We are pleased to continue sharing a conversation between Micol Seigel and Anne Gray Fischer. Fischer’s powerful book, The Streets Belong to Us: Sex, Race, and Police Power from Segregation to Gentrification, was published in 2022, and is an account of gender and sexuality’s crucial role in the history and exercise of police power.  In this conversation, Fischer and Seigel discuss the archive and research at the foundation of the book and its relationship to wider abolitionist organizing.  They work through the relationship between sex work and vice policing, aimed primarily at womens’ bodies, along with race, which allowed wide swathes of Black neighborhoods to be treated as red light districts, subject to intensified police surveillance and violence.  Fischer shows that vice policing was key to developing the American ghetto, as well as its devastating effects on Black people.

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Urgent: PHONE ZAP! — This Tuesday (1/17) 8am-2pm PST, call 206-870-5704

Inmates at SeaTac Detention Center are facing cruel and illegal conditions, without adequate access to medical care, food, and communication. Please join our phone zap on Tuesday Jan 17, from 8am-2pm PST, calling once or as many times as you can, asking that the Associate Warden’s Office take immediate steps to correct the situation. Here is a script you can use:

“I’m calling on behalf of inmates at SeaTac Federal Detention Center, asking for the leadership to address the cruel and *illegal* conditions at the facility.
Without a long-term warden and the presence of leadership at the lunch line, it’s been difficult for inmates to directly address concerns themselves. Because you’ve silenced them, I’m calling on their behalf to let you know that many people across the nation are watching SeaTac right now. Please take immediate steps to improve conditions for every inmate at SeaTac by providing
– A minimum of 2,000 calories/day
– A doctor on-site at the facility
– Immediate access to prescription medications
– Immediate access to dental care
– Increased email access
– A warden assigned to the facility”