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<font size=4><b>Black/Afrikan People Must Fight Against the Death
Penalty!<br><br>
</b></font><font size=3>by Sis. Marpessa Kupendua - 1/2012<br>
nattyreb@gmail.com
<dl>
<dd><i>“Had it not been for slavery, the death penalty would have likely
been abolished in America. Slavery became a haven for the death penalty.
In Virginia, before the end of slavery, there was only one crime for
which a white person could be executed. But there were 66 crimes for
which a slave could be executed.” </i>– Sis. Angela Davis, 2003
</dl>Most of us in the Black/Afrikan community very understandably worry
more about our children being killed on the streets than by lethal
injection. Some of our neighborhoods are devastated by drugs, poverty and
violence and so discussions around the uneven application of the death
penalty are a glaring non-issue when so many of us live on the frontlines
of these war zones. Each day we hear and read of horror stories
that fill us with disbelief, anguish and rage and many want an eye for an
eye! We so readily identify with being victimized that we even support
the executions of juveniles and the mentally disabled in particularly
gruesome incidences. It also seems a preposterous topic to raise because
most people can’t possibly foresee that any member of their immediate
families could ever face a death sentence.<br>
<br>
But when this system offers to murder on our alleged behalf, it carries a
double-edged sword. Many may believe in the execution of the perpetrator
of today's heinous leading news story, but be outraged at the blatantly
unjust execution of another. Unfortunately, we are not given the luxury
to pick and choose once we support state-sanctioned murder -- we are
either for it, regardless of how corrupt many of these sham trials are,
or against it! In 2008 the Death Penalty Information Center
stated that 127 death row inmates had been exonerated, and that's just
those who were fortunate enough to get evidence admitted that cleared
them. The courageous work of anti-lynching heroine Ida B. Wells was
not meant to culminate in high-tech state lynchings where even the cause
of death is certified as 'homicide'.<br>
<br>
Statistical data is abundant that the criminal justice system, from
profiling, arrest, and sentencing, impacts Black/Afrikan and Latino
defendants the harshest, and the death penalty is, of course, no
exception.(1) Although some political activists will concede the racist,
classist and political aspects of the death penalty in specific cases,
they continue to remain uninvolved in the larger struggle to abolish it
completely.<br>
<br>
Black activists must dialogue and challenge that mindset within our
ranks, or we continue to risk that far too many of our brothers and
sisters – such as Bro. Gregory (Ajamu) Resnover, Bro. Ziyon Yisrayah,
Bro. Shaka Sankofa, Bro. Troy Davis and many more – will be wiped off of
the planet. If we stand against racist oppression, we must fully
understand that we are all under potential threat of life – slow-speed
death sentences -- or straight up legalized lynching.<br>
<br>
Since Georgia succeeded in murdering Troy Davis, an innocent man with
worldwide support during which Black people held the highest positions in
this country and did not intervene, what is to stop the executions
of dozens more wrongfully convicted and oversentenced captives with
limited or no support, particular those the state paints as 'terrorists'
during the age of NDAA? We must include the abolition of the death
penalty as a major plank of all of our platforms. No more treating
capital punishment as a back burner issue and dismissing it as a largely
white movement!<br>
<br>
Existing mostly-white anti-DP organizations should be confronted as to
their lack of employment of Blacks and other people of color, especially
those who have intimate knowledge of the death penalty through personal
experience. Bro. Lawrence Hayes wrote an open letter to anti-DP
organizations in December, 2011, that explains his personal frustration
as someone who was entombed for 2 1/2 yrs in the death house and 20 yrs
in prison before being exonerated:
<dl>
<dd><i>"After my release, I help found the Campaign to End the Death
Penalty and have worked in Education, as a Paralegal, for an anti death
penalty United Nation's NGO and in Human Service. I am well educated, can
write and publicly articulate my positions, I am conscious and bring
first hand experience to an organization that no other employee
has. However, for the past five years I've made several attempts to
work in a capacity directly involving anti death penalty work, mainly
with groups like the Washington, DC based National Death Penalty Center,
ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Amnesty International, etc. and haven't
been able to land a job. This disturbs me to no end and I would like the
anti death penalty activist community, these organizations volunteer
members, staff and donors to ask this question of why, with the release
so many former death house prisoners, they don't have a single one
working for them</i>."<br>
<br><br>
<dd><i>“I must admit that at times I wonder and question the intentions
and knowledge of the death penalty activists (abolishers) who are
horrified and oppose the killing of human beings, but who are not
horrified at the very system in its totality, which renders such biased
and unjust sentences upon its citizens and which contributes to the
dehumanizing of its citizens. I say in turn that it’s not just the death
penalty which must be overturned, but the whole institution of criminal
justice as we know it must be overturned.</i>” – From “What Is a Death
Sentence?” by Bro. Adullah Hameen, who was legally lynched by the State
of Delaware on May 25, 2001 <br><br>
</dl>The oppression of the Black community via the criminal justice
system and its agents intensifies by the day. Vicious police attacks are
openly viewed in all their sick glory via the internet, putting their
hate speech, beatings, shootings and murders on full blast before the
world. We are also all too familiar with the massive oversentencing
of Blacks vs. their white counterparts, manufactured evidence, tortured
confessions, deliberate confusion, lies and even more. Our children are
seen as sub-human, easily manipulated, animalistic and unemployable, sent
down a conveyor belt straight to these dungeons and thus insuring the
financing of their own encagement.<br>
<br>
Even though many folks will concede that some captives may be innocent,
at least of lesser counts than those with which they’ve been charged, and
that some belong in drug or psychiatric treatment and not prison, and
that of course some are becoming more hardened and callous than when they
went in, and that yes some will be raped, beaten, tortured, enslaved for
corporate profit while in prison and even killed – the bottom line for
many remains that our community cannot be seen as making excuses for
crime, a la Bill Cosby. As a result, many of our brothers and sisters
will advocate even harsher punishments than the system already has in
place and mimic those who would call for the jailing of our children for
“crimes” such as wearing sagging pants or violation of noise
ordinances!<br>
<br>
We still yet believe that this system’s laws are designed to protect us,
when nothing could be further from the truth! When presented with
evidence that the death penalty is race- and class-based and not evenly
applied, many will respond that yes, it needs to made fair, but it
doesn’t need to be gotten rid of, not in all cases. These laws are
abitrary, political, and remade at the whim of whoever is holding our
lives in their hands. This system’s very foundation of racism and
corruption can never be reformed or “made fair,” so it definitely cannot
be trusted to determine who lives and who dies.<br><br>
Capital punishment is itself premeditated murder! It’s about keeping
alive this country’s bloodthirsty passion for lynching, a passion which
they will fight to feed even in the face of overwhelming innocence,
recantations of perjured testimony, even to the point where an unhealthy
inmate will be cured just so that they can be healthy enough to be
murdered on death day!<br>
<br>
<b>But how many police officers and/or other officials were given the
death penalty for the terrorist murders of 11 members of the MOVE family
– men, women and children – when police dropped a BOMB on their home in
Philadelphia in May, 1985?! How many police officers were given the death
penalty in the bloody murder of 7 year old Ayanna Jones in Detroit as she
slept on the sofa in her family's apartment in May, 2010? How many police
and/or other officials are given the death penalty for the murders of
people in our communities, period? Their badges, guns, tasers and titles
do not give them the right to judge who gets to live or die – on
the streets or in their prison death chambers! </b>
<dl>
<dd>“<i>As I sit here on my bed, exhausted yet full of joy and
uncertainty, feeling the affects of seven and a half years of constant
chemotherapy, I am reflecting on the day of Sept. 23, 2008, as we entered
the grounds of the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, where I
wanted to cry but I could not; I wanted to yell but I could not; I wanted
to leave but I could not. Then I watched the expression on my son’s face,
that for the first time in his 14 years of visiting death row, he
witnessed more than 100 SWAT, Tactical Squad officers, corrections
officers with dozens of dogs, shotguns in hand, all because the state of
Georgia wants to kill his Uncle Troy. I have only seen such force
on television from the civil rights era.</i>” – from “Silencing our Joy”
by Sis. Martina Correia, sister of innocent death row prisoner, Troy
Davis, Sept. 25, 2008(3)
</dl>When addressing the needs of families of victims of crime, we must
include the families of death row inmates. They are among the most
underserved and unspoken of as they, too, cope with the tremendous
depression suffered by all grief-stricken victims. These families, adults
and children, are barely able to function while on the dizzying legal
rollercoaster leading up to their family member’s date with death.
Some are treated as pariahs within their own community while struggling
to carry on with work and school – simultaneously acting as their loved
one’s source of emotional and financial support, traveling sometimes
incredibly long distances to visit through glass or even by video, gouged
by outrageously over-priced phone calls and advocating for these inmates
with inadequate legal representatives(2), politricians and god-complexed
prison officials. These families are not offered comfort or treated with
even the most basic human dignity.<br>
<br>
The good news is that more and more community activists, and most
significantly our creative and genius-filled young brothers and sisters,
are not only adopting a community-wide view that eclipses the media and
societal pressure to be consumed with self and self alone, but even
understanding the broader significance of our people’s global struggle
for liberation and self-determination! There exists an incredible
potential to seize the time and build a strong anti-death penalty
contingent within our organizations and/or to make certain that a
representative of our groups becomes involved with existing anti-DP
organizing in our area, lest we continue to scramble and scurry when
emergencies arise. There is an immediate need for education and
discussion around the issue of capital punishment and there is an
abundance of anti-DP information on and off-line to be disseminated
within any gathering of our people.<br>
<br>
Furthermore, these politricians have to be made to feel that their
continued allegiance to capital punishment will negatively impact their
careers, and so will anyone else who purports to act as a religious or
other type of representative spokesperson for our
communities. Anyone who speaks about being 'pro-life' should be
confronted if they are not just as passionate regarding abolition of the
death penalty!<br>
<br>
Addressing police and prison issues is critical to building grassroots
activism in any real and meaningful way, it is a fact of life for the
Black/brown segment of the 99%, and the issue of state sponsored
murder is a crucial part of that. This is the system that far too many of
our families are touched by and, as Bro. Hameen wrote, not just the death
penalty but “the whole institution of criminal justice as we know it must
be overturned.” We must make it “un-hip” to be down with the death
penalty, particularly amongst our own ranks!
<dl>
<dd>"<i>I think we need to increase our tactical strategies to
include boycotts and national/international protest. I think we need to
push for psychological and emotional therapeutic counseling (stress,
anxiety, anger management and bereavement) for the families of men and
women facing capital punishment, especially after an execution. I, also,
believe that because of the economic situations in most African-American
and Taino communities, we need to develop creative ways to organize the
African-American and Taino anti death penalty voice.</i>" Bro.
Lawrence Hayes, exonerated death row inmate.
</dl><b>ABOLISH THE RACIST, CLASSIST DEATH PENALTY! FORWARD EVER!<br>
</b> <br>
***********************************<br>
References<br><br>
(1) From
<a href="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/">www.deathpenaltyinfo.org</a>
:<br><br>
• Even though blacks and whites are murder
victims in nearly equal numbers of crimes, 80 percent of people executed
since the death penalty was reinstated have been executed for murders
involving white victims.<br><br>
• More than 20 percent of Black defendants who have
been executed were convicted by all-white juries.<br><br>
(2) More at
<a href="http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/Bad-Lawyering.php">
www.innocenceproject.org/understand/Bad-Lawyering.php</a>. Please also
check
<a href="http://www.troyanthonydavis.org/">www.troyanthonydavis.org</a>,
<a href="http://www.onamove.com/">www.onamove.com</a> and
<a href="http://www.freemumia.com/">www.freemumia.com</a>.<br><br>
(3) Sis. Martina Correira died of cancer on December 1, 2011, 2 1/2
months after the state's premeditated murder of her innocent brother,
Troy Davis.<br>
<br><br>
(Portions were taken from
<a href="http://dreadtimes.com/blogs/entry/The-Black-Afrikan-Community-and-the-Death-Penalty">
http://dreadtimes.com/blogs/entry/The-Black-Afrikan-Community-and-the-Death-Penalty</a>
)<br>
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