#feministfriday episode 299 | Protest

Good morning everyone,

How is it going today. I am going to guess that you, like me, want to be able to usefully support protesters against state-endorsed violence directed at Black people and communities. That is what most of the words in today's newsletter are about, then later some links to things to read.

I've seen lots of links to bail out funds and my instinct is always to support things in the Pacific Northwest, because I really like the Pacific Northwest. But then I thought about wanting my contributions to have the most impact. I've done a bit of data analysis on that and thought that you also might be interested to see where contributions will have the most punch.

Firstly, I thought, where in the US is going to have the highest arrest rates, so the highest likelihood that people will need to be bailed out? You can find that information here if you are interested in my source data: https://www.statista.com/statistics/302328/arrest-rate-in-the-us-2012-by-state/ (ignore the URL it's data from 2019 for 2018)

Then I thought, where has the lowest income per capita, so there is the highest likelihood that people won't be able to pay bail? This information also exists: https://www.statista.com/statistics/233170/median-household-income-in-the-united-states-by-state/ (stats fans will note with approval that this is median income)

I used those things to rank the US states and come up with a top five of places where arrests are highest and incomes lowest. Donating to funds in any of these states is likely to be extremely impactful to people on the ground:

  1. Mississippi (lowest median income, fifth highest arrest rate)

  2. Kentucky (ninth lowest median income, highest arrest rate)

  3. Louisiana (third lowest median income, ninth highest arrest rate)

  4. Alabama (second lowest median income, thirteenth highest arrest rate)

  5. Tennessee (twelfth lowest median income, sixth highest arrest rate)

Note that I can't find bail funds for New Mexico or Arkansas so this is the top five for which I can find bail funds. If you know of any, let me know. And of course if you find this useful, feel free to share, copy/paste to Slack, etc. Here's a link to the analysis in case that's the sort of thing you are into. You'll notice it's not especially sophisticated:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1n0-7qSZs7Lwktv2QeDbhxaf5g92Msog_oi1SMvqDX2w/edit?usp=sharing

The list above is from a combination of this list (https://bailfunds.github.io) and this one from Autostraddle:

Raising bail for those who cannot afford it — especially, though not only, during a viral pandemic like Covid-19 — is absolutely a matter of life or death. We already know that the United States is a global epicenter for the virus, and thanks to our criminal (in)justice system, prisons and detention facilities are left without the proper PPE and the necessary sanitary conditions to mitigate spread.

https://www.autostraddle.com/43-bail-funds-you-can-absolutely-support-right-now/

Anne Helen Petersen's thread and subsequent article on small town protests highlights a shift in who is marching and where – that it's not just big cities:

The movements and marches that convulse big cities don’t usually (or ever) make it to Havre. Nor do they usually make it to hundreds of other small towns across the country. But the protests following the death of George Floyd, who was killed in police custody on May 25, are different.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/black-lives-matter-protests-near-me-small-towns

Here are just some of the young women who are organising protests in their small towns:

“George Floyd’s death, it brought anger to me and it brought anger to the two other people that helped me organize this,” said Ariona Fairlee, 15, one of the organizers. “And you can’t just sit around anymore. Like, we’re young but the young is what needs to change things because nobody else is going to do it.”

https://qctimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/more-than-1-000-gather-for-peaceful-protest-at-illinois-statehouse/article_a92cf5b6-e6ae-5eac-9cc3-675d451c8780.html

“I wanted to do something — nothing had really been done down here, so I was asking for ideas.” Her friend Green suggested the peaceful march, and they began to get the word out. […] Blue said she saw violence in large American cities and said she noticed no protests were occurring in small towns. She said she hoped one small-town protest could inspire another small town to do the same.

https://www.the-review.com/news/20200531/alliance-peacefully-protests

Love,

Alex.