Category: Race

Pardons in a punitive age

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By Alan Bean

‘Tis the season for executive pardons–or at least it used to be. 

The editorial board of the Washington Post is criticizing President Obama for making nine trifling pardons, most of which involve small crimes that date back decades. 

In a slashing opinion piece in the Dallas Morning News, Scott Henson of Grits for Breakfast questions the prevailing practice of handing out a few scattered pardons like Christmas presents while ignoring entire categories of people who have fallen victim to ill-considered policies like putting non-violent citizens  in prison for simple pot possession.

Meanwhile, NYT columnist Bob Herbert takes a stripe out of Mississippi Governor Hailey Barbour and the political establishment of Mississippi for their shabby treatment of the Scott sisters. (more…)

Glover verdict in New Orleans raises more questions than it answers

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By Alan Bean

On December 9, a federal jury in New Orleans convicted two police officers for burning the corpse of Henry Glover, violating civil rights, obstructing justice, and misleading federal investigators.  The jury also convicted an ex-officer of shooting Glover with a .223 caliber assault rifle. 

Has justice been served, or does this verdict raise more questions about the New Orleans police force than it answers?

Writing for ProPublica, A.C. Thompson, prefaces his article with a troubling statement:

“I’ve been reporting in New Orleans for more than three years, and I can say I’ve never encountered more people who are terrified of the police. Looking at the sad and awful death of Henry Glover, it’s easy to see why.” (more…)

When the police knock down your door: more on the Richardson Raid

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Vergil and Mark Richardson

By Alan Bean

Friends of Justice was first to bring you the troubling story of Mark and Vergil Richardson, but we certainly aren’t the last.  First we had Wade Goodwyn’s excellent story for NPR’s All Things Considered, and now Jordan Smith of the Austin Chronicle is using the Richardson story as an entre into the strange world of no-knock searches for The Crime Report.  Radley Balko, one of the experts interviewed for Smith’s story, reports that “the number of SWAT call-outs averaged 3,000 annual between the 1980s and 2005. Now the annual figure is roughly 50,000.”

When Police Break Down Your Door

Jordan Smith

December 15, 2010

An increase in the use of  ‘no-knock’ warrants around the country has alarmed civil liberties advocates.

On Nov. 17, 2007, Vergil Richardson was sitting at a table in the house he owns in the small northeast Texas town of Clarksville, playing dominoes with several relatives, including his half-brother Kevin Calloway, when the front door exploded inward and the living room was flooded with police.

“They just broke into the house,” Vergil recalled recently. “They had guns on us and threw me down on the floor.” (more…)

You can help the Scott Sisters

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Nancy Lockhart has been working behind the scenes to bring the plight of Jamie and Gladys Scott to national attention.  Interest in the story spiked recently but, with no recent developments, interest is beginning to flag.  Nancy would like you to get personally involved.  The message below tells you how.

Alan Bean

Message from Nancy Lockhart

Jamie and Gladys Scott both went before the Mississippi Board of Pardons and Parole today. Results from this hearing are unknown at this time. Please continue to call and e-mail governor Haley Barbour’s Office in support of their release. Each call and e-mail is very important! (more…)

Bob Moser: Can Texas Democrats Stop Chasing Ghosts?

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Back in July, when the governor’s race still looked like a race

This article originally appeared in the Texas Observer.

By Bob Moser

“The only thing worse than standing for something unpopular is standing for nothing at all.”

Back in July, when the governor’s race still looked like a race, Wayne Slater of The Dallas Morning News bird-dogged Democrat Bill White for a week as he hunted for votes among the Anglo conservatives of East Texas. In one especially vivid account, datelined Palestine, Slater showed White answering litmus-test gun-rights questions at the local Starbucks. The candidate answered satisfactorily, citing a B+ score from the National Rifle Association and artfully dodging a question about the right to pack heat in church. A couple of East Texans admitted to Slater that they were considering voting for this strange, surprising Democrat. But there was just one problem, Jerry Harrison of the Farm Bureau said: “The only holdback I can see is that he’s a Democrat and he’s going to be with Obama.” (more…)

When schizophrenia became a black man’s disease

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In the late 1960s, schizophrenia became a black man’s disease. 

In late 1963, Malcolm X was asked to comment on the assassination of president John Kennedy.  He called it a case of “America’s chickens coming home to roost.”  Outraged by this comment, the Nation of Islam prohibited their rising star from speaking publicly for 90 days.  When that period expired, Malcolm announced that he was severing ties with the nation.

 In August of 1965, rioting broke out in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts.  Before order was restored, 34 people were dead, 1,032 were injured, and 3,438 had been arrested.

At a civil rights rally in Greenwood, Mississippi on June 17, 1966, Stokely Carmichael the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), introduced the term “black power” into the American lexicon.  

Four months later, Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton organized the Black Panthers in Oakland. 

The mainstream civil rights movement, though seemingly triumphant, hadn’t addressed the economic misery and building anger within the black urban ghetto.  Martin Luther King achieved unparalleled success by adapting his protest language around the perceptions of middle class white moderates.  The Black Power movement got up in the face of white America, demanding radical and immediate change.

How did white folks respond to this challenge?   Not well.  Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 on the strength of a “law and order” message.  Everybody knew what the Republican candidate was talking about.  (more…)

Where real Christians are Republicans and real Republicans are Christians

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Joe Straus

We’re talking Texas, of course.

As the old saying goes, “When three different people tell you you’re drunk, it’s time to sit down.” 

Or, When Fox News suggests you’re a bigot, it’s time for some honest reflection.

It helps, of course, that Joe Straus, the embattled Speaker of the Texas House, is a Jewish Republican as opposed to being a black Democrat.  But the principle applies.

“Over the past month,” the article notes, “in a spate of e-mails and political pitches, conservative opponents of incumbent Speaker Joe Straus have said they want him replaced not because of his Jewish religion, but because of his betrayal of Republican principles.”

But in a November 30th email, John Cook of the Texas Republican Executive Committee reminded his readers that, “We elected a house with Christian, conservative values. We now want a true Christian, conservative running it.”

If you read enough of these statements, you will notice that the words “Republican,” “conservative,” and “Christian” are used more or less interchangeably.  In Texas it is generally assumed that orthodox Christianity teaches conservative economic and social principles.  It thus follows, as the night the day, that real conservatives are Christians who vote Republican. (more…)

Does Mississippi want a civil rights museum?

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The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (front left) walked in the funeral procession for Medgar Evers in June 1963. Evers was shot and killed in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Miss.
The funeral procession of Medgar Evers

Does the state of Mississippi really want a civil rights museum?

 This intriguing article by Sheila Byrd of the Washington Post suggests not.
 
State Senator David Jordan, a black Democrat from Greenwood in Leflore County, certainly isn’t convinced. “It comes to a point that I don’t think Mississippi wants her history clearly told,” he told Byrd.
 
State Senator Hillman Frazier, a Democrat from Jackson, also has his doubts.  Governor Hailey Barbour initially embraced the idea of building a civil rights museum, but has done little to make it happen.  “It’s very frustrating when you’re visiting Memphis and Birmingham,” Frazier told the WP, “and they’re telling Mississippi’s history when we’re ground zero for civil rights.” (more…)

Texas Court Halts Controversial Hearing

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Judge Kevin Fine

To the surprise of no one, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has halted a controversial hearing in Houston designed to consider the constitutionality of the Texas death penalty.  Prosecution and defense counsel have fifteen days to present arguments.  

District Judge Kevin Fine is aware that the US Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the Texas death penalty, but needs to be convinced that the statute can be fair in the case of John Edward Green Jr.

Bob Loper, one of the attorneys representing John Edward Green Jr, believes the hearing (originally scheduled to last two weeks) will continue.  “We’re confident we’ll get a ruling in our favor,” Loper told the Associated Press. “We think our cause is just.”

This quote reminds me of the “expert” who told NPR recently that the TCCA would likely turn a deaf ear to Tom Delay’s appeal because “the court has a conservative reputation.”  (Delay was recently convicted of conspiracy and money-laundering by an Austin, Texas jury.)  The ulta-conservative tilt of the state’s highest court is precisely why Tom Delay has a good chance of getting a reversal and why and the hearing in Judge Fine’s court is unlikely to resume. (more…)