Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a sweeping new policy instructing federal prosecutors to pursue the most severe possible charges and penalties for crimes. A person arrested possessing one joint, for example, would receive a mandatory sentence of one year in prison. These mandatory minimum sentences, especially pertaining to nonviolent drug crimes, have been shown in the past to disproportionately affect Black and Latino people. This racist policy will amplify and expand the slow genocide of mass incarceration.
The Washington Post rightfully called this approach “cruel and ineffective.” Sessions – who has said he thought the KKK was “OK” until he found out some of them smoke marijuana-is an integral part of the Trump/Pence fascist regime. As head of the Justice Department, he will have the power to use the oppressive incarceration system to destroy MILLIONS more lives.
Refuse Fascism NYC hit the streets yesterday to protest this. We used street theater in Union Square to portray Jefferson Beauregard Sessions himself, and jumpsuits to represent the lives that are being and will be destroyed by mass incarceration, police brutality and murder. We met people who were alarmed at the direction this regime is moving.
See more photos here.
And watch our video on Youtube:
In this moment, we cannot be passive. The administration is moving very quickly to impose horrific and oppressive policies, and they have made clear that they will target those who do not fit their white supremacist vision. No more business as usual! We must be the ones to act, saying NO! to the entire regime, organizing for the time when millions of people can flood the streets and demand that this regime be driven from power.
Join us tomorrow:
EMERGENCY COURTHOUSE ACTION:
NO! to Jeff Sessions’ Mandatory Sentencing
Manhattan Criminal Court
100 Centre St. New York, NY
9am – 12:30pm
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/154248025112480/
We will be hosting a press conference addressing this outrage. This is a brutal escalation of the New Jim Crow era of mass incarceration, and the fascist implications embodied here must be called out immediately. We are calling on people to speak out against this. If you are part of an activist organization, legal or civil rights group, and would like to speak at this conference, contact us as soon as possible at: 917-407-1286.