Find a Union Writer – James Jordan

First Name
James
Last Name
Jordan
Country
City
State
AZ
Twitter Handle
@BrotherBlueJay
About
I work for the Alliance for Global Justice, where I have written extensively about international labor solidarity, Colombia, Venezuela, and a variety of issues related to political struggle and ecological and anti-war themes. I am also a songwriter and have written one play and am in the process of writing another. Before I came to AFGJ in 2007, my background was mainly in landscaping and human service work. I studied religion and philosophy at North Park College, now University, in Chicago.
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Work Sample 1 Description
I think of these communities and can’t help but ask in my privileged way, how can they go on, what hope is there for them? I can’t speak for them, or to what degree they feel or don’t feel, cling or don’t cling to, hope. But when I consider this picture, I’m not seeing a child thinking about or seeking hope. I’m seeing someone who, despite cruel reality, really has no other choice, no other option, but to continue forward. I see and hear someone saying, “I am still here. I am still here. I am still here.” I see communities that continue to function, that continue to resist not because of some empty, romantic notion of hope. But because they are still there. Four people killed by death squads in three days. We’re still here. Whole families forced to relocate. We’re still here. Declarations that seem to do nothing … We’re still here!

And that’s what you do, when you’re still here, still alive in the face of it all: you wake up, you eat, you drink, you work, you love, you get angry, you play, you fight, you resist. While Old Colombia is being devoured in the Feast of Pestilence, I look at this one painting and into the face of this child, this New Colombia. Still here. The dream will not die. Ever.
Work Sample 2 Description
The very concept of “ability” is a continuum that varies from person to person, and, in fact, varies greatly through the life of any one individual, as they make their journey from cradle to grave. The idea of “people with disabilities” refers to such a broad swath of people that it borders on being ridiculous, lumping those with blindness, those with a learning disability, those who use wheelchairs, those suffering bipolar disorders, those with hearing problems — all in one category.

The reality is that many would describe what most call “disabilities” as “traits,” and in some cases, these traits are binding components for specific and vibrant cultures. For instance, there is a deaf culture built around shared language, experience, and creative expression, a culture defined by its richness and diversity. While recognizing the validity of this position regarding the broad category of disability, for the sake of this article, we will accept and talk about disabilities less to categorize the peoples concerned, than to identify and discuss the categories of human rights abuses against those perceived as living with disabilities. Fundamentally, we are all people with abilities, and those abilities are what best define us. The struggle for the basic human rights of people with disabilities is a struggle for inclusion.
Work Sample 3 Description
Political imprisonment in the United States exists primarily as a tool of racist repression. It is aimed disproportionately at people of color, as well as others engaged in anti-racist struggle. Whether in the fight against racism at home or against racist foreign policies, wars, occupation and colonialism, the overarching purpose of political imprisonment is to intimidate and try to crush militant forms of anti-racist struggle.

By treating U.S. political prisoners as “common criminals,” the criminal justice system individualizes each case as if they are somehow separate from their social contexts. This ignores root causes and impedes the development of political solutions to the underlying issues for which people have been arrested.

Readers can discern for themselves what is revealed in the findings presented here, and in the US Political Prisoner list this article analyzes. The large number of people of color and others involved in the anti-racist struggle arrested for their activities is sadly predictable. Our entire history and existing political and economic institutions are founded and advanced squarely on the foundations of racism.