The other America
Feminist Poet Rejects Arts Award
Adrienne Rich has turned down the 1997 National Medal for the Arts. The award is given annually by the National Endowment for the Arts, staffed by Clinton appointees.
Rich is the first artist to publicly reject the award for political reasons. She said that, "the very meaning of art, as l understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration."
She said that art "means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner-table of power which holds it hostage." She also said that she is disturbed by the widening gap between those who have wealth and power and those who do not.
In addition to writing 15 volumes of poetry, Rich has written many political essays, such as the highly influential essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, which played an important role in challenging heterosexuality as the norm, on the left and in society. * Source: Love and Rage vol.8 #4 August 1997 Puerto Rico
A strong campaign against privatisation is underway in the USA's Caribbean colony. A general strike has been called for October 1st. West Coast solidarity with Liverpool dockers
Port workers shut down all ports beween Alaska and the Mexican border for eight hours on September 8, in solidarity with Britain's striking Liverpool dockers.
At Los Angeles-Long Beach Harbour 32 vessels were in port when longshoremen (dockers) walked out. Three ships were held up in Portland, delaying two trains. In Seattle six ships were delayed, and longshore workers aboard ships bound for Thamesport used the opportunity to discuss the Liverpool situation, which may have impacted productivity.
At least a dozen ships were delaved At least a dozen ships were delayed in Vancouver, British Columbia, the largest tonnage port on the west coast.
Like in Liverpool, dock workers in Los Angeles, California are being threatened with privatisation and casualisation. The city has leased the coal-exporting Los Angeles Export Terminal (LAXT), to a private company that is attempting to run it with non-union labour. * Source: The Dispatcher, the ILWU newspaper. Haitians in New York protest police brutality
Haitian community groups in New York organised an important meeting on September 9 to discuss "independent strategies against police brutality."
Some 400 participants heard Haitian, African American and Afro-Caribbean speakers denounce the long history of police terror in New York
"Police brutality is an issue of overriding concern," said Reverend Daughtry, who hosted the meeting in his House of the Lord church. "There is not a Black or Latino family untouched."
Racism and police brutality has worsened under the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a former prosecutor.
The meeting is the latest angry reaction of the Haitian and black community to the vicious beating and rape of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima by New York City police.
Louima's lawyer, Carl Thomas, told the meeting that public pressure has forced the NYPD to cancel plans to transfer the four policemen responsible to desk jobs. They remain suspended.
Ben Dupuy, co-director of Haiti Progress newspaper and a spokesperson for Haiti's National Popular Assembly, attacked the big-business media for pro-police coverage of the Louima attack. "We're fighting a system," said Dupuy.
As well as hearing from a number of victims and their families, the meeting discussed proposals for future organising against police violence, and in favour of "community control" over the police. * Source: Workers World, 18 September, via Arm The Spirit Source: Workers World, 18 September, via Arm The Spirit
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* Australia