Up the Ridge is a one-hour television documentary produced by Nick Szuberla and Amelia Kirby. In 1999 Szuberla and Kirby were volunteer DJ’s for the Appalachian region’s only hip-hop radio program in Whitesburg, KY when they received hundreds of letters from inmates transferred into nearby Wallens Ridge, the region’s newest prison built to prop up the shrinking coal economy. The letters described human rights violations and racial tension between staff and inmates. Filming began that year and, though the lens of Wallens Ridge State Prison, the program offers viewers an in-depth look at the United States prison industry and the social impact of moving hundreds of thousands of inner-city minority offenders to distant rural outposts. The film explores competing political agendas that align government policy with human rights violations, and political expediencies that bring communities into racial and cultural conflict with tragic consequences. Connections exist, in both practice and ideology, between human rights violations in Abu Ghraib and physical and sexual abuse recorded in American prisons.

For more information and to watch the trailer go here.

Appalshop is looking for volunteers willing to show the film in their homes or communities. If you are interested in doing this go here and scroll down to the bottom of the page.

This report by Human Rights Watch also includes suggestions for how to help address this problem, including directing funding to inner city programs and:

*Eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and restoring judicial discretion to sentencing of drug offenders;

*Increasing public funding of substance abuse treatment and prevention outreach to make these readily available in communities of color in particular;

*Enhancing public health-based strategies to reduce harms associated with drug abuse and reallocating public resources accordingly.

Like so many other human rights issues, I think public folklorists can work toward positive changes in these situations. The first step is that folklorists have to be willing to acknowledge racism and see the drug war as a part of our larger culture and thus an area folklorists can not ignore. In Once Upon A Virus Diane Goldstein discusses the ways in which folklorists can work with public health workers to create a more holistic approach to AIDS prevention in Newfoundland. Similarly, folklorists can work in drug prevention programs. Perhaps there are already programs doing this?

But I think even more importantly, as folklorists and ethnographers we must educate ourselves to understand these larger back-story issues. That is, to first recognize and be able to articulate that there is a problem with racism in the so-called war on drugs, that youth in inner cities are much more likely to be targeted for drug arrests even when the major dealers and sellers of these drugs live elsewhere in the cities and may in fact work with police; that youth in inner cities have less access to education programs, sustainable jobs, and even adequate housing. The list goes on. And these are not just inner city issues but are also existent in poor rural areas and small towns. As a native of Arkansas and folklorist currently living in Kentucky, I see drug related crimes as a core problem in both states.

How can folklorists address these issues and how can we make sure our work does not turn its head from these fundamental issues?

Read the article here:
US Drug War Unjust to African Americans

Folklore Models that can help us work toward solutions:
Once Upon A Virus (a work addressing how folklorists can work in public health issues)

Know of any others–folklore or non-folklore-related?