INCITE Boston Planning Meeting Sunday, July 16, 3 - 6 pm Cambridge Women's Center, 46 Pleasant St., Cambridge (Central T-stop) We will be screening the documentary "No More Violence Against Our Sistas!" by Sista II Sista of NYC!
Followed by discussion and planning. Organizing projects in the works include events for women dislocated by Katrina; political education project for women prisoners at South Bay; addressing gun violence and violence against women; immigrant rights; trafficking and exploitation of women in the workplace; supporting women of color in our various movements and organizing!
Childcare is available. INCITE meetings are intended to be a safe space for women of color. Allies are warmly invited to work with us, and attend meetings on a pre-arranged basis.
ACTION ALERT: Forced Strip Searches at Beth Israel Hospital
STOP FORCED STRIP SEARCHES AT BETH ISRAEL HOSPITAL!
In March 2005, five male security guards at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center forcibly stripped Cassandra Sampson, a 50-year-old African-American woman. Sampson suffers from a history of childhood sexual abuse, and tried to explain to a nurse she was uncomfortable removing her pants. As a result of the incident, she was retraumatized, experiencing flashbacks and nightmares; Sampson had to be hospitalized for several months and attempted suicide.
The hospital has defended the incident as necessary to ensure patients are not hiding drugs or weapons. In a letter to Sampson, hospital officials said that while they were sorry she had a terrible experience, they stood by their strict policy of searching psychiatric patients "for their own benefit"!
On June 5, 2006, Sampson filed suit against the hospital demanding compensation and the reform of hospital policies that discriminate on the basis of psychiatric disability.
FORCED STRIP SEARCHES ARE CRUEL, MISOGYNIST, & RACIST! STOP THE MILITARIZATION OF OUR HOSPITALS!
Sampson's experience exemplifies the misogyny and racism that infects our society. People of color are criminalized. Women's control over their bodies is denied -- while our experiences of sexual abuse are ignored and perpetuated daily! Those suffering from mental health issues are treated with contempt and control, rather than given care.
"Go ahead and rape me; everybody else has," Sampson said she cried as the guards unbuckled her pants and removed them. "They left me there with my underwear showing and my johnny up to my chest ... I was crying, and [the nurse] said, 'That's what you get for not listening to me.'"
Sampson had sought treatment for a severe migraine at the hospital's emergency room, but was referred to the psychiatric unit when she admitted struggling with self-destructive impulses. Sampson agreed to a thorough pat-down by a doctor to confirm that she had no unsafe object on her body; even after the pat-down, which confirmed she had no unsafe material, the nurse insisted on a strip search.
"These policies reflect a really distorted understanding of safety," said her attorney, Susan Stefan of the Center for Public Representation. An evaluation by a psychiatrist "could have determined whether she was actually likely to harm herself... Many women with psychiatric disabilities are rape victims, that's why they have the psychiatric symptoms in the first place."
Demand an End to Forced Strip Searches! Call Beth Israel Hospital and Write Your Local Paper:
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (617)667-2203 -- Paul Levy, president & CEO (617)632-0364, patientrelations@bidmc.harvard.edu -- patient relations jsiegal@bidmc.harvard.edu -- public relations
Brigham and Women's Hospital (which also has mandatory strip search policies for psychiatric patients enforced by security guards) ph: (617) 534-1600, fax: (617)534-1610 -- public affairs dvaprin@partners.org -- Dinah Vaprin, director of public affairs
INCITE Boston is the Boston chapter of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence.
INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence is a national activist organization of radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and their communities through direct action, critical dialogue and grassroots organizing.
For more information, email inciteboston@yahoo.com.
