Cranston police arrested 11 people and shut down six “suspected illegal massage parlors” in a coordinated raid June 17, according to a Cranston Police Department news release. The raid was spurred by multiple reports of suspicious activity in those locations by neighbors, WJAR reported.

The Cranston Police Department’s Special Victims Unit spent months investigating the case before closing each location, the release said. Detectives also found a “substantial amount” of money and potential evidence of prostitution and human trafficking. 

Police charged the arrestees with practicing massage without a license, which is a misdemeanor. The 11 arrested were Asian women aged 35 to 64. One woman was also charged with pandering/permitting prostitution. 

The investigation is still underway. 

“Yesterday’s operation demonstrates the commitment that our police department has in shuttering businesses in our city that (are) fronts for illegal activity to include prostitution and sex trafficking,” Chief of Police Michael Winquist said in the release. 

Members of the University community reflected on the incident and emphasized the importance of viewing and respecting sex workers as people, workers and community members — contextualizing the arrests within a broader trend of criminalization of sex and massage work.

Yanhoo Cho ’21.5, outreach organizer with Red Canary Song, a grassroots organization advocating for Asian and migrant sex workers, said being arrested can make it more difficult for women to work and pay rent. 

“This will push these massage workers into a more dangerous workplace that is (less likely to be) of their choice,” Cho said. 

All 11 were released on personal recognizance, which means they were released without bail, under the condition that they attend all court dates and do not engage in illegal activity, WJAR reported. 

Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies Elena Shih, who directs a human trafficking research group at Brown’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice and is also a core organizer for Red Canary Song, said that the policing of sex workers and investigation into whether or not they are victims of trafficking overshadows the fact that many of them are low-wage workers who deserve better working conditions. 

“To say they’re only deserving of (better working conditions) if they’re (being) trafficked funnels right into such a narrow box,” Shih said. “So many of the massage workers are also restaurant workers, garment factory workers, nail salon workers and none of those industries we’re interested in shutting down.”

Raids and arrests in the industry aren’t uncommon, Shih said, and if the arrestees are undocumented, it’s likely that they will be deported. If they’re not, the process of being arrested is nonetheless traumatic, she added. 

“Especially within a national conversation on policing and racialized policing it’s pretty abhorrent to me that this still is allowed to continue,” Shih said. 

Shih and Cho both engage in outreach to spas and massage workers to understand their labor conditions and needs, as well as to provide them with resources in a harm-reductive way. 

“People don’t realize that (massage workers) are members of the community but also give back to the community in a lot of ways. That part of their humanity is not being highlighted at all,” Cho said. 

The Cranston Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.

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Pac-12 releases fall 2021 schedule for Cal women’s soccer

KLC Fotos/Courtesy

After an unprecedented pause of roughly 450 days, Cal women’s soccer made its long-awaited return in February 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandeimc. Now, more than 70 days since Cal’s last game of the spring 2021 season, the Pac-12 has released its women’s soccer schedule for fall 2021, marking one of the shortest off-seasons in program history.

In total, the Bears will play 20 games, including both non-conference and conference matchups. On August 19, they’ll open their season against UC San Diego in Southern California. On November 6, they’ll close their season against Stanford at the Farm. All home games for Cal will be held at Edwards Stadium.

On the heels of an 11th spot in the Pac-12 with a 5-7-1 overall record, the Bears’ trajectory for the season can only go up. But opponents such as Santa Clara, UCLA and Washington may be particularly tough outings. In the 2020 NCAA College Cup, the Broncos were crowned the national champions after edging out Florida State in a penalty shootout thriller. Meanwhile, the Bruins and Huskies made waves in the same tournament, representing two of five Pac-12 teams showcased on the national stage.

For fall 2021, 25 returning Bears will be led by four captains: goalkeeper Angelina Anderson, defenders Sydney Collins and Emily Smith, as well as forward Emma Westin. With three of the four players being steady defensive fixtures, the blue and gold backline will presumably be a focal point for the upcoming season. 

Alongside them will also come a highly touted 2021 recruiting class of 14 players in total. Included in the bunch are forwards Arianna Manrique and Karlie Lema, as well as midfielder Marleen Rohde, who round out a balanced, offensively gifted set of young talents. Collectively ranked by TopDrawerSoccer as the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation, the eager cubs will soon have a chance to make their mark in a sea of talented Bears.

Ryan Chien covers women’s soccer. Contact him at rchien@dailycal.org.

The Daily Californian

Beginning on July 1, NCAA athletes across the country will legally be permitted to profit off of their name, image and likeness.

The NCAA Board of Directors approved an interim name, image and likeness (NIL) policy at a meeting on Wednesday morning, which allowed athletes to earn NIL compensation beginning on Thursday.

The new NIL ruling does not allow schools to directly pay their athletes, but is a huge step for collegiate athletes across the nation.

“This is an important day for college athletes since they all are now able to take advantage of name, image and likeness opportunities,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a press release. “With the variety of state laws adopted across the country, we will continue to work with Congress to develop a solution that will provide clarity on a national level. The current environment — both legal and legislative — prevents us from providing a more permanent solution and the level of detail student-athletes deserve.”

A number of collegiate athletes across the nation have already announced their plans to cash in beginning on Thursday. For example, Iowa basketball player Jordan Bohannon previewed a line of clothing, under his brand name of “JO3.”

While no Eagle athletes have announced plans to profit off of the new NIL rules, it is virtually inevitable that such announcements will come soon in a town as sports-crazy as Statesboro.

As virus variants contribute to infection rates, many students support the few remaining measures.

Courtesy of Jay Jones.

Mutual aid, a community-based strategy for collective survival and political action, has gained popularity during the pandemic, but communities and social movements have been using it for far longer. Two revolutionary organizations of the 1960s and ‘70s, the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords Party, shaped modern mutual aid with their anti-oppression efforts. While both are better remembered for their political education and militancy, each also championed early examples of “serve the people” programs that are widespread today.

According to lawyer-organizer Dean Spade, associate professor of law at Seattle University School of Law (Wash.) and author of “Mutual Aid” and “Solidarity Not Charity,” mutual aid is the practice of meeting people’s basic needs by providing good food, clean water, quality clothing and physical safety. It is also a form of political participation in which communities care for each other to resist the suffering inherent in capitalism, colonialism and policing. Rather than rely on what Spade calls the “gatekeeping,” saviorism” or “hierarchies of deservingness” common in charity and state welfare, mutual aid allows those impacted by oppression to build alternative solidarity-based institutions.

Mutual aid has been practiced for as long as people have lived in communities. To resist past and present colonial genocide, Indigenous peoples across the world have relied on cultural traditions of collective survival similar to what we now call mutual aid. Black Americans also have a long history of mutual aid as well, from the Underground Railroad to the Black women’s club movement to community support within Black churches.

This history undoubtedly influenced the Black Panthers’ and the Young Lords’ community aid programs. In addition to their revolutionary politics (the Black Panthers’ Ten Point Program and the Young Lords’ 13 Point Program), both helped their communities survive and resist inadequate—and often abusive—state and private services by creating community-run alternatives.

Founded in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in Oakland, California, located on stolen Ohlone land, the Black Panthers fought for the survival and liberation of the Black community. Based on the belief that freedom and self-determination are impossible under capitalism and colonialism, they used a two-pronged approach: armed self-defense (“policing the police”) and social self-defense (“serving the people”). Despite intense surveillance and repression, the Black Panthers’ programs saved lives by intervening against police brutality and providing basic necessities.

In response to the failure of federal War on Poverty programs, the Black Panthers developed their own institutions to simultaneously provide material support, uplift community knowledge and politicize their communities. Because the health industry restricted medical knowledge and harmed people of color, the Black Panthers’ survival programs aimed to deprofessionalize medicine, build community trust, provide first aid training and value patients’ knowledge. The Black Panthers also created the Free Breakfast for Children program to combat not only hunger, but the idea that mass hunger is acceptable; FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover even called the program the “greatest threat to the internal security of the United States.” By showing how social services could operate without abuse or neglect, the Black Panthers demanded more just systems.

Inspired by the Black Panthers and a Puerto Rican Chicago street gang called the Young Lords Organization, a collective of Puerto Ricans in New York created the Young Lords Party in the late 1960s in New York City, located on stolen Lenape and Siwanoy land, to fight for Puerto Rican survival, independence and self-determination. By emphasizing what they called “declassization” (unlearning oppressive social hierarchies) and “decolonization” (rejecting internalized capitalist and colonial ideas) the Young Lords sought to create change with political education and eventual armed resistance.

The Young Lords aimed to use community aid programs to radicalize its members by confronting oppression head-on and taking survival into their own hands. Through the Garbage Offensive, they forced the New York Department of Sanitation to collect trash in Puerto Rican neighborhoods by blocking the street with trash and analyzing why the government neglected the living conditions and health of poor Puerto Ricans. The Young Lords later established the People’s Church by occupying a conservative church and using the space to redistribute clothing and food. To combat Puerto Rican health inequities, they commandeered an X-ray truck and took over a wing of the Lincoln Hospital to directly provide healthcare. When presented with collectively-run alternatives to oppressive and neglectful institutions, many residents in poor Puerto Rican neighborhoods joined the fight for community self-determination.

Many programs created by the Black Panthers and the Young Lords are recreated across the world today. Like the Black Panthers’ free breakfasts, Food Not Bombs provides free vegetarian and vegan food to anyone who wants it which meets basic needs while radicalizing communities against war. Countless food pantries, community fridges and grocery delivery services do similar work. 

In the tradition of the Young Lords’ X-ray truck action and the Black Panthers’ free clinics, street medics provide emergency care to protesters and harm reduction programs supply clean needles and naloxone to prevent overdoses. Community patrols provide social self-defense amid rising anti-Asian attacks by walking the streets of Chinatowns to pick up trash, support businesses and prevent violence without the need for police.

Mutual aid has helped us survive crisis and hardship for centuries. We must draw from our predecessors to build alternative ways of meeting basic needs and resisting oppression. It is impossible to be free under today’s violence of capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy and militarized policing; these are our oppressors. Instead, we must find the safety, resources and connections we need in each other. The first step toward liberation is survival, and the first step toward survival is collective community care.

Jay Jones (22Ox, 24C) is from Tallahassee, Florida.

The post The Black Panthers and Young Lords: How Today’s Mutual Aid Strategies Took Shape appeared first on The Emory Wheel.

Steamed egg: A staple side dish in Asian cuisine

Brücke-Osteuropa/Creative Commons

Photo by Brücke-Osteuropa under CC BY-SA 2.0

Warm, smooth and savory, steamed egg is a popular side dish in many Asian countries such as Japan (referred to as chawanmushi), Korea (gyeranjjim) and China (zheng dan). Although it may look complicated, it’s actually a simple dish and can be made by a beginner. Moreover, the dish is versatile and can be easily tailored based on one’s own preferences. Here’s how you can make it in no time! 

Ingredients

Serving Size: 2

Cooking time: 20 minutes

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups stock or water
• A pinch of salt
• 5 clams (optional)
• 3 shrimps  (optional)
• 1 imitation crab (optional)
• Scallions as garnish (optional)

Directions

1. In a large bowl, beat the eggs until they are smooth before adding in your choice of stock or water.
2. Add some salt and mix until thoroughly combined.
3. Next, strain the egg mixture through a fine-mesh strainer to get rid of any air bubbles.
4. Steam the mixture in a water bath for 10 minutes, before adding in the optional clams, shrimps, and imitation crab.
5. Re-steam the mixture again for 5 minutes and let it rest for another 5 minutes to make sure the mixture is completely cooked through. If it still looks watery, cook for an additional 3 minutes. 
6. Garnish with scallions and enjoy!

There you have it, a savory, creamy side dish! To be able to truly savor the flavors of this dish, try to eat it with plain tasting food as you do not want the sweetness and creaminess of the egg to be overpowered. So what are you waiting for? Grab a warm bowl of rice and snuggle in with some steamed egg.

Contact Erica Jean at ejean@dailycal.org.

The Daily Californian

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha and state legislators announced new legislation on June 16 to provide body-worn cameras to all 1,700 frontline police officers in the state. The bill has passed both the House and Senate. 

While the Providence and Newport Police Departments already require officers to wear body cameras, the recently introduced program will provide the necessary funding to all other participating police departments to cover the combined cost of the body camera equipment, the platform for redacting personally-identifying civilian information and the video storage needed for the next five years, Neronha said in an interview with The Herald. 

Departments will not have access to funding until after the State has decided upon the guidelines and procedures for the body camera program, conversations which will take roughly six to 12 months and will occur through a series of public hearings, Neronha added.

 Neronha and his staff conceived of the program in the midst of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests as his office was handling its own case of excessive police force in which body camera footage, and to a lesser extent bystander footage, played a “critical” role in the prosecution.

“In every case I’ve evaluated, it always comes down to how do I know what happened and how do I prove what happened,” Neronha said. He believes body cameras help answer these questions by resolving competing versions of events in order to hold officers accountable as well as to vindicate those who are innocent.

“We knew there was a law enforcement trust issue,” he said. “I felt like our office had an opportunity … to lead in that space.”

Neronha announced the program two weeks ago alongside leaders of the Rhode Island State Police and the Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association, which researched and piloted body cameras over the past year, according to a press release.

In a press conference announcing the program, West Greenwich Police Chief Richard Ramsay, president of the RIPCA, confirmed that the state’s police chiefs support the program, the benefits of which he said are “well-established.”

State Police Superintendent Col. James Manni also spoke at the conference, calling body cameras a “piece of equipment critical to building public trust and creating transparency.”

“We cannot afford not to have these,” he added.

 The cameras “have proven to be a useful tool” to the Providence Police Department, the first in the state to equip officers with body cameras, and have helped advance the department’s goal of “being as transparent as possible with the community,” PPD Spokesperson Lindsay Lague wrote in an email to The Herald.

Cedric Huntley, executive director of the Nonviolence Institute, an organization that practices and promotes nonviolence as a solution to communal violence and that partners with the PPD, said that body cameras are important for accountability and public safety. Although he believes cameras will “help in the process” of building trust, he acknowledged the program alone won’t solve “the years and generations” of distrust between individuals in the community and law enforcement. 

Harrison Tuttle, executive director of Black Lives Matter RI PAC, agreed, believing “the trust between the Black and brown community and the police has been severed.”

While Tuttle said the program is “absolutely necessary,” citing the role video footage has played in documenting instances of police brutality and sometimes ushering “real justice,” he does not believe it solves systemic issues such as the “war on poverty” and mental health, which he says underlie deaths “at the hands of the police.” 

Tuttle also noted that police have acted with excessive force even when equipped with the cameras. “People didn’t stop dying after George Floyd,” he said. “Oftentimes, the instances in which we see police brutality on the news are from body cameras … so I’m not sure (they’re) a solution.”

Last year, Neronha tasked his team with researching what he believed would be the primary basis for opposition to a body camera program: cost. 

In an effort to minimize the use of state taxpayer funds, Neronha sought to help pay for the program by mobilizing as much money as possible from the funds his office acquired from asset forfeitures and civil cases of corporate misconduct. In the end, his office contributed $1 million. The current state budget bill provides an additional $15 million for the five-year program.

Tuttle, who noted that “police budgets have only increased” after a year of nationwide efforts to defund the police, said he generally favors reallocating funds to “community-based solutions.”

While he believes the program is important for accountability, Tuttle added that the $15 million provided by the state budget is money that could have instead gone toward providing students “materials for school” or other services. 

Huntley thinks that reallocating funds from the police to other services is appropriate in certain circumstances, but he believes body cameras are “a great investment” that can answer questions from the public and resolve confusion surrounding incidents involving the police.

To follow the body camera initiative, Tuttle proposed that the state adopt a program similar to CAHOOTS in Eugene, Oregon, in which mental health professionals respond to non-violent 911 calls instead of police. 

Neronha said the specific guidelines and procedures for the program, such as when body cameras must record, have not yet been finalized. While he expects to publicly release any body camera footage relevant to a case of police misconduct, he conceded that “timing is a trickier question,” given that the premature release of footage can compromise the prosecution of a case. 

Neronha offered the example of witnesses who can’t fill in gaps of missing information because their testimonies are biased by a news broadcast. He also suggested that a judge might deem the release as “unfair pretrial publicity” and take measures that could impede the prosecution of the case.

“Ultimately,” he said, “I hope (the body camera program) will instill confidence in the criminal justice system.”

After an unusual year, the “Damn These Heels” Queer Film Festival returns July 9-18 with both in-person and virtual content and events showcasing 50 feature-length and short films. The annual festival includes documentary and dramatic films from around the world that explore issues and ideas from this community and celebrate queer art, queer stories, queer love and the lived experience of LGBTQ+ people.

History of the “Heels”

“Damn These Heels” is the longest-running LGBTQ+ film fest in the Mountain West, according to partner Utah Film Center, and has presented over 260 films since it began, giving a platform to voices and experiences that would otherwise be inaccessible.

“I am so proud that this year’s program provides such a well-rounded look at the LGBTQIA+ spectrum from all angles. Themes of resilience, unearthing history, and boundary pushing are at the forefront this year. There is truly something for everyone in this program,” said “Damn These Heels” Director of Programing Ash Hoyle in an event press release.

Audiences can take part in the festival with films, conversations and Q&As virtually with streaming via Eventive — in-theatre screenings will be held at the Rose Wagner Theatre. The festival kicks off with an opening-night drive-in at the Fairpark and a closing weekend event at Liberty Park. 

Film Lineup and Features

The opening night drive-in feature, “My Name is Pauli Murray,” candidly examines the life of non-binary Black activist, lawyer and writer Pauli Murray. The documentary, directed by Betsy West and Julie Cohen, is told mostly in Murray’s own words and shows the journey and fight to exist beyond previously accepted categories and cultural norms. The screening will be preceded by a drag show. 

Other films are available throughout the festival with several in-person screenings and streaming options, covering a variety of genres and perspectives.

For history buffs, the festival recommends films like “Cured,” “No Ordinary Man” and “Rebel Dykes.” For teens, they suggest “No Straight Lines” and “We’re All Going To the World’s Fair.” For fans of comedy, there is “Dramarama,” “Potato Dreams of America” and “S**t and Champagne.”

The festival’s lineup has a little something for everyone, and the “Damn These Heels” team invites Cinephiles and casual moviegoers alike to explore their recommendations for BIPOC stories, trans highlights, memorable soundtracks, slam dunks and films that push cinematic boundaries.

The festival will also screen 25 short films in three distinct programs, the first of which is “Through the Cracks.” This section features stories of people, places and experiences that “exist in liminal space, where queerness feels most ripe and most right.”

The second program, “Missed Connections,” “makes a home for stories about rupture, failure, longing, and accident” and features short films characterized by “heartbreak as well as hope.”

The third and final short film program, titled “Apples and Trees,” is a collection of shorts that focus on parents and their children as they “navigate the complexities of coming out, staying out, and living out.”

The film festival closes with an in-person outdoor screening of the animated foreign documentary “Flee.” This film tells the true story of gay Afgan Amin, a refugee from war-torn Kabul whose life and family were ripped apart by war.

“‘Flee’ had an incredible premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2021 and we are so proud to have partnered with our longtime friends at Sundance to bring it back for Utah audiences as our closing night film and part of the For The Locals Sundance Institute Community Program,” said Hoyle.

This year’s festival looks to improve on what has been and towards the future of queerness in film. “I have long admired the important and unique impact of ‘Damn These Heels,’” Hoyle said. “During my time living in Salt Lake City as a young trans person, the films that I experienced at ‘Damn These Heels’ were truly a lifeline, a celebration, and a connector to the larger community.”

Individual tickets and multi-screening passes are available now as well as a detailed program of films and events.

h.graham@dailyutahchronicle.com

@_HeatherGraham_

The post ‘Damn These Heels’ LGBTQ+ Film Festival Gives Platform to Unique Voices appeared first on The Daily Utah Chronicle.