WHO WE ARE
‘In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. …Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind.’
Alexander, M. (2010. 2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York, New York: The New Press.
VISION (50,000 feet):
BAR NONE by DeSign elects to use art as a tool to confront and change the holistic, monstrous and on-going trauma that has impacted Black people of Afrikan/African descent specifically, who are the highest targeted, most criminalized, and over incarcerated group of people, at the hands of the prison industrial complex, via the criminal legal system that is based in racism.
Moses, R. P., & Cobb, Jr., C. E. (2001). Algerbra and Civil Rights? In Radical Equations: Civil RIghts from Mississippi to the Algerbra Project (p. 3). Boston, Mass: Beacon Press.
MISSION (20,000 feet):
BAR NONE by DeSign encourages those impacted by incarceration to eliminate recidivism, dismantle the prison industrial complex and design a just, ethical, and equitable criminal legal system.
What We Do
Education
Our Education element has many levels to it as it serves to prevent children from entering the prison system, intervening in the juvenile injustice system, making the school to prison pipeline obsolete, fighting to ensure that a quality, ethical, just, equitable, education is available to all youth and adults. We believe in literacy and know that it is impossible to do anything if you cannot read or write. In order to be an effective and successful entrepreneurial servant leader, being literate is vital.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
The leaders in us see the leader and YOU!
* Help you to identify your gift and skill that can be financially rewarding
* Teach you navigate the waters of business 101, 2 and so on…
* Ensure that you understand the push and pull method and the importance and generational, communal wealth
Community Driven Justice
Community involvement is imperative to any movement. Understanding that when the whole of the community is equipped with the necessary to effectively organize in numerous forms is the win!
* Education (Holistic and Political)
* The Process and Purpose of Black Policy (interpretation, understanding, writing, advocacy, lobbying, passing, voting)
* Putting the Neighbor back in Neighborhood
* Exonerations
* Free All Political Prisoners Initiative
‘What we do matters because children are supposed to matter most. Those same little people will be responsible for our way of life sooner than we think. Right now we have the opportunity to be on the side of humanity and guide them and humility because we love them. ‘
~ Tuere Burns, Executive Director, BAR NONE by DeSign
Hitting You With The Hot Facts
* The United States is 24th in the industrial world in reading and writing comprehension
* The state of Louisiana locks up children as young as ten years old
* In Orleans Parish, all of those children are Black
* In Orleans Parish it is difficult to get accurate literacy numbers because there is no operating school system; charter management organizations operating school at full autonomy
* Most children are incarcerated in Orleans Parish via crimes committed on the streets that are a direct result of school pushout
* There is a larger police presence at schools than there are school counselors, social workers, child psychologists and/or psychiatrists (please be advised that this doesn’t include MHP visits and/or placements)
* Children are repeatedly traumatized and criminalized by the new adaptive school culture that focuses more on disciple that child development, levels and different variations of understanding do to race, culture, and socioeconomic backgrounds
* Children are not able to focus do to horrible lunches and prison culture that refuses to allow them to communicate above a whisper, if at all
Our children are failing by DeSign and we, the people have a responsibility to them, long before they have a responsibility to anything. And until we exhaust everything, Black people will continue to be *mass incarcerated and an active part of the prison industrial complex.
#TIMESERVED CAMPAIGNS
Righting/Writing Our Wrongs Commission addresses the holistic, monstrous and on-going trauma that has impacted Black people specifically, at the hands of the prison industrial complex, via the criminal legal system, that is based in racism. Expungements are a critical piece for people who have been impacted by incarceration. It can make a difference between whether they move from struggling to sustainability to thriving or remain struggling, impoverished, or even back in jail/prison. Most of those people are Black.
Black Philanthropy is the New Social Justice and BAR NONE by DeSign is moving into the foundation lane to ensure that those who are dedicated to the ending recidivism, dismantling the prison industrial complex and justly redesigning the criminal legal system, regardless of name, who they’re connected to, politics and money are easily and equitably funded so that they may continue their heart work.
#BNbD believes that “everybody knows somebody that knows somebody that incarcerated.”
TESTIMONIALS
“I heard about BAR NONE through a childhood friend. They invited me to attend an event and I did. I think this program is amazing! Art is one of the best forms of expression. It is very therapeutic, especially for those who are incarcerated. I was moved by what I witnessed and accepted the invitation to become a board member.”
Danielle Metz, Formerly Incarcerated; only woman to be Granted Clemency By President Barack Obama
“My experience with BAR NONE has been helpful because it gave me a chance to build as an artist and work with other kids who were in situations similar to those I had been in previously. While working with BAR NONE, I began preparing for my next project, “Audible”, the inspiration from which came from New Orleans/Summertime energy. I’m also working on an EP to released once the proper groundwork has been laid for my musical career.”
Gerald “G-Dot” Davis, Formerly Incarcerated; #BNbD First Music Artist in Residency
VIEW OUR MerchandisE
SO YOU KNOW
Visit: https://www.arkrepublic.com/- BLOG SITE
TUERE JONES ACTIVIST ROOTS– ARTICLE
BLACK PANTHERS PRISON INTERVIEWS- ARTICLE
LEADERS OF COLOR– NEWSLETTER ARTICLE
After Half-Century in Prison, Elderly Black Panther Should Not Be Left to Die