Justice May Finally Get Served

In a long overdue and long awaited move the Supreme Court of Georgia has finally agreed to hear the case of Genarlow Wilson. For those of you who do not know this is the case of the Black teenager in Georgia who at the age of 17 had consensual sex with a girl of 15 and was sentenced to 10 years in the penitentiary. This case has gained in notoriety and coverage as it has proceeded throughout the appeals process. The same crime that Mr. Wilson has served three years for was changed by the state legislature from a felony to a misdemeanor after the conviction of Mr. Wilson; however the legislature did not make it retroactive which would have freed Mr. Wilson.

This case has been blogged and reported on extensively by many outlets and has found some space in the MSM. I will not belabor the case, but I wanted to express my appreciation to the Georgia State Supreme Court for accepting the case and hopefully righting an ugly wrong. This case represents some of the worst things about America and its refusal to look at its racial policies and relationships. I just pray that this youngman can soon put this nightmare behind him and continue on with some semblance of his life.

I would also like to say to the Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? In your effort to enhance your political career, you have allowed this child to remain in prison against any standard of decency or legal precedence. I hope the voters in Georgia send you a message in the next election, that sacrificing a child for your political advancement will not be tolerated. It amazes me how some minorities feel like they have to outdo whites at being white. Wake up Mr. Baker no matter how many Black children you send to prison, you will still be just another ni**er in many people’s minds.

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Taxation Without Representation

For many ex-felons completing their sentencing and/or parole or probation still does not allow them the opportunity to rejoin their fellow citizens in the voting booth. In what many consider the last vestiges of Jim Crow, there are still some states that do not allow these people to vote. It is an effort to continue to disenfranchise the rights of some Americans to vote.

These men and women have served the terms of their sentences and completed the requirements of release, yet they are still denied the right to vote. How can this be? The proponents of these laws base them on the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution.

“The legal authority of a state to revoke an inmate's voting rights is based upon the Fourteenth Amendment. While this amendment stipulates that, "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States", it allows for the denying of the voting rights of individuals guilty of "participation in rebellion, or other crime". Under current law, the federal government may not infringe upon a state's authority to grant or rescind voting rights to prison inmates and former felons.”[1]

So, it is up to the states to determine what voting rights a citizen may get to exercise. Having the states determine the voting rights of our citizens is a dubious proposition at best. If we had left it up to the states to repel the various voting laws on the books to disenfranchise the poor and minorities of this country they would still not be voting in some states. There are those who would use these questionable laws to suppress the votes of those they deem unworthy and to maintain the status quo.

It seems clear to me that the goal of the “founding fathers” was to prevent those that had participated in the armed overthrow of the government from voting, not the guy or gal who may have been convicted or plead guilty to a simple drug possession charge. These people are not a direct threat to this government any more than the guy who shoplifts. Because of how our courts have systematically been bias against minorities, in that minorities are more likely to have their charges upgraded to a felony, it would be logical to assume that these laws would affect minorities more negatively than others.

“The San Jose Mercury News conducted a massive study of 700,000 California legal cases over a 10-year period. The paper reported in December 1991 that a third of the white adults who were arrested, but had no prior record, were able to get felony charges against them reduced. Only a quarter of the African-Americans and Latinos with no priors were as successful in plea bargaining.”[2]

With evidence suggesting that race is indeed a factor in whether felony charges are pursued or not, it would also seem logical to conclude that preventing ex-felons from voting could be used by some states or legislatures to suppress the votes of minorities. Voting has not always been a right for minorities in this country and it took the shedding of blood to acquire it. And I say, it would be a travesty to the memory of those who laid down their lives for this right to have it eliminated through some back door loophole. Because of these laws, 13% of African-American males are being disenfranchised; to continue this is unconscionable. Despite what the Supreme Court said in Bush v. Gore: "The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States." The truth of the matter is that voting defines democracy and citizenship. This was one of the main linchpins for the American Revolution; taxation without representation. To now over 200 years later to justify this treatment because someone has broken the law is according to the founders of this land; tyranny.

If we are not going to allow them to vote, then it only stands to reason that they should not be taxed without a voice. Many in the Congress are afraid to touch this issue because of the far right attacks of “soft on crime”, but this is not a criminal issue. This is a fairness issue; it is a moral issue. Do we believe in rehabilitation and paying ones debt to society or not. Do we believe in inclusion of those who have made mistakes and second chances? You should not lose your citizenship for making a mistake, if that were the case would any of us be allowed to vote?

It is time for us to make voting a constitutional right for all of our citizens. Many people already believe that it is. Let’s not allow politics and rhetoric to take the voice of our people, any of them and silence it. At the current rate of incarceration figures continue to rise, many in the minority community will be marginalized and remember, “No justice, no peace.” Our democracy is too valuable and has come too far to let the racist attitudes of the past once again derail the rights of those who are different. Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone…

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[1] http://www.speakout.com/activism/issue_briefs/1289b-1.html

[2] http://www.crf-usa.org/brown50th/color_of_justice.htm

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The Occupation Of America

America’s urban centers are under siege. They have been for a number of years. They are just as much under siege as any other occupied city in the world. Our cities are war zones complete with their own sectarian violence. There is another war we are losing, but this war no one talks about.

In 1971, a war was declared by then President Richard Nixon. The war was the “War on Drugs”. The goal of this war was “to interfere with the production and distribution of a substance to the extent that the cost to the end user exceeds the value of the product, resulting in a widespread discontinuation of use”. This sounds pretty straight forward and seems a worthy goal. In other words, we want to make using drugs so expensive that few if anyone will want to use them. Every President since Nixon has signed on to the theory that the “abuse of illicit substances is America’s public enemy number one.” We now even have a “Drug Czar” to prosecute this war.

When this war was declared I was in high school and at that time most drugs were either too difficult or too expensive to get save marijuana. The cost of an eighth of an ounce of cocaine (better known as an eight ball) was between $300-$350. Today after 36 years of the “war on drugs” that same eight ball is available on most corners in America for less than $100. Not only has the price gone down, but the purity has gone up. This price phenomenon is true for all the most prevalent drugs being used today, except of course those being sold to Medicaid. No one will admit it, but the war on drugs has had the reverse of its intended effect. So rather than lowering drug usage, it has in fact increased drug usage.

The cost of carrying on this war has been astronomical in terms of financial and human cost. The federal government estimated that the cost in the year 2005 alone was 12 billion dollars to wage this war. This does not include the cost to incarcerate the offenders (which averages about 1 million Americans a year), more than a quarter of whom are for simple marijuana possession at a cost of 30 billion dollars. It also does not include the cost of police protection (9.1 billion), the court costs (4.5 billion), and the cost of federal and state corrections (11 billion). For the year of 1995, the estimated cost was about 45 billion dollars for these other factors.

Then of course there is the human cost. The United States has a higher proportion of its citizens incarcerated than any other country in the world. Think about that for a minute, the country that is to represent freedom and democracy in the world has more people locked up than any other. The majority of whom are for drug arrests and the majority of them are people of color. There have been untold millions of families who have been torn apart or destroyed because of a simple drug possession charge. Many of those arrested are young men of color, who then become convicted felons which will greatly reduce any chance they may have for a productive life. Our current drug policy is creating a permanent underclass. To make matters worse these drug laws are not being written or prosecuted equally across racial lines.

In a war you must have an army to carry out the operations against the enemy. We have militarized our police forces. They no longer police our streets they are now like occupying armies complete with armored vehicles, helicopters, and assault weapons and tactics. As a result there is no longer policing of our neighborhoods; instead we have paramilitary operations aimed at the under-class of our society. We have, due to the feelings of alienation from being occupied and oppressed, people who no longer trust or appreciate those sworn to protect them. We now have young men killing indiscriminately not only one another, but anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire. In an effort to get quick results we have targeted the symptom and not the problems for drug abuse.

Drug usage is a problem in human nature. People have always used drugs and always will; no government at any time or place has ever been able to control human nature. All we have to do is look at alcohol and tobacco consumption and how the government’s efforts to control them have worked. What is the answer to the drug problem? I don’t know, but I know if this were the war in Iraq we would be discussing a redeployment strategy.

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