Read below for text precursoring this work when first published...
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I think I’ll start by saying the images in this zine shocked and disturbed me to produce and still make me uncomfortable, especially to distribute. However, sensationalism makes for a great allegory and the Western concept of Justice continually shocks and disturbs me but somehow it never seems to make the people in power uncomfortable to distribute to the masses.
In truth, justice is not handed out equally to the masses. She may be blindfolded but her representatives aren't and they see race distinctions quite well. Black males are five times more likely to be incarcerated than white males (source: Bureau of Justice Statistics Correctional Surveys) and if you are black and kill a white person you are thirteen times more likely to be executed by the state than if you are white and kill a black person (source: http://deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu/). Until the economic inequalities of our society can be addressed, justice will never be blind.
As of February of this year, the United States of America had 2 million people in its jails. This is not only the greatest percentage of a population incarcerated globally but it is the greatest number of people incarcerated by a single country. A number people should recognize before they boast America to be the land of the free.
The trend towards jailing people who those in power choose to ignore is growing. In California alone, as reported by The Justice Policy Institute, "From 1984 to 1994, California built 21 prisons, and only one state university...the prison system realized a 209% increase in funding, compared to a 15% increase in state university funding."
With that as a precursor, here is my story on the redemption of justice. To sum it up: Justice, afraid and assaulted for centuries, takes off her blindfold to find out what is being done to her. Shocked by the atrocities she sees she blames the anthropomorphic figure of government who in turn tells her that all of these things were done by her or in her name. Then this embodiment of government uses the recent catastrophes as an excuse to rape Justice (current anti-terrorist legislation that impedes on everyone's basic rights as people) with an audience watching, most knowing it is wrong but few acting on it. Then he leaves her destroyed and only a glimpse of what she once was. It is then that Liberty and those who were slaughtered by her blindness (the Haymarket Memorial erected in memory of four labor leaders who were hung for fighting for an eight-hour workday) forgive her for her transgressions because she now sees the error of her ways.
There, that's the story. Personally, I think it sounds hoaky broken down in a literal manner but oh well. I hope you are still able to enjoy it.
In closing I would like to encourage anyone who is outraged by anything going on in the world to speak out on it. Now I leave you with a comment on activism by Howard Zinn, the historian and author who spoke on Oregon State (13/11)campus last Tuesday.
