Termites Unite Spokane
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termitesunite.bsky.social
Termites Unite Spokane
@termitesunite.bsky.social
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termitesunite.bsky.social
When our community is disappeared locally — disappeared from life into prisons — people on both sides of the bars are punished.

Holing human beings away does nothing to help society, heal community — and it disrupts their families, their loved ones, their children.

Here's a chance to mitigate harm
We are raising funds to help with the travel costs for incarcerated journalist Kwaneta Harris' children to visit her for the first time in a a decade. Kwaneta is a former nurse, business owner, and expat, now an incarcerated journalist and Haymarket Writing Freedom Fellow, from Detroit. In her writing, she illuminates how the experience of being incarcerated in the largest state prison in Texas is vastly different for women in ways that directly map onto a culture rooted in misogyny. Her stories expose how the intersection of gender, race, and place contribute to state-sanctioned, gender-based violence. Kwaneta has spent years of her life in solitary confinement, unable to contact her children even via phone calls for long stretches of time. Because her family lives in Detroit and Kwaneta is incarcerated in Texas, it is extremely costly and difficult to arrange in-person visits. This fundraiser seeks to help offset some of the costs of travel so that Kwaneta can see her children for the first time since 2015. The photo on this fundraiser was taken during the family's last in person visit in 2015. To read Kwaneta and her daughter Summer's incredible co-written piece on solitary confinement, click here. Summer I was only four months old when my mama got arrested. That’s what my grandma told me. For most of my life, she’s been just a voice on the phone or a character in stories others tell me. I’ve only seen her twice in person that I can recall. The first time I was 4, but that memory is so hazy I can’t tell if I’m really remembering it or just reciting what others have told me about that day. The second and last time, in October 2015 at 7 years old, is when I truly remember seeing her face-to-face. Mama somehow managed to hold all three of us: me, my sister and my brother by our hands at the same time. But her eyes stayed on me the longest. My siblings look just like her, but I’m my dad’s twin, so I guess she was trying to memorize my face. We were getting to know each other, and I remember telling her she “talked like a white girl” because her voice sounded different in person than over the phone. Then everything changed in January 2016. Mama was put in solitary confinement, and she stayed there until just recently, when I turned 16. We had been talking on the phone daily—me in Michigan, her in Texas—and then it all just stopped. No explanation, just silence. Grandma was crying all the time. My sister started acting out, getting involved with boys and being bullied at school. Nobody really explained what was happening, they just said, “Mama’s in the hole.” I was only 8 years old then, and I thought she was literally living in a hole in the ground. I would lay awake at night worrying about how she ate, where she slept, how she went to the bathroom. That’s when my stomach problems started. Everything I did in my daily life, I’d wonder how Mama was doing the same thing in that hole. Was she cold? Could she see the sky? We were supposed to visit Mama every year. Her friends and other people would pitch in for the trip. But suddenly we couldn’t go because “she’s in the hole.” I started thinking maybe she didn’t want us to come because they might put us in holes too. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it because we weren’t supposed to tell people where our Mama was. I still don’t understand why me, my grandma, my brother and my sister all had to be punished too. They definitely succeeded at breaking our family apart. I had relatives on my dad’s side who were in Michigan prisons, and they came home on the weekends. Some of them even called home when they were in “the hole.” I didn’t understand that Texas had different rules. I was angry and convinced myself that Mama didn’t want to talk to me. We didn’t have phone calls anymore. Once, after years of silence, Mama called very late at night, grandma woke me up … but when I got on the phone, Mama thought I was my sister. That really hurt me, made me feel invisible.
August 12, 2025 at 1:46 AM
termitesunite.bsky.social
Yes we need to remove all politicians who only serve billionaire class and big business.

Spokane needs to remove @mayorspokane.bsky.social Lisa Brown, Jonathan Bingle, Michael Catchart, Betsy Wilkerson, Zack Zappone for serving Big Business.

No matter what party they claim, all screw the 99%.
August 11, 2025 at 7:02 PM
termitesunite.bsky.social
It's horrific. That saying 1 death is a tragedy, 1 million a statistic.

These are all human beings who are in government "care" and deserve basic human needs met.

Not dying is the lowest bar possible and we are failing our #LocalDisappeared even that.

We are failing them their lives. #FreeThemAll
August 11, 2025 at 6:56 PM
termitesunite.bsky.social
Yes! @fivefourpod.bsky.social discusses why the Supreme Court sucks and their latest episode discusses LA's ICE protests (we had them in Spokane too #FreeTheSpokane9).

They've been bribed by billionaires to legislate from the bench in taking away our rights. Why accept it?

bsky.app/profile/meze...
mezentine.bsky.social Mezentine @mezentine.bsky.social · Aug 8
It’s rarely put so plainly, but Peter is exactly correct on this episode: law enforcement, as a whole, constitutes a right wing political group that has been funded and elevated with enthusiastic bipartisan consensus.

Any Democrat who fails to understand this will fail to fix anything.
fivefourpod.bsky.social 5-4 Podcast @fivefourpod.bsky.social · Aug 5
This week’s premium episode is about Trump’s efforts at domestic militarization, including a dissection of what exactly went down in Los Angeles this June.
August 10, 2025 at 7:28 PM
termitesunite.bsky.social
Spokane's lucky to have journalists for the 99% striving to accurately document the increasing violations and horrors the government is inflicting on everyone, especially our BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ friends.

This means they're funded by us too: rangemedia.co/support-us/

rangemedia.co/everything-w...
Everything we know about the Spokane ICE protests – RANGE Media
Over 24 hours of boots-on-the-ground independent reporting.
rangemedia.co
August 10, 2025 at 7:24 PM
termitesunite.bsky.social
Agreed. The Billionaire's Supreme Court continuously rules against the 99%'s rights & is not a balanced check. @fivefourpod.bsky.social has great episodes about how how the SC is legislating from the bench and codifying a police state without human rights.

Why are we listening to 9 bribed people?
August 9, 2025 at 11:03 PM
termitesunite.bsky.social
We need "a widespread adoption of air-conditioning...to cool prison facilities."

"Just one day of above average summer temperatures is associated with a nearly 4% increase in prison deaths."

This is inhumane. America's current prisons and criminal legal system is inhumane.

#FreeThemAll
Several courts have ruled that extreme temperatures in prison violate the Eighth Amendment’s provision against “cruel and unusual” punishment. But these rulings have not led to a widespread adoption of air-conditioning or other methods to cool prison facilities or prevent heat-related deaths. Public health researchers at Brown University estimate that just one day of above average summer temperatures is associated with a nearly 4% increase in prison deaths. Suicides spike 23% in the three days following a heat wave. And for every 10 degrees above the average summer temperature, prison deaths increase 5%. An illustration by Avalon Nuovo for the Marshall Project colored in orange and yellow scale. The warm colors evoke feeling hot. A man is folded almost in half, crammed inside a box. His head is oriented to our left and his feet are planted to our right. He is massaging or perhaps just holding his head with only the fingers of his right hand. His knees are squeezed to his chest. His left arm is folded across his body, hugging his knees, leaving his hand to brace against what is, in our view, the bottom of his cage. The man looks uncomfortable, hot, and pretzel-ed around himself. The art evokes feelings of claustrophobia and over-heating.
August 9, 2025 at 10:55 PM
termitesunite.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/pjal...
pjals.bsky.social pjals.bsky.social @pjals.bsky.social · Aug 2
✍️ Sign on to the letter.

📣 Tell us: who else should be standing with us?

Together, we defend each other.

Sign-on now! buff.ly/ZwoOp9P

#DropTheCharges #SpokaneSolidarity #ImmigrantJustice
August 9, 2025 at 10:30 PM
Reposted by Termites Unite Spokane
jdleighty.bsky.social
The Constitution and Bill of Rights are meant to protect our freedoms. But what good are those rights if the government can violate them now, and you’re forced to wait months or years for your day in court?
August 6, 2025 at 3:54 PM
termitesunite.bsky.social
Which is how we know we can course correct this ship. This isn't over.

Spokane has community experts such as Jewels Helping Hands and Justice Forral testifying constantly at council meetings who we need to listen to.

We are all affected. We can and should all band together. Don't give up. /4
August 9, 2025 at 10:24 PM
termitesunite.bsky.social
Spokane has @rangemedia.co who has extensively documented the (increasing!) criminalization of people who can't afford homes by City Council and @mayorspokane.bsky.social.

Property owners including 4th gen heirs Cowles family have requested this & police state.

rangemedia.co?s=homeless /3
You searched for homeless – RANGE Media
rangemedia.co
August 9, 2025 at 10:24 PM
termitesunite.bsky.social
not only criminalizes poverty crimes (can't afford to sleep indoors, can't afford an apt w/plumbing and sinks and toilets), but creates a jailed workforce of even legally cheaper forced & dehumanized people.

Billionaires stole so much $ through un-livable wages, they've stolen homes and futures. /2
August 9, 2025 at 10:24 PM
termitesunite.bsky.social
The French don't allow their government employees take advantage of the 99%. Billionaires pay government works to enact laws criminalizing more and more of the 99% while enriching themselves.

Demand this stops at your city's officials. Act local, think global.

Spokane criminalizing homelessness /1
August 9, 2025 at 10:24 PM
termitesunite.bsky.social
I don't understand. Are you saying we should give up because corporations run our country and criminal legal system?

All Americans have lost so many rights, yes it's upsetting. But that ship can be changed. Rights must be demanded. Act locally for our City elected officials.
August 9, 2025 at 10:24 PM
termitesunite.bsky.social
Preston McCollam is Haskell's hand picked successor.

He has been working for just as long as Haskell and was promoted under Haskell to Chief Deputy Criminal Prosecutor.

Haskell didn't step down until AFTER deadline for Spokanites to vote for replacement, so McCollam could be acting Prosecutor.
August 8, 2025 at 10:16 PM
termitesunite.bsky.social
rangemedia.co/haskell-spok...
Lesley, Nope. – RANGE Media
Late Thursday, Daniel Walters published a lengthy piece in the Inlander outlining damning comments made by Lesley Haskell
rangemedia.co
August 8, 2025 at 9:15 PM
termitesunite.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/jdle...
jdleighty.bsky.social Jim Leighty @jdleighty.bsky.social · Aug 8
Just to show how mainstream hate has become, don’t forget that Leslie Haskell, the wife of Spokane Prosecutor Larry Haskell, proudly proclaimed herself a “White Christian Nationalist” a few years back. Larry said she has a right to her views. He would go on to be re-elected as prosecutor.
brunojnavarro.bsky.social Bruno J. Navarro @brunojnavarro.bsky.social · Aug 8
With Donald Trump’s return to power, a neo-Nazi group buoyed by his rhetoric is expanding its reach and changing the face of white extremism in America. Its leaders: a Texas couple, both born to Ku Klux Klan leaders.
August 8, 2025 at 9:14 PM