Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to yet another example of what it's like for the working poor in America in 2011. Naturally if you've been following this site for some time you'll know, that unemployment if high, there are millions still uninsured as health care costs continue to rise, and most importantly, the government doesn't give a damn. Or, they don't give the impression that they do, whilr attempting to convince us otherwise.
So what's a person in need of medical care to do while wealthy politicians sit around and squabble over cutting necessary services for poor folk and also Medicare & Medicaid? Well, I'll leave that up to you because only you can determine your level of desperation. However, meet Richard James Verone, and check out what he did about his situation, and what he did about his need for medical attention, Clearly his is an example of American ingenuity, that can do spirit, and all out desperation. Or simply put: a man doing what he has to do:
STON, N.C -- A North Carolina man suffering from an undiagnosed growth on his chest and two ruptured disks walked into an RBC bank and handed a note to a teller demanding $1. He then sat by the door and waited for police to arrive.
Richard James Verone says he needs medical attention and hoped that by getting arrested, he would have access to health care in prison.
"I'm sort of a logical person and that was my logic, what I came up with," Verone told WCNC. "If it is called manipulation, then out of necessity because I need medical care, then I guess I am manipulating the courts to get medical care."
Three years ago, Verone was laid off from Coca-Cola after 17 years on the job. He says he has had part-time work since then, but nothing with health insurance.
He is hoping for a three-year sentence, enough time to collect social security and obtain the medical help he requires, Verone says.
"If you don't have your health, you don't have anything," he says.
The 59-year-old was unarmed at the time of the incident.
He is being charged with larceny and is held on a $2,000 bond. He will appear in court June 28. (source)
Lemme tell you, as a person who for the last four years has struggled with major health issues for the last four years, I empathize heavily with what this man has done. For the past four years I've struggled to deal with complications from 17yrs of diabetes with my eyes. And as I've mentioned before, at one point and for a very long time I was legally blind. Most important to note, is that I dealt with this while having insurance, as well as without having any. And to understand where I'm coming from, I've had at least six surgical procedures done dur8ng this time. Yep, and I have the bills to prove it, by God.
Check out Ricard's jailhouse interview:
With 2012 being an election year, Democrats are going to try to convince us that the Health Care Reform bill was the best thing for America, while Republicans attack it. Hopefully someone will be audacious by asking just how are people going to be able to afford coverage wityhout jobs as costs continue to ricse? No seriously, where is the jobs bill, and why hasn't health care reform controlled cost? Surely our wealthy elected officials will have honest answers...
Lemme be clear on something: I fully support the human rights of all incarcerated prisoners. Yes, I believe that like any free man or woman, they too have the right to be treated fairly; and more importantly, they shouldn't be exposed to, or have to deal with inhumane treatment.
Yes, even as hard as it may be to police, prisoners should be protected from prison rape which is a huge problem in and of itself. We joke about that type of stuff on the outside, but being violated sexually even in prison ain't cool; and it damn sure ain't funny. No matter the gender of the victim, it's a violation.
OK, so now that I got that out of the way. Umm, so like, what the fuck is this bullshit?? No seriously; the fuck is up with this man threatening to cut his dick off in prison?!! OK, so you you're a woman trapped in a man's body and you'd like to have a sex change to clear up your gender identity issues.
OK, yeah, I support that. Shit, I'm down with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and all that. But nigga you're in fuckin' prison! You don't threaten to cut ya schlong off yourself because you can't take the being a man thing anymore; and when they take the razor away, you friggin sue them because they refuse to oblige your request for a sex change? Seriously, a sex change?!!
Excuse me, but err, umm... can I get an order of Negro please with a throat-chop on the side for this brotha? Clearly he has lost his rabbit-ass mind.
DILLWYN, Va. – Crouched in her cell, Ophelia De’lonta hoped three green disposable razors from the prison commissary would give her what the Virginia Department of Corrections will not — a sex change.
It had been several years since she had felt the urges, but she had been fighting them for weeks. But like numerous other times, she failed to get rid of what she calls “that thing” between her legs, the last evidence she was born a male.
Months after the October castration attempt, De’lonta filed a federal lawsuit Friday claiming the state has failed its duty to provide adequate medical care because it won’t give her the operation.
She says the surgery is needed to treat her gender identity disorder, a mental illness in which people believe they were born the wrong gender.
If she wins, De’lonta would be the nation’s first inmate to receive a state-funded sex change operation. Similar lawsuits have failed in a handful of other states, and lawmakers in some states are trying to ban the use of taxpayer money for the operations.
If she loses, she says she will continue to try self-surgery — acknowledging another attempt could kill her.
“That’s a possibility,” the 50-year-old said during a recent prison interview, pausing then smiling contently. “But at the end I would have peace.”
See, this is another case of giving a muthafucka too much rope and now he wants to be a fucking cowboy. No seriously; according to the story this cat won a court order in 2004 to have hormone pills administered to him. Well shit, is it that easy in Virginia? Lemme get this right: in Virginia prisons, religious practice be damned, they've banned men from having and growing beards - which is unconstitutional. But an inmate can wake up one day and petition the court for hormone pills to make them feel and appear like the opposite sex?
I'm not gonna say too much on this one. In fact, I'm gonna let you so-called freedom, justice, and equality lovers have at it. Most of you said recently that John Harris White's suspended sentence by outgoing New York governor, David Paterson was justice as was the release of the Scott Sisters by Mississippi governor, Haley Barbour - actually, none of you said anything about that (read it here). But anyway, I'd like to hear if the reduction of the sentence of Esteban Nunuz is indeed just or not. I would reeeeaaally love to hear your thoughts.
On Sunday, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rang in the New Year – and, in essence, closed out his term – by reducing the manslaughter sentence of one Esteban Nuñez, son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez. Schwarzenegger reduced 21-year-old Nuñez’s sentence from 16 to seven years. The decision has some law professors and other political experts (armchair political strategists included) wondering what role Nuñez the Younger’s political ties might have had to do with his commutation. Nuñez’s father now works as a political consultant along with Adam Mendelsohn, the Governor’s Schwarzenegger’s former communications director. Previously, he had worked closely with Governor Schwarzenegger to push legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
In October of 2008, 24-year-old Ryan Jett, a friend of Nuñez’s, stabbed 22-year-old Luis Dos Santos to death after the young men became embroiled in an argument near San Diego State University. Nuñez stabbed another young man – a friend of Dos Santos’ – who survived the attack. Nuñez and Jett both pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and received sentences of equal length. Schwarzenegger’s commutation, The Sacramento Bee reports, has now deemed Nuñez’s original sentence “excessive.” Wrote the Governor:
I do not discount the gravity of the offense,” the governor’s statement said. “But given Nuñez’s limited role in Santos’ death, and considering that … Nuñez had no criminal record prior to this offense, I believe Nuñez’s sentence is excessive.”
Because of Social Networking, I don't even talk to people in real life anymore. Being an actual live talking human being is so 2004. When people in real life try to speak to me, because of social networking, I assume they're poor, live under a bridge, and will work for food. No seriously, I really do assume that.
Yeah I know that may sound callous, but it is the reality of the worlds within which we live; yes, there are two Americas: one with access to social networking and one without. And in 2010, this is just pathetic, folks.
Think about it, chances are, the very reason you're reading this site right now is due in large part to a social network site. And that's the beauty of it; because of social networking, like me, you're now able to trust people, even if you've never met them, nor ever will. And to me, that makes the world a better place, no?
Personally, I think it's a crime against humanity that so many people aren't able to access social network sites outside of the occasional office computer block-out. Surely the toothless Appalachian is deprived and are forced to live a horrible and destitute life by not having access to social network sites.
I mean no internet pretty much explains those drunken moonshine nights fueled by meth, and that's a crime. Speaking of crimes, checkout the following story of what happened down in Mississippi recently:
Last week, a victory for the government in a federal court case sent a signal out to the rest of the world as to how loosely we hold the ideals of "liberty and justice for all" In a decision that is not surprising AT ALL, Federal District Judge Barbara Jones determined that the Pentagon DOES NOT need to make public vital information pertaining to the prisoners held at the Parwan Prison on the Bagram Air Force Base outside of Kabul.
The ACLU filed suit demanding that such pertinent information as circumstances and location of "capture", the national origin and citizenship, and the length of imprisonment of detainees at Bagram be released. They were denied, under the guise of "national security". And, the judge also decided that there is no need to reveal whether or not the CIA is keeping captives there. It seems like after the debacles at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the government is reluctant to share any details of the hundreds of people detained at Bagram. The ACLU believes that it is for fear that the public will find out that many people being held are, in fact, innocent of any wrongdoing, simply victims of circumstance. Prisoners at Bragram DO NOT have the right to challenge their captivity in US Courts.
If you are a "sucker for love" like I am, whatever you do, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT attempt to begin corresponding with a a prisoner! Because no matter HOW MANY times you tell yourself you are JUST reaching out a hand in friendship, you WILL eventually fall for your "pen pal". Trust me, I know this from first hand experience.
Back in May, after reading "The New Jim Crow", I decided that I wanted to do some work towards prison/criminal (in)justice reform. So, I joined a group on facebook dedicated to changing the way the criminal (in)justice system works. And I posted a message asking for anyone who would like to discuss the issues and what can be done to ameliorate racism in the system to please contact me.
My first message was from a man named Dante. His fiance maintains a facebook page for him, as he has been a prisoner for the past 12 years, convicted of murder as a juvenile (he actually was an accessory, but was still charged as a principle). He was bamboozled into accepting a deal that was not in his best interest, and now he devotes much of his time and energy into changing the way juveniles are treated by the (in)justice system. I began writing to him, believing that someone INSIDE the prison system would be able to best inform me as to what needed to be done to bring about true reform.
So, we began corresponding. Things went very well, so I decided I wanted to open myself up to correspondence with other inmates as well. I went to a prison pen pal website, looked through the profiles, tried to find men who seemed to be "conscious" and dedicated to changing themselves AND the corrupt system,and started to write letters. And, it was one of the best experiences of my life. I enjoyed being able to discuss my viewpoints with other like minded individuals. I had 5 pen pals, and we would discuss issues of racism and corruption in the (in)justice system and in the American system as a whole.
OK, so yeah, I know you're thinking, "what the hell was wrong with that guy?" Me? I thought the same thing. I guess the torture of knowing that your days are short can get to you, forcing you to, well, take matters into your own hands. I mean that's what severely depressed people do, right? Nobody in history has ever been so happy that they wanted to end it all, right?
So, I'm pretty sure sitting on death row isn't quite one of those happy happy joy joy situations one wants to be in. I mean, who wants to die, or put to death like a horse with a broken leg, right? If given a chance, I'm pretty sure everybody would rather live the rest of their natural lives, be it in prison, or out of prison, as an alternative to sitting on death row. Well, not so fast, folks. Check out the story of 27yr old Brian Nelson of Will County Illinois:
A death row inmate who sneaked into his estranged girlfriend's Will County farmhouse in 2002 and beat her and three others to death with a crowbar apparently killed himself today because he was scared of being moved into the prison system's general population.
Brian Nelson, 27, who was convicted of murder, home invasion and aggravated arson in 2006, was found dead in his Pontiac Correctional Center cell about 2:30 a.m., according to a Department of Corrections spokeswoman. Other sources said it appeared Nelson had hanged himself.
Nelson was scheduled to appear at the Will County Courthouse on Friday and likely be re-sentenced to life in prison. In December, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld his convictions but threw out his death sentence, finding the trial judge had wrongly removed a juror opposed to the death penalty.
The convicted killer had hoped for a new trial or to remain on death row, his attorney said.
"As nuts as it sounds, he preferred the death sentence over natural life," said Steve Haney, his Joliet attorney. "He had indicated he would rather have stayed on death row, with the definite potential of dying by lethal injection, than to live the rest of his natural life in the midst of the general population in prison."
Nelson, whose stepfather for a time was far south suburban Beecher's police chief, was described during his trial as an emotionally stunted man obsessed with his girlfriends.
A woman who dated Nelson for six months at Beecher Elementary testified that he shot her name into his chest with a pellet gun and carved "Megan4eva" on his arm. When she tried to break up with him, Nelson threatened to kill them both and handed her bullets to take home.
The week of the murders in May 2002, Nelson called his former girlfriend Sara Tennant 129 times.
The 19-year-old Joliet Junior College student called him back to confront him after Nelson broke into her car, stealing $80 and a picture of her new boyfriend, according to trial testimony.
On May 31, Nelson sneaked into the Tennants' farmhouse on a rural road in Custer Park. When Sara refused to take him back, Nelson said he loved her and then beat her to death with a crowbar in the bedroom basement she shared with their 15-month-old daughter, who was later found unharmed outside the house.
Nelson then went upstairs, beating and stabbing to death Sara's father, Harold Tennant, 46, and his girlfriend Jean Bookwalter, 46. He then killed Sara's brother Eric Tennant, 16, as he slept in a recliner after a long day of farm work.
Afterward, Nelson set the family and their house on fire.
Then he left a chilling cell-phone message for Sara.
"Sara, I love you," he said in the recording. "Please call me. I don't want you to be mad at me ... I don't feel good right now ... bye, honey." (source)
Well, not exactly the most mentally stable sounding person, was he? Now I've heard of prisoners who fear for their safety who would rather live in segregation than general population. But, up until now, I've never heard of anyone willing to die than live in general population. Sure the ass raping thing would be tough to swallow as opposed to being on death row; especially when there are guys like Fleece Johnson around. But when you kill four people in one home, I don't think you have any leverage in the whole deal.
And just think, early in his case he tried to play the "my confession was coerced," card. Now here's the question: Given that he took his own life, was his debt to society paid? Should society be pissed off because justice wasn't served? How should the fam,ily members feel about this? If it were you, even though you cannot do anything about it, how exactly would you feel? Would you feel cheated?
Well, hopefully Barack Obama doesn't have to appear as tired looking as he did the other day to talk about this one in a press conference to make "certain people" feel better. And thank God this one didn't involve a major airline, a Nigerian, dingy ass underwear, and a bomb. However, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to ask: is this another one of those "systematic failures" he mentioned when assertively speaking on the recent terrorist attempt as he did yesterday?
According to Barry-O somebody was asleep at the wheel, and as a result the "Undie Bomber" was able to sneak into the country by hopping over a fence all because he wanted to work at a food processing plant for $4.35 an hour. Which brings us to the above photo and the following story from Rikers Island, the beacon of competence when it comes to using other inmates to intimidate uncooperative prisoners at the facility.
A correction officer has been disciplined for dozing on the job after a colleague snapped a picture of her asleep while on post at a Rikers Island infirmary, officials said yesterday.
A clearly conked-out Nadja Green is leaning in a chair with her head back, arms folded, eyes closed and mouth open.
But even more alarming is an amused inmate seen hovering above her, mere inches from a set of keys that hangs from her belt.
The picture was circulated around the department, and a source e-mailed it to The Post.
Green was transferred on the island and placed on modified duty watching female inmates. She will face charges of sleeping on the job and other security- and performance-related charges.
"We do not expect this type of behavior or performance from our officers, nor do we tolerate it," said city correction spokesman Steve Morello.
The officer who took the picture, Claudel Barrau, was also transferred and placed on modified duty.
Morello said possession and use of cellphones in jails, even by guards, is prohibited.(Source: New York Post)
Recently I heard the New York City crime rate is at a record low, and I guess this is proof of it. But then again, in the New York Post article a prison source called her "the Precious of Corrections," referencing the movie to describe the woman pictured above. OUCH! Damn, did they really have to go there just because she's the mother of several children as the article states? Surely it was her difficult upbringing and her bad ass kids and not the fact that she worked 96 hours of overtime this month that's responsible for her falling asleep on the job. But hey, you know how lazy and shiftless those Negroes are, right?
So I caught some shit on CNN after I got out of bed this morning. They were talking about all the hoopla with Al Queda coming from Gitmo, and being in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in New York or some shit like that.
I mentioned this in a recent post and even submitted a proposal as to how this situation should be handled, and I'm still sticking to it. But from what I saw on CNN, this whole thing needs yet another proposed solution, for yet another concern - national security.
Check this out:
These fuckers have an empty prison that has been sitting practically empty for 8yrs. Do you hear me? Eight friggin years! And now they're pitching the idea to get them there terrorists so as to create jobs? Lemme guess, all the colored folks in Illinois, particularly 110 mls away in Chicago have been on good behavior for the last 8yrs? I mean that's the only explanation for this prison being empty as long as it has, right?
And then there was this:
These people as you can see, just like the good and broke folks in Thompson Illinois are also trying to get the gov't to bring those Al Queda limo drivers terrorists to their prison. When I first watched this, it was then I realized, that the real problem for them, is that there are only 8 people of color in the state of Montana. Yep, not enough Negroes or Messikans to arrest to fill a prison. Think about it: this isn't exactly a problem in the south or the north east, now is it?
Recently, while sitting on death row, Troy Davis received some great news. No, he has not been exonerated and cleared of his conviction. And no, he is not set to walk out of the prison gates anytime soon. Instead, Troy Davis' appeal for a new trial in light of new evidence was reviewed and granted by the United States Supreme Court. In my opinion, this news is a testament to the hard work that many here and around the world have exerted on behalf of Mr. Davis, truth, and justice, through activism.
As his new trial is set to start, we must all remember the undeniable truth of not only our judicial system, but more specifically, Capital Punishment here in these United States:
Um, just for the record, being the almighty racism chaser, and champion for truth and justice that I am. I hope you enjoyed this presentation and illustration of what Rush Limbaugh has asserted in that racism is made up, and a figment of the imagination of liberals. Hey, somebody has to put this stuff out there. And here's to hoping that the truth shall set Troy Davis free.
[Editors Note: I wanted to have a serious discussion about racial profiling on this blog for some time now. That said, I couldn't have done as well with this topic as my brother from another mother Eddie Blue-Eyes of the blog [un]Common Sense. Added to this post is what I think to be a video of a very good discussion on this subject.]
The most dysfunctional aspect of the almost non existent national dialog on race is that it is almost always filtered through the narrow lens of individualism. This serves to leave out any discussion of practices rooted in centuries-long systemic racism that benefits whites and excludes people of color. In this way, the core issue of racism -- how it is deeply embedded in our social institutions -- is left out of any meaningful public discussion. In this way, the arrest of a prominent academic (in his own home) is seen only from an individual perspective, severed from its social context. Our national dialog on race is similar to communication in families plagued by addiction: no one dares speak about “Daddy’s problem” because of fear and shame. As in such families, a destructive dysfunction is maintained by its denial.
Conservatives contend that liberal indulgence has been the cause for black crime in America. This is utterly astonishing considering it has come after decades of a historically unprecedented increase in the incarceration of black Americans. A conservative-dominated era marked by efforts by legislators and courts to “get tough on crime” and drugs in the inner city. Those who read me are by now familiar with the sickening numbers: almost one in ten black men aged twenty-five to twenty-nine was in prison at the start of the twenty-first century, compared to one white in ninety. Between the mid 1980s and the mid 1990s, the number of black men sentenced to prison for drug offenses increased by more than 700 percent.
This conservative disconnect between the idea that blacks have been absolved of personal responsibility by guilt-ridden, namby-pamby liberals and the reality of nearly thirty years of increasing harshness to black offenders suggests that there is something fundamentally wrong with the conservative argument.
There is.
The problem of black urban crime is arguably the ugliest, most emotional, aspect of the debate about race in America today. Beginning in the late 1970s and continuing on during the neoconservative ascension during the Reagan years (and accelerating during the 1990s), white and conservative commentators felt blacks lost the high moral ground. During this time the image of the brave little black girl walking up to a schoolhouse door in the face of jeering white crowds was replaced by fearsome (“wilding”) young black men coming down the street ready to take your wallet or your life. That transformation of black youth from victims of injustice to sociopathic predators fueled public policies that quietly reduced funding for education and other beneficial programs and funneled those resources into the service of creating a prison/ industrial complex historically unparalleled by any enlightened society.
Conservatives downplay racism (except, apparently, when it comes to appointing wise Latina women Supreme Courts judges) pointing out that victim surveys do show that victim of violent crime, including black victims, describe their perpetrators as being disproportionately black. Following this wave of research, many conservatives suggest that racism has nothing to do with the disproportionate number of black arrests. However, victim surveys cannot be legitimately be used to dismiss the fact that the criminal justice system is free of bias. They tell us nothing of how blacks are treated before incarceration, for example. More concisely, victim surveys alone cannot explain why the number of black men sentenced to prison for drug offenses increased by more than 700 percent in the ten-year period of 1985-1995, or why 80 percent or more of incarcerated drug offenders in seven states are black.
Recent research makes it clear that aggressive police behavior toward minorities cannot be explained away simply as a result of higher rates of black crime. A study of police stops of civilians in New York City, for example, done for the New York State attorney general’s office (Flynn, 1999), found that over a fifteen-month period in 1998 and 1999, blacks were stopped by police six times as often as whites were, and Latino/as, four times as often. Blacks made up about 25 percent of the city’s general population but 50 percent of the people stopped by the police. Whites made up 43 percent of the population but just 13 percent of civilians stopped by the police. Blacks were stopped considerably more than they were arrested, whites less so.
In fact, the scientific evidence on patterns of discriminatory police practices show that it is consistent and long-standing. Evidence from a variety of sources has shown for decades that such discrimination is systemic and widespread, even in police departments that are generally considered to be highly professional. Indeed, those discriminatory practices are not only tolerated but also frequently justified as good police work by the police themselves. Those practices, however, are often the initial steps in a process through which people of color, and minority youth of color specifically, are funneled into the maws of a criminal justice system.
In a classic observational study, markedly different treatment for black youth were found, even in departments widely known for the superior quality of its personnel. Especially minor offenses (situations where officers hold a great deal of discretion in deciding which actions to take) the police were much more likely to give blacks the tougher dispositions and less likely to release them outright. The researchers discovered that the most crucial factor in the police officer’s decisions was based on cues inferred from the youth’s character: “Older youths, youths with well-oiled hair, black jackets, Negroes, and soiled jeans... ” and boys who in their interactions with officers did not exhibit “what were considered to be appropriate signs of respect” tended to receive the most severe treatment and dispositions (Piliavin & Briar, 1964).
More recent work suggests that similar patterns prevail today, even after decades of efforts in some jurisdictions to improve the racial record of police. Newer research (Conley, 1999) reconfirms that black and Latino/a neighborhoods are more likely to be the focus of heavy police monitoring and surveillance to begin with, and that black and Latino/a youth are more likely to be defined by police as threatening and insubordinate, more likely to be stopped under various (and often false) pretexts, more likely to be arrested than to receive a warning, less likely to have charges dropped by the police (Human Rights Watch, 1996).
There is supportive evidence from some recent research that police are well aware of these racially structured practices but that they often defend them on one or more related grounds. On the one hand, police still operate under a peculiar form of circular reasoning that tends to reify the black stereotypes that were common over a generation ago. Since minority youth are more statistically more likely to be carrying weapons or dealing drugs on the street, the line of reasoning goes, why would police not concentrate their limited resources on them?
But the consequence of this reasoning, of course, is to exacerbate the very differences that are invoked to justify racially targeted practices in the first place. This in turn reinforces the public’s image of the gun-toting drug dealer or gang banger as black or Latino/a. And this confirms the validity of the police focus on youth of color, which then goes around and around in the same kind of vicious circle described in studies over forty years ago.
It’s all an exercise in tautology. In other words, By largely confining surveillance and searches to blacks and Latino/as, police authorities ensure that most of the people arrested for transporting guns or drugs on the freeways, for example, are black or Latino/a. This, of course, further validates the disproportionate focus on minority drivers. “To the extent that law enforcement agencies arrest minority motorists more frequently based on stereotypes,” a report mentions, they continue to “generate statistics that confirm higher crime rates among minorities which, in turn, reinforces the underpinnings of the very stereotypes that gave to the initial arrests” (Human Rights Watch, 1996).
This vicious cycle was escalated during the 1990s with injunctions that allowed police to target youths, often in ambiguous terms, as gang members if they so much as stopped to talk to a friend on the street. At one point, the county of LA outlawed so many colors, it was discovered the colors of the flag were illegal (Davis, 1992). This escalation has certainly been a major factor in the role of the police in the school-to-prison pipeline -- the shunting minority of youth into the criminal justice system. One study in a California County widely known for its extensive white drug-using counterculture found that 93 percent of youth sent to juvenile court for the offense of “possession of narcotics or controlled substances for sale” in the 1990s were Latino/a. Of youth and adults arrested in 1998 in California for the recently enacted offense of “participating in a street gang,” only 13 percent were white and non-Latino/a; almost 67 percent were Latino/a alone.
It follows then, that race still helps to determine who will enter the formal justice system in the first place and thus shapes what will happen thereafter. And what the research shows clearly is how persistent racial stereotyping works with long-term structural disadvantages to ensure that blacks wind up more often in the criminal justice system. It is well-known that adverse structural disadvantages cause blacks to have higher rates of offenses to begin with. The higher rates of offenses are then used as a justification for closer police monitoring of minority youths and by courts to sentence them more severely. The levels of incarceration serve to undermine black communities, as the collateral consequences of incarceration include obstacles to employment, education, and housing, which increases the risks of re-offending and higher rates of recidivism.
Conservatives fail to recognize the destructive effects of that cycle, mostly because they deny that there are structural reasons for high black crime rates. According to the conservative mindset, blacks are congenitally more prone to a criminal mentality. In this way, it's deemed perfectly appropriate to stop a well-dressed black professional. And if he becomes "insurbodinate (read: "uppity"), it's just as justified to arrest him.
Taken on its own merits -- divorced from its social context -- the Gates arrest doesn’t seem like much. I know some black people who express their belief that the incident had nothing or very little to do with race. However, placed within its social context, Gates’ arrest had a lot more to do about race than we care to admit as a society. Surveys show that at an overwhelming number of black men admit to being racially profiled at some point in their lives (Fausset & Huffstutter, 2009 ). I know Gates has experienced this as has our President. Almost all my darker-skinned friends have been targets. There is a strong conservative push to deny racism in our lives. And that, my friends, is a huge part of the problem.
Conley, D. (1999). Being black, living in the red: Race, wealth, and social policy in America. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Davis, M. (1992). City of quartz: Excavating the future in Los Angeles. New York: Vintage Books.
Fausset, R., & Huffstutter, P. J. (2009 July 25). Black males' fear of racial profiling very real, regardless of class. Los Angeles Times.
Flynn, K. (1999, December 1). Racial bias shown in police searches, state report asserts. New York Times, p. A1.
Human Rights Watch. (1996). Race and drug law enforcement. New York: Human Rights Watch.
Piliavin, I., & Briar, S. (1964). Police encounters with juveniles. American Journal of Sociology, 70(2), 206-214.
"Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it political? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor political, nor popular - but one must take it simply because it is right." --Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Ok, so before we get into this one, it's important to listen to this:
The words you heard in the video above comes from Omali Yeshitela. It's an excerpt from a speech called "Resistance of African People, Crisis of Imperialism: Why We must Build the National People's Democratic Uhuru Movement". The actual piece or what you heard in its form is the intro on the political activist hip hop group Dead Prez's critically acclaimed album called Lets Get Free. That album and that segment from that speech is an all time favorite of mine. Why? Because in the context of the Black experience and condition today, it all makes sense.
So why am I talking about this? Well, in one of my recent blogs the discussion of Troy Davis came up. It was said by my man Constructive Feedback of the blog Politics, Policy, Pathology and Hope WITHIN The Black Community that Troy Davis is guilty and it's almost like the facts of the case are being ignored. No, I'm not talking about the facts as it pertains to witness recantation of testimony. I'm talking about a "fact" that he presented that ballistic evidence helped convict Troy Davis. According to him, Troy Davis shot a guy in the face at a party earlier that night before he shot the police officer for which he's now sitting on death row. According to him, the Left Wing INJUSTICE activists as he put it are fully aware of this, but for political expediency they are being disingenuous in not mentioning this "fact" to the public, although the prosecutor has [read it here]. If this is indeed true, how come it is not used as a regular point of contention when discussing the possibility of his case being re-opened?
In another recent conversation on the subject of guns and crazy people; it was suggested by one of my readers that I was wrong in suggesting the need for tougher gun laws. Instead, according to my dear reader, it's better to build more prisons in spite of the fact that they house a disproportionate number of Black men. Yes, he went on to assert that this fact is not a racial issue because those who are there (in prison) are there because they did something wrong. Do you see the all too common trend here? Yes, as usual, it's convenient to blame the Black guy. Or as Omali put it in the piece above people often blame the wolf and not the hunter who sticks the blade in the ice.
So what does this have to do with anything RiPPa?
Oh nothing, I'm just trying to encourage people to LETS GET FREE by being honest. Yes, lets free our minds from the shackles of mental slavery. Yes, both minorities and non-minorities included. We must all wakeup from this slumber induced by White Supremacist ideologies which are aided by the media and other agencies; yes, we must all become human again.
Of course I could be wrong. Yes, Troy Davis could very well be guilty, but I would much rather find that out with his case re-opened where all this "factual" evidence that nobody else has produced within the last six months is presented. Yes indeed I could be wrong, and maybe more prisons are what we need. I mean why stop now; don't we lead the world in incarcerations? Surely one day what we already do in this country will prove to be a deterrent to crime, no?
Pay attention:
QUESTION(S): Have you heard anything about Troy Davis being convicted of shooting another person in the face earlier that very same evening he "allegedly" shot and killed the police officer in question? Is building more prisons the way to bring about change as it relates to crime?
The other day I was talking to my dude up in Indiana. I found out that a good friend of mine is doing a bid (that means prison time for you ebonically challenged folks) for trafficking. Yeah that means drugs dumbass. Without putting all his business out there, he basically was driving his vehicle inappropriately, out of state and was pulled over.
In the car with him was a whole lot of "shit" he was transporting back to Indiana. Sad thing is dude had just graduated from college finally after years of sacrifice. Tragic? Yes. But if *prison is a place to reflect on your mistakes, not plot how to make new ones...maybe there's a good ending in store for him. I’ve never been to prison but if it’s anything like the week I was in jail back in 2001 for driving on a suspended license, then I’m sure he’s uncomfortable.
Yeah, going to jail on Christmas night that year was definitely not in my plans. Surprisingly, the cell I was in had two people and a box filled with Christmas care packages. I thought it was cool that some organization looked out for the people on lock down around Christmas time. I was especially happy that the three of us in that cell/pod was able to eat up all the goodies before the cell was filled to capacity the next morning. I guess the police was busy that night as they are each holiday season.
Much like the hospital, jail is a lonely place where those on the outside forget about you. It’s got to be nice to get a card or something thoughtful from someone on the outside, to help keep your spirits up. The problem is that I’ve walked through Hallmark a few times and there’s no… ”I Heard you got locked up card.”
I thought about sending him some money. But Its not like there are any weekend bus trips to the local mall. I can’t send him CD’s of some of the hottest shit on the streets because prisoners can break the CD’s and use the sharp edges as knives. My dude suggested that I put the CD’s on cassette. I’m guessing I’ll have to do that but I’m pretty sure you can mold plastic into a weapon too. He's big into music so that's a thought.
Oh well, he’s in prison for a while so I guess I have some time to think about it. Hopefully by the time he gets out I'll be rich and I can give him a job. He damn sure won’t be my limo driver. Maybe I should send him some Rough Rider condoms...
*There are an estimated 905,600 African-American inmates in prisons and state and local jails. In several states, incarceration rates for blacks were more than 10 times the rate of whites.
“He who warned uh, the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms, uh by ringing those bells, and um, makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.” -- Sarah Palin on Paul Revere
