1) Fasting from alcohol
2) Fasting from additional sugar and sweets
3) Reading Joy James’ “Imprisoned Intellectuals”
4) Leading and participating in a weekly study group for male identified friends on “uprooting patriarchy”
5) Connecting with and building with justice oriented sociologists

There are a million ways to become better and to take inventory of what you’ve done over the past year. In a year where we’ve seen 551 people killed by police, there is much work to be done. In a time when the Black child poverty rate has remained steady while all other groups have declined, there is much work to be done. I’m proud to have such amazing comrades who join me in this month and work daily for liberation. One such person is Marc Lamont Hill. If you haven’t done so already, pick up his new book Nobody: Causalities of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond. It’s a powerful read about where we are, how we got here, and what it’s going to take to move us forward!

As news that 11 educators from Atlanta Public Schools were convicted of racketeering charges made national headlines last week, cheers of “justice served” quickly rang out.

That is far from the truth of the matter.

Let me be clear, 11 employees of APS were found guilty of the terrible act of cheating, but they are not the ones who should be behind bars. Who should be there? The people who have stolen our children’s education since the early 2000s with a brand of high-stakes testing that breeds competition rather than collaboration and offers achievement gap mania rather than offering assistance to schools and students with the greatest needs. These thieves of public education are the bigger problem than 11 educators in Atlanta.

Read more at EBONY http://www.ebony.com/news-views/atlanta-cheating-scandal-punishes-the-wrong-culprits-504#ixzz3YF3hf0IQ

“Popped a Molly I’m sweating, Whoooo!” – Trinidad James

If this refrain is not familiar to you, you should get familiar. In the past year, the Hip-Hop industry has been discussing the street drug “Molly” and the controversy, confusion, and hysteria over it should have us all sweating.

What is Molly?

Widespread mentions in hip-hop and electronic music have left many asking, “what is Molly?” At base, Molly is a street slang for a powder or crystal form of MDMA—methylenedioxymethamphetamine—more commonly known as ecstasy. Now here is where it gets a little bit tricky, with an unregulated drug market what comes in a pill that is sold on the street may differ from what it is called. While every pill called Molly may not be “pure MDMA” there have been long standing non-profit efforts to research “what’s in it?” like Ectasydata.org and DanceSafe.org which test street drugs for the contents in order to inform users so they can reduce harm.

Even still, there is a fear-based campaign emerging that Molly is the “new crack.” Recently on social media I’ve seen a number of images floating around that argue that are designed to “inform” readers about Molly and its harms. One reads, “It’s a drug that has cocaine, crack, excasty [sic] & bathe salt all in one. It stops your heart rate, pop one or 2 it damages your brain without you realizing it.” The image goes on to talk about the damage it does to your immune system and claims the drug is “more powerful then CRACK itself” and that rappers are responsible for the impending death of a nation. There is only one problem with this, nearly every claim is false, fear-inducing, and likely does less to help us deal with drugs than to stigmatize drug users and the culture of Hip-Hop.

As a Hip-Hop head of the 90s I can remember conversations with peers and friends about “blunts”, “chronic” and “illy.” I remember being told, “the chronic is weed with crack mixed in it”, “blunts are pure weed in phillies” and “illy is sess mixed with embalming fluid.” This was a conversation among teenagers and as well intended as it was, it was grossly misinformed. And more importantly, didn’t really stop anyone in my generation from seeing if Bill Clinton’s claims were possible. The conversation I’m hearing about Molly today reminds me of those conversations!

Hip-Hop just “discovered” Molly; Molly is not a new drug! Across race, class, and nation, discussions of Molly have been ongoing and serious discussions about its use and consequences are becoming more common. The reality is thatmany youth and adults will experiment with drugs; ecstasy being among them (ecstasy users tend to be younger). Contrary to hysteria about Molly, there is little evidence that it is more harmful than many legalized drugs like alcohol. Yes, read that again, recent scientific research has not found ecstasy is often more stigmatized (by governments and everyday people) than it is actually harmful to users or communities. That doesn’t mean I want your children to do it, but it does mean that we have to be realistic about consequences and have informed conversations.

This is Your Hip-Hop on Drugs

Drugs are not new, hip-hop is not new, but maybe our approach to talking about them should be. Hip-Hop and the Black community have had a precarious relationship with drug use to say the least. In 1983, the now classic song “White Lines” by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel was released which warned against the use and selling of cocaine. The song featured a funk-laden baseline, which framed cocaine use as more of a social problem than a social stimulant. For some, this was the start of Hip-Hop’s support of the anti-drug movement, but this was not the only view on cocaine at the time.

In 1984, Funk Master Wizard Wiz released an ode to the newly arrived drug crack cocaine called, “Crack it up.” As the individual and communal impacts of crack cocaine became more clear there was a public rebuke of the record causing Tuff City Records and Funk Master Wizard Wiz to add “you better not” before the song’s original refrain of “crack it up.” The public pressure to make the song explicitly “anti-crack” was fueled by a fear that the song glorified the use of the drugs and rap would spread the influence of crack. The spread of the crack ultimately had little to do with music and much more to do with poverty and the media’s fascination with a new “demon drug.”

Most drug education in the United States comes from casual conversation, campaigns to abstain, and drug enforcement policy from the government. This often means that drug use is misunderstood and punitively dealt with, rather than a rehabilitative approach that considers individual and community well-being. Michelle Alexander’s book “The New Jim Crow” has masterfully demonstrated the impacts of such policies on the Black community.  Furthermore, it is socially dangerous to rely on rumor and abstinence only approach. Ironically, the message of abstinence advanced in “White Lines” by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel did not deter them from using and eventually abusing cocaine. We need to have a different conversation about drugs that are based in reality and responsibility.

Like the Reefer Madness propaganda of the twentieth century the emergent concern and fascination with Molly is likely misdirected. Ecstasy is far closer to marijuana than crack in individual and collective consequences. Weaving narratives of community destruction, instant addiction, and moral decay will not deter people from trying drugs and will only further stigmatize and likely criminalize drug users. The only way to break Molly Madness is to have responsible and accurate conversations about drug use, drug abuse, individual and community impacts. While a song may start a dialogue, it is our responsibility to continue the discussion with sound information and realistic approaches to drugs in our communities, not fear and fantasy.

Special thanks to Jack Levinson, PhD for resources on this article.

I have to admit, until recently I didn’t really know who Chief Keef was. I recognized his name from the hit “I Don’t Like,” but not much else. I starting inquiring about him more as he feuded with Lupe Fiasco, Lil Jojo got killed, and people started telling me, “Chief Keef is a problem.” The more I learn about him, the more I feel endeared to and concerned for him, as with many of our young Black males. As the rapper gets more and more attention, we have to realize that he is only one person. And like many of our youth, he is trapped in crises of identity, community and opportunity. Until we start to shift those things we can expect to see more loss in Chicago, Philadelphia, and other metropolitan cities.

Identity Crisis

“Know thyself”— two words that can be as simple or complex as we make them. The process of self-discovery is one fraught with benefit and consequences; nonetheless, it is a journey that all must undergo. While we spend a great deal of time telling our young people what to do and socializing them into what to consume, we often miss the chances to help them discover themselves and help them figure out what their role on the planet is, not just what they can make money doing.

Chief Keef, entrenched in a heavy gang culture, is a prime example. To him, Chicago’s Black Disciples is central to who he is and who he should be. Each of his tweets carries #300, a reference to the gang, and he’s been known to only state his age as “300.” A gang, for many, meets a craving for community; however, as this bleeds into an all-consuming sense of identity, the consequences can be large. Gangs are not likely to leave today or tomorrow. Chicago is no stranger to gangs; in fact, they are so much a part of the city’s history that there have been numerous attempts to organize them for progressive social action and governmental intervention to destabilize political alliances.

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Recently, a picture

Sadly, the United States has become the leader of incarceration in the world and it is incarceration that is undoing the sanctity of our communities. not books. Unfortunately, if we don’t begin to prepare children and adults for what has become the virtual inevitability of dealing the prison system, we’ll be attempting to live in a fairy tale. We have come to the point where real life non-fiction is necessary for children and adults.

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I recently found

Unfair? Yes. A safer NYC? Definitely not. I reminded my chat mate that only 2 percent of stops result in contraband being found and that 88 percent didn’t end in any summons or arrest. I told them by any metric it wasn’t effective policing but it could be seen as effective harassment of Black and Latino youth in New York City.

The men’s eyes began to widen as I rattled off statistics and expressed my concern for my younger brothers and sisters who were too often viewed as the embodiment of delinquency by the New York Police Department. One man responded, “That sucks!” I responded, “Until people who are not likely to be stopped and frisked begin to conscientiously object to it, this practice is going to continue.”

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I recently had a conversation with a friend who lost a family member to homicide in the last month. She confessed to me that she used to think that considering the death penalty was unconscionable, but in her current state she too had begun to weigh it as an option. Her arrival in to the “gray area” of ethics guided by her personal loss reminded me of Martin Luther King’s words, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” King understood that in midst of challenge, the ability to determine right from wrong is often obscured. This lack of clarity is not just individual, it happens within this country’s justice system making the death penalty unequally and mistakenly applied. With 273 post-conviction DNA exonerations in recent years, it is clear that a judgment does not equal truth. When we leave the death penalty on the table we yield an irreversible option to conclude a process that is rife with margins of error.

When I asked my friend if she would support a family member going out to kill the person(s) they suspected of killing her cousin she said no. I cannot justify vengeance killing by an individual any more than I can justify vengeance killing by the government. While some may suggest closure as the reason for carrying out killing, I cannot understand the emotional calculus that suggests one can become whole by taking the life of another. In capital punishment cases, the loss of a life has already occurred and nothing can serve to return that life.

The death of Troy Davis occurred at a moment when the world was watching and still 3,250 people remain on death row. Most of their cases will likely get far less attention than Davis’s, but we deserve to give the death penalty equal consideration. In the many conversations about Davis’s case I was asked, “Do you believe he is innocent?” I never answered that question because neither guilt nor innocence could convince me to leverage the ultimate sentence without ultimate knowledge. My love for humanity, possibility, and community is far too large to believe that gray area of vengeance is one that individuals or the government can or should remain. May the weight of our hearts over the loss of lives, match our commitment to stop the taking of more lives.

For more resources on [ending] the death penalty please visit:

Amnesty International

The Innocence Project

Campaign to End the Death Penalty

Death Penalty Information Center

Capital Punishment Clinic

For nearly a week, prisoners throughout the state of Georgia have been engaged in one of the largest prison protests in this nation’s history. Why is this not plastered across mainstream media, blogs, and 24 hour cable news? The simple answer maybe that the more we focus on prisoners’ rights, the more we are forced to focus on human rights and community transformation.

It is erroneously taught in many U.S. schools that the 13th amendment abolished all slavery, when in fact the amendment reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The italicized text leaves a powerful “loophole” in the American narrative of equality and freedom. In fact, the conditions in many U.S. prisons continue to spiral towards a peculiar form of industrial slavery.

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Corrigendum: In the piece I mean to say “under correctional control” not incarcerated when referencing Michelle Alexander’s work in “The New Jim Crow.”

– M1 of Dead Prez on the song “Malcolm, Garvey, Huey”

This week I’ve been peeking in on Ta-Nehisi Coates‘ musings as he re-reads the autobiography of Malcolm X. Coates has done us a great service by sharing his reading of Malcolm’s life as told by Alex Haley, but this service can easily slip into a disservice. Malcolm on one hand has been deified and on the other hand demonized. We must humanize Malcolm, like all the figures in the African Diasporic canon, but we must do it with a particular degree of care and context.

Thus far Coates has posted three entries: “Black Men are Watching Every Move I Make“, “She Had Broken the Spirits of Three Husbands” and “Confronting Valhalla’s Humanity” all of which I received with resonation and reservation. This post is to illuminate my reservations. Most of us are familiar with figures like Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton, and Marcus Garvey as icons. In our history, each of them has become flattened, polished, and made rigid caricatures. Ironically, this is something all three would deeply object to, but this is often the consequence of canonizing. In breaking apart these images though, we must go deeper than just problematizing these brothers, we have to contextualize them.

In “Black Men are Watching Every Move I Make” in the closing Coates states, “I don’t say that to clean Malcolm X. I don’t buy the image of him as a complete convert to integration–nor do I need it, anymore than I needed it for Grant or Lincoln.” When I read this sentence my first thought was, “Malcolm as an integrationist isn’t cleaning it a pure whitewashing.” Coates, like many revisionists of Shabazz’s legacy, passively suggests that integration became a part of his worldview after returning from Mecca (Hajj). Of the many lies perpetrated about/against Malcolm, this is probably one of the most consistent.

Hajj served to reorient Malcolm’s thinking about race, but it did not make him an advocate of integration. He remained steadfast in his non-support of integration. On the day he was assassinated he was to deliver a speech on the OAAU that included him saying, “We consider the word “integration” a misleading, false term. It carries with it certain implications to which Afro-Americans cannot subscribe. This terminology has been applied to the current regulation projects which are supposedly “acceptable” to some classes of society. This very “acceptable” implies some inherent superiority or inferiority instead of acknowledging the true source of the inequalities involved.” X was not an integrationist. X died a Pan-Africanist. X died a nationalist. His travels throughout Africa and the “Middle East” in 1959 and his Hajj in 1964 were watershed moments, but were not 180 degree turns. While many suggest that he created great distance from the Nation of Islam and their beliefs around the racial order of the world, careful students will come to a different conclusion.

The second piece that Coates offers is “She Had Broken the Spirits of Three Husbands.” In this post, Coates takes Malcolm to task on his discussion of and attitudes towards women. Undoubtedly informed from his misogynistic hustling past, the excerpts presented show a cold and shameful side of Malcolm. I can recall just last year re-reading the Autobiography and many of the passages Coates selects stood out to me as well. I wondered, “If Malcolm is our model of Black masculinity and this is perspective on Black women, where does that leave us?” As someone who is very serious about the operation of gender oppression and privilege within the Black community, I too struggled to understand where Malcolm was. While the Autobiography represents a summative work, it is not a complete story. In fact, if we look at Shabazz’s work in with the Organization for Afro-American Unity (OAAU) you see a man who was growing and struggling around gender. In William Sales’ book “From civil rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity” we find Malcolm pushing to systematize and expand the role of women within the OAAU. He felt concerned that the gender oppression popular in his other organization Muslim Mosque Inc. was unduly sabotaging the liberatory work of OAAU. He began to make statements like, “Africa will not be free until it frees its women.” Yet these sentiments were nestled along side a profound distrust for women, which Coates captures in his excerpts. Between the popular image, Coates’ excerpts, and Sales’ analysis we get a fuller and better Malcolm, one that we can look to critically and lovingly.

Malcolm X is undoubtedly one of the most profoundly debated people of the African Diaspora (Sidebar- I’m anxiously awaiting Manning Marable’s book on X). Numerous volumes have attempted to capture that man in various stages, but not surprisingly all falling short. After all, who can truly capture human life in a few pages, a play or a film? But what I learned from reading the Autobiography, from reading beyond the autobiography, and being blessed to sit at the feet of elders who knew and worked with X is that there is a danger in simplifying the complex.

When Dead Prez says, “study Malcolm, Garvey, Huey their life is like a movie” I almost feel as if they’re reeling us in to find a deeper level of truth. The movies that depict all three of these men are often too narrow and too clean to capture their fullness. This fullness includes good, bad, and ugly. If you study them your learn strains of misogyny and feminism run through them all. They were not perfect; they were people. People who brilliantly taught us how to help our people rise while simultaneously showing us their personal limitations. Their vilification in mainstream media has led many to deify them within Black culture. Beginning the process of re-reading Malcolm, and I believe this applies to most known Black political figures, must come from a place of information if it is to lead to transformation.  If we are not informed and transformed, our people get no better. And after all, isn’t that what Malcolm was about?

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1) The counting of prisoners – Currently prisoners are counted as residents of the counties in which they are imprisoned rather than their home communities. This serves to increase political representation in areas that tend to be rural and White, while decreasing the political representation of the home communities that folks come from.

2) Who is White? The extended racial definitions provided by OMB 15 say that, ” A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.”  Notice something about that? I was certainly surprised that folks from North Africa and the Middle East remain classified as White, despite the socially distinct lives that many lead.

3) Undercounts. The issue of Negro was raised in response to the potential of people being offended and “opting out” of the Census. If seeing Negro makes you not fill out the Census form, I’m going to wager you weren’t going to fill it out in the first place. Many communities remain undercounted: the poor, the young, immigrant to name a few, this all matters for political resources. If you’re worried about undercounts, think also about the homeless. Their undercounting means fewer resources for those feeling the hardest brunts of the “land of opportunity.”

I am all for rallying around a cause. I’m just not sure I can meet ya’ll down at the Census offices for a protest over Negro. Focus groups, lettering writing campaigns, and write ins suggest some of our older brothers and sisters still support the term. Let’s focus energy in creating greater political clout, not appropriate nomenclature.

I remember getting fliers for Black August each year and thinking “this is the dopest line up” and remember standing in long lines waiting to see my favorite artists rock. While I can remember the performances to this day, the other thing that stuck me was the emphasis on political prisoners and global hip-hop. The project brought some of the greatest voices, both “conscious” and “non-conscious”, together to raise money and awareness with the goal of movement building. It was this project of MXGM that introduced me to a cadre of young activists who thought like me, cared like me, and most importantly got down like me. This coming Sunday August 30th in NYC at BB Kings The Black August Hip Hop Project will have its annual fundraiser for political prisoners and facilitating international Hip-Hop movement building. What is better than coming out and hearing great music, sweating it out on the dance floor (or standing with an ice grill, that’s on you!), and continuing the work of liberation?

Click here to buy your advanced tickets!!

One of the things that is always a dilemma with dope movements is the documentation of said movement, well Dream Hampton and a number of folks have been working on capturing the Black August Hip Hop Project in a documentary entitled Let’s Get Free: The Black August Hip Hop Project. A trailer for the project can be seen here (embedding is disabled but it’s well worth the click).

To me, asking if Hip-Hop is political is about as useful as asking, “why is the sky blue?/ why is water is wet?” (what you know about that?), it’s self-evident. The better question is what are you doing with your politics since you are Hip-Hop?

For me, Black August represents a time when Black folks can think deeply about our communities’ unsung heroes. Not too long ago I wrote about Black leaders and liberation and that post came in part because I feel that people of African descent in America are given too little information on folks born and bred in our neighborhoods and instead look solely outside of our communities for revolutionary guidance. While I find nothing wrong with reading the work and teaching of great revolutionaries across the globe (as our greatest have also done), there is value in knowing deeply that your people have been instrumental to revolutionary thought as others have. Years ago, I wrote a piece or spoke somewhere on Africans and revolution to which someone wrote me and basically said, “If Black people are so great, why do they not have their own theories? Why do they always have to steal from Europeans, Latinos, and Asians?” The question caught me off guard, but upon deeper reflection, I remembered our people didn’t simply parrot the theories of others but added nuance, complexity and even diverged from previous revolutionary thinkers. This is missed if you don’t study the works of folks Marcus Garvey, Assata Shakur, George Jackson, Fred Hampton, Elaine Brown, Angela Davis, to name but a few. The reality is all too often we skim these giants and miss the depth with which they each grappled with struggle. In fact, their grappling with struggle in theoretical and practical terms make them beautifully human and provide opportunities and openings for us to improve on this struggle. I have been taking the month to re-familiarize myself with Assata Shakur, George Jackson and Elaine Brown because I want to make sure we do not recreate the same egregious errors around gender and sexuality in our continuation of the Black freedom struggle.

I recognize that not all of us will take the remainder of the month to dig into texts and speeches, but there are still important ways to make Black August meaningful. One of the greatest contributions in the last 40 years to Black struggle and liberation has been the movement against the prison industrial complex. As Jackson wrote about those incarcerated,

“They have become aware that their only hope lies in resistance. They have learned that resistance is actually possible. The holds are beginning to slip away. Very few men imprisoned for economic crimes or even crimes of passion against the oppressor feel that they are really guilty. Most of today’s black convicts have come to understand that they are they most abused victims of an unrighteous order.”

You don’t have to be one outside protesting prison and fighting for prisoners rights to continue to contribute to the struggle of Black liberation. A smaller yet important step could be to reach out to someone behind bars with a kind or inspirational word. All too often I think the value of communication is forgotten. There are many locked up brothers and sisters who could use a word of support and love, it takes a few minutes, but can brighten a month. Whichever way you spend your Black August may it be in the spirit of our ancestors and fighting with love for the future of Black folks.

Now this is not going to be a “complain and blame” post, instead, I’d like to offer some humble suggestions (or as humble as one can be if they’re writing on a blog which is kinda an egotistical thing to start with, but ya’ll know what I’m saying). It is critical that we begin to talk about race in ways that expose the subtle fabric of inequality. While it’s easy to explain why Skip Gates’ harassment and subsequent arrest were wrong and wrongheaded, it’s more difficult to explain how policies leave many innocent men and women sitting in jail or on death row due to false accusations and procedural bureaucracy. It’s easy to point on the wrongness of exclusion from the Valley Swim club but it’s more difficult to explain why suburban schools are almost as and sometimes more unequal than urban schools, in part due to their exclusion of Blacks from equal educational resources. It’s easy to suggest that race matters when Sotomayor is berated in her confirmation hearings, but it is more difficult to explain the significance of critical race theory to understanding and interpreting the law. As scholars, as activists, and as citizens we’ve give up the project of relaying the complex conditions to the masses who need to be reminded not that race still matters, but the various ways that it still matters and what role all can play in racial justice.

I think it is wholly possible to take the flash point moments and deepen dialogue, but its rare that it happens. Instead, we recycle old dialogues on race and its significance when more complex racism(s) exist. The reality is that we’ve got to get equally complex in our discussions of the intersections of race, class, gender and sexuality (to name a few). If we are serious about “justice for all” we must update our discourse and activism. Because as Brother Malcolm said, “The White power structure is just as much interested in maintaining slavery as it was 100 years ago. Only now they use modern methods of doing so.” Let’s expose the modern methods as well as the old!

*footnote if you’ve never seen the dialogue between Malcolm X, Wyatt Tee Walker James Farmer, and Alan Morrison do yourself a favor and watch it!

**Shout out to Native Notes for being on the same page with that quote!

The segment opens trying to draw viewers in by introducing the silent danger in suburbs … gangs!

“We have an interesting story for you. Many of us believe that gang violence is old news, you know about it, it’s in the inner cities, it’s about drugs. That’s not true, that’s not accurate, there’s a whole world of violence out there that puts kids in suburbs at risk. We want to tell you of this one mother in Maryland who did everything she could to protect her child from bullies, turned out they were gang members. And just a block from their home her son met a fate that even his mother had never imagined …”

Voice overs to the story give you information like townhouses in the area cost “350,000 dollars” and that Chris was an  “all American boy” who loved things like baseball, hockey, and wanted to be a police officer. The way the story is framed and unpacks it is meant to scream whiteness, suburban safety, and crisis. Chris’ death is discussed and eventually the “suspects” are splashed across the screen, they are Black youth. While the story doesn’t discuss it, the boys alleged in the attack attended the same school and presumably lived in the same community as Chris. The reality is that suburban Crofton, Maryland is like many areas, it is not all White and likely has not dealt well with the incorporation of non-Whites (in this case Black) into its community. While suburbia is painted as perfect, the reality is that suburbs are engineered spaces that have been used to “escape” some urban hazards and buffer their residents from the social world around them. Regardless of Crofton’s public image and its besmirchment, I am most disturbed that the reporting of Chris Jones’ murder serves exacerbate racial tensions; rather than open for spaces of dialogue.

A couple months back, the Atlantic published an article entitled “American Murder Mystery” about Memphis, Tennessee that discussed the issue of crime. The piece, which features the research of Richard Janikowski and Phyllis Betts who “crack” the mystery of American murder by uncomfortably suggesting residents who relocated from public housing to scattered site and mixed-income housing travelled to new areas and carried their “old ways” of violence and gangs. Recently, I sat in a GIS mapping workshop where approximately 1/3 of the participants were law enforcement agents from suburban areas who were interested in using mapping to find “crime hot spots” so they could more “effectively” patrol neighborhoods and groups. It reminded me of the sad reality that a little bit of social science knowledge can be a dangerous thing, particularly for those who are unjustly and unnecessarily targeted.

The overtone in GMA piece and the Atlantic piece suggest that neighborhoods that are “well off” will soon be over-run by dark violent, inner-city forces. Rather than open a dialogue about communities and responsibly dealing with difference, they feed into racial paranoia. Rather than explore the ways that policy can mitigate some of the tensions between communities, we receive more fodder for race conflict carried out using non-racial language but overt racial signals. Rather than look seriously at the lives of all people in suburban communities, both Black and White, right and poor, we get conviction on young Black boys in the public eye. Don’t believe me, read the comments on the piece.

I am no journalist, but I think I that the implications of pieces like these are huge. America is arguably more on “racial alert” now than it has been in the past. The arrival of an African American president has not been without impact in both positive and negative ways. We need to be informed about what is happening in the nation, but we also must be critical consumers. Having lived through the Central Park Five case and recognizing the railroading that young Black men have historically received in the American Judicial system, I cannot help but wonder, what was the goal of the piece: information or inflammation?

Today is  global day of action for Troy Davis who is set to be executed if we, that includes you, do not demand a retrial. You have probably seen Davis’ name and maybe even read up on the case. Well there is plenty of material online but I’ll summarize. Davis was convicted of shooting an off-duty police officer in 1989 in Savannah, Georgia at Burger King (there was also a shooting at a party earlier that evening). The scene of the shooting was a Burger King where Sylvester Coles got in an altercation with a homeless man. Coles and Davis are physically similar in size and the overlap in Davis and Coles’ night is eerie. The State of Georgia put its resources into investigating Davis and little into properly investigating Coles. As a result they arrested Davis and convicted him on 9 eye-witness testimonies. Since conviction, Davis has maintained innocence. In 2001, 7 out of 9 “witnesses” re-canted their statements saying they were coerced into saying Davis was the shooter via improper police and legal procedures. Through a railroading and denial of a re-trial Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed in the near future. If you’re in NYC, join us at Union Square from 6-8 for a National Day of Action for Troy Davis or find a local event or activity here. Davis’ stays of execution and case have only gotten this far because everyday people are putting pressure on the State of Georgia, to be “fair” and not “final”. Let’s keep up the pressure and stop the loss of another innocent Black man’s life.

As I was typing this post, I came across a video of police brutalizing a 14 year old boy, Trevor Casey, in Toledo, Ohio. The video footage (which is graphic) is here. While I do not know the circumstances leading up to his arrest, choke and bloodying, I do know that the young man’s life would likely have been in even greater danger if this was not caught on tape. Police brutality is common in our communities, but seldom gets taken seriously, let’s not let this be the case.

The reality is that our young Black youth everyday come in contact with a police force that fears them more than protects and serves them. It’s all too often that I walk down the street in Harlem and see “undercovers” jump out, harrass youth, and then continue on with their patrol. Even more disturbing then these “stop and frisks” is the way that many of the young brothas and sistahs I see harrassed respond. They get searched, often illegally, and continue on with their day as if it has been or should be a routine occurence.

If we truly want to honor Malcolm, then we cannot let the State (of Georgia and Toledo) in these cases go unchecked. Troy Davis, like many on death row and those killed on death row, was railroaded and we cannot let his case go quietly. While we celebrate the arrival of a Black Attornery General, the real power to respond to judicial injustice must come from the people. Stand up, speak out! Trevor Casey was brutalized in front of his home and the community is crying out for help. The disease of racism and fear of young Black men runs deep, don’t let his case be “investigated” (the Oscar Grant trial from Oakland is now happening) and dismissed as so many cases of brutality are. Stand up, speak out! Don’t read about this stories and get sad, in fact, get angry. Because if Brother Malcolm taught us, “Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.”

Ask the wrong question, get the wrong answer.

All sorts of people have been asking, “Why did John Forte get freed?” I think that is the wrong question, but since it’s been asked, I’ll answer it. Ostensibly the reason that John Forte is free is Carly Simon. However since pardons do not require a rationalization, we won’t know for sure “why” Forte is free. The question I wish folks would ask, was “Why was John Forte locked?” And not in a literal sense, he was arrested for “moving weight.” I want a discussion of the reason he was imprisoned, mandatory minimums. Mandatory minimums were one of Reagan’s key policies in the War on People of Color and Poor People Drugs. Forte’s irrationally long and harsh imprisonment should be the larger target and issue of concern for us. While he is now free, millions of our brothers and sisters remain locked up because of these draconian laws.

Star Power does not equal Freedom

Because I have some of the best friends in the world, when I started to call around and tell them about Forte’s freedom their responses were similar. Many said, essentially, “So John Forte is free, but Mumia is still locked?” For the nearly 30 years, Mumia Abu-Jamal has been tossed around the “justice” system for his alleged role in the death of police officer Daniel Faulkner. There are a number of issues with the trial and conviction of Mumia Abu-Jamal and there remains warring factions around whether he is innocent, suffered from a mistrial, or a murderer. Regardless of your position, the striking similarity between his case and Forte’s has been the appeal of celebrity power. While Carly Simon was successful in lobbying to get Forte freed, a cadre of celebrities and public figures like Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon, and Nelson Mandela have not managed to get Mumia a fair trial or get him released.

So what gives? Why would Mumia be locked and Forte free? In my opinion it comes down to what Derrick Bell calls interest convergence. If we look at what people stand to gain from Forte’s freedom and what they will lose, we see Forte’s freedom is low cost to most interested parties. The cocaine he was arrested with was never delivered to anyone, didn’t cause a death, so arguably it was a “victimless” crime. Bush can pardon Forte and get a big hurrah from White folks, Black folks, and Hip-Hop folks. These cheers come without us critically addressing the laws that put Forte and masses our brothers and sisters behind bars and on parole.

On the other hand, the freeing of Mumia would be very high stakes. Freeing Mumia would mean freeing one of the most visible political prisoners in the world. If Mumia were freed, it would mean that Maureen Faulkner and many of residents of Philadelphia would drop their Geno’s cheesesteaks and begin to riot.
The divisive racial tensions around Mumia’s case would be re-opened in a public way, but those who sided with the State (read: White authority in the form of the police) would “lose”. The long silenced, dismissed and ignored voices of Mumia and his grassroots supporters would have to be acknowledged. In short, the system of “in”justice would be exposed.

For Bush, freeing Forte is a small step that puts a notch on his belt of “progressive” politics. People will point to the diversity of his cabinet, his willingness to put people of color in positions of power, and the freeing of John Forte when critics characterize him as insensitive the issues of Black and Brown folks. No the freeing of Forte or the appointment of Rice don’t balance out his actions, but politics is probably more about perception than reality. As we celebrate the perception of justice, let us remember the reality of injustice that our folks remain lodged in. Free Mumia and all political prisoners!

The heresy with which Michigan residents were disgusted by the prospect of Abraham being eligible for programs designed for abandoned youth, is the same disgust they should have felt when he was tried as an adult. It is the same disgust that we should hold when young men and women of color are released back into a society with few social supports. To me, it’s not a mystery that when a person, is isolated from social opportunities from childhood, and then you force them to “participate” fully there will be issues. As the old adage goes, “you gotta crawl before you ball.” Spending nearly half your life in prison cannot prepare you to succeed outside of prison. As the cameras snapped images of a man in outlandish attire, I could only see a manchild.

Recently when I was spending time with my little brother who is 11 and we began talking about independence and what his mother let’s him do. A typical conversation among pre-teens. As we talked, eventually we ended up telling him the story of Nathaniel Abraham, he looked on in shock and disbelief. My little brother is smart, top of his class, has his “head on straight” and I quickly realized the idea of leaving society and returning in 9 years was unimaginable. He, probably like most 11 year olds, found the prospect hard to swallow. As we talked more he repeatedly asked me questions like, “What happened to Nathaniel?” “Why’d he do (the murder) what he did?” These were difficult questions to answer. I still cannot fully answer them, but even my inability to answer speaks volumes.

I wonder about Nathaniel, not simply because he’s a human, but because I wonder what kind of world produces a manchild like him. I remember reading Fox Butterfield’s account of Willie Bosket and thinking that he told part of the story. Though I may not be able to retrace Nathaniel’s life, I’m sure there are more than enough elements that would trouble us. While the national cameras usually fixate on Detroit as a city in decline or post decline, seldom do people think of Pontiac. Pontiac, which sits not far from Detroit, is just as ripe with social ills and dangers: high amounts of crime, drugs, unemployment, and single headed households. While we all love the stories of “beating the odds” and want to highlight the exceptions to the rules of poverty, these stories are in many ways disingenuous. I think Nathaniel represents the rule, the rule that we need to grapple with, simply put: Your chances for success (however you define it) are severely limited (if not eliminated) if you grow up poor, Black, and male in America.

As the media spins images of Nathaniel “pimping the system” and people grow concerned that a “monster” lives on state support, we still have to ask, what/who created this “monster”? In reality, we all did. When we neglect and ignore the conditions of the youth, particularly poor and Black youth, we are assured that Nathaniel will not be the last Nathaniel. When there is bipartisan support for cutting social programs, we assure the development of the manchild. When we assume that things “aren’t that bad” because we can see downtown Detroit open a few shops, we ink poor children’s fates. Unfortunately, there will be more Nathaniels, people locked away with little ability to transition back into “society.” So the next time you hear of them getting “social support” before you ask “How could this happen?” you should ask “How did this happen?” In my estimation, his apartment and some tuition are a pittance compared to the life that we allowed Nathaniel to live before. Lastly, ask yourself, if you were Nathaniel, could you live up to the request of Judge Eugene Moore, “Show us all that you have become a caring, productive member of society”, without assistance.