I know this is peripherally AJ, but "motherfuckers better realize that now
is the time to self-actualize".
Paz,
A Dario
> -----Original Message-----
> Sodexho Marriott Stops "No More Prisons" Show at American University --
> Event Was Planned to Highlight Company's Ties to Private Prison Industry
> February 15 in Washington DC, two hundred students came to American
> University's Mary Graydon Center to hear performers featured on the
> forthcoming No More Prisons Hip Hop Compilation CD. But when they arrived
> they were informed by employees of Sodexho Marriott Services (SMS), which
> is contracted to operate the venue, that the show had been canceled.
> David Epstein, a senior, explains that students had received all of the
> appropriate authorizations from American University's Office of Student
> Activities. "Three hours before the event, the SMS manager told us that
> the university didn't give them time to prepare. They could have worked
> with us to make the show happen. They refused to do that."
> Students for a Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) and Prison Moratorium Project
> (PMP), the groups that put the show together with the support of the Drug
> Reform Coordination Network (DRCNet), have been critical of SMS' close
> ties to the for-profit private prison industry. According to Kevin Pranis,
> a Soros Justice Fellow and PMP activist who was scheduled to speak at the
> event, the French-based Sodexho group, which owns Sodexho Marriott
> Services, is the largest investor in US private prisons through its 11%
> holdings in Prison Realty Trust/Corrections Corporation of America.
> Articles detailing Sodexho's prison investments, and calling on students
> to put pressure on SMS, have appeared in a number of publications, such as
> Infusion, which reaches over a hundred campuses throughout the US and
> Canada.
> Students have no evidence that these articles influenced the decision to
> cancel the show, but they find the coincidence eerie. "I don't know that
> the message had anything to do with it," says Epstein, "but I think it's
> disturbing that an outside corporation can just shut down an authorized
> student event. That's something students everywhere should be worried
> about."
> According to Marty Leary, a researcher for the Hotel Employees and
> Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE), SMS has a bad record with
> free speech issues. "It's unfortunate, but I can't say that I'm surprised.
> This company had a rule preventing its own employees from talking to
> outsiders about their working conditions." To avoid civil prosecution, SMS
> recently entered into a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board
> and agreed to drop illegal work rules.
> Despite the initial setback, event organizers went into high gear and
> managed to pull together equipment and transportation for a house party,
> hosted by junior and President of AU SSDP, Kate Sanders. Sanders explains,
> "I just felt we owed it to the artists, Apani B. Fly, Lyric and El
> Battalion, who drove down from New York, and to all the students who
> showed up to hear a positive and political Hip Hop message." The party
> drew more than fifty students, and organizers say that the footage will be
> available online within a week at <http://www.zoomculture.com/ssdp/>.
> The No More Prisons show was organized as part of a nationwide effort to
> protest the growing number of men and women behind bars, projected to
> exceed two million on February 15, according to a study released by
> Justice Policy Institute. Pranis says that the next big date will be April
> 4, 2000, when students at campuses across the country take action against
> Sodexho Marriott Services. For further information, visit
> <http://www.nomoreprisons.org>.
>
>
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