So the Supreme Court, the Court of all Courts, the Law of the Land has ruled that the death penalty is not permissable in a child rape case.

Well Why Not Your Honor? Do you only think it is necessary and proper for someone to be killed by our JUSTICE System when they too have murdered someone. How do we tell people not to murder by murdering them. Is that a misunderstanding because I don’t understand it.

A child who is raped is murdered in different ways. Their spirit is murdered in many instances, their bodies and mind never forget the horrific pain of being forced to have sex and brutally raped by adults. Often their belief systems are killed because they ask themselves what kind of God would allow such a heinous crime?

So if your reasoning is based on an eye for an eye, well that system is long gone. In fact the reasoning behind why we keep the Death Penalty in this country is flawed. Gregg v. Georgia outlines it, if I am correct. Here are the following reasons why the United States feels it is legally just to kill people to show them that they should not kill people!

In reaching this conclusion, the Court emphasized three factors: (i) that the “imposition of the death penalty for the crime of murder has a long history of acceptance both in the United States AND England”; (ii) that it was “now evident that a large proportion of American society continues to regard it as an appropriate and necessary criminal sanction”; and (iii) that the death penalty serves “two principal social purposes: retribution and deterrence of capital crimes by prospective offenders.”

So let me understand this:

because the death penalty has long been accepted in both the United States and England it is alright to kill people. Couldn’t the same have been said to uphold slavery and other inhumane acts. It is reasonings like this, that seem logical to a selected few that killed off millions of Jewish people in the Holocaust.

2. Americans regard it as an appropriate and necessary criminal sanction. Hmm 100 years ago many Americans believed it was ok to lynch negroes for looking at white women. This was no small group of individuals, this was common practice here in America. Does that make it right? Many blue eyed, blond haired Germans felt it was an appropriate sanction to exterminate Jewish people, does that make it right, and or just. A young Indian girl was almost killed a few months ago because she is from a lower caste system. A young man in his twenties threw her onto a burning fire, does that make it right. His peers and old traditions in his country thought these types of actions were ok, does that make it right and legally sound?

3. The death penalty serves as retribution and deterrence. Well the easier one is deterence. It must not serve such a great job when people in this country are being killed every day. How are we deterring them, they are not deterred, they are not phased. In fact you encourage them to kill by being a leading example that says it is ok to kill someone.

Retribution, do we really want to go back to the old theory an eye for an eye. In that case we will all be blind which is what this system offers. Blind Justice, 10% or more of the people on Death Row currently are innocent yet they have been found guilty. Will we continue to kill innocent people in the name of our Constitution?

America, Land of the free, home of the brave do you really have the authority to play God. Are we that holy as a country that we dare look down upon others and “attempt” to bring democracy to them when are lacking fundamental freedoms at home. When you challenge America you are quickly reminded that you could live somewhere else where things are worst off. When did we begin comparing ourselves to countries and situations that are less favorable than our own. How does that allow us to prosper and grow when we make backwards comparisons rather than marching forward as I would believe the Forefathers of this country wanted us to.

The Supreme Court Says No to the Death Penalty for child rapists, I pray I see the day when WHEN WE SAY NO TO THE DEATH PENALTY COMPLETELY. Otherwise we are just as barbaric as the countries we claim to civilize!

here is the link to the story that prompted this discussion.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/25/scotus.child.rape/index.html

Do you remember Elian Gonzalez? He was the young boy who came here from Cuba with his mother and his mother’s boyfriend. However most of the people on the small aluminum boat they were traveling on died on their way to the United States. Two young boys then ended up on the shores of Florida via an inner tube and were turned over to the U.S Coast Guard. A nasty fight ensued between both sides of the family which resulted in the little boy going back to Cuba to be with his biological father.

You’re thinking like me, what in the world does this have to do with Obama. Well apparently his Uncle is holding some of Barack’s associates responsible. One of which is Eric Holder who is now helping Obama pick a running mate, he was under Janet Reno when she ordered Elian’s return to his father in Cuba. Gregory Craig was Elian’s father’s lawyer who helped him get his son back.

While I was watching CNN, the family’s spokesperson was speaking to a group of Cuban supporters misinterpreting Obama’s stance on Cuba. Apparently Elian has become a member of the Young Communist Union, and many Cubans blame a host of individuals for his return to Cuba and two of them are Obama’s advisers.

I just ask, when does it all end. People are so focused on media attention and because Barack is what’s hot in the news right now all types of nonsense gets attached to him. My question is why don’t these supporters go make statements about the U.S. Supreme Court who refused to hear their case. Or the countless other courts who denied them. Instead they come after Obama, for future reference please attack the NEXT President with substantiative issues and not mere propaganda which seeks to alienate more voters. Thanks. YES WE CAN SI SE PUEDE!

Today I was watching the video below of a young girl who is using youtube to rile people up to help her. The video is really sad and it reminds me of a piece I wrote about how the court systems treat women like prostitutes and are not helpful to rape victims. The piece is below as well!

Sadly this young woman is looking for justice after dealing with this terrible ordeal and when the courts hear her they may not give her the justice she deserves. It’s a sad system!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfg3w11_A_E&hl=en]

Treat Her Like A Prostitute
Think of North Philadelphia, think of the abandoned row homes; already I can see the drug addicts standing around outside waiting for their daily fix. The cops aren’t paying much attention to this block; this is a typical block in the heart of North Philly where abandoned homes stand in desolate neighborhoods; a criminal’s safe haven. Inside this fateful house a young woman is being RAPED, she is being forced to have sex with four men at gunpoint. On this lonely block I can see this young woman fearing for her life. While in this house these men are beating her and taking her womanhood from her forcefully. Wait……. This story is biased, did I mention our victim is a prostitute! Does that matter? Or, because she is a prostitute is this merely an occupational hazard? Let’s take away our moral judgment and rely solely on the law, which is meant to protect the citizens of this country. Well according to Judge Teresa Carr Deni in Philadelphia, a woman who was raped in late September in North Philadelphia experienced such an occupational hazard. Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmm…

So what type of message are we sending, I remember hearing NO MEANS NO! Rape victims are already not supported by the criminal justice system, which is why so many sexual assaults go unreported every year. Moreover, essentially what the courts are saying is that if you are a prostitute then you are not a credible citizen and your rights can be violated because you put yourself in that situation.

I am not here to defend prostitution as a viable means of income but I am concerned with how people are treated in this country. Now to give the whole story without any bias I will give you the information as provided to me by the local newspaper, The Philadelphia Daily News. As the story goes, the woman was working as a prostitute, she charged two men $200 to have sex with them. They refused to pay her, and here is where this story gets ugly. A gun then comes out and two more men rape the woman at gunpoint. The 5th man saw the woman crying and decided to help her get dressed so that she could leave the house without further harassment from the other individuals. Unfortunately, the judge said that she would not waste her time on such a case because there are real rape victims out there. Again I ask does No not mean No? I mean, I’m just curious, or are we letting our moral judgments affect who the law will protect and whom it will dismiss as this poor young woman was dismissed in Philadelphia?

It’s very interesting how we vilify the media, Hip-Hop, movies and all other proponents of misogyny when it comes to the mis-representation and treatment of women. However, here is our sacred criminal justice system picking and choosing who deserves to be protected under the law and who does not. I just wonder if this is a sign of things to come. A woman has one to many drinks, she’s forced to sleep with several men and the argument goes something like this; “well she’s normally a very promiscuous girl, she had on a short skirt, or the infamous, she wanted it”!

It’s our time to stand up and have our voices heard if only to protect our sisters, cousins and mothers and ourselves in the future. If we are outraged by the way women are treated in the media, we should be equally outraged at how women are being victimized by the criminal justice system. It is not ok for a man or a group of men to maliciously rape a woman no matter what her occupation is. If we continue to allow this type of behavior to persist than we will continue to get the same results that depict women as sexual objects who are not deserving of respect. We have allowed the media to say this for far too long, now it has spilled over into the law of our land. We can not allow our women and their presence to be belittled, lets fight to preserve their image and their constitutional right as human beings that deserve the right to be protected in this country. We can start by sending letters to our Congressmen and the Philadelphia Bar Association to let the powers that be know that we will not take this type of injustice sitting down. Let’s Make It Happen!

Photo courtesy of New York Times

Wear all black on Monday for the injustice verdict in the Sean Bell case Please pass this on to anyone who can receive a text.

I received this text message numerous times throughout the course of the weekend and again I ask “Is wearing all black the new activism”. Has wearing all black taken the place of such notable activism as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I remember back when the Jena 6 movement was thriving and we were all wearing black as a means to show the masses our “black solidarity”. I participated and heard many say that they felt good walking into their corporate offices and seeing other people of color representing the injustice that was being served in Jena. But does our action stop there, does what we wear really signify that an injustice has been done?

So today I woke up and threw on my black shirt and my black Chuck Taylor sneakers in memory of the brother Sean Bell. I walked into my classroom and unlike that glorious Jena day, barely any people of color were wearing all black. What does wearing all black mean anyway; do the people who we want to see our solidarity even know that we are wearing this color to represent the fact that a brother was murdered by the NYPD. That yet again the NYPD walked out of a court of law not guilty of all charges. My own Constitutional Law professor had no idea who Sean Bell was and that this verdict had drastically affected the lives of many people. He was unaware that many young brothers and sisters had taken to the streets and were seeking Justice for the loss of yet another young talented black man. He definitely had no idea why one of his students had on black today; all he wanted to know was if I was familiar with the material that will be on his exam next week.

I checked through my usual news media outlets hoping that I would see something in the headlines about the injustice the Bell family was served this past Friday. Instead, I was inundated with news of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the Democrat Primary’s, but there was no sign of any measures that would be taken towards the Bell family finding JUSTICE. And why should their be, a brother is dead and we all go back to our regularly scheduled lives. More concerned with celebrity gossip than the fact that black men can be killed in this country and their murderers receive absolutely no punishment.

The NY Times had a brief article about this issue however, and it largely dealt with the few people who were outraged by the verdict and were protesting in Harlem yesterday. One of the brothers on the bull horn asked “why aren’t more people out here”. The days of marching and blocking traffic for a day or two didn’t work then and they will continue not to work now. All the police do is re-direct the traffic and the protest becomes more of a nuisance than a movement that affects change. So what my generation has come up with as a means of fighting injustice is wearing all black; then we are really fighting institutionalized racism and brutality, we’ll show em!

Wrong, we need a strategic effort on a variety of fronts to fight the injustices that are facing our people. I refuse to believe that we are as lazy as the Civil Rights Guard of Leadership paints us. No we are not lazy at all, we are the internet generation; the text message generation. All of that to say we have the fastest and often most effective modes of communication to get messages across to our peers and move in a organized manner. We have to fight these different injustices on many different fronts. The Judge who rendered the verdict; we have to find out if he was elected or appointed; if elected we make sure that those who are eligible to vote in that district show up in record numbers to relieve him of his position.

Let’s take it back to the boycott days since the loss of revenue is the only thing that makes politicians and businessmen understand that we are angry about something and are seeking some type of remedy. This shouldn’t be hard to do because we are spawning into a recession anyway and people are already strapped for cash. We need to find out exactly what businesses that if we stopped patronizing would affect Michael Bloomberg the fastest. Once those major businesses are affected they will call up their high powered friends ad say “hey we have to do something about this’ its affecting my pocket”! You see when when we start to use our creativity and organize our efforts we begin to fall upon the ears who really create change in our cities. Maybe then the NYPD will stop believing that it is perfectly fine and legal to kill young black men. But if all we are doing is wearing black; trust me the courts, the politicians, the police and definitely the law are not hearing our voices.

We need to tap into the resources in our communities who have the know how and ability to propose legislation for stricter monitoring practices over the police departments who brutalize communities of color. All cops are not the scum who murder and harass people of color so we need to reach out to those who are fed up with their colleagues behavior and off the record find out what we can do to upset their internal situation that will help us make the changes we wish to see. I could write on for days about different measures that we could take however my one voice will not create this change. Our collective voice will not change these scenarios but our collective voices coupled with our strategic collective actions will create this change. In memory of Sean Bell and all of the other forgotten fallen soldiers; please let’s Make It Happen!

ps. I will be at the Black and Male In America Conference the weekend of June 15 - 17 in Brooklyn, NY. I think we all need to be there!