The Fallacy of 40 Acres and a Mule

I find it appropriate to address this subject now, as it is near the end of Black history month. I don’t know how folk will take it, but I am without a doubt certain that Carter G. Woodson would approve and appreciate the thought processes engrained in what I am about to state.

At least twice this month (and I won’t go into the number of times over the years), I have heard several claims that Africans in America, or at least freed slaves were promised 40 acres and a mule upon emancipation. I have read references to such scantly; however, I have been unable and unsuccessful, even in light of my penchant for research and detail, to verify such.

What I can say accurately is that during the period of and after the civil war, the radical Republicans as they have been called throughout history really had only one interest, which was not slaves or black folk, but rather the goal of using the military might of the union (North) to destroy the plantation aristocracy of the south and bring in a new area of capitalist democracy by ensuring that blacks could both vote and own property. This is where the idea of forty acres and a mule originally started.  But Democrats, like then Editor of the New York Tribune like Horace Greeley were against this in mass. See, although they were upset with Southerners, they felt, to use Greeley’s words that: “because the wealthier class of southerners, being more enlightened and humane than the ignorant and vulgar are less inimicable to the blacks,” that former slaves should never be given land or property in any form especially from the confederate rich.

In fact when the republicans tried to force property confiscation in the initial acts of Reconstruction in 1867 (against the desires of moderate Republicans), when ThaddeusStevens brought the “40 acres” measure to the floor in the House, it receivedless than 40 votes.

Although history books tell us that folk in the north were on the side of slaves and against slavery, they fail to mention specifically how their views, votes and politics were never behind and would never tolerate giving black folk land – specifically the property of former confederate rich white folks. Even that democratic weekly THE NATION noted that by giving the land of rich men to poor ignorant Negroes would shock and destroy America’s entire political system and lead to the destruction of liberty for all Americans (In The Era of Reconstruction 1865-1877 by Kenneth Stampp, 120-130).

With this kind of NATIONAL sentiment, it is easy to see why 40 acres was never made law and really never promised to freed blacks.  Not to mention it should have been obvious seeing it is well know that the Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863) excluded freeing slaves in Union states and those stats in the South behind union lines.

What this means is that without any land redistribution or confiscation, slaves would still remain slaves just under a new system and made it even worse.  Now they would be sharecroppers, which gave land owners control over them from giving them advances on supplies, even food from stores they owned, way above market price and charging the to live on land that they would never own or ever be able to accumulate wealth. By the time Rutherford B. Hays became President in 1876, this new system was firmly entrenched and Northern democrats and republicans turned their back on what they initially considered their cause to protect the poor, landless and oppressed black working class of former slaves.

This is why industrial capitalism grew so fast during this period of American history – they still had an endless supply of cheap and uneducated workers.  Although some misread history and often say the civil war was America’s second revolutionary war, it wasn’t. I mean from my perspective, during revolutionary wars, the oppressed take up arms and start the war. And any person who can read, or considers themselves educated can tell you that since then, the 14^th amendment has done little if anything to protect black folk in America, and really only serves to protect corporations and advance industrial capitalism. Through the 14^th amendment, property got the ultimate political protection from state governments, not freed slaves and the US currency was put on an invincible footing via the resumption of specie (money in the form of coins rather than notes) payment.

So when folk banter around that we as black folk were promised 40 acres and a mule, or that the 14^th amendment was instituted to protect black folk, you should ignore them and accept their ignorance as an offering and reflection of what is wrong with we as black folk in America, which is 60% of the time we talking loud and ain’t saying nothing and 30% of the time we truly don’t know what we talking about.

Aint No More Charles Hamilton Houston’s

Once upon a time there were activist warrior scholars who served the needs and protected African Americans against the onslaught of laws designed to subjugate, marginalize and mass incarcerate this population disproportionately to their representation and the occurrence of such crimes. Most of these involved rights proclaimed under the constitution and dealt with receiving an equal education.

As many know, during slavery, a slave was not allowed to learn to read; it was illegal. Whites didn't want black slaves to read and write because they might be encouraged to run away. In addition, People feared that slaves who could read would be more rebellious. At the time of the Civil War, only 1 or 2 percent of slaves were able to read and write meaning that Illiteracy was one of the worst handicaps of being a slave. In most cases, outside of having hands or tongues cut out or being blinded, death was the punishment for a slave learning to read.

To the slave, the ability to read and write meant freedom—if not actual, physical freedom, then intellectual freedom—to maintain relationships amongst family members separated by the slave trade. These men and women took great risks to empower themselves, and in some cases, achieved freedom. However after slavery a dark period emerged and well up into the 20th century, African Americans were still disenfranchised by the legal burden of obtaining an equal education. Charles Hamilton Houston was one of the bright lights of activism that addressed these social ills.

WEB Dubois wrote that “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” I would suspect that he would say that in the 21st century this would continue to be true but add something implicating the impact of the criminal justice system on the worsening of this problem. To put it plainly, it is like comedian Tony Rock stated, “People always say I act like I am afraid of the police, I am afraid of the police."

If there was a time in which our community need the aspiring efforts of a Charles Hamilton Houston it is now. Who was Charles Houston; well he was a lawyer, educator and a warrior. He was the man who devised and led the legal strategy leading to the end of legalized racial segregation in the United States. He also taught and mentored a generation of lawyers, including Thurgood Marshall, James Nabrit, Spottswood Robinson, and A. Leon Higginbotham. It was his work and effort that laid the legal groundwork that led to 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that made racial segregation in public primary and secondary schools unconstitutional.

He completed high school at the age of 15 and graduated from as one of six valedictorians from Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1915. After serving in World War I as a second lieutenant in field artillery and receiving an honorable discharge from the army, he enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1919 where he earned his Bachelor of Laws in 1922 and a doctorate in 1923. Truth be told, Houston, and not Barack Obama was the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review.

He fought to end legalized discrimination and, in particular, the "separate but equal" doctrine accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson. He proceeded step by step and from 1935 to 1940, he successfully argued several cases using this strategy, including Murray v. Maryland, (1936) which resulted in the desegregation of the University of Maryland's Law School and Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada, another case that Houston argued before the Supreme Court, declared that the scholarships Missouri offered to African Americans to attend out-of-state graduate schools did not constitute equal admission. In the end, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the admission of a black student to the Law School at the University of Missouri (1938).

Thurgood Marshall took over where Houston left of as NAACP's Special Counsel. In Smith v. Allwright, Marshall successfully challenged "white primaries," which prevented African Americans from voting in several southern states. In Morgan v. Virginia (1946), Marshall won a case in which the Supreme Court struck down a state law that enforced segregation on buses and trains that were interstate carriers. In 1948 he won Shelley v Kraemer, which ended the enforcement of racially restrictive covenants, a practice that barred blacks from purchasing homes in white neighborhoods. In 1950, he won cases that struck down Texas and Oklahoma laws requiring segregated graduate schools in Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma. “In those cases, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment required those states to admit black students to their graduate and professional schools.”

Houston's said “A lawyer's either a social engineer or he's a parasite on society," the formers whose goal was to focus on "bettering conditions of the underprivileged citizens." Like I said in the intro we do not have any more of these types in Law. They say we have Obama, but he went for the presidency making one wonder which he would be according to the reasoning of Mr. Houston. We have growing evidence that the current administration will not address these issues. Travon Martin aside, there is a history of injustice deserving our attention. The store clerk, who shot Michael Haynes II in the back and murdered him apparently during a dispute over the price of condoms, The Georgia business owner onto John McNeil, in jail for shooting Brian Epp, who trespassed onto his Cobb County, Georgia property in December 2005 while waving a box cutter and threatened McNeil's son, after being asked to leave his property multiple times before firing in self-defense. Not to mention the countless unknown cases that railroad black men under the guise of justice.

What is required is what Houston and Marshall did: a structured plan to address the legal burden of what leads to the disproportionate mass incarceration of African Americans. Today such an approach would have to tackle several current legal opinions:

Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202 (1965): Robert Swain, nineteen, year old black male, was indicted, tried and convicted of raping a white woman in Talladega County, Alabama, and received the death sentence. There had been five African Americans on the grand jury panel of thirty-three, two of whom served on the grand jury which indicted Swain. Of those in the county eligible for jury selection for grand and petit juries, 26% are Negroes, while the jury panels since 1953 have averaged 10% to 15% African Americans. Of the eight on the venire, two were exempt, and six were peremptorily struck by the prosecutor. The court held that: A defendant in a criminal case is not constitutionally entitled to a proportionate number of his race on the trial jury or the jury panel and that purposeful racial discrimination is not satisfactorily established by showing only that an identifiable group has been underrepresented by as much as 10%. The courts conclusion was that there is no evidence in this case that the jury commissioners applied different jury selection standards as between people based on race.

Purkett v. Elem (94-802), 514 U.S. 765 (1995): During jury selection, he objected to the prosecutor's use of peremptory challenges to strike two black men from the jury panel, an objection arguably based on Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). The prosecutor explained his strikes: "I struck [juror] number twenty two because of his long hair. He had long curly hair. He had the longest hair of anybody on the panel by far. He appeared to not be a good juror for that fact…I don't like the way they looked, with the way the hair is cut, both of them. And the mustaches and the beards look suspicious to me." The Supreme Court upheld this was valid.

Then there are Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986) and United States v. Armstrong (95-157), 517 U.S. 456 (1996) among others. Like I said, we cannot depend on the current administration to do anything albeit in his book “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama admitted his drug use and how it could have derailed his future. The president is quick to say he is against the disparity in the criminal justice system yet his actions prove otherwise. His first Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel increase funding for Clintons "COPS ON THE BEAT" program in 2007 when he co-sponsored the COPS Improvements Act of 2007 - Amends the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to make grants for public safety and community policing programs (COPS ON THE BEAT or COPS program). Although Clinton claimed that this program was impactful in decreasing crime, a GAO report indicated if any reduction occurred in violent crimes it was barely 1 percent at a cost of $8 billion. Moreover, Worrall & Kovandzic (2007) showed that COPS spending had little to no effect on crime.

Two more suspect members of the team include Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder. Biden has always been in the led of the war on drugs, on everything from marijuana to steroids. He even wrote the legislation that created the position of a national "Drug Czar", and his Anti-Drug Proliferation Act provides 20-year prison sentences for folk who throw parties in their home if drug use occurs. In addition, he was a proponent of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in 1994, which allocated substantial funds for construction of new prisons, established boot camps for delinquent minors, and brought the death penalty for crimes related to drug dealing. Biden’s 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill included a provision allowing for the federal execution of drug kingpins, asserting that drug-related offenses were equivalent to, or worse than murder.

Eric Holder is no better than Biden or Emanuel. Holder, a former D.C. prosecutor, and the chief law enforcement officer in the U.S., complained that prosecuting the banking executives who caused the 2008 global financial crisis and subsequent deep recession was too difficult. But he is all game for marijuana. As U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., Eric Holder sought to raise marijuana penalties and restore mandatory minimum penalties for drug crimes. His plan was to set minimum sentences of 18 months for first-time convicted drug dealers, 36 months for the second time and 72 months for every conviction thereafter.

All I am saying is that we cannot wait for Obama, even if he is a black president with a past of self-admitted weed and drug use to protect the average black man on the street who are disproportionately targeted by the drug war and court system, to help us. We need another brave group of legal minds like Houston and Marshall to adeptly and shrewdly dismantle the new laws of modern Jim Crow. If either were living today, they would probable say the same about mass incarceration as Houston did education. “This fight for equality of educational opportunity (was) not an isolated struggle. All our struggles must tie in together and support one another. . . We must remain on the alert and push the struggle farther with all our might.”

How Obama and Black Politicians Have Reinvented the Negro

Politicians of African descent in America, in concert with the non-concern of their voting constituency have reinvented the Negro, or better yet made the Negro retro chic. What do I mean by this? Well from an etymological perspective, the word Negro is Spanish for black. The Spanish language comes from Latin, which has its origins in Classical Greek. The word Negro is derived from the Greek root word necro, meaning dead. It was a reference to the state of mind for millions of Africans. Politicians thrive and live on the fact that folk are negro as opposed to self determined individuals with the ability to reason and problem solve, thus ensuring their hold in politics. But what they fail to understand that if they truly want to deal with the economic plight of African Americans, they need to face the fact that economic improvement cannot be accomplished within the context of mass incarceration and the environment of the criminal justice arena that foster incessant Jim Crow-like practices. For the same dynamic that led to Jim Crow after the Civil war and emancipation proclamation has led to the present day mass incarceration of African Americans.

Just as slavery, Jim Crow and today’s focus on mass incarceration operates within the context of a system of institutions, policies and laws that function in concert to subordinate and disenfranchise a select group of folk defined mostly on race. Until our political figure heads address this and make this connection, nothing economically will improve in areas with high concentrations of African Americans. Only difference is the type of laws. There used to be “vagrancy laws,” “eye rape,” or “insulting gestures,” that could serve to keep newly freed African American men and former slaves in check. Now they have new names under the war on drugs such as “stop and frisk.” Even the way in which we were incarcerated during the era of the Jim Crow period are similar – to date all white jury’s convict black men for crimes that whites would never be take to trial for. Could you imagine white folks being prosecuted for marijuana possession offenses at the rate young African Americans are today? No because white politicians would change the laws.

More clearly defined, the way the prison and justice industrial complex operates is merely a continuation of the maintained of Eurocentric power and hegemony by changing the rules and names of those rules. In theory the 13th amendment abolished slavery, but it was always accepted by law that slavery still was an acceptable punishment for crime. As it is today, for the way in which law and order is mandated politically today, the only sure result is the arbitrary arrest of African Americans disproportionately to their numbers in the nation and according to the crimes.

If our elected officials from the Executive branch to or local level truly are interested in addressing the economic woes of our community, then they must deal and address mass incarceration and the disparate manner in which the criminal justice system is designed to race-neutrally target African Americans. If they do not, not only do they ignore the math involved in economic revitalization, but are equal in action to a George Wallace who stood in front of Schools in the segregated south blocking the entry of African Americans. We have to have our elected figures address the unconstitutionality of the obviation of our collective 4th amendment rights and fight “stop and frisk” laws and court sanctioned “race-neutral” racial profiling.

Prison is used to force African Americans into a system and existence of oppression and control today as Jim Crow and slavery were employed centuries ago. It is a direct result of the conservative position observed in the Jim Crow period in which they perceived that special laws (abolition of slavery) moved blacks ahead of them in position and standing. This was unacceptable so Jim Craw laws and the black codes were developed and designed to keep poor and uneducated blacks in a permanent subordinate political and economic position for it is their argument, from Goldwater, to Nixon to Regan to Santorum that poverty is caused by black culture.

Our present coteries of African American politicians hide behind the illusion of progress, especially economic progress in terms of the idolatry of having an African America President. Unfortunately their delusional states prevent them from comprehending that there cannot be any real economic progress in our communities if those locked up behind bars and ostracized from the community are not included in the poverty or unemployment statistics. To do so is saying our political representatives are no better than the slave masters and house Negroes and Klansman who maintained hegemony via legal and violent subjugation and marginalization. Thus what we confront via this legal mode of operandi is a caste system equal to that propounded by the Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws, for what we faced then in practice and outcome is no different than what we encounter today through our extant criminal justice system’s convention of mass incarceration.

Why? Well first, after the assassinations of King and Malcolm, the civil rights movement stagnated. This was during a period of a rise in conservatism that centered on animosity of the recent and quick gains of Africa Americans. In addition, it was a time in which African American, especially males were not need to sharecrop the fields and technology was replacing low wage jobs unskilled and uneducated African Americans typically received. It was the start in the disproportionate rise in black unemployment, which conveniently happened on the heels of Regan and Clinton’s war on drugs, which made unemployment even worse.

The simple reality is that there is no such thing as a color blind society and that nothing is race neutral as the Justice system would like for us to accept. Please explain to me the difference between hiding behind a white sheet and a badge? To assert such is like asking me to view the world as green, when I see blue skies and black asphalt. I could prove and state that I only see green but the reality is that I see more. Yes the Negro has been reinvented by our present power hungry corpus of black elitist politicians. Before we had poll tax, literacy test and felon disenfranchisement – these were staples of the Jim Crow legal system. However then, we had warrior activist and scholar politicians who were not afraid to voice support for the people if it meant losing their political clout. Today we have marijuana possession laws, stop and frisk, and felon disenfranchisement – staples of mass incarceration under the auspice of fighting a war on drugs. Only thing different is that we have a lot more cowards in leadership lining their pockets than before. Strange, Obama and black politicians quick to say Republicans are at “WAR WITH WOMEN” over the contraception issue, but run like scared dogs with their tails between their legs before they will say there is a “WAR ON BLACK MEN.” Strange, President Obama can call to comfort a Georgetown Law Student who was called a slut but not the parents of Travon Martin.

Detroit Columnist Calls for Sterilants in Drinking Water to Reduce Number Of Poor Blacks

Slavery and extermination of the Jews, all events that have been started by European cultures seem to be retro-chic once again. However, it seems that this time the targets are the African American urban poor.

Recently, the Detroit News published a call to add contraceptives to the water supply, in an effort to limit the number of Africa Americans born based on the assumption that they will only become poor as well as a burden to society. In essence a state mandate to decide who should live and who should die.

The Editorial page editor Nolan Finley writes: “Since the national attention is on birth control, here’s my idea: If we want to fight poverty, reduce violent crime and bring down our embarrassing drop-out rate, we should swap contraceptives for fluoride in Michigan’s drinking water.“

This is the belief and practice of so-called scientist that promoted the concept of Eugenics. Eugenics was the racist and moral method by which all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype could be eliminated. Elements of the philosophy have served as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws in America, as well as have its genocidal roots in the crimes of Nazism.

In America in addition to California, North Carolina and Georgia: The two U.S. states that sanctioned eugenics the longest, an estimated 7,600 women were sterilized by the government in North Carolina alone, and as late as 1974. Through a eugenics authority which operated from 1933 to 1977, the goal was to serve as a legitimate way to keep welfare rolls small, stop poverty and improve the gene pool.

Although North Carolina officially apologized in 2002 and legislators have started to compensate victims the question remains why is it that this new found interest in the mass sterilization of blacks and the poor manifested?

Finley suggestion (drugging the water supply) is merely another class warfare arguments offered by elitist. He is not presenting anything new seeing that proposals to add sterilants to the water have always been the desire of white supremist worldwide, especially in America.

The notion that the poor, who are mainly Africa Americans in Detroit or elsewhere, should be intentionally poisoned to reduce birth rates is sociopathic and morbid. It asserts that the “targets” of population reduction should be the most needy and abject in our community, oh and did I say African Americans. Finley is just a closet Nazi and White supremist who is would rather blame other for problems than to take personal responsibility to solve them.

Atlanta: students given math assignment that referenced slavery and beatings.

Multimillion-Dollar Slaves Are Still Field Negroes

America’s history is filled with examples of exploitation. From General Amherst giving Native Americans on the Trail of Tears blankets infected with smallpox to the horrendous capture and transportation of Africans to the New World to work for Europeans for free. Now if Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is accurate, then the same historical practices are occurring today, since energy can neither be created nor destroyed but only altered in form.

Some would argue that slavery does not exist in America in light of the passage of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, if we examine the world of professional sports, it could be noted that a large body of evidence suggests otherwise. In America, people are excited and happy when they cheer for their favorite professional sports team, but rarely see the similarity to the former practice of slavery and rich whites owning and utilizing blacks for profit and personal gain.

I know some people would say that the difference is that athletes are paid vast sums of money. This may be true, but slaves were paid with a place to live and food. Not to mention that pro sports is a microcosm of our society, because when athletes can no longer play in the NFL or NBA, they are discarded like waste material.

A slave by definition is “a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another.” This would be applicable to sports because African Americans have turned sports, both college and pro, into a multibillion-dollar industry but collect a paltry amount of the money they help a franchise earn.

So let’s be realistic when we look at professional sports in America and the role African American men and women play. All they do is play, because none own any of these plantations, er, organizations. Not since the Negro Leagues have blacks owned professional sport organizations, and we won’t anytime in the near future.

Michelle Bachman Out Palins Palin: + Forgets Slavery and the Genocide of American Indians

Church by Definition - a place for slaves

Some may perceive that the church, as a bastion of religious humility, would speak out against the violence of perpetuating human bondage and degradation that has historically been inflicted upon the descendants of slaves in America. Throughout the history of Africans in America, from slavery to the present day, one constant has been the impact of religion, especially Christianity, on the physical and mental enslavement of African Americans.

Europe’s advancement into the New World brought colonialism, slavery and imperialism under the guise of Christianity, which according to Sipe Mzimela, is nothing more than variations of European cultures, specifically German (Lutheranism), English (Anglicanism & Methodism), Scottish (Presbyterianism) and the French, Belgian and Portuguese (Catholicism).

Christian missionaries preached all men were equal under the eyes of God, but yet they ridiculed Africans while forcing them to accept their inferior societal status under the “Christian” concept of suffering. History has described this concept as the white man’s burden, for if the Africans did not accept Christianity they were killed.

This is one reason European religions — on behalf of missionaries and religious leaders — facilitated Europe’s occupation of Africa. This is a factual occurrence whether it was the Dutch Reform Church of South Africa, which overtly sanctioned apartheid or the Catholic enterprises at Goree, and continued such on the shores of North America and the new world. Missionaries taught Africans that it was the will and desire of God for them to suffer oppression, discrimination and exploitation.

Up until this day, albeit their are many churches and even African specific denominations such as in the Methodist Church, the same belief orientation exist in mind, practices and teachings of ministers ordained in the christian faith. The simple truth is that there is a historical fact that what is employed to provide salvation has mentally been used to make us slaves. Not to mention that the current state of the church seems to serve the pockets and privilege of the minister more than the flock that they attend to.

As a people it is difficult to refute that the Christianity that many of us practice now was forced upon us by the Dutch, Portuguese, French and English, and that the terms Christian, European, free, and white were synonymous. We can see this linage clearly both in the Scripture and the laws of this great nation as well as the increased visibility of white supremacists and Aryan nationalists cloaked under the guise of Christian identity.

The black church seems to have lost its way over the centuries since many of its teachings, although espoused from biblical origins, often were in contradiction to the state and church it represented. Today, as in past, it is not a bastion of religious humility, but rather a expansive commercial, industrial and financial entity that is devoted to wealth accumulation over the benefit of self-determination, free thinking and personal empowerment of the people it claims to represent.

Slavery By Another name: Some States Bring Back "Debtors' Prisons"

There have been two recent publications that have noted a resuscitation of history in America. The first called Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry, published by the NYU's Brennan Center for Justice documents that states have begun to mandate “user fees” on individuals with criminal convic¬tions. These fees have a negative impact on communities traditionally burdened with high incarceration rates by the criminal justice system by making new routes to prison for people unable to pay their debts.This report looked at practices in fifteen states with the highest prison populations and examined mostly the proliferation of “user fees.” These are financial obligations imposed not for any traditional criminal justice purpose but rather to fund tight state budgets. Eight of the fif¬teen states suspend driving privileges for missed debt payments and seven require individuals to pay off criminal justice debt be¬fore they can regain their eligibility to vote. In all fifteen states, criminal justice debt and associated collection practices can damage an individuals credit.

Fourteen also utilize “poverty penalties” – piling on additional late fees and interest when individuals are unable to pay their debts. The state of Alabama charges a 30 percent collection fee and Florida allows for private debt collectors to tack on a 40 percent surcharge to collect underlying debt.

The second report, released by the American Civil Liberties Union is called In For a Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors' Prisons. It presents the findings of a year long investigation into modern-day debtors' prisons. In essence the practice of incarcerating people because they cannot afford to pay their legal debts.

Although such practices are unconstitutional, the practice of debtors' prisons is growing across the country although the Supreme Court prohibited imprisoning those who are too poor to pay their legal debts more than twenty years ago.

In some states, people, mainly men and women whom are poor, being unable to pay their legal fees such as charges for use of public defenders, which is a guaranteed right in the United States - becomes a criminal act. Meaning that their only crime is being poor or living in poverty. Debtor prisons are most popular in the states with the largest prison populations like California, Michigan and Alabama.

The ACLU report cites several startling examples. Gregory White, a homeless man in Louisiana, was arrested for stealing $39 worth of food from a grocery store. He was billed $339 in legal fees. When he could not pay, he was arrested and spent 198 days in jail, which cost the city $35,000.

Percy Dear, of New Orleans suffers from epilepsy and schizophrenia. He was arrested for begging in 2007 and was sentenced with either paying an immediate fine of $200 or spending 20 days in jail. In Georgia, Ora Lee Hurley owed $705 in fines from a 1990 drug possession conviction. She stayed in jail for eight months for failing to pay.

These are examples of how the economy and justice systems are seeking ways to criminalize being poor. Although in Bearden v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that such practices violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, states all across the country use debtor prisons to impart unequal justice on the poor, in particular African Americans, under the guise of making money.

Slavery By Another name: Some States Bring Back "Debtors' Prisons"

There have been two recent publications that have noted a resuscitation of history in America. The first called Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry, published by the NYU's Brennan Center for Justice documents that states have begun to mandate “user fees” on individuals with criminal convic­tions. These fees have a negative impact on communities traditionally burdened with high incarceration rates by the criminal justice system by making new routes to prison for people unable to pay their debts.This report looked at practices in fifteen states with the highest prison populations and examined mostly the proliferation of “user fees.” These are financial obligations imposed not for any traditional criminal justice purpose but rather to fund tight state budgets. Eight of the fif­teen states suspend driving privileges for missed debt payments and seven require individuals to pay off criminal justice debt be­fore they can regain their eligibility to vote. In all fifteen states, criminal justice debt and associated collection practices can damage an individuals credit.

Fourteen also utilize “poverty penalties” – piling on additional late fees and interest when individuals are unable to pay their debts. The state of Alabama charges a 30 percent collection fee and Florida allows for private debt collectors to tack on a 40 percent surcharge to collect underlying debt.

The second report, released by the American Civil Liberties Union is called In For a Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors' Prisons. It presents the findings of a year long investigation into modern-day debtors' prisons. In essence the practice of incarcerating people because they cannot afford to pay their legal debts.

Although such practices are unconstitutional, the practice of debtors' prisons is growing across the country although the Supreme Court prohibited imprisoning those who are too poor to pay their legal debts more than twenty years ago.

In some states, people, mainly men and women whom are poor, being unable to pay their legal fees such as charges for use of public defenders, which is a guaranteed right in the United States - becomes a criminal act. Meaning that their only crime is being poor or living in poverty. Debtor prisons are most popular in the states with the largest prison populations like California, Michigan and Alabama.

The ACLU report cites several startling examples. Gregory White, a homeless man in Louisiana, was arrested for stealing $39 worth of food from a grocery store. He was billed $339 in legal fees. When he could not pay, he was arrested and spent 198 days in jail, which cost the city $35,000.

Percy Dear, of New Orleans suffers from epilepsy and schizophrenia. He was arrested for begging in 2007 and was sentenced with either paying an immediate fine of $200 or spending 20 days in jail. In Georgia, Ora Lee Hurley owed $705 in fines from a 1990 drug possession conviction. She stayed in jail for eight months for failing to pay.

These are examples of how the economy and justice systems are seeking ways to criminalize being poor. Although in Bearden v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that such practices violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, states all across the country use debtor prisons to impart unequal justice on the poor, in particular African Americans, under the guise of making money.

sovereignty, liberity, freedom, rights or privilege

It is only fitting that on this day we revisit history and not just any history, but that which empowered one Martin Luther King Jr., to embark on the continuation of the works, ideas and beliefs of freedom and liberty. Yes freedom and liberty for even with knowledge of King, Frantz Fanon, and Thomas Jefferson, such knowledge is lost on the hearts and minds of others. I say these because I have come to the empirical conclusion that many folks of my ethnic persuasion have accepted that we are free or even worse – think we are free. Truth is that many can not tell the difference nor explain what separates liberty from freedom, or a right from a privilege.

For me, the concepts all start with the fundamental understanding of sovereignty – a construct imbued in us not from or by any man but rather a Supreme Being or higher power. Sovereignty means supreme or highest in power. To be sovereign means to be independent of, and unlimited by, any other; possessing, or entitled to, original authority or jurisdiction. This is what liberty and freedom are based on in these United States of America with respect to the un-alien-able rights men documented in the constitution.

I say this because a sovereign individual is self-reliant and does not need anyone (even government) to provide for him, protect him from himself nor tell him what to do. To be sovereign means to be responsible for ones own actions, to be financial independent and free from unnecessary government interference – basically living the life he desires. The problem again is that many do not understand theses concepts or how mandates are in direct opposition from the aforementioned concepts.

Recently Obama passed a Health Care reform bill that mandates folks buy health insurance, similar in the vein that we are mandated to purchase auto insurance and or wear seat belts (if your state demands such by law). Truth is some states do not and that there were times that it was not required to buy auto insurance or wear seatbelts. Many may be too young to remember such but it is true. When I mentioned my problem with this to a friend, he told me that he was glad such was mandated because driving is not a right but rather a privilege. I said that anything can do, create or think of is legal and provided to me by that greater than me and not a man. Also added that by your logic, reading and learning is a privilege also for that is how slave masters saw it – that they could decided for you as government entities do now. I also added that also thought it was unnecessary for marriage license, gun permits and driver’s license. Again he disagreed.So I reminded him of why we have both.

There was a time when there was no such thing as either, that is until or near the end of slavery. Historically, all the states outlawed the marriage of blacks and whites. Not until the mid 1800’s did some states allow such but in order to do so, they were mandated to received a license from the state (had to get permission to do an act which without such permission would have been illegal). Blacks Law Dictionary notes historically that a marriage license is defined as, "A license or permission granted by public authority to persons who intend to intermarry." "Intermarry" is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary as, "Miscegenation; mixed or interracial marriages." Up until this period their was no such thing and now states all use them as a way to make money for God requires no such permit.

The same is true with respect to Gun permits. Throughout much of American history, gun control was used as a method for keeping blacks due to the racial fears of whites. Racist arms laws were on the books before the US was established. The French Black Code (required Louisiana colonists to stop "any black carrying any potential weapon, such as a cane)." If a black refused to stop on demand, and was on horseback, the colonist was authorized to "shoot to kill." Even before that the sixteenth century the colony of New Spain, prohibited all blacks, free and slave, from carrying arms. Mississippi went further, and prohibited any ownership of a dog by a black person. Such restrictions increased dramatically after Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831. Virginia's response to Turner's Rebellion prohibited free blacks "to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, any military weapon, or any powder or lead". Simply, America has a fear of armed blacks based on the collective unconscious of what many made Africans in America Experience. Even the end of slavery in did not eliminate or change racist gun control laws. Blacks even needed to obtain a license before carrying or owning a gun or knife when such was not required for whites. Even today the same practices based on race via mandates stem from what we saw in the years of slavery. From public housing residents being singled out for gun bans to so-called "Gun sweeps" by police in "high crime neighborhoods.

All I am trying to say that we speak and accept these mandates by the government and they are often accepted under the guise of privilege as opposed to a right. We do not value freedom or liberty as much as we say or we would have continued the struggle that ore fore parents lead. It seems again as we think we are free, or think we have made or thin\k we have overcome, but the truth is we accept with out question. Accepting mandates as such makes us slaves, obviates us from individual responsibility and takes away our enumerated rights stated in the constitution. I mean it is not rocket science – if we are not sovereign, we have no liberty, if we have no liberty we have no freedom, if we have no freedom we have no rights – all that is left is privilege, which by definition can be given and/or taken away at anytime.

459 years later

I write this with a heavy heart and before I leave for Memphis to bury my last grandmother. Martin Luther King Jr. once said “how soon ‘not now’ becomes never.” If anytime these words ring truer today than in times past. It has been 459 years since the first inhabitants of Africa were brought to these shores and just 41 years ago the descendents of these individuals were granted the right to vote.

In this age of swag and want to be goons, gangsters and thugs and women who admire supper head, something has gone amiss. Albeit not a sooth sayer as written in Oedipus Rex, I do know that as a whole we are oblivious to most if not all that is around us with the exception of what is going on with Chris Brown and Rhiana or the latest video labeled number one on 106 and Park. You ask someone what they think of the economic recovery act and they will say they dont know, or haven't read it as if we expect others to do for us, what we should do for ourselves. Even worse when confronted of such, we get offended, get defensive and feel degraded by what I write, type or say.

The truth of the matter is that we degrade ourselves when we do not objectively attempt accept or acknowledge our intellectual prowess is different, ill-informed and unequipped to solve or deal with the problems our community faces. We even feel better by making excuses. Because for a lot of us, if the shoe fits, do not want to wear or accept it without being distorted by any process of defensiveness. We know little of history let alone the world around us. I made a statement as such on twitter and was told that I was degrading black people. The truth is that i did not feel degraded and I am black. I can query about floating interest rates and get no response, but ask about Drake's latest song then everyone chimes in.

Now I aint searching or seeking glory I learned that such was Napoleon’s dénouement. Nor do I write this to make friends but rather to try and take care of mines. But to speak of such makes some folks mad and sensitive like Ralph Tresvant. We should in my mind be able to accept the truth no matter how painful, for until we do we will continue to enslave ourselves while at the same time complain yet feel no need to work for what we desire. Our folks did not fight slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation for us to just do nothing except watch TV, listen to music and think we free.

This is real and strange, especially in a time in which we have seen history made with the election of our 44th president. Yet many of us do not have a clue and don’t tend to nourish ourselves mentally and intellectually. Instead we attend to the mundane – celebrity and materialism. The real materialism in the world is family and what we can do with out minds, but we continue to lag behind in this understanding and focus on shopping malls and what is feed to us on television. Yep, it has been 459 years since we were brought here in the form of slaves, now we remain slaves, seem to be negro comfortable and even worse – enslave our selves through our apathy.

wow

This is the America that I have imagined, the one I have read versed in the words of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, the one Henry Clay spoke of and the one Fredrick Douglas desired. Flags waving by men and women, straight and gay, adult and child, republican and democrat, white and black. All acting as if family and friends, regardless of beliefs or affiliation, as if they are amenable to the perception that one does not have to agree or see eye to eye to walk hand in hand or side by side.

Just an open thread the day after. What were your first words, mine was wow. Facing West, looking over the graves of the many that have died for this great nation as well as the monuments. Just the thought, 45 years ago, blacks and whites could not sit together, without fear of being arrested, or vote. To just see all them folks standing on a former slave market (the Mall) and just to recant in the days of Thurgood Marshall, that he could not even eat in the places that served food, even as a Supreme Court Justice, because of his skin color. As Lincoln said in his second inaugural address “malice towards none, and charity for all”. Inspire Mr. Obama, Inspire, and we will be critical, for the burden of greatness and history demands such. Again – WOW.

Mutilation of Slaves

Want to take the time to honor thought today. No sex, no politics – just a little history. Just an exhibition on how serious I take scholarship and dialetical rumination. And why I am so vehement in desire to expect others to as well. Tomorrow, on September 1st in 1773, Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in London, England. It was the FIRST volume of poetry by an African-American poet to be published. And talking about being prodigal or a polymath, she was 20 when the book was published. So hats off to you scholar, to endure and create when sold off into slavery as a child from the Senegambia region of West Africa. So in honor of this, i'm gonna post something I wrote in 1998 that served as a chapter in the world encyclopedia of Slavery © 1999. Called The Mutilation of Slaves.

Based on history, it is evident that the institution of slavery was never humane. Although some historians like Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman argue that white slave masters treated their slaves with respect and kindness, the truth is slavery itself was a horrible act. Thus, it was not unusual punishment of inclusive mutilation.

The mutilation of slaves was often implemented under the guise of punishment, or for the purposes of doing things for the slaves’ personal well being. Punishment through mutilation is also well recorded. Punishment was moreso acts of brutality than acts of rehabilitation. The record shows for example, in the case of Captain Phillipe Loit, that a common practice was to break the teeth of female slaves considered to be recalcitrant.1 Other accounts show that mutilation was no different than death. For many ship captains on the middle passage, on e means of trying to prevent slaves from jumping ship was to recapture them and behead them in front of other slaves.2

Examples of the latter have been documented to have occurred on the middle passage where ship captains would make use of a tool called speculum oris, an instrument shaped like a pair of scissors with serrated blades that was forced in the mouths of captives who refused to eat.3 On the sugar plantations in the West Indies, due to tiring work hours, slaves who were caught falling asleep in the mill, were used as examples and would consequently have to sacrifice a limb to show other slaves the dangers of falling asleep on the job.4 Slaves were also placed in metal cast iron weights or boots in which it was not unusual for them to lose an appendage. Such practices were not nearly as horrendous as other acts practiced by slave and plantation owners. In Grenada, slaves were taken to open forums for punishment in which mutilation was not out of the ordinary. One female slave taken to St. George’s, Grenada in 1789 was supposed to have her finger removed as punishment. However, she was suspended from a crane and her thighs, breast, and back split open. In Jamaica, it was not extraordinary for female slaves to have their skin peeled off from heel to back and breast to waist.5 Another account in 1692 notes a freed slave whose master and mistress had cut off her ears.6

Moses Roper, who had lived as a slave in the Carolinas and Georgia recalls in her narrative of her master pouring tar on her head an face and setting her on fire, and following up this action by placing the fingers of her hand in a vice and removing her fingernails and having another man smash her toes with sledge hammer.7 Other tools of mutilation included the thumb screw and pickets, the latter being used so extensively in Jamaica that the weight of standing on them more than likely resulted in the mortification of feet.8 Accounts also indicate the use of nails being inserted or hammered into body parts such as appendages and ears and hammers to knock out teeth. Slaves who accidentally touched whites had their hands or the body part used in the touching cut off. Breaking legs in piecemeal fashions, removing sensory organs and castration were just additional means for masters to get their point of control across to captives.

The events that were used to justify acts of maiming and mutilation covered a broad range of activities. Frederick Douglass in his Narrative recants of looking at a person in the wrong way, saying certain words, a simple mistake, and not to mention running away, could result in permanent injury or death for slaves.9 Mutilation of slaves was so bad that in French colonies, Louis XIV published a Code Noir to curtail cruelty to Africans.

Since slaves in America and the new world were under the complete control of their masters, it was difficult to gauge the true extent of mutilation practices. Moreover, U.S. slave codes were developed and put in place in all slave states to maintain and enhance this absolute control and justify the power of whites to treat Africans as they willed. Consequently, the slave patrols created to enforce the codes often employed mutilation to deal with slaves who were considered to be breaking the law.

In closing, the system of slavery was an inhuman institution in which descendants of European ancestry maintained control over slaves through beliefs and brutish actions against slaves. Although practiced by Africans, the Chinese, and Arabs, slavery as expedited by Europeans was replete with atrocities that often resulted in the mutilation of slaves. This may be why many have noted that the slavery practiced in the Americas was unlike slavery instituted in prior civilizations. vote

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1 Robert L. Stein, The French Slave Trade in the Eighteenth Century: An Old Regime Business, 1979, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press), 100.

2 W.O. Blake, The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade, ancient and modern, 1860, (Columbus, Ohio: H.Miller), 131.

3 Nigel Tattersfield, the Forgotten Trade: Comprising the Log of the Daniel and Henry of 1700 and accounts of the slave trade from the minor ports of England, 1698-1725, 1991 (London: Jonathan Cape), 142.

4 W.O. Blake, The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade, ancient and modern, 1860, (Columbus, Ohio: H.Miller), 144.

5 W.O. Blake, The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade, ancient and modern, 1860, (Columbus, Ohio: H.Miller), 150.

6 Winthrop Jordan, The white man’s burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States, (London: Oxford), 1974, 62.

7 Moses Roper, Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, 1837, (London).

8 W.O. Blake, The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade, ancient and modern, 1860, (Columbus, Ohio:H.

9 Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, 3^rdLeeds). English Edition, 1846.