Truthout

Journalists covering Palestinian liberation have always faced a vast scope of censorship. Negin Owliaei and Lara Witt, editors-in-chief of Truthout and Prism, write about how that censorship has grown since October 7, 2023, and where movement media can fight against it. https://lnkd.in/ekeB9UVg

The Truthout Center for Grassroots Journalism is proud to announce the winners of the fourth annual Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize.?The Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize, awarded to two people who are currently or formerly incarcerated, for essays related to imprisonment or policing, is given in memory of Keeley Schenwar (1990-2020), who was a devoted mother, daughter, sister, friend, writer and advocate for incarcerated mothers. Each year, the selected essays share some of the spirit in which Keeley Schenwar moved in the world (and wrote her?own work), a spirit of empathy, vulnerability and resistance. Each winner receives $3,000 and publication in Truthout. We were honored to read hundreds of submissions this year, and were deeply moved by each one. As ever, we wish we could have selected many more winners, and are so grateful to have had the chance to engage with this work. In addition to members of the?Truthout?team, we are thankful for our additional guest judge Colette Payne, a winner of the 2022 prize. The 2024 winners are Kaylene Albuquerque, author of “My Miscarriage Behind Bars Showed Me the Truth of the ‘Justice’ System,” and I.B. Peaceful, author of “Our Future Generations Deserve Abundance, Not ‘State of the Art’ Prisons.” https://lnkd.in/exYTJuH7

New book alert! I'm SO excited to announce that you can preorder "We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition," the anthology I co-edited with the amazing Kim Wilson, now (anywhere you buy books)!!! I hope the book will be useful to parents, caregivers, and anyone who cares about moving beyond carceral and oppressive systems. This book is not an instruction manual. We offer it as a collection of insights, vignettes, analyses, and glimpses showing how caregiving and abolition intertwine, and how people are putting that into practice every day, in movements and in their homes -- which, of course, overlap! This book is filled with wisdom from incredible contributors: Harsha Walia, Beth Elaine Richie, Dorothy Roberts, Mariame Kaba, Ruthie Wilson Gilmore, Heba Gowayed, Erika Ray, Dylan Rodriguez, Nadine Naber & Stacy Austin, Anya WT, Paul Lacombe, Shira Hassan, Sarah Tyson, Bill Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn, Adrienne Maree Brown & Autumn Brown, Jennifer Viets, Holly Krig, Ryann Croken, Rania El Mugammar, Victoria Law, Keisa Reynolds, and many more. And its gorgeous cover is by Olly Costello! We put our hearts, labor, stories, and spirits into this book and we hope it resonates. We Grow the World Together comes out November 19, but you'll be helping get it into bookstores and libraries if you preorder it now (from anywhere you like to buy books)!! Here are a few of the nice things that people said about the book: "This is the book that I wish I had when my children were young! Taken together, these powerful essays offer an irresistible invitation to embrace the ‘soul work’ of parenting, which is vital collective labor for a liberatory future." --Michelle Alexander "The beautiful chorus of voices gathered in We Grow the World Together invites us to take up the work of parenting ourselves and each other toward becoming and bringing into being people who can live the liberation we long for. As we continue to enact and survive intergenerational trauma on a global and genocidal scale, the practice of parenting toward healing and uprooting all forms of violence, policing, and punishment in all our relationships is key to shifting the shape of societies toward the world we want." --Andrea Ritchie “Everyone who raises a child imagines a bright future for that precious being. This beautiful book teaches us how to imagine a bright future for all of us: children, families, and communities. Abolition is liberation and love. I recommend this work for every reader.” —Imani Perry "This is a book that a lot of people have been waiting for, whether they know it or not. Our movements are always stronger when we take the complex needs of parents and caregivers into account, and We Grow the World Together is a fine example of that principle. This book will enrich our movements and our relationships." --Kelly Hayes

We’re proud to be co-launching the Movement Media Alliance, a coalition of organizations that all believe in the power of media to inform and fuel social movements that transform the world. When our journalism organizations met in November 2023, we had originally planned to focus on covering the 2024 election. Instead, we pivoted because an emergency was at hand: the U.S. government’s support of Israel’s genocide against Gaza and the ways our corporate media outlets were bolstering genocidal rhetoric and minimizing the extent of the atrocities. This became our first collaboration, Media Against Apartheid and Displacement. Today we officially launch the Movement Media Alliance, a collaborative hub to amplify our impact and sustain our work, as well as cover the ongoing genocide and Palestinian resistance. Our members include Truthout, Prism, In These Times, Convergence, Waging Nonviolence, Scalawag, Inquest, The Real News Network, Baltimore Beat, Palestine Square, Respair Production & Media, The Forge and Haymarket Books. Stay tuned for the MMA’s forthcoming project, Communities Beyond Elections.

Kelly Hayes talks with William C. Anderson, Robyn Maynard, Harsha Walia, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Mahdi Sabbagh, and others about the crises of trauma, grief and overwhelm in our communities, and the kind of healing activists need to stay in the fight.

Amid a growing movement, there’s hope that a liberated Palestine will exist within our lifetime, says Alexandra Aladham.

Dozens of organizations have come together in support of legislation that would place limits on how long a Supreme Court justice can serve, restricting their tenure to 18 years.

Lockheed Martin, which is profiting directly from Israel’s genocide, received $249 from the average taxpayer last year.

President Biden and members of Congress have cynically reinterpreted “human shields” to flout international law.

To stop the momentum of the far right, we need to confront mass layoff capitalism, says labor expert Les Leopold.