How to Get Away With Murder and Other Things the Killing of Unarmed Black Teen Trayvon Martin Teaches Us

This post by Max Read appeared originally at gawker.com. If you'd like to follow its embedded links, you may find it there.

If you want to kill someone and get away with it, do it before the NBA All-Star game.

Am I Not Human?

Last month, I agreed to be a part of a movement to focus on human rights violations on the 27th of each month. Since today is the 27th and also, as it happens, the day most people in the United States call "Thanksgiving Day," I have decided to feature a listing from the Peace Buttons "This Week in Peace and Social Justice" newsletter. On November 29th, 1864:

"A U.S. Army cavalry regiment under Col. J. M. Chivington (a Methodist missionary and candidate for Congress), acting on orders from Colorado's Governor, John Evans, and ignoring a white surrender flag flying just below a U.S. flag, attacked sleeping Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, killing nearly 500, in what became known as the Sand Creek Massacre. Captain Silas Soule, however, not only refused to follow Chivington's lead at Sand Creek, but ordered his troops not to participate in the attack.

"The Indians, led by Black Kettle, had been ordered away from Fort Lyon four days before, with the promise that they would be safe. Virtually all of the victims, mostly women and children, were tortured and scalped; many women, including the pregnant, were mutilated. Nine of 900 cavalrymen were killed. A local newspaper called this 'a brilliant feat of arms,' and stated the soldiers had 'covered themselves with glory.'

"At first, Chivington was widely praised for his 'victory' at the 'Battle' of Sand Creek, and he and his troops were honored with a parade in Denver. However, rumors of drunken soldiers butchering unarmed women and children began to circulate and Congress ordered a formal investigation of the massacre. Chivington was eventually threatened with court martial by the U.S. Army, but as he had already left his military post, no criminal charges were ever filed against him."

You can read the Congressional testimony of an eye-witness here.

This should give us all something to think about and talk about as we pass the stuffing...

The Struggle Is Not New News

On this day in 1837, a drunken mob attacked a warehouse where a printing press sat waiting to produce the Alton (Illinois) Observor, an unapologetically anti-slavery newspaper published by Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist minister. He had already been run out of St Louis, just across the river in Missouri. And similar mobs had already destroyed two printing presses and threatened Lovejoy's life. But his response was simple and straightforward:

"You may hang me...you may burn me at the stake, tar and feather me, or throw me into the Mississippi, but you cannot disgrace me. I and I alone can disgrace myself; and the deepest of all disgrace would be, at a time like this to deny my Master by forsaking his cause."

When the mob charged, Lovejoy tried using a torch to hold it back, but two doctors, hiding behind a woodpile shot him a total of five times and he died, two days before his thirty-fifth birthday. One of the doctors was seen to dance a jig as Lovejoy's bloody body was carried home to his pregnant wife.

Until this occurance, many "White" northerners labored under the delusion that the controversy around the abolition of slavery was just a clash of opposing ideas, but this event demonstrated otherwise as an early predictor of the Civil War which came twenty-five years later. Read the whole story here.

Am I Not Human?

Thanks to Electronic Village and Roots of Humanity, there is a new movement on the internet. It's a campaign inviting bloggers to hold forth on the 27th of every month on the theme of human rights violations. It's called "Am I Not Human?" and from now on till I hear otherwise, I'll be doing this. Unfortunately, it won't be hard to find material.

The human rights violation I'm featuring today is the case of Brandon McClelland, which has been all over the news the last few weeks. Brother Jesse of The Final Call has weighed in. Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune has thrown in his two cents. Even the Associated Press is on the story by now. And I first read about it thanks to Sokari over at Black Looks emanating all the way from South Africa.

The story unfolded in Paris, Texas, (why am I not surprised?) and is a LOT messier than some, but still clearly marked by indicators that the crime in question was committed the way it was committed because of the skin tone of the victim. Further, the way it's being persued by law enforcement officials has all the overtones at this point of a racist cover-up.

The backstory (where most of the messiness occurs) is that long-time criminal Shannon Finley, who is a European-American (that's "White" for those of you new to my blog), killed one of his "friends" five years ago, getting off with a manslaughter conviction because he shot the guy three times in the head by accident...? Uh-huh! (Oh, those Texans!) The conviction resulted in a four-year bit in prison.

During the trial, Brandon McClelland, an African-American who was just a teenager at the time and another "friend" of Finley's, originally testified under oath that Finley was with him when the killing occurred, but since that turned out to be a lie, he wound up doing two years in prison for perjury. Sound funny? It does to me. I mean, I'm wondering why this kid would be willing to lie on the stand for a guy with a long record who just shot somebody in the head three times. You wonder, too? I would guess so.

Anyway, time passed, the two men were released and life went on. Then, in the wee hours of September 16th, after Finley, McClelland, and another man named Charles Ryan Crostley made a late night beer run to Oklahoma, McClelland somehow wound up on foot on the road in front of the truck Finley was driving. The short form is that (again) somehow, McClelland ended up under the truck and dragged as much as 70 feet, a process that dismembered and mutilated his body. Finley and Crostley then left the body parts in the road and proceeded to a carwash where they attempted to clean McClelland's blood and brains from the truck before they went home to sleep it off.

When the crime was reported, law enforcement officers called it a "hit and run by an unknown driver," but since the three had been seen together and since the underbelly of the truck still bore the evidence of McClelland's dna, Finley and Crostley were eventually arrested. It is still unclear what the actual charge will be. Family members, the New Black Panther Party, and the Nation of Islam are calling for the incident's designation as a hate crime. But thanks to the history of the men and the history of the area, this may or may not occur.

You see, Paris, Texas, was the location of last year's hot story about Shaquanda Cotton, the 14-year-old African-American girl who was sentenced to seven years in a juvenile prison for pushing a hall monitor at her school while a 14-year-old European-American girl was given probation for purposely setting the fire that burned down her parents' house. And here we are, back in Paris again just a year later, so despite their assurances that this is NOT a cover-up, one would be, I assume, forgiven for wondering.

Supposedly, investigators are looking for any sign on what's left of Brandon McClelland's body that he was tied to the truck, the way James Byrd, Jr., was ten years ago in Jasper, Texas, just two hundred miles south of Paris. But, as one community activist put it, "What's the difference between dragging behind a truck or dragging under it?" Besides, though Finley admits that McClelland was "walking" in front of the truck and told someone else he "bumped" McClelland a few times before the man went down, I can't believe a Black man, however drunk, would "walk" casually down a road in front of two White guys in a truck -- especially in Texas.

Additionally, there is considerable discussion related to Finley's palling around with White Supremacists while he was in prison. And rumor has it, as well, that Finley took a dim view of McClelland's recent interest in a European-American woman.

There will unquestionably be much more to read about this story in coming weeks and months. Because Brandon McClelland is asking, "Am I not human?"

In Honor and Memoriam

On this day in 1964, the bodies of three young civil rights activists -- Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman -- were found shot to death and buried at the site of a partially constructed dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Why had they been murdered six weeks before by the Ku Klux Klan? For the heinous crime of helping African-Americans register to vote.

In the past week, I've posted about hundreds of thousands of slave children in Haiti, peonage in the U.S. in the 20th Century, a young woman being tortured for five years in an Afghani prison run by the U.S., and now this. Doesn't focusing on the horrible bring people down and make them too scared to do anything about it all?

Apparently not.

The poster above, for example, went up less than three weeks after the bodies of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman were found. And even today, the work goes on. Mahatma Gandhi said:

"Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always."

Be Bold/Be Red Today!

Today is the day women of color document the silence. Today is the day they get to talk about the violence that is so much a part of their lives. Violence without apology. Violence without repercussions for the perpetrators. Violence without recourse for the victims.

And to make sure people listen, they will be wearing red. To make people sit up and pay attention, they will be flaunting their redness. To make people notice. And so will I. "Listen to my sisters," I will demand. Listen to my sisters who have been silent for too long. I will stand beside them while they document their silence. I will make my own broken body a wall for my sisters so that no one can rise against them wherever we are together.

We will cry with one voice, my sisters and I. We will sing together and croon our nightmares to sleep. We will grant no space to ignorance, no space to fear. We will link arms and stride into a new day. Like long-legged horses, we will run over hills that hold up a sky full of crimson clouds full of tears of joy that women of color will be silent no more.

At 8:00 p.m. (CST), women of color and their allies all over the United States will read the following litany aloud. Feel free to don red and join us and report to the organizers of this national action that you have done so here. And then, whatever else you decide to do, you might choose to watch the film above about Samburu women in Kenya who created a village named Umoja (Unity) after they were cast out of their families because they had been raped. Maybe you would like to share it with others who would appreciate knowing that this is really not just a national movement, but is the dawning of a new sun. Around the world. And it is red.

Out of the Silence, We Come: A Litany

Out of the silence, we come
In the name of nuestras abuelas,
In honor of our mamas
In the spirit of our petit fils,
In tribute to ourselves
We come crying out
Documenting the torture
We come wailing
Reporting the rape
We come singing
Testifying to the abuse
We come knowing
Knowing that the silence has not protected us from
the racism
the sexism
the homophobia
the physical pain
the emotional shame
the auction block

Once immobilized by silence
We come now, mobilized by collective voice
Dancing in harmonious move-ment to the thick drumbeat of la lucha, the struggle
We come indicting those who claim to love us, but violate us
We come prosecuting those who are paid to protect us, but harass us
We come sentencing those who say they represent us, but render
us invisible

Out of the Silence, we come
Naming ourselves
Telling our stories
Fighting for our lives
Refusing to accept that we were never meant to survive

Remember To Wear Red Tomorrow

This is a reminder that many women of color and their allies will be wearing red tomorrow. Lipstick, cherry, candy apple, knock-your-eyes-out, hope-ya-don't-like-it (or hope-ya-do), menstrual blood red. No more silence. Let those who suffer and have suffered cry, scream, holler, shriek, and moan as they choose. Let the violence be over. Let the dancing begin. In beautiful red dresses. And never stop.

Be Bold, Be Brave, Be Red October 31st

A few weeks ago, I got involved with something that deserves waaaaaay more attention than I have been able to give it. It's a campaign to bring attention to the fact that in a society full of madness, where violence has become a language of its own, women of color as a group, as the most vulnerable among us, have become scapegoats for every kind of frustration.

Women and girls in general are attacked so routinely in the United States as to make it a national tragedy, but women of color are a disproportionate and disproportionately unprotected body within that reality.

Similarly, people of color in general are regularly insulted, offended, and attacked by people that look like me, ridiculously often without any kind of repercussions or recourse for the victims. In fact, if the person of color takes issue with the treatment, they are said to be "over-reacting." And within this group, sometimes even at the hands of men of color who may be themselves reacting out of their own frustration, Black and Brown women, in particular, appear far too often to have no hiding place.

A movement to address this terrible whorl of injustice has begun and is marking its first action by calling for women of color and their allies to wear red on October 31st. I was so moved by the language in some of the material I have received on this, that I am featuring it verbatim here. An entire group of women has set this in motion, but I received this from Fallon:

"Recent events in the United States have moved us to action. Violence against women is sadly, not a new phenomenon in our country or in the world, however, in the last year, women of color have experienced brutal forms of violence, torture, rape and injustice which have gone unnoticed, received little to no media coverage, or a limited community response. We are responding to:

*The brutal and inhumane rape, torture, and kidnapping of Megan Williams in Logan, West Virginia, who was held by six assailants for a month.

*Rape survivors in the Dunbar Housing Projects in West Palm Beach, Florida, one of whom was forced to perform sexual acts on her own child.

*A 13-year-old native American girl who was beaten by two white women and has since been harassed by several men yelling "white power" outside of her home.

*Seven black lesbian girls who attempted to stop an attacker and were later charged with aggravated assault and are facing up to 11-year prison sentences.

"In A Litany of Survival, Audre Lorde writes, 'When we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak, remembering we were never meant to survive.' These words shape our collective organizing to break the silence surrounding women of color's stories of violence. We are asking for community groups, grass-root organizations, college campus students and groups, communities of faith, online communities, and individuals to join us in speaking out against violence against women of color. If we speak, we cannot be invisible.

"On September 20th, I wore black. I wore black, as many Black people did, in solidarity with the Jena 6, who are quickly becoming the 21st century’s Scottsboro Boys. I am wearing black, even though I have the profound urge and desire to wear red, a Maoist, seductive, bold red – on this, the possible new dawn, of what Al Sharpton has begun calling the 'Civil Rights Movement of the 21st Century.' I am wearing black, even as I have conflicting thoughts and emotions. I am eager for this moment of solidarity - a chance to acknowledge the injustice of inequitable sentencing. So, for today, it is my lipstick that is crimson.

"But on Wednesday, October 31, 2007, I will be wearing red; that uncomfortably womanish shade of scarlet that suggests a certain looseness, appreciation of blues, likelihood to walk the streets at night, willingness to be loud, dedication to self, and a deep refusal to be rendered invisible. Red, the color so many of us are told to avoid because of its Western association with the marked, fallen woman; red, that rich, rapturous, full, so-bright-it-looks-as-if-it’s-had-a-good-meal ruby color, red so intense, it’s nearly purple. Yes, that color – that’s the one I want to mark my outrage at the rape and torture of Megan Williams, a 20-year-old woman in West Virginia; the sexual assault of a Haitian woman and her son in West Palm Beach, Florida; and the continued violence visited upon women of color.

"Red is the color I choose, because I am not interested in being invisible. I am not interested in being forgotten. I am not interested in being a sidebar conversation. I am not interested, because I will be the womyn who walks into the room wearing the color red, who makes the conversation stop, and gently suggests another topic – the role of violence and abuse in women’s lives perhaps? I am interested in being seen. I am interested in hearing what communities of color, so recently outfitted in black to mark the injustice done to the Jena 6, will do to mark the violence and injustice done to Megan Williams.

"For me, the color red is about boldness. It is a vibrant color that cannot be ignored. Beyond the pink of feminism, and even the purple of womanism, red is a color that says, “stop and see.” On October 31st, we ask women of color and their allies, to break the silence and invisibility surrounding violence against women of color, by choosing to be seen. By choosing to be vocal, to be brave, to be bold and work to stop violence against women.

be bold / be brave / be red / stop the violence

"We are asking organizations and individuals to host rallies and speak outs on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 at various monumental sites (i.e. The Lincoln Memorial, Seattle’s Arch, Chicago’s Bean, Atlanta’s MLK memorial, etc.) located in their cities or to host rallies and speak outs at locations that represent the political, economic, and/or social power of their cities such as the local court house, the local chamber of commerce, the local police department, and the local city council. Groups can also consider rallying in sites where specific violence against women of color occurred.

"Hosting a rally dedicated to eradicating violence against women of color at the locations where business is conducted, where laws are made, and where justice is rendered is revolutionary. It demands that laws be written specifically to protect women of color from violence. It demands funding to be made available to women of color organizations who work to end violence against women of color. It demands that justice be served by compelling city leaders to create spaces in the city where women of color are safe."

If you want to get on the band wagon (and of course, you do), you may contact the organizers here.

It's Predictable And I Told You So!

A lot of folks -- even folks who marched in Jena, Louisiana, on September 20th -- probably winced when Mychal Bell was unceremoniously re-arrested when he showed up for a "routine" hearing in court last Tuesday.

"Oh, dear," you could almost hear many of his supporters mumble. "That's really a shame."

But there was little outrage in the response.

See, for more than a few, this new arrest put a different spin on Mychal's railroading and the infamous schoolyard brawl.

"Gosh," they seemed to sigh. "He's been in trouble before. Maybe..." and their voices trail off.

I was busy myself and didn't have time to check into the situation at that moment, but I know better than to assume the new arrest meant much except that the Prosecutor (remember him?) and the Judge (remember him?) were really pissed off when Rev. Al Sharpton et al met with the Governor and got Mychal released a couple of weeks ago. Still, I felt a little forlorn and wondered how I would approach what needed to be written about this. Until Friday, that is.

On Friday, eight guards and a nurse were acquitted in Panama City, Florida, of manslaughter or any other charges in the death of Martin Lee Anderson, a fourteen-year-old African-American kid with no previous criminal record who had been sent to a juvenile "boot camp" after his conviction for the heinous crime of "stealing" his grandmother's car and going on school property while he was suspended. On the day he arrived at the "camp," Anderson was forced to run laps until he collapsed. Then, the eight guards were filmed punching him, kicking him, dragging him around the yard, covering his mouth with their hands and forcing him to inhale ammonia capsules up his nose until he suffocated. During the trial, they testified that these were all approved procedures used to deal with youth who "feigned" illness. And the whole process was perpetrated under the watchful eye of a nurse, who apparently got her training at Dachau.

The all-White jury in the home town of the guards only needed ninety minutes to determine that no crime at all had been committed by these grown men who from where I sit killed a fourteen-year-old boy without a backward look. The physician who originally ruled that Anderson died because of a latent Sickle Cell trait (in spite of the film) and whose determination was ultimately over-ridden by that of a real doctor, went out to celebrate with the guards after the verdict was read.

Special Investigator Mark Ober from Tampa was quoted as saying that he was "disappointed," but that, because the "boot camp" was subsequently closed and "reforms" were implemented in the juvenile justice system, "Martin Lee Anderson did not die in vain." I would suggest to Mr. Ober that Martin did not die in vain; he died in FACT. And therein, as I am wont to say, lies the rub.

Mychal Bell's previous convictions covered four charges. The first two were simple battery ("non-concensual, insulting or harmful contact, regardless of harm done," most often prosecuted as a misdemeanor). I've seen simple battery charges result from as little as a push or tripping another kid as a joke. The other two charges had to do with destruction of property, which I've seen result from as little as kicking a door on the way out of a classroom or breaking a pencil that belongs to someone else. I'm not saying that Bell's charges were that minor, but they could have been and it would have read the same way. And as far as his "violation of probation" is concerned, my guess is that it's not difficult for an African-American boy in Jena, Louisiana, to wind up on probation for doing little more than having skin. And once they're on probation, it's a short trip to the big house, as Mychal Bell has already seen -- twice.

Coming from the man who wrote a commentary for the New York Times claiming that only Jesus kept the rabid Black people from tearing Jena apart, Prosecutor Reed Walters' claim that this newest legal assault on Bell, resulting in a sentence of eighteen months in addition to the nine he's already done for no reason, is "unrelated" to the earlier issue is ludicrous.

So what we have here is two cases. In one, eight trained professionals caused a fourteen-year-old boy to suffocate and they didn't even get a spanking. While in the other, a seventeen-year-old boy whose life has been threatened by everybody from the Prosecutor on down over the past year and who was -- according to the courts -- unjustly incarcerated for nine months in an adult jail already this year is doing eighteen more months for simple battery and destruction of something as yet unnamed. In the first case, the boy who died was Black. In the second case, the boy who was convicted was Black.

Do. You. Get. It?

Paris in the...er...Summer

I was doing a really good job of sneaking around privately on the internet, studying the recent photos of Paris Hilton in the international mass media (how will she ever move on from this, one wonders?), and frankly, embarrassed that I was even paying attention, when I came across The Angry Black Woman's post on the situation. And then I realized why I was so mesmerized.

It's not just sour grapes. I don't wish Paris Hilton ill. Hell, I don't even know the woman. And I try not to wish anybody ill because I honestly do believe it rolls back on ya. And I most certainly do not think this is an indicator of "justice" being served. There is no justice that I can see in this world at this time outside of the justice I already mentioned (which some people call "karma" and which is plenty enough justice for many of us in the end, but does not release us from the responsibility of trying to treat others the way we would want to be treated). Whether or not Paris does the time for doing the crime is not in any way going to affect the balance of power in the U.S. or in the world and certainly not in the courts.

However (and you must have seen this coming, right?), there is something about seeing a rich, young, White woman in handcuffs freaking out in the back seat of a cop car that illustrates most graphically the chasm between her and the rest of us, most particularly those of us who happen to be of color. In contrast, in her post, The Angry Black Woman offers the example of what happened to Jonathan Magbie of Washington, D.C. I would offer what happened to 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson, who was killed by a group of "officers" on his first day in a youth "facility" here in Florida, where he was placed for the heinous crime of trespassing on a school yard he'd been told not to visit. (Talk about the punishment fitting the crime.)

It's true that the "facility" and others like it in Florida have been subsequently shut down. And it's true that the state of Florida recently agreed to pay Martin's parents five million dollars in apology. Both of these actions, by the way, were made in direct response to a video tape that turned up showing the whole horrifying episode, which could bring us to ask how many people of color -- men, women, and children -- have been and are being similarly brutalized on an on-going basis because there is or was no video.

But my point is, as it often is on this blog, that neither Paris' story, nor Jonathan's, nor Martin's will change, I fear, the use of the justice system in the U.S. and the world as a tool of oppression against people of color, the poor, and those who are their allies. In fact, I'm having trouble understanding how Paris Hilton wound up there at all.

Billy Ray Johnson Finally "Won"

Billy Ray Johnson, a developmentally disabled African-American man in his forties was beaten almost to death in 2003 by a bunch of young White guys at a Linden, Texas, "pasture party" (where they had "invited" him, apparently to provide the entertainment). As many of you probably know by now, Johnson was recently awarded $9 million dollars in a civil court case handled by the Southern Poverty Law Center. This is a good thing, right? Of course, it is, but none of the perpetrators of this crime got more than 60 days in jail and I can't find anywhere who's gonna cough up the $9 million.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad they pushed the envelope. I'm glad the jury voted unanimously in Johnson's favor. And I'm glad he'll get whatever he does get however long it takes. He's going to need help to pay for the intensive care he's going to need for the rest of his life. But come on now, what makes this different from the day before the beating occurred? Do we really believe that liquored-up White boys in Linden, Texas, are not going to exercise their racist inclinations any more? Or are they just going to bury the bodies in the future - the way they used to?

The fact is that none of these good ol' boys went to prison, where they would have been doled out a regular dose of retribution in the general population, assuming they lived through the orientation process. They got off, just like Emmett Till's murderers got off in 1955. And Billy Ray Johnson and his family are the ones who will continue to suffer, not to mention other people of color who know better than to think this means they're protected by the laws in the U.S. of A.

How long are we going to insist on the idea that there's progress while White men can still walk away from a crime such as what they did to Johnson? How long are we going to pat ourselves on the back about the civil case, while criminal charges are not upheld? How long are we going to see this new verdict as a "win" for Billy Ray Johnson, who will live out the rest of his life in a nursing home?

Administrators at a Los Angeles charter school fired two teachers this spring for helping seventh graders plan a Black History Month program on the Emmett Till killing. The administrators wouldn't discuss the firings, but apparently, they felt the story was "too graphic" and one of them was quoted as saying, "We don't want to focus on how the history of the country has been checkered, but on how do we dress for success, walk proud, and celebrate all the accomplishments we've made." Well, at least everybody's on the same page, huh?

Credit Where Credit Is Due*

While browsing my usual blog-reads this week-end, I stopped by Hysterical Blackness, as I often do (here) and read an account of a U.S. Senate resolution a year ago that apologized for that body's failure to enact federal anti-lynching legislation even when seven Presidents requested specifically that they do so (see this site.) Apparently, the good Senators of previous decades preferred to filibuster rather than risk their constituents not having the freedom to attack and even murder African-Americans (and most particularly African-American men) at will without risk of legal consequences. I would most certainly have known about this when the resolution passed had I not been seriously ill and awaiting surgery last June, but even a year later, I'm grateful to find out about it now.

On the surface, it might not be immediately apparent to some folks why lynching needed to be prosecuted as a federal crime. But the fact is that, as long as states got to decide whether or not a "crime" had been committed, they seemed to keep deciding that it had not. And it wasn't just in the South either. One photograph most of us have seen, for example, was taken at a lynching in Marion, Indiana (remember?). It seems bizarre to most of us now, but it was often standard practice to take photos, turn them into postcards, and mail them out to all your relatives and friends to brag about your presence at the event in question, scrawling across the back of the card statements like "we know how to treat 'em here!"

So you can see how inconvenient it would have been for ordinary White folks to have to worry about some big time federal agents nosing around what just wasn't any of their business.

When Harry T. and Harriette Moore died in their beds as a result of their house in central Florida being bombed on Christmas eve in 1951, everybody knew the Klan did it in retaliation for Harry's work with the NAACP. And everybody knew who the Klan members were. Susan Carol McCarthy, who spent her girlhood around many of the principals, including Moore, recently authored a very intriguing novel about the occurrence entitled "Lay That Trumpet In Our Hands." Still, while the feds were chomping at the bit to do something about it, they couldn't--because murder isn't a federal crime and the state just didn't feel it could make an adequate case against the very important (and very powerful) "gentlemen" who formed the leadership of the local Klan implicated. You get the picture.

Anyway, so the Senate's long-standing unwillingness to intervene in this process on behalf of their constituents of color finally became more or less moot with the establishment of the concept of the "hate crime," but not before thousands and thousands of African-American men were horrifically and sometimes publically tortured to death, generally without any repercussions of any kind for the perpetrators. The official statistics are more than 4700 between 1882 and 1968 (keeping in mind that where no body was found, no lynching could be declared; lynchings are still occurring; and sometimes, such as in the case of Malcolm X's father, the death might be called a "suicide" in spite of the fact that his head had been bashed in and his body placed on a railroad track). Still, using even the very conservative figure of 4700, it averages out to about one per week for 86 years, with incidents appearing in all but four of the states in the union.

So an apology--at the least--was overdue and in order. And while many of the Senators didn't care enough to be present for the voice vote, for which there are no records as to who voted how, 89 out of the 100 of them eventually decided to go on record as co-sponsoring the resolution with Republican Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. I thought it only appropriate that the ten who decided not to go on record as co-sponsoring the resolution, under those circumstances, ought to get recognition for their...um...shall we say "oversight?"

It is true, of course, that it was a voice vote (and how very convenient of the Senators to give their brothers the option of an "out"--something the victims of lynchings did not receive). Consequently, we can't prove the following Senators voted against the resolution, which passed, in any case. But we know for a fact (thanks to this site.) that they were the only ones out of 100 that chose not to co-sponsor the Senate resolution apologizing to lynching victims and their descendents for not enacting legislation that might have saved at least some of their lives by establishing a clear expectation of sanctions for the egregious crimes committed against them. In alphabetical order, then, the Senators who do not appear on the list of co-sponsors are Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Robert Bennett (R-UT), Thad Cochran (R-MS), John Cornyn (R-TX), Michael Enzi (R-WY), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Trent Lott (R-MS), Richard Shelby (R-AL), John E. Sununu (R-NH), and Craig Thomas (R-WY). Just thought you should know.

*This post is dedicated to the memory of those unfortunate souls of color who died in terror at the hands of White murderers and to the victims' descendents who will ever bear the sorrow of that horrifying experience.

The Reality Check Is On The Front Page

Until now, I have chosen not to write about the fourteen-year-old boy who was beaten and kicked to death by a group of White men January 6th in a so-called "boot camp" (how apropos!) in Bay County, Florida. I have also chosen not to write about the rape of an African-American dancer at a "party" in Durham, North Carolina, March 13th, where members of the Duke University lacrosse team were unwinding after a grueling week of being...well...whoever it is men like that perceive themselves to be.

Initially, of course, the fourteen-year-old boy, whose name was Martin Lee Anderson, was said to have died of sickle cell complications--after the beating that was (fortunately) caught on videotape. (Just how stupid do you have to be, one might wonder, to beat and kick a child to death in a group in front of a camera you unquestionably know exists?) And initially, of course, the rape victim--a young single mother of two who pays for her college courses dancing at parties (which is not as wildly uncommon as one would imagine)--was raped again in the media.

Some people in polite U.S. society (whatever that is in the face of our national love affair with violence against people of color everywhere in the world, including Florida and North Carolina) look away from these types of incidents, mumbling about young boys that get in trouble and young women who "shouldn't be" at an all-male party. I looked away--as much as I could--because reports like this give me a gut ache. My throat shuts. My tongue swells as if I might vomit. My tears clot. My teeth clench. I really, really want to see somebody get hurt. And that's not a way I like to feel. It never changes anything.

Now we hear that students from three schools are sitting in at the governor's office up in Tallahassee, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are scheduled to show up, and the FDLE chief--the top dog in this matter (hand-chosen by Governor Jeb Bush several years ago and the guy who actually established the particular boot camp in question, interestingly enough)--has stepped down. Also, we hear that, in spite of the fact that DNA tests ostensibly did not implicate the guys on the team, the coach has been fired, the remainder of the season scrapped, and two of the players (named Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty--no comment needed, I'm sure) have been arrested and charged with a string of serious crimes. And so we watch it all unfold in the daily news.

But glad as I am that "something's being done" and that it's not being "swept under the rug" on these two occasions, I know this doesn't mean that "progress is being made." It means that for whatever reason, these two incidents are going to play themselves out in public and something will happen (whatever that is), but a child will still be dead and a young mother's psyche will still be shattered (like to imagine how her final exams will go this coming week?). A mother and father will still be devastated and two children will still be raised by a woman whose fifteen minutes of fame are of her half-clad body on a burning cross. And people of color everywhere in the United States will still be left knowing that on the right day in just the right situation that victim could still be them.

No matter what happens, there's no reason to believe that these are the only similar incidents that have occurred this spring or that these events are not being repeated behind closed doors--and closed minds--even as I write these words. And there's absolutely no reason to believe as yet that rape and murder by European-Americans against helpless victims of color are not going to continue as a direct manifestation of White power in a nation not gone mad, you understand, but mad at its conception.

Europeans created this nation by stealing land from the Native Americans already on it and then making it rich by forcing millions of Africans to work fourteen hour days seven days per week for 250 years--without pay. And now White folks--who pat themselves on the back as if they have done something good--conveniently ignore the obvious: that their history has never really stopped. It continues to crop up like a relentless plague of weeds carrying a poisonous flower. It's indigenous to the culture. And it's going to take more than good intentions--or a couple of high profile legal cases--to get rid of it.

Another high profile case last year involved a European-American dance teacher who left the scene of an accident in Tampa, Florida, in March of 2004 after killing two children and maiming two others (all from one African-American family). When the dust settled, Jennifer Porter wound up with house arrest, probation, and community service work. And after a little sputtering, those still alive went on living. These new cases and the others already in motion and the ones that will be reported tomorrow or the day after that or next month will, more than likely, go more or less the same way. It's painful. It's depressing. And it's wrong.

Every once in a while, some particular case (such as the one in Jasper, Texas, involving White men who dragged an African-American man to his death behind a truck) is resolved, by hook or by crook (no pun intended), in some appropriate legal manner. But that's not the answer to this puzzle. We have to go all the way back to the root cause of our mutual dilemma. It's mutual because, while African-Americans are still being brutalized, European-Americans are staying insane. And which is more monstrous: being a victim or being a perpetrator? The rapists and murderers who actually carry out the crimes are not, repeat, not, repeat, not operating in a vacuum.

Yevtushenko wrote that he was a "Jew" at Babi Yar (the scene of an anti-Semetic massacre in Russia). John F. Kennedy told the German people gathered at their infamous wall that he was a "Berliner." And no matter what I look like, when a person of color is attacked by a White person anywhere in the world, I will see myself as attacked. There is no other way to restore myself to sanity.

My Reality Check Bounced

Last night, one of my students wore a t-shirt to class that read "my reality check bounced." Needless to say, I loved it. I often feel that I'm free-falling through some surreal existence, careening off the walls as I descend further and faster down the rabbit hole. I asked where I could get one, though at this stage of my life, I might not wear such an item even if I purchased it. Been there, done that--you know.

Anyway, this morning, as I shuffled through the slips of papers in my "blog file" (articles, quotes, idea shreds that skitter through my mind as I go through my days), I noticed the words "reality check" with quotes around them and remembered last month when I heard them used in a different way.

I had told an African-American co-worker about an incident in my neighborhood that sounded like a Jim Crow encounter. She was horrified, but fascinated, the way we often are while passing a nasty car wreck. And we agreed that it was very unsettling. People in the U.S. want to believe that the more violent demonstrations of racist oppression are in the past, few and far between, or at least happening somewhere--anywhere--else. "The North" points at "The South" and "The South" retorts that "The North" just sweeps their dirt under the rug, while California blames their problems on the immigrants, and police seem free to do as they will, no matter where they are.

A couple of hours later, out on the campus, I was speaking with an African-American man who sells products during the weekly Bull Run bazaar, and my co-worker came up to us. After greeting the man, who she's apparently known for a long time, she turned to me and said, "You know, I really wish you hadn't told me what you told me."

I protested, feeling terrible. "I tried not to, but you kept wanting to know..."

"I know," she said. "But I just wish I hadn't, that's all. I've been all upset ever since. I can't get it out of my mind."

The vendor looked from one to the other of us blankly, obviously interested.

And her statement to him--said very pointedly--was: "It was nothing. Just a 'reality check'..."

"Oh!" he responded immediately, without any other information being imparted, shaking his head quickly from side to side and raising his hands, palms out, in front of his chest, "Then I don't even want to know..."

I wanted to erase myself from the tiny group the way I erase a word from the blackboard. Just vaporize and disappear without fanfare. I was ashamed. Not ashamed of having told her, though I won't make that mistake again. People of color have enough to deal with. I was ashamed of being "White" in the presence of two human beings who continue to be treated not only differently than people who look like me, but who are routinely presented with information proving that painful and disgusting things--even life-threatening things--still happen to people just because they look like them. Perpetrated by people who look like me.

I don't hate who I am. I hate what some people who look like me do in the name of our shared skin tone. Particularly when you consider that they do those things because they are insane with the need to believe that they are somehow superior to others. How in the hell can a person be so crazy that they can imagine that brutalizing others proves that you're a person of superior worth?!?

I was ashamed because it is 2006 and one well-established middle class African-American speaking to another well-established middle class African-American on a university campus where young people of color are all over the place can still invoke the demons of White supremacy by simply using the words "reality check." With instant recognition. I know when it started, but when will it end? And what will it take to end it?