to be in, and what place once you get to that room, and there’s nothing easy about it. Then on top of that, you have these other seven or eight steps that you have to do in just the right order to make a picture.
For me, what’s the motivation? I think I just love the idea of trying to shoot something that might make you feel that it was 1952 or 1947, just because there’s so much atmosphere. Not always, but sometimes the atmosphere you can cut with a knife. I’m trying to grab a little bit of that, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I would say, in fact, like most of photography, most of the time it doesn’t work.


newyorker--2020-01-17--Ten Years After “The New Jim Crow”

Ten Years After “The New Jim Crow”

Sometimes a book comes along and , after it is absorbed into the culture , we can not see ourselves again in quite the same way .
Ten years ago , Michelle Alexander , a lawyer and civil-rights advocate , published “ The New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
” This was less than two years into Barack Obama ’ s first term as President , a moment when you heard a lot of euphoric talk about post-racialism and “ how far we ’ ve come.
” “ The New Jim Crow ” was hardly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ couple of years it took off and seemed to be at the center of discussion about criminal-justice reform and racism in America .
The book considers not only the enormity and cruelty of the American prison system but also , as Alexander writes , the way the war on drugs and the justice system have been used as a “ system of control ” that shatters the lives of millions of Americans—particularly young black and Hispanic men .
As part of an hour-long examination of mass incarceration for The New Yorker Radio Hour @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , of WNYC , I caught up with Michelle Alexander , who is now teaching at Union Theological Seminary , in New York .
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity .
When “ The New Jim Crow ” came out , a decade ago , you said that you wrote it for “ the person I was ten years ago.
” Take me back to those times and to the work you were doing for the A.C.L.U .
What were you finding out ?
That would have been twenty years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as I was beginning my work with the A.C.L.U .
I was well aware that there was bias in our criminal-justice system , and that bias pervaded all of our political , social , and economic systems .
That ’ s why I was a civil-rights lawyer : I was hoping to finish the work that had been begun by civil-rights leaders who came before me .
I had a very romantic idea of what civil-rights lawyers had done and could do to address the challenges that we face .
My impression back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infected with racial bias , much in the same way that all institutions in our society are infected to some degree or another with racial and gender bias .
But what I didn ’ t understand at that time was that a new system of racial and social control had been born again in America , a system eerily reminiscent to those that we had left behind .
In fact , I was heading to work my first day at the A.C.L.U .
directing the Racial Justice Project when I happened to notice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that said , in bold print , “ The Drug War Is the New Jim Crow.
” I remember pausing for a moment and scanning the text of the flyer and seeing that a small , apparently radical group was holding a meeting at a church several blocks away .
They were organizing to protest racial profiling , the drug war , the three-strikes laws , mandatory minimum sentences , and police brutality .
The list went on and on .
I remember thinking to myself , Yeah , the criminal-justice system is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but it doesn ’ t help to make comparisons to Jim Crow .
People will just think you ’ re crazy .
And then I hopped on the bus .
So it was really as a result of myself representing victims of racial profiling and police brutality , and investigating patterns of drug-law enforcement in poor communities of color , and attempting to assist people who had been released from prison as they faced one closed door and one barrier after another to mere survival after being released from prison that I had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I have come to call my awakening .
What was that awakening like ?
What were you seeing in your work so that the scales were falling from your eyes ?
Well , there were a number of incidents .
It was partly beginning to collect data and trace patterns of policing .
It was coming to see how the police were behaving in radically different ways in poor communities of color than they were in middle-class , white , or suburban communities .
I mean , this wasn ’ t a shock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the scale of it was astonishing : seeing rows of black men lined up against walls being frisked and handcuffed and arrested for extremely minor crimes , like loitering , or vagrancy , or possession of tiny amounts of marijuana , and then being hauled off to jail and saddled with criminal records that authorized legal discrimination against them for the rest of their lives .
I mean , witnessing it and interviewing people one after another had its impact on me .
But there was one incident in particular that really kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a young African-American man who was about nineteen , who walked into my office one day and forever changed the way I viewed myself as a civil-rights lawyer and the system I was up against .
He walked in my office carrying a stack of papers a couple of inches thick .
He had taken detailed notes of his encounters with the police over about a nine-month period : every stop , every search , every time he had been frisked or someone he was riding with had been stopped , searched , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officers , in some cases badge numbers , names of witnesses—just an extraordinary amount of documentation .
At the time , I was interviewing people for a possible class-action suit against the Oakland Police Department .
We had already filed a major class-action suit against the California Highway Patrol , alleging racial profiling in their drug-interdiction program , and we had launched a major campaign against racial profiling in California , and we were looking to sue other police departments , as well .
And we had set up a hotline number for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stopped or targeted by the police on the basis of race .
Within the first few minutes of us announcing this hotline number on the evening news , we received thousands of calls , and our system crashed temporarily .
So I was spending my day interviewing one young black or brown man after another who had called the hotline .
This man ’ s story was so compelling .
I thought , Wow , maybe we have finally found our dream plaintiff .
I start asking him more questions .
He ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And then he said something that made me pause : Did you just say you ’ re a drug felon ?
We had been screening people for criminal records when they called our hotline number .
We would ask them a bunch of questions about their experience with the police .
We sent a form for them to fill out .
And one of the questions was : Have you ever been convicted of a felony ?
We believed we couldn ’ t represent anyone with a felony record because we knew that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would be all over them , saying , Well , of course we ’ re keeping an eye on the criminals and stopping and harassing them .
This isn ’ t about race .
It ’ s about us cracking down on the criminals .
And we knew we couldn ’ t put someone on the stand as a named plaintiff in a class action alleging racial profiling if they had a felony record , because we 'd be exposing them to cross-examination about their prior criminal history and turning it into a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ criminal past rather than the police conduct .
So we ’ d been screening out people with felony records , and this young man hadn ’ t checked his box .
I ’ m looking at him , saying , “ O.K.
, you ’ re a drug felon .
Are you telling me you ’ re a drug felon ?
” And he gets very quiet and stares down at the table and then finally looks up and says , “ Yeah , yeah , I ’ m a drug felon .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Police planted drugs on me , and they beat up me and my friend.
” And he starts telling me this long story about how he ’ d been framed and drugs have been planted on him .
And I just start shaking my head .
I said , “ I ’ m sorry , I can ’ t represent you with a felony record.
” And now he ’ s trying to give me more details and explain more about that case .
And I keep telling him , “ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t represent you.
” And he becomes more and more agitated and upset .
And then , finally , he becomes enraged , and he says , “ What ’ s to become of me ?
What ’ s to become of me ?
” And he starts explaining that he ’ d just taken the plea because he was afraid of doing the time .
They told him that if he just took the plea , you just walk out with just felony probation .
And he said , “ But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
I can ’ t get a job anywhere because of my felony record .
Do you understand ?
I have to sleep in my grandma ’ s basement at night .
I can ’ t even get into public housing with a drug felony .
It ’ s , like , how am I supposed to take care of myself ?
How am I supposed to take care of myself as a man ?
” He ’ s , like , “ I can ’ t even feed myself .
.
.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ t even get food stamps because of my drug felony ?
Good luck finding one young black man in my neighborhood they haven ’ t gotten to yet .
They ’ ve gotten to us all already.
” What was so provocative about the handbill that you first saw on the telephone pole , and in what became the title of your book , is that it flew in the face of what politicians said their motivation was for things like the crime bill in the mid-nineties , during the Clinton Administration .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ were passing this legislation because crime rates were so high and drugs were out of control .
What you ’ re saying , what that handbill said , is no , in fact , this is the establishment of a means of social control of young black and brown men in particular .
How conscious was that ?
How would you argue that it was a conscious decision to establish a successor , in a sense , to Jim Crow , and what came before Jim Crow ?
There were mixed motives .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ out in the book was the history of the Southern strategy , the deliberate political strategy of divide and conquer , of using “ get tough ” racial appeals in order to appeal to poor and working-class whites , particularly in the South , who were fearful of and resentful of the progress that had been made by African-Americans since the civil-rights movement , who feared that they now had to compete for limited jobs in the era of deindustrialization with black folks .
They were resentful of affirmative action .
Fearmongering and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Southern strategy , which used racially coded and not so coded political appeals defining black and brown men in particular as the enemy , as criminals , as drug users , as superpredators , in order to appeal to poor and working-class white voters in the South and flip those blue states to red .
That Southern strategy fuelled the “ get tough ” movement , helped to birth the war on drugs , and was in part about turning the clock back on racial progress to a time when white folks didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terms with black and brown folks .
But it ’ s also the case that racial stereotypes are a result of really racist media portrayals of drug users during the crack epidemic , which created conscious as well as unconscious stereotypes in law enforcement and the public at large .
This helped to fuel this notion that we should get tough on them , the racially defined Others .
So the drug war was in part a politically motivated strategy , a backlash to the civil-rights movement , but it was also a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by media portrayals of drug users .
Those racial stereotypes were resonant with the same stereotypes of slaves and folks during the Jim Crow era .
A lot of people think of mass incarceration and “ get tough ” policies as the result of right-wing politics .
But in what ways have liberals also played a part in this history ?
I view liberals as equally guilty of birthing the system of mass incarceration as right-wing conservatives .
President Bill Clinton escalated the drug war that had been originally declared by President Richard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Clinton escalated the drug war beyond what many of his Republican predecessors ever dreamed .
And he did so in part to prove that he could be tougher on them , the black criminals , than his Republican counterparts .
I think it must also be acknowledged that there were black politicians and black communities calling for tough responses to rising crime in inner-city communities that were suffering from economic collapse .
But it ’ s important to draw a distinction between black politicians and black communities that were desperate for intervention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work disappeared , as William Julius Wilson described so powerfully in his book “ When Work Disappears.
” There was a period of time when hundreds of thousands of jobs vanished practically overnight in poor black communities , and they suffered depression and economic collapse .
Crime rates rose and people were desperate for a meaningful , quick response .
But it would be wrong , in my view , to say that mass incarceration was supported by black communities .
Black communities have organized for and demanded many large-scale interventions to address @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the years .
And it has only been in the area of crime that our nation has been willing to respond with massive investments in police , prisons , mass surveillance .
You were writing this book as Barack Obama was starting out his Presidency .
Did his election make it harder for people to hear your argument at first ?
In fact , your book did not really take off the way it did for a little while .
Yes , that ’ s absolutely right .
Many people think that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an instant best-seller .
But it took a couple of years , right ?
Yes .
People didn ’ t want to hear that we were still locked in a cycle of racial progress , backlash , retrenchment , and reformation of systems of racial and social control .
It seemed much more likely that we were in an era of post-racialism , a time of color blindness , or at least on our way towards that Promised Land .
I spent a couple of years on the road pretty much non-stop , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ groups of students and activists , really desperate to sound an alarm and to help people to see that , no , we are not free of our racial history .
Our nation has , in fact , done it again .
We have birthed a system of mass incarceration unlike anything the world has ever seen .
Millions of people have been relegated yet again to a permanent second-class status in which they are stripped of basic civil and human rights , including the right to vote , the right to serve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be free of legal discrimination in employment , housing , access to education , and public benefits .
It wasn ’ t a message people were eager to hear , but I think it is much easier to see today , ten years later , that our nation is not yet free of its racial history , and that we continue to create new systems of racial and social control .
Decades ago , politicians were promising to build prison walls and new prisons .
Today , politicians are promising border walls and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , fearmongering , and scapegoating that helped to give rise to the “ get tough ” movement , and the war on drugs is being used to fuel anger and resentment towards immigrants and mass deportation and mass detention .
While you were writing this book , your husband was working as a federal prosecutor .
Did you have disagreements on the ideas that you were laying out ?
How did you discuss this with somebody so close to you ?
My husband and I kind of came to these issues from very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for years as a civil-rights lawyer .
When we got married , he decided to become a federal prosecutor .
While we both shared a commitment to racial and social justice , it was very difficult for me to accept that he was working for justice on the inside .
We definitely had different disagreements over the years .
But I also found him to be a very helpful reader .
He has always given insightful and useful feedback on my writing and has been incredibly supportive of my work over the years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for that .
I think it has been helpful in many ways for me to be challenged in my thinking by someone who has seen through the eyes of law enforcement .
There ’ s been no shortage of books about race and mass incarceration .
Why do you think it was your book that captured the public in the way that it did , and still does ?
I think the book was published at the right time .
Our nation was reeling from an economic crisis that was forcing former “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a hard look at the system of mass incarceration .
Former governors who had been calling for harsh mandatory minimum sentences and had been fierce drug warriors were suddenly realizing that it was not possible to continue to expand this massive prison state without raising taxes on the predominantly white middle class .
And so suddenly people were beginning to ask questions and to be open to the possibility that perhaps this race to incarcerate had been misguided .
At the same time , the uprisings in Ferguson , Missouri , forced a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that our nation had been determined to avoid for a very long time .
The activism and the organizing and the passion and heartbreak that flowed from the killing of Trayvon Martin , the killing of Michael Brown , the deaths of Kalief Browder and Sandra Bland opened up a space where people began searching for answers regarding how we got to this place .
I know from your new preface to the tenth-anniversary edition that you got thousands of letters from people who wrote you about the book , many from people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they telling you ?
Yeah , it has been overwhelming , over the years , to receive thousands of letters .
I ’ m embarrassed and sad to say that I haven ’ t been able to read all of them .
Some people have written just thanking me for the book and for speaking a truth that they may have been trying to speak in their own communities .
There ’ s also a lot of people writing me from prison , begging for help .
Those are the most heartbreaking letters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only am I not able to help them but there ’ s no one who I can recommend who can .
There is just not available legal support for people who are in prison trying to fight their charges or reduce their sentences .
In the preface you wrote for the tenth-anniversary edition , you kept coming back to this idea of “ Everything and nothing has changed.
” What ’ s changed , and what hasn ’ t ?
Are we better off now than we were a decade ago , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , certainly , in some ways , on the surface , it appears that everything has changed .
When my book was first published , President Obama had just been elected .
It seemed that we were on the right path : still had a long way to go , but were headed in the right direction .
At least , that was the sentiment that was shared by many , many people .
It seemed as though this dream of a multiracial , multi-ethnic , egalitarian democracy was within our reach , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hope for positive change .
And yet we were also living in a time of tremendous denial .
As I wrote , a system of mass incarceration had been born in America , a system of racial and social control that turned back much of the racial progress we thought we had made , and people were unwilling to talk about it and to face it .
Criminal-justice issues weren ’ t even really on the radar of civil-rights organizations at that time , with the exception of the A.C.L.U .
and some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be done by the N.A.A.C.P .
and other organizations .
When the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights , in 2008 , sent out a letter listing the most pressing issues on civil rights , criminal-justice issues didn ’ t even make the list .
And when , in 2009 , the Congressional Black Caucus sent out a list of a couple dozen issues that might be of concern to black communities , criminal justice didn ’ t make the list .
This was just as the drug war was raging and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And so there was a way in which we were asleep and in denial .
Today , that has changed .
The election of President Trump has completely decimated whatever fantasies we had that we are living in a post-racial America .
We now can see that systems of racial and social control are alive and well , not only due to the uprisings in Ferguson and the many , many publicized police killings of unarmed black people and the growing movements to end mass incarceration .
We ’ ve also come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racial and social control has been born in this country , the system of mass deportation and mass detention .
So we have this paradox in which , on the one hand , it seems that everything has changed , yet the politics of white supremacy have remained largely unchanged during the Obama years .
Now we are forced to reckon with racial realities that we had long attempted to avoid , and I think we are finally beginning to see how the politics of divide and conquer , the politics of racial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ again and again .
Some of the scholars who have been in dialogue with you about your book have taken issue with your focus on the war on drugs and nonviolent drug offenses .
John Pfaff , in his book “ Locked In , ” says that only about sixteen per cent of state prisoners are serving time on drug charges , and very few of them—maybe about five or six per cent of that group—are both low level and nonviolent .
And what he and the other scholars are saying is , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in prisons who were there for drug offenses , nonviolent drug offenses , that would not put a real dent in the prison population .
Well , that ’ s absolutely right .
It is true that roughly half of the people who are held in state prisons today have been convicted of offenses that are labelled violent , and that a small minority of people in prison today have been labelled drug offenders .
But one of the main points of “ The New Jim Crow ” is that it is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of mass incarceration as simply a system of prisons .
There are twice as many people on probation or parole today as are locked in prisons or jails .
When people think about the system of mass incarceration , they typically just think about who ’ s in prison at any given moment .
But what I hope to draw people ’ s attention to is that this system of mass incarceration is actually a system of mass criminalization .
It is a system that criminalizes people at very young ages , often @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote .
It labels them criminals and felons , and then strips them of basic civil rights , the very rights supposedly won in the civil-rights movement .
And this happens even if you ’ ve been sentenced only to probation .
So when people look at prison statistics and say , Oh , well , most people who are in prison are there for violent offenses , so our primary concern must be violent crime , or they think , Oh , well , this prison system is really about responding to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrong .
About five per cent of people who are arrested every year have been convicted of violent crimes or charged with violent crimes .
People who have been convicted of violent offenses typically get much , much longer sentences than people who have been convicted of nonviolent crimes like drug offenses .
And , therefore , they comprise a much larger portion of the prison population .
However , ninety-five per cent of those who are arrested and swept into the criminal-justice system every year have been convicted of nonviolent crimes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ drug arrests .
That was true in 2010 , and it ’ s true today .
The war on drugs has been a primary vehicle for sweeping people into a criminal-justice system , branding them criminals and felons , and then relegating them to a permanent second-class status for life .
That doesn ’ t mean we should be unconcerned about violent crime or the harm that it does to communities , nor should we be unconcerned about the extremely long sentences and inhuman treatment that people often receive being caged .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to stop thinking about the system of mass incarceration as simply a prison system .
Michelle , let ’ s talk about the cages in general .
There have been calls in recent years for prison abolition .
And I wonder what you make of the prison-abolition movement .
I ’ ll ask you what Angela Davis asks in the title of her famous book from 2003 , “ Are Prisons Obsolete ?
” I think prisons are absolutely obsolete .
I hope that one day our nation will look back on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ literal cages , often treating them worse than we would treat a dog at the pound , sometimes locking them in solitary confinement for decades , allowing them little or no access to sunshine or human contact—I hope that one day we will look back on this practice with as much shame and horror as we view the practice of slavery , or the practice of cutting off limbs and hands of thieves .
I hope that we find much more humane , constructive ways of responding to the real harms of violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deliberate humiliation , stigmatization , suffering , and caging .
We can do better than this .
In my experience , most folks understand that caging people and then stripping them of basic civil and human rights upon their release isn ’ t productive .
In fact , it ’ s more likely to encourage criminal behavior in the future and make it more difficult for people to survive on the outside without resorting to crime .
It ’ s likely to traumatize people in ways that will be harmful to themselves , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communities .
Most people understand that when you talk about drug abuse or drug addiction .
People understand that it is much more productive for people to get drug treatment rather than be in a cage .
But when it comes to violence , people have a much more difficult time imagining that there are solutions beyond inflicting violence and caging people .
But I ’ m so encouraged by the work of restorative- and transformative-justice advocates today who are challenging us to think about ways of responding that are more humane and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well as for those who have committed acts of violence .
What do you envision specifically as an alternative to cages , to prisons , to jails ?
Is there a place in the world that has a justice system that you can point to and say , We definitely should move toward something more like that ?
Well , there ’ s been a lot written in recent years about systems in Norway and Germany that are much more humane than the system of caging that we have in the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ read Danielle Sered ’ s book “ Until We Reckon , ” specifically about a program that she operates in New York City called Common Justice .
Common Justice is a restorative-justice program that provides alternatives to incarceration for people who have been convicted of or who are facing charges for violent offenses .
And what ’ s interesting about what she has found in the program is that ninety per cent of survivors of violent crime , when given the option of participating in a restorative-justice program , or the opportunity to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ harm and to devise a plan for that person to try to make up for what they have done in some way , choose to participate in a restorative-justice program rather than to pursue criminal charges and incarceration .
This kind of flies in the face of the research that suggests that survivors of violent crime always want people locked up and the key thrown away .
In fact , it turns out that survivors of violent crime and the people who have committed harm can come together in many cases , far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ together develop fair solutions for responding to the harm that ’ s been caused .
One of the things that is standing in the way of such reform is the fact that a huge number of prisons—seventy per cent , in fact—are located in rural communities and go a long way in bolstering the economies of these communities .
I mean , the fact is that prisons are a big source of income for many people living around them .
And you make this very clear .
The profit motive is significant .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ profit motive simply in terms of private prisons making money off of caging human beings .
However , as the book “ Prison Profiteers , ” edited by Tara Herivel and Paul Wright , points out , there is a very large range of corporate interests that make an enormous amount of money off of our prison system—everything from private health-care providers to Taser-gun manufacturers to companies that are now creating these electronic monitors , G.P.S .
tracking systems for people when they are released from prison or jail .
Yes .
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ today is the emergence of e-carceration , or digital prisons , as some activists refer to them .
Many people are now being forced to wear electronic monitors , G.P.S .
tracking devices , upon release from prisons and jails .
These devices will limit people ’ s range of movement , confining them to their homes or to their neighborhoods , sometimes making it impossible for them to go to work or pick up their children from school .
These tracking devices send off alarms to police departments if people travel out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ways , these tracking devices are creating entire neighborhoods that are under a kind of lockdown , as an electronically enforced kind of virtual concentration camp , where large percentages of the population are confined to small areas .
But what do you say to people who argue that these technological solutions are more humane than prisons and jails ?
Well , certainly , most people , myself included , would rather have an electronic monitor , a G.P.S .
tracking device , attached to my ankle than to be sitting in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it very difficult to call a system of e-carceration and the emergence of digital prisons progress .
Progress would be decriminalizing our communities , not subjecting them to new , high-tech forms of surveillance and control .
It is entirely possible that , in the years to come , as private corporations begin investing more and more money—billions of dollars are now being invested in the electronic surveillance of people who have been criminalized—that we will have entire communities and neighborhoods that are trapped in digital prisons .
It will be cheaper to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than through old-fashioned brick-and-mortar prisons .
So I don ’ t think we should celebrate the rise of electronic monitoring as a step in the right direction or progress .
A step in the right direction would be massive investments in education , drug treatment , health care , and job creation , in trauma support in the communities that have been devastated by the war on drugs and mass incarceration .
We all know that the safest communities are not the ones that have the most police , the most prisons , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ electronic monitors under constant surveillance and control .
No , what creates safety in our communities are good schools , plentiful jobs , quality health care , and a thriving social fabric .
The racial disparities in prisons over the last decade have actually declined .
Is there any reason for hope in that ?
It ’ s absolutely a positive development that racial disparities have declined to the extent that it means that we are relying less and less on criminalization and incarceration of all people , including people of color .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ on racial disparities in our criminal-justice system as a measure of injustice .
In fact , there is some research that suggests that racial disparities have narrowed in part because more white people have been incarcerated or saddled with criminal records as a result of the opioid epidemic , or because , as some people have argued , many Latinos are being mislabelled as white in our criminal-justice system , distorting the data .
But I wouldn ’ t celebrate that kind of progress .
The goal here is not to subject people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The goal ought to be to view and treat all people of all colors with dignity , humanity , compassion , and concern .
However , there is also significant evidence indicating that racial disparities have narrowed in large part because many states , New York included , have moved away from many of the harsh drug-war policies that resulted in enormous racial disparities in incarceration and conviction rates .
And that is cause for celebration .
I think , again , we have to make sure that we ’ re not simply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ True progress depends on us caring and demonstrating care , compassion , and concern for poor people , and people of color , and being willing to invest in their well-being and their health and their education and their thriving rather than simply in their punishment and in their control .
All the front-runner candidates for the Democratic nomination support some form or another of criminal-justice reform .
Do you have a favorite among them ?
No , I am not endorsing anyone at this time .
But , on this issue , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or to your liking ?
Well , I would have to say that I have found Elizabeth Warren ’ s and Bernie Sanders ’ s criminal-justice platforms to be very encouraging .
They ’ re taking a comprehensive approach to criminal-justice reform and not simply tinkering with the machine by promising to reduce sentencing , for example .
Meaningful criminal-justice reform requires taking a very holistic view and insuring that people who are released from prison have meaningful opportunities for education and access to health care and drug treatment and mental-health treatment and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strong commitment to taking the profit motive out of incarceration entirely .
And , you know , viewing criminal-justice reform through a racial-justice lens .
So I am encouraged that virtually all of the Democratic candidates have stated a willingness to embrace criminal justice-reform to some degree .
But for me , personally , I ’ m less interested in the reform of our criminal-justice system than its transformation .
I think we must reimagine the meaning of justice in America , not simply reform our existing criminal-justice institutions .
I think that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the engagement of our communities .
We can ’ t simply look to our politicians to have the answers Finally , I hope you don ’ t mind if I ask you what seems to be a personal professional question .
Your main teaching post has been at an institution that has religion and faith at its center , the Union Theological Seminary .
Does that choice represent a change in your thinking on criminal justice or in your own life ?
After spending many years working as a civil-rights lawyer and then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy advocate , I became frustrated with the very narrow scope of acceptable discourse in those spaces .
As I see it , the crisis of mass incarceration is not simply a legal or political problem to be solved , but it ’ s a profound spiritual and moral crisis , as well .
And it requires a reckoning , individually and collectively , with our racial history , our racial present , and our racial future .
Many academics and lawyers are reluctant to face or engage in this reckoning , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so overwhelming .
Lawyers are accustomed to defining problems in legal terms so that they can solve them .
Academics want to study problems .
Legal academics want to study problems in a very narrow and often data-driven way , without really asking the deeper questions around , Who are we in relationship to one another ?
What does justice mean ?
And I have found , much to my surprise , that , in progressive seminaries like Union Theological Seminary , there is or there seems to be much greater enthusiasm for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the meaning of justice in a nation forged through genocide and slavery , a multiracial , multiethnic nation that is struggling to overcome its racial history .
What does it mean to do justice in this context , in this moment in time ?
And I jokingly , although it ’ s not so much of a joke , tell people who just say to me , “ I want to go to law school , ” I say , “ Well , law school is a place where you learn the rules @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it .
But it isn ’ t a place where people think deeply about justice .
And I can ’ t say that ’ s true for every law school , but it ’ s true for too many of them .
And I ’ m just grateful that I ’ ve had the opportunity to be affiliated with Union Theological Seminary , which has such a long history of taking questions of justice very seriously and approaching them not just from a legal or political perspective but from a deeply moral one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ faith-based traditions have become more in the center of your thinking and research and writing and your own personal evolution ?
Yes , absolutely , although I don ’ t consider myself a religious person .
I ’ m probably more of a spiritual but not religious person .
But , yeah , I think , ultimately , these questions are about : What does it mean to be in the right relationship to one another ?
Who belongs in a community , in a nation ?
How should we treat the least @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one another ?
How do we repair harm ?
What does it mean to face irreparable harm in a constructive and responsible way ?
Are these questions at the center of a next book ?
Yes , they are .
I ’ m working on a book that is very different from “ The New Jim Crow.
” It ’ s much more personal , and it ’ s about my journey going from a liberal civil-rights lawyer who was tinkering with the machine , and believed that we could somehow get to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the next best lawsuit , or met with the governor , or organize the right number of people for the next protest , to someone who now believes that much more revolutionary change is required , and it ’ s not simply a political revolution .
A moral and spiritual revolution is also required of us now .

Sometimes a book comes along and, after it is absorbed into the culture, we cannot see ourselves again in quite the same way. Ten years ago, Michelle Alexander, a lawyer and civil-rights advocate, published “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” This was less than two years into Barack Obama’s first term as President, a moment when you heard a lot of euphoric talk about post-racialism and “how far we’ve come.” “The New Jim Crow” was hardly an immediate best-seller, but after a couple of years it took off and seemed to be at the center of discussion about criminal-justice reform and racism in America. The book considers not only the enormity and cruelty of the American prison system but also, as Alexander writes, the way the war on drugs and the justice system have been used as a “system of control” that shatters the lives of millions of Americans—particularly young black and Hispanic men.
As part of an hour-long examination of mass incarceration for The New Yorker Radio Hour, co-hosted this week by Kai Wright, of WNYC, I caught up with Michelle Alexander, who is now teaching at Union Theological Seminary, in New York.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
When “The New Jim Crow” came out, a decade ago, you said that you wrote it for “the person I was ten years ago.” Take me back to those times and to the work you were doing for the A.C.L.U. What were you finding out?
That would have been twenty years ago from today. It was just as I was beginning my work with the A.C.L.U. I was well aware that there was bias in our criminal-justice system, and that bias pervaded all of our political, social, and economic systems. That’s why I was a civil-rights lawyer: I was hoping to finish the work that had been begun by civil-rights leaders who came before me. I had a very romantic idea of what civil-rights lawyers had done and could do to address the challenges that we face.
My impression back then was that our criminal-justice system was infected with racial bias, much in the same way that all institutions in our society are infected to some degree or another with racial and gender bias. But what I didn’t understand at that time was that a new system of racial and social control had been born again in America, a system eerily reminiscent to those that we had left behind.
In fact, I was heading to work my first day at the A.C.L.U. directing the Racial Justice Project when I happened to notice a sign posted to a telephone pole that said, in bold print, “The Drug War Is the New Jim Crow.” I remember pausing for a moment and scanning the text of the flyer and seeing that a small, apparently radical group was holding a meeting at a church several blocks away. They were organizing to protest racial profiling, the drug war, the three-strikes laws, mandatory minimum sentences, and police brutality. The list went on and on. I remember thinking to myself, Yeah, the criminal-justice system is racist in a lot of ways, but it doesn’t help to make comparisons to Jim Crow. People will just think you’re crazy. And then I hopped on the bus.
So it was really as a result of myself representing victims of racial profiling and police brutality, and investigating patterns of drug-law enforcement in poor communities of color, and attempting to assist people who had been released from prison as they faced one closed door and one barrier after another to mere survival after being released from prison that I had a series of experiences that began what I have come to call my awakening.
What was that awakening like? What were you seeing in your work so that the scales were falling from your eyes?
Well, there were a number of incidents. It was partly beginning to collect data and trace patterns of policing. It was coming to see how the police were behaving in radically different ways in poor communities of color than they were in middle-class, white, or suburban communities. I mean, this wasn’t a shock to me in any way, but the scale of it was astonishing: seeing rows of black men lined up against walls being frisked and handcuffed and arrested for extremely minor crimes, like loitering, or vagrancy, or possession of tiny amounts of marijuana, and then being hauled off to jail and saddled with criminal records that authorized legal discrimination against them for the rest of their lives. I mean, witnessing it and interviewing people one after another had its impact on me.
But there was one incident in particular that really kind of rocked my world. It involved a young African-American man who was about nineteen, who walked into my office one day and forever changed the way I viewed myself as a civil-rights lawyer and the system I was up against. He walked in my office carrying a stack of papers a couple of inches thick. He had taken detailed notes of his encounters with the police over about a nine-month period: every stop, every search, every time he had been frisked or someone he was riding with had been stopped, searched, or frisked. He had names of officers, in some cases badge numbers, names of witnesses—just an extraordinary amount of documentation.
At the time, I was interviewing people for a possible class-action suit against the Oakland Police Department. We had already filed a major class-action suit against the California Highway Patrol, alleging racial profiling in their drug-interdiction program, and we had launched a major campaign against racial profiling in California, and we were looking to sue other police departments, as well. And we had set up a hotline number for people to call if they had been stopped or targeted by the police on the basis of race. Within the first few minutes of us announcing this hotline number on the evening news, we received thousands of calls, and our system crashed temporarily. So I was spending my day interviewing one young black or brown man after another who had called the hotline.
This man’s story was so compelling. I thought, Wow, maybe we have finally found our dream plaintiff. I start asking him more questions. He’s sharing more details and information. And then he said something that made me pause: Did you just say you’re a drug felon?
We had been screening people for criminal records when they called our hotline number. We would ask them a bunch of questions about their experience with the police. We sent a form for them to fill out. And one of the questions was: Have you ever been convicted of a felony? We believed we couldn’t represent anyone with a felony record because we knew that, if we did, law enforcement would be all over them, saying, Well, of course we’re keeping an eye on the criminals and stopping and harassing them. This isn’t about race. It’s about us cracking down on the criminals.
And we knew we couldn’t put someone on the stand as a named plaintiff in a class action alleging racial profiling if they had a felony record, because we'd be exposing them to cross-examination about their prior criminal history and turning it into a mini-trial about a young man’s criminal past rather than the police conduct.
So we’d been screening out people with felony records, and this young man hadn’t checked his box. I’m looking at him, saying, “O.K., you’re a drug felon. Are you telling me you’re a drug felon?” And he gets very quiet and stares down at the table and then finally looks up and says, “Yeah, yeah, I’m a drug felon. But let me tell you what happened. Police planted drugs on me, and they beat up me and my friend.” And he starts telling me this long story about how he’d been framed and drugs have been planted on him. And I just start shaking my head. I said, “I’m sorry, I can’t represent you with a felony record.” And now he’s trying to give me more details and explain more about that case. And I keep telling him, “I’m sorry, I just can’t represent you.” And he becomes more and more agitated and upset. And then, finally, he becomes enraged, and he says, “What’s to become of me? What’s to become of me?”


newyorker--2020-01-18--The Firefighter Whose Denunciation of Australia’s Prime Minister Made Him a Folk Hero

Until a few days ago , Paul Parker was a volunteer firefighter in Nelligen , a small village on the coast of New South Wales , in Australia—an area that has been devastated by the bushfires currently sweeping the country .
A week ago , Parker was defending homes in his community against a spreading inferno .
The sky was red and burnt orange , he said .
Embers were everywhere .
Flames shot as high as forty feet .
“ I ’ ve fought a few bushfires in my time , but nothing like that , ” Parker told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worst I ’ ve ever experienced.
” As Parker raced from one fire to another , on the brink of exhaustion , he encountered a local television crew and erupted in rage .
In the video the crew shot , Parker is seen leaning out of a fire truck , giving a sarcastic thumbs-up , and launching a stream of expletives at the right-wing Prime Minister of Australia , Scott Morrison .
“ Tell the Prime Minister to go and get fucked , from Nelligen , ” Parker shouts .
He then challenges @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ ve lost seven houses in Nelligan .
I ’ m not going to lose any more , ” he says .
“ Tell the P.M. to come and meet me .
Paul Parker , in Nelligan .
Meet you any day , pal.
” The video instantly turned Parker into something of a folk hero .
In Parker ’ s community , and elsewhere , the crisis has provoked intense anger toward Morrison , who was on vacation in Hawaii when two firefighters died in December .
Morrison returned to Australia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been widely condemned as slow and ineffective .
Since September , millions of acres of land have burned , thousands of people have lost their homes and businesses , and at least twenty-eight have perished .
Morrison ’ s history of skepticism toward climate change and the government ’ s record of inaction have infuriated Australians who understand that record-breaking heat and dryness , symptomatic of a warming planet , are fuelling the crisis .
On Sunday , Morrison announced an inquiry into the country ’ s fire response , nodding to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to support policies to decrease fossil-fuel use or promote renewable energy .
Parker spoke with me twice by phone , from Australia , about the catastrophic fires and about how he and others in Nelligen have responded .
His account , which begins on New Year ’ s Eve , has been edited and condensed .
“ We knew the fire was coming .
In the late afternoon , we could see the glow coming out of the mountains to the southwest , and we knew .
At about ten o ’ clock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at around ten-thirty we were back up again .
It was coming through the trees , and we stayed awake until it impacted us , at about one-thirty in the morning .
The fire had crowned , which means it was on the ground and in the treetops .
It was just a massive wall of flame .
I tried to tame it with buckets of water and by driving over the flames .
It was horrific .
The absolute intensity of it .
“ As soon as I knew my home was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a couple of other brigade members in one of the local Nelligen fire trucks .
Just trying to survive was the main issue , and trying to save as many properties as we could .
It was horrendous .
Some people were at home , trying to defend their homes with rakes and shovels and garden hoses .
Some houses we could save , some we couldn ’ t , and there was only so much we could do at each property before we had to move on and help others .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Most of the population was down at the river .
They were just taking shelter and grouping together for comfort , I suppose .
They were there all day on New Year ’ s Day , and most people were at the water ’ s edge on January 2nd as well .
I stayed where the fire was active .
I worked probably thirty-six hours .
I had a couple of hours sleep and then I was back out again .
The fire was flaring up every day .
“ On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flare-up , and three houses on the eastern side of the river were under major fire .
Myself and another volunteer went up and down the best we could .
The flames were massive .
We could barely breathe , because when buildings go up there ’ s a lot of toxic materials , plastics and rubber and mattresses .
A couple of residents were there trying to defend their own homes , but at one point we had to get them out .
They were totally exhausted .
It was the middle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was so thick you would have thought it was nighttime—that ’ s how dark the sky was .
We got some aerial support from big helicopters dropping water bombs , and we did manage to save the three homes .
“ Then the wind changed , so the flames were fully involved across the road , and we had to drive the truck through the fire front to get ourselves out .
We were driving to stop the fire from going into the village , and we saw a TV-news team down on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just was a boiling point for me .
I said , ‘ Are you from the media ?
Tell the Prime Minister to go and get fucked , from Nelligen .
.
.
.
We really enjoy doing this shit.
’ “ A couple of weeks earlier , the Prime Minister commented that Rural Fire Service members enjoy going out and fighting fires .
He ’ s just got no understanding of what it ’ s all about .
We don ’ t enjoy fighting bushfires and saving people ’ s homes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He ’ s got no understanding of what real people in Australia go through .
And he doesn ’ t care anyway .
Any real man would never have left the country while his country was in turmoil .
“ Another part is that our government has been hamstrung over hazard-reduction burns .
It ’ s all too political , what the Rural Fire Service can do .
If hazard-reduction burns had been done over the last couple of years , the fuel loads in our forests wouldn ’ t be as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been as severe .
“ Climate change is also a real thing .
It ’ s not something that can be fixed overnight , and the government ’ s got to make a stand at some stage .
Scott Morrison doesn ’ t even believe in climate change .
I don ’ t think he even considers that we are going through climate change .
I don ’ t know the answers .
I ’ m not a scientist .
I don ’ t know how society as a whole is going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t just turn off fossil fuels , because if we do we ’ ll go back to the caveman days .
These problems are complex—I understand that .
But something needs to be done now , for our future generation , or there won ’ t be a future .
“ Today , the 13th , is the first day I ’ ve been back at work .
At the moment , I work for an air-conditioning company .
Basically , from New Year ’ s Eve until today , I haven ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defending homes and in between I ’ ve been working on my own property .
We had no water , and the house was covered in black ash and soot .
I had to wash it down , so , when we did get some rain , the soot wouldn ’ t contaminate it .
I was also trying to get generators operating , get electricity , get refrigeration .
Basically , I was just trying to reëstablish the services we need to live .

Until a few days ago, Paul Parker was a volunteer firefighter in Nelligen, a small village on the coast of New South Wales, in Australia—an area that has been devastated by the bushfires currently sweeping the country. A week ago, Parker was defending homes in his community against a spreading inferno. The sky was red and burnt orange, he said. Embers were everywhere. Flames shot as high as forty feet. “I’ve fought a few bushfires in my time, but nothing like that,” Parker told me. “It’s the worst I’ve ever experienced.”
As Parker raced from one fire to another, on the brink of exhaustion, he encountered a local television crew and erupted in rage. In the video the crew shot, Parker is seen leaning out of a fire truck, giving a sarcastic thumbs-up, and launching a stream of expletives at the right-wing Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison. “Tell the Prime Minister to go and get fucked, from Nelligen,” Parker shouts. He then challenges Morrison to meet him face-to-face. “I’ve lost seven houses in Nelligan. I’m not going to lose any more,” he says. “Tell the P.M. to come and meet me. Paul Parker, in Nelligan. Meet you any day, pal.” The video instantly turned Parker into something of a folk hero.
In Parker’s community, and elsewhere, the crisis has provoked intense anger toward Morrison, who was on vacation in Hawaii when two firefighters died in December. Morrison returned to Australia, but his response to the wildfires has been widely condemned as slow and ineffective. Since September, millions of acres of land have burned, thousands of people have lost their homes and businesses, and at least twenty-eight have perished. Morrison’s history of skepticism toward climate change and the government’s record of inaction have infuriated Australians who understand that record-breaking heat and dryness, symptomatic of a warming planet, are fuelling the crisis. On Sunday, Morrison announced an inquiry into the country’s fire response, nodding to the role of climate change but failing to support policies to decrease fossil-fuel use or promote renewable energy.
Parker spoke with me twice by phone, from Australia, about the catastrophic fires and about how he and others in Nelligen have responded. His account, which begins on New Year’s Eve, has been edited and condensed.
“We knew the fire was coming. In the late afternoon, we could see the glow coming out of the mountains to the southwest, and we knew. At about ten o’clock, we went to bed, and at around ten-thirty we were back up again. It was coming through the trees, and we stayed awake until it impacted us, at about one-thirty in the morning. The fire had crowned, which means it was on the ground and in the treetops. It was just a massive wall of flame. I tried to tame it with buckets of water and by driving over the flames. It was horrific. The absolute intensity of it.
“As soon as I knew my home was relatively safe, I hooked up with a couple of other brigade members in one of the local Nelligen fire trucks. Just trying to survive was the main issue, and trying to save as many properties as we could. It was horrendous. Some people were at home, trying to defend their homes with rakes and shovels and garden hoses. Some houses we could save, some we couldn’t, and there was only so much we could do at each property before we had to move on and help others. We lost seven or eight properties in Nelligen.
“Most of the population was down at the river. They were just taking shelter and grouping together for comfort, I suppose. They were there all day on New Year’s Day, and most people were at the water’s edge on January 2nd as well. I stayed where the fire was active. I worked probably thirty-six hours. I had a couple of hours sleep and then I was back out again. The fire was flaring up every day.
“On January 4th, there was a huge flare-up, and three houses on the eastern side of the river were under major fire. Myself and another volunteer went up and down the best we could. The flames were massive. We could barely breathe, because when buildings go up there’s a lot of toxic materials, plastics and rubber and mattresses. A couple of residents were there trying to defend their own homes, but at one point we had to get them out. They were totally exhausted. It was the middle of the day, but the smoke was so thick you would have thought it was nighttime—that’s how dark the sky was. We got some aerial support from big helicopters dropping water bombs, and we did manage to save the three homes.
“Then the wind changed, so the flames were fully involved across the road, and we had to drive the truck through the fire front to get ourselves out. We were driving to stop the fire from going into the village, and we saw a TV-news team down on one of the access roads. It just was a boiling point for me. I said, ‘Are you from the media? Tell the Prime Minister to go and get fucked, from Nelligen. . . . We really enjoy doing this shit.’
“A couple of weeks earlier, the Prime Minister commented that Rural Fire Service members enjoy going out and fighting fires. He’s just got no understanding of what it’s all about. We don’t enjoy fighting bushfires and saving people’s homes. We do it because we have to. He’s got no understanding of what real people in Australia go through. And he doesn’t care anyway. Any real man would never have left the country while his country was in turmoil.
“Another part is that our government has been hamstrung over hazard-reduction burns. It’s all too political, what the Rural Fire Service can do. If hazard-reduction burns had been done over the last couple of years, the fuel loads in our forests wouldn’t be as high and the fires wouldn’t have been as severe.
“Climate change is also a real thing. It’s not something that can be fixed overnight, and the government’s got to make a stand at some stage. Scott Morrison doesn’t even believe in climate change. I don’t think he even considers that we are going through climate change. I don’t know the answers. I’m not a scientist. I don’t know how society as a whole is going to reduce emissions. We can’t just turn off fossil fuels, because if we do we’ll go back to the caveman days. These problems are complex—I understand that. But something needs to be done now, for our future generation, or there won’t be a future.
“Today, the 13th, is the first day I’ve been back at work. At the moment, I work for an air-conditioning company. Basically, from New Year’s Eve until today, I haven’t stopped. I’ve been defending homes and in between I’ve been working on my own property. We had no water, and the house was covered in black ash and soot. I had to wash it down, so, when we did get some rain, the soot wouldn’t contaminate it. I was also trying to get generators operating, get electricity, get refrigeration. Basically, I was just trying to reëstablish the services we need to live.