On Friday, May 6, 2022, Jessica Williams, the director of Gender Justice for Freedom, Inc., a Black and Southeast Asian rights organization, walked into the Dane County courthouse in downtown Madison to attend the sentencing hearing for Kenyairra Gadson, a queer Black woman was was charged and convicted for defending herself against a long time tormentor. Almost immediately after entering the courthouse, Jessica was surrounded by police and whisked off to a room where she was arrested on trumped up charges of threatening a prosecutor and two counts of resisting arrest.

Jessica was released on the following Tuesday, May 10, after spending the longest amount of time one can legally be held in a US jail without any formal charges filed against them, including Mother’s Day away from her infant child. No charges have been filed, but the case has not been dropped either, as an independent prosecutor has been assigned to investigate whether Jessica did, in fact, threaten the sitting US attorney in open court more than 100 days prior.

Jessica Williams is a political prisoner who was arrested by Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, Wisconsin’s first Black DA, for effectively advocating for Black women targeted by the criminal justice system. As such, the only way to understand Jessica’s arrest is to understand the case of Kenyairra Gadson and other Black women who dare to defend themselves against patriarchal violence.

In the past month Wisconsin has seen at least 3 black lives damaged or lost by patriarchal violence, state violence and white supremacy.

On Wednesday, January 26th, Kenyairra Gadson, a Black queer woman was found guilty of 1st-Degree Intentional Homicide for defending herself against her attackers. On February 3rd, Quadren L. Wilson was shot in the back at least 5 times by state of Wisconsin police. In Milwaukee on February 5th, 23 year old Arieuna Reed was murdered during a domestic dispute with her partner.

On November 19th, an armed and militant white supremacist killer was found not guilty after traveling to Kenosha with the intention to harm protestors who were demanding justice for the attempted murder of Jacob Blake by Kenosha police. The killer, Kyle Rittenhouse, took the lives of Anthony Huber and JoJo Rosenbaum and injured Gaige Grosskreutz. This decision is a symptom of a white supremacist system, a system that allows white men to kill without consequence in the name of the continued oppression of Black people.

In the last few weeks, the United States government has engaged in the largest mass expulsion of asylum seekers in recent history even as Haitians are facing intersecting crises of the presidential assassination and an economy-shattering earthquake in the midst of a global pandemic. The cynicism and anti-Blackness of the U.S. government carrying out mass deportations of Haitian migrants, in line with their long history of destabilization of Haiti’s political and economic situation, reflects a pattern of white supremacist colonial powers disrupting and exploiting countries in the global South and then refusing to provide refuge or reparation for the victims of that same exploitation. Due to predatory U.S. border policies, such as Title 42 and the metering process that was introduced during the Obama administration, Haitian migrants are drowning to death, being physically and sexually abused, and being denied aid at the border...