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Chris Faraone talks about media and the Boston bombings
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When the bombs went off on April 15th, former Boston Phoenix staff writer Chris Faraone was a few blocks away from the explosion. In the minutes, hours, and days that followed, Faraone tirelessly documented on the tragedy, and the impact it had on Bostonians. He quickly but thoughtfully penned pieces for the American Prospect, Racialicious, and Dig
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Boston, but still had plenty of reflections to share. Within twelve days of the bombing, Faraone published an e-book collecting his coverage, Heartbreak Hell: Searching for sanity in Boston through a week of tragedy & terror. “Having covered mayhem elsewhere, I'm aware of how rare it is to utilize every note, to exhaust every last breath of interview,” he writes in
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the introduction. “But even after filing thousands of words to blogs and newspapers all week, I still have countless tales to share about everything I've seen since winding up within earshot of the bombing.” The entire book can be read for free online; here is the epilogue followed by an interview with Faraone discussing the book and the media’s coverage of the . . .
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From the Finish line to Watertown / by Ethan Long
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On April 15, Ethan Long was at the Boylston street bar Forum, photographing Boston.com’s Marathon Monday party – the same party Chris Faraone was also en route to at the time of the bombings. The bar was just feet away from the explosions; in fact, the bar still closed now due to damage from the bombs. In Long’s final Staff Editorial for his college paper, the Suffolk Journal, he wrote, “It had never once crossed my mind that I would be spending my last night on the staff of . . .
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An interview with the radical nominee for Pride’s Grand Marshal by Freddie Francis
Universal Unitarian community minister Jason Lydon began his prison justice work as a teenager. At age 20, he served a six-month sentence at a county jail in Georgia and a federal prison in Massachusetts. During the time he was locked up, firsthand experiences with harassment and violence radicalized his attention to the violence of the prison industrial complex, especially as it pertains to LGBT and other marginalized people.
Between 2004-2005, Jason founded Black and Pink, a Boston-based organization that describes itself as “an open family of LGBTQ prisoners and ‘free world’ allies who support each other” in their work toward the abolition of the prison industrial complex. Black and Pink’s ongoing projects include a pen-pal project for LGBT prisoners, publishing and distributing a monthly newsletter of stories, poetry, and art by current and former incarcerated LGBT people, and direct advocacy and support for a few select individuals experiencing harassment, sexual violence, lack of access to healthcare, and other forms of mistreatment. Now serving as Director and Lead Organizer at Black and Pink, Jason spoke with The Media about his prison abolition work and the visibility that’s come with Black and Pink’s recent nomination to be the Grand Marshal at Boston Pride 2013. Voting is open until May 15.
Black and Pink works toward the abolition of the prison industrial complex (PIC). Can you give us a working definition of PIC for people who may not be familiar with the concept?
The PIC consists of prisons, jails, detention centers, things that lock up people's bodies, police, judges, court systems, private industry profiting off of incarceration, a culture that targets criminalizing people of color, gender non-conforming people, queer folks, and poor people, while holding up prisons as solutions to all of our social problems . . .
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WEEKLIES
Local Flavorsby Sonam Parikh
Fast Apple's local favorites.
by R. Nordac
Can't kis u rite now . . .
by Liz Pelly
Deep Thoughts, a new record store and show space opens in Jamaica Plain.
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