Now let’s say after the wife accuses said husband about his possible infidelity, mister accused cheating husband gets pissed because of the accusation and leaves the room only to return with a gun, stand and put a bullet in the chamber, and fires at his wife while two of her children are standing with her. Given that scenario, would you say that said husband deserves to be in prison for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon? Yeah I know, this all sounds like a scene from a movie or an episode of “(I Almost) Got Away With It,” on your cable. However, this is exactly what occurred in real life on August 10th, 2010 and the shooter was not the husband, but instead, Marissa Alexander who is currently serving a 20 year sentence for firing what she continues to claim as a warning shot at her husband Rico Gray after he accused her of cheating with her ex-husband, Lincoln Alexander.

We’ve all heard Marissa’s account, but here’s what Gray had to say in speaking to Jacksonvile.com. In an article by Charles Broward, Gray contends that contrary to belief it was Marissa’s violent nature that lead to the shooting, and not the image of him cast as an abusive wife beater. Speaking at the State Attorney’s office in Jacksonville, Gray explained his account of how the event which landed his wife in prison unfolded. Since there are always three sides to a story, let’s hear his:

He said it was Alexander, 31, who first began punching him after he confronted her about some text messages she had sent to her ex-husband.

Gray said he put his hands up in defense “buying time” for his two sons to gather their belongings so he could take them and leave. But when he made the remark that their newborn baby must be fathered by her ex-husband, he said she immediately stopped.

“She said, ‘I got something for your — —,’ and walked away,” Gray said. “I knew exactly what she was going to do.”

Gray said she went to the garage, to her truck, to get her gun and then returned back inside the home. He said the garage door that she claimed was inoperable worked for him earlier that morning and later that day with no trouble.

“When she came back inside, the first thing I saw was her putting one [a bullet] in the chamber,” he said.

Gray said by the time his kids had come to his side to leave, she had the gun pointed at him.

“As soon as I took my eyes off Marissa, that’s when I heard the gunshot,” Gray said.

He said he never looked back, grabbing the children and running out of the house and down the street.

[...] Gray said he lied during an initial deposition when he said he had been the aggressor because the couple had settled their differences and gotten back together. He said he didn’t want to see his wife go to prison.

It was after Alexander assaulted him again less than five months later that he decided to no longer support her. She pleaded no contest to domestic battery in that incident and was sentenced to time served. (source)

Now given Gray’s account, can you honestly say that there’d be all this uproar and calls for action like the national day of protest on behalf of Marissa on June 24th, if she was a man? No seriously, I’d really like to hear your thoughts on this. Of course I understand it’s hard to imagine a woman being abusive towards her husband or even aggressive in that regard. Yes, and given that Marissa’s story as told by herself and her supporters has made Gray out to be Ike Turner on steroids and bath salts, It’s hard for most to see her as the aggressor in this instance; heck, women never lie.

Listen to Rico Gray Sr.’s 911 recording:

The post Forget Race: Would Marissa Alexander be in Prison if She was a Man who Acted in Fear? appeared first on THE INTERSECTION | MADNESS & REALITY.

I have to be honest, the fact that the evidence included video footage of the entire confrontation, it was my opinion after watching it, that Rodriguez would be acquitted. But, I was wrong; he was found guilty, and is now awaiting a possible life sentence. However, with Rodriguez being Hispanic and the victim being white, one has to wonder where are all the racial justice activists, and why aren’t they speaking out on his behalf. No really, where are the cries of “injustice,” much like we’ve heard and continue to hear from supporters of Marissa Alexander.

Marissa as you know, is currently serving as twenty year sentence, for as she put it, firing a warning shot to ward off the advances of her abusive husband who attempted to kill her. As I’ve showed recently, her defense failed as, and a jury was convinced by prosecutors that she did not fire a warning shot out of fear for her life; but instead, she acted irresponsibly and out of anger. Like Alexander, I suppose the same could be said of Rodriguez given testimony in court last week by one of his neighbors. As much as I believed he was within his rights to defend himself, I must say the following was pretty damning, and was obviously the nail in the coffin for Rodriguez:

HOUSTON (KHOU/CBS) – A jury has found a retired Baytown firefighter guilty of murder in the killing of his neighbor in a dispute over loud music.

Closing arguments were delivered Wednesday in the murder trial of 47-year-old Raul Rodriguez.

The slaying happened in May 2010 outside New Caney P.E. teacher Kelly Danaher’s home in rural northeast Harris County. Danaher was holding a party that Rodriguez, who lives nearby, said was too loud.

Rodriguez, his attorneys claimed, called police several times before confronting the party-goers with a flashlight, gun and video camera. They said he was within his rights when he opened fire on Danaher and his two friends.

[...] But prosecutors said Wednesday that Rodriguez had a very good understanding of the law, and he tried to use that as a license to intimidate neighbors.

“This is about the neighborhood bully armed with a CHL, with an arsenal of weapons and a knowledge of the law,” prosecutor Donna Logan said. “He felt like he had ultimate control – the control to determine who lives and who dies.”

[...] The defense didn’t call any witnesses, but prosecutors called multiple to the stand, including a neighbor who poked holes in those self-defense claims and portrayed Rodriguez as trigger-happy.

Terri Hackathorn testified how Rodriguez often bragged about his arsenal of weapons, and she recalled an “unusual conversation” she and Rodriguez had a couple of months before the shooting.

Hackathorn testified Rodriguez came to her home excited about a new gun he bought and coached her about Texas’ “stand your ground” laws.

“As long as you tell authorities you fear for your life, then you can shoot (any) son of a (expletive),” Hackathorn said Rodriguez told her. (source)

To the countless individuals who subscribe to the notion that “stand your ground” laws gives license to assholes to become vigilante killers, Raul Rodriguez will now serve as evidence to support their agenda, which is to repeal said law. Which is really sad when you think about it, because these very people refuse to hold Marissa Alexander to the same standard, as they continue to see her as a victim of yet an already racially biased judicial system. That aside, I still have a hard time believing that Rodriguez provoked the confrontation as sold by prosecutors.

During closing arguments, prosecutor Kelli Johnson said Rodriguez started the confrontation when instead of calmly asking Danaher to turn down the music he armed himself with a handgun and a camera and proceeded to harass people at the party.

Johnson said Rodriguez lured and provoked Danaher and two other men to come out onto the street and threatened them by brandishing his gun. Rodriguez did have a concealed handgun license. She said Danaher and the two other men were unarmed and that Rodriguez’s life was never in any danger. Danaher’s widow had told jurors her husband was not a confrontational person.

“This is not what stand your ground is,” Johnson said. “Stand your ground is something the law takes very seriously. The law makes it very clear” when the law can be used.

Texas’ version of the law, which is known as the Castle Doctrine, was revised in 2007 to expand the right to use deadly force. It allows people to defend themselves not only in their homes but also in their workplaces or vehicles. Legal experts say the expansion also gave people wider latitude on the use of deadly force.

The law also says a person using force can’t provoke the attacker or be involved in criminal activity at the time.

Johnson said Rodriguez can’t hide behind the stand-your-ground law because he provoked the confrontation and then brandished his weapon against an unarmed individual, which is a crime.

But defense attorney Neal Davis said he doesn’t believe Rodriguez did anything illegal. He said Rodriguez went to complain and was confronted by Danaher and the two other partygoers, and that he didn’t pull out his gun until he was standing in the street and Danaher approached him in a threatening manner. (source)

I’ve posted and explained recently how race plays a factor in “stand your ground” cases nationally and more specifically in Florida.  And as I said then, I’ll say now: it’s easy to overlook the facts and circumstances surrounding a case and arrive at the conclusion that race pays (or played) a factor in it’s outcome. But to do so, isn’t acting in the interest of justice when one fails to take into account the facts of the case. However, at the end of the day, it’s important to send the message that being in possession of a weapon comes with great responsibility, and accountability.

The post Raul Rodriguez Found Guilty, Jury Rejects “Stand Your Ground” Defense appeared first on THE INTERSECTION | MADNESS & REALITY.

Last year, police officers in New York City stopped and frisked people 685,724 times. Eighty-seven percent of those searches involved blacks or Latinos, many of them young men, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union.

The practice of stop-and-frisk has become increasingly controversial, but what is often absent from the debate are the voices of young people affected by such aggressive policing on a daily basis. To better understand the human impact of this practice, we made this film about Tyquan Brehon, a young man who lives in one of the most heavily policed neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

By his count, before his 18th birthday, he had been unjustifiably stopped by the police more than 60 times. On several occasions, merely because he asked why he had been stopped, he was handcuffed, placed in a cell and detained for hours before being released without charges. These experiences were scarring; Mr. Brehon did whatever he could to avoid the police, often feeling as if he were a prisoner in his home.

Tyquon Brehon

His fear of the police also set back his education. At one high school he attended, he recoiled at the heavy presence of armed officers and school security agents. “I would do stuff that would get me suspended so I could be, like, completely away from the cops,” he recalled. He would arrive late, cut classes and refuse to wear the school uniform. Eventually, he was expelled.

Mr. Brehon’s life turned around when he transferred to Bushwick Community High School and joined Make the Road New York, a community organizing group that is part of Communities United for Police Reform, a coalition of organizations. Because of his experiences, he now hopes to attend John Jay College of Criminal Justice and to become a lawyer, in part so he can help others who are subjected to racial profiling.

Watch the following video Of Tyquons’s story: The scars of Stop-and-frisk

The post How “Stop-and-Frisk” Takes a Toll on Innocent Youth appeared first on THE INTERSECTION | MADNESS & REALITY.

But now this afternoon, the Zimmerman family is hit with an left hook just as damaging as one delivered by a disgruntled Manny Pacquiao, with the arrest of Shellie Zimmerman, the wife of the infamous George Zimmerman for perjury – no word on whether they’ll be sharing a cell.

This from the Orlando Sentinel:

On Tuesday, his wife, Shellie Zimmerman, was booked into the same facility on a perjury charge.

According to the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were alerted by prosecutors Tuesday that a warrant had been issued for Shellie Zimmerman, 25. She was arrested about 3:30 p.m. “at the location she was residing in Seminole County,” deputies said in a statement.

She was booked on a perjury charge, with bond set at $1,000. She is currently “in the process of posting bond,” deputies said.

The arrest comes after prosecutors in George Zimmerman’s case told Judge Kenneth Lester that Shellie Zimmerman lied about her husband’s finances, in order to conceal about $135,000 from the court.

Shellie Zimmerman

[...] prosecutors say Shellie Zimmerman spent the days before that April hearing shifting tens of thousands of dollars out of her husband’s account, then deliberately lied to the judge.

On Tuesday, she was arrested on a perjury charge and booked into John E. Polk Correctional Facility. It’s the same jail her husband has called home since the deception was revealed earlier this month, leading the judge to revoke his bond.

[...] In an affidavit, prosecutors revealed new details about Shellie Zimmerman’s alleged efforts to hide money from the court.

Four days before she testified to having no knowledge of the funds, the affidavit says, Shellie Zimmerman began a series of transfers into her account — totaling $74,000 from April 16 to April 19.

The affidavit says about $47,000 more was transferred from George Zimmerman’s account to his sister’s. Shellie Zimmerman withdrew about $18,000 more in cash, prosecutors say.

Prosecutors say the Zimmermans used a rudimentary “code” to discuss the money in recorded jailhouse phone calls — referring to $100,000, for example, as “$100.” At least two of the calls, the state alleges, were made while Shellie Zimmerman and her husband’s sister were at a local credit union making the transactions.

Zimmerman told his wife to “pay off all the bills” with the money, prosecutors said, including an American Express card and a Sam’s Club card. He also instructed her on how to pay his bail.

According to the affidavit, after her husband was released on bond days after the hearing, she transferred more than $85,000 back into his account. A branch manager at their credit union told prosecutors he knew the couple and saw Shellie Zimmerman talking to her husband on the phone April 16.

The manager said he had helped Shellie Zimmerman transfer control of George Zimmerman’s account, at one point speaking directly to George Zimmerman by phone.

Of course this is a breaking story, and by the time you get to the end of this post, Mrs. Zimmerman would have more than likely posted a bond. I know one thing for sure, don’t ever let it be said that George Zimmerman doesn’t have a “ride or die chick” for a wife – no word on conjugal arrangements.

The post George Zimmerman’s Wife, Shellie Zimmerman Arrested for Allegedly Committing Perjury appeared first on THE INTERSECTION | MADNESS & REALITY.

One of the women in the group smashed a glass in CeCe’s face, cutting and injuring her. As a matter of fact, the glass sliced all the way through her cheek, lacerating a salivary gland. A fight ensued. One of the attackers, a 47-year-old male, died. CeCe was arrested and charged, and self-defense was not considered. By some counts, CeCe was denied proper medical care and was kept in solitary confinement for a month. The woman who initiated the incident and smashed the glass in CeCe’s face was charged nearly a year later; as far as I am aware there is no acknowledgment of a hate crime, despite the guy who was killed having a prior criminal history and swastika tattoo on his chest.

Also, the woman was charged after CeCe pled guilty to manslaughter.

CeCe was sentenced on June 4, 2012 to 41 months in prison. Whether or not she was given due process and justice, she is to spend 3 years and five months in prison. Some of you may be thinking, ‘she plead guilty, now she has to face the consequences.’ What might be the problem with this line of thinking?

CeCe McDonald is a male-to-female transgender woman, and while she identifies as a woman, she will be housed in a facility with male inmates.

The obvious issue popping into the minds of most people invested in CeCe’s case and hopeful for her wellbeing is the issue of physical and sexual violence by the other inmates in the facility. It is a concern an has been reported to the Transgender Law Center from previous inmates that this is a very real fear and concern for both male-to-female transgender inmates and also female-to-male transgender inmates. Rape and sexual violence in prisons are heavy concerns, especially for trans* inmates. There may be coerced sex by another inmate or inmates, or also prison staff. Coercion is rape. There may be gang rapes and violence. And there another main form of sexual violation on trans* inmates according to reports to TLC is unnecessary strip searches and forced nudity:

a frequent substitute for, or precursor to, sexual violence or coercion is the use of strip searches or forced nudity by deputies, guards, officers, or medical personnel. Because of the severe reduction in privacy that occurs in jails and prisons, transgender people have very little control over who sees their bodies. Bodies that often times do not conform to the identity they know to be true or at least society’s expectations about that identity. Therefore, strip searches and public nudity can be especially humiliating to transgender prisoners.

Transgender men in particular report being subjected to unnecessary strip searches. Two men who have been held in San Francisco County jail have told me about frequent strip searches conducted by deputies and medical personnel for no reason other than to seemingly satisfy curiosity. These searches were not related to visits or interactions in which these guys could have been passed contraband. Instead, they seemed to come randomly from many quarters and occasionally involve two or more people doing the search.

Back in Sacramento County Jail, one of the two women described above and two of her fellow transgender prisoners related stories of being forced to walk topless through a gauntlet of male cells in order to get new clothes each week. Along the way, the women were subjected to taunts and catcalls. The very act of walking the line made them objects of both harassment and ridicule.

There are also a whole host of other concerns that include:

- Lack of competent medical care

- Access to programs, jobs, and recreational activities

- Ability to dress properly

- Respecting one’s gender identity and referring to them by the proper name and/or pronoun

- Segregation from the rest of the prison population. This is a huge deal because it has already happened in CeCe’s case. She was kept in solitary confinement for nearly a month by most accounts. Prison staff may determine to place trans* inmates in confinement as a way to, possibly, keep them safe or keep the incidences from occurring. This makes less likely and nearly impossible for the inmate to receive jobs or proper treatment programs.

Also, according to TLC:

The stated purpose of administrative segregation is that people being confined within it are a proven danger to themselves, staff, or other inmates. By using this classification for transgender prisoners, the message is being sent that a person’s gender identity itself is threatening to the institution and that person must be locked away in a prison within the prison.

The Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex (TGI) Justice Project has a prison survival guide for trans* and intersex inmates. According to the survival guide, written by transgender women, “prison politics outweigh prison policy.” Sadly, this comes after the explanation that if you are any race other than Black and housed with the general population, you will be removed or leave the yard because the gang violence geared toward you, as the transgender inmate, will be so harsh.

And sadly, I don’t think that this post adequately describes the horror that trans* inmates have faced, nor the injustice that CeCe and others are facing and will continue to face. According to an article that includes a survey of trans* people of color by Advocate.com:

38% of African-American respondents experienced police harassment, 15% reported being physically assaulted by the police, and 7% reported being sexually assaulted by the police; 38% of African American MTF (male-to-female) respondents reported being sexually assaulted by either another inmate or a staff member in jail/prison; 41% of African-American respondents reported being imprisoned because of their race and gender identity alone; a whopping 47% reported having been in jail or prison for any reason.

According to this article, transgender people are 10-15 times more likely to be incarcerated at some point in their life, and have to face the horrifying circumstances outlined above. Additionally, prior to their incarceration, they often feel unable to rely on the police for protection because the police are often perpetrators of crimes against them. Over 50% of trans* people, notwithstanding incarceration, have been victim to some sort of violence; self-report surveys vary but a significant number of these attacks are sexual violence. 43% of trans* rape victims (both FTM and MTF) who participated in self-report surveys believed their perpetrators homophobia to be the motivation for the assault while 35% suggested transphobia to be the motivation.

[imagebrowser id=3]I applaud President Obama for concluding recently that PREA will apply to all Federal confinement facilities. President Obama has included language that acknowledges the concerns that I have for CeCe and all LGBTQQI people that may be incarcerated at some point. I do have wonders for the general public though; and the main one would be exactly how effective the Prison Rape Elimination Act would be henceforth. A few of the guidelines that detention centers must follow in order to be in compliance with the new guidelines under PREA is that they must:

• Staff should be trained on effective and professional communication with our communities.

• Housing assignments should take into consideration individual vulnerabilities but do not, in most circumstances, place [LGTBQQI] in inferior wings or pods.

• An analysis is required of whether an abuser was motivated by bias against [LGBTQQI], if abuse does occur.

• Transgender detainees cannot be searched solely to determine their genitalia, and determinations must be made on a case-by-case basis about whether [LGBTQQI] should be held in a men’s or women’s facility and cannot be based solely on genital status.

President Obama and company have included many great provisions for trans* inmates, including that they must be given the opportunity to shower separately from other inmates. And while one would hope that these provisions would provide some safety for transgender men and women prisoners, I wonder how effectively it is enforced and how much protection they are really being provided. CeCe will still be housed in a prison of men.

Also, if prison staff are part of the problem, how effective will PREA be? And if trans* people are afraid (with very good reason) to come forward and make staff aware of their rights and request their protections, what can be done? And if, by the counts of transwomen who wrote a prison survival guide for transwomen, prison politics outweigh prison policies, what good is PREA exactly?

What will happen to the CeCes of our community?

The post CeCe McDonald: Self-Defense and Still Defending appeared first on THE INTERSECTION | MADNESS & REALITY.

But, politicians want to sit around and debate the issue. They want to request a whole bunch of statistical analysis to prove what every Black person over the age of 2 years old understands: police profile racially. Why do politicians play this game? To pretend they are actually attempting to address the scourge of law enforcement bigotry without actually doing a goddamn thing about the problem.

If all these folks are going to do is sit around in a little room and say, “profiling is bad…. we should do something about it…” and then move onto the next topic, they need to get the fuck out of office, because they do not care about what happens to real people in the real world.

Who are the people compiling the statistics and where are they coming from? Most of the time, they work FOR the people in power, who are invested in maintaining the status quo. So, not only can they manipulate the facts to make them fit the narrative of the white dominators, but they rely on information given to them by the oppressive law enforcement community. Somehow, the word of a cop is seen as more reliable than that of his victim, so he can lie about absolutely anything and be seen as the “good guy” in the story. What is to stop a white police officer from incorrectly listing the race of his victims in order to “prove” that he is not engaging in racially biased behavior on the job? (In fact, it was proven that in East Haven, Connecticut, police officers did exactly this for many years)

If a victim of police oppression reports the crimes that officers commit against him, it is usually written off as unfounded, or uncorroborated. Yet the word of a single pig is enough to land a man behind bars. Why are police given more credibility than an ordinary community member, especially if that community member is Black?

There is also nothing stopping police officers from harassing and endangering anyone who reports profiling or brutish behavior. Everyone knows about the “blue wall of silence”. If a Black person walks into a police station to report to an officer that one of his fellow “boys in blue” has committed criminal acts against him, he is putting his safety in the hands of people who are invested only in defending and protecting the man carrying the badge.

Combating racial profiling is not about crunching numbers, compiling reports and making recommendations that the police look at as optional. In order to fight racist police practices, there needs to be serious consequences for officers who are caught profiling. They should be kicked off the police force and charged with a felony. They need to be held accountable. As it stands today, police officers can commit even most egregious offenses, like the murder of unarmed people, with little to no chance of repercussions. ANYTIME a police officer shoots an unarmed person, they should be charged and convicted for murder (or attempted murder if the person is lucky enough to survive.) Police officers complain that they do not want to have to stop to think before they act, that it could put their lives in danger… well… tough shit. Shouldn’t you HAVE TO take a second to think before you take the life of another human being?

Police officers also should not be foreign invaders. If there is a need for law enforcement presence in a given community, the officers should be recruited from among local residents only. No more white “good ole boys” rolling into a Black community and running roughshod over the rights of the people who actually live there. Let the white boys stay in their little suburban communities and arrest the folks with the meth labs in their garage.

I understand the desire for activist groups to enforce racial profiling laws. There is this belief that compiling statistics to “prove” that racial profiling exists will somehow force police departments to change their ways. That the threat of removing funding sources to police departments who are non-compliant will help alleviate the insidiousness of racial profiling. However, I think that until a police officer has to worry about facing VERY REAL CONSEQUENCES, like PRISON TIME for engaging in such practices, there is really no incentive for an individual officer to change his behavior.

Recently, there was an amendment passed for Connecticut’s racial profiling law, the Penn Act. A huge production was made about the “much needed changes” to the Penn Act that were added. Basically, the legislators decided that the Penn Act provisions would be enforced more stringently if they added a “traffic stop receipt” concept to the legislation, so that motorists who have been pulled over can be sure that their race was listed correctly. They also included a provision that allowed people to anonymously launch complaints about profiling, and appointed a committee to investigate the claims, as well as to examine the statistics compiled for evidence of profiling. Honestly, I do not see the efficacy of this sort of approach. Why do people need “proof” that profiling happens? We all know it does! How do statistics protect motorists from police officers? Where is the incentive for officers to stop this behavior?

And what about pedestrians? How many anti-profiling laws include people on foot? We all know that “stop and frisk” policies are steeped in racial profiling. Why not include people who are walking through the community under the umbrella of these profiling laws? One proponent of the Penn Act Amendment here in Hartford actually became angry when another activists mentioned that the Act did not go far enough because it only “protected” motorists! He said that the Penn Act was not intended to protect people on foot, therefore the amendment did not include them. Well, if you are “amending” a piss poor law, why not make the logical choice to extend the legislation to cover ALL people who are profiled, not just those in cars?

Compiling statistics is not the solution. SERIOUS consequences for INDIVIDUAL officers as well as departments who violate the rights of community members MUST BE INCLUDED in order for an anti-profiling law to offer any serious protection for the public. It is one thing to “work within the system”, it is quite another to ignore what REALLY needs to be done to address police profiling and brutality simply to get a piece of legislation passed.

The post Does Anti-Profiling Legislation Really Work? appeared first on THE INTERSECTION | MADNESS & REALITY.

This via The Real News Network:

We are here to say that incarceration has nothing to do with solving the problems of American society it has everything to do with putting people in their place repressing people and it’s time for this to end, we want jobs, education, health care, we do not want jails…right now the United States represents 5 percent of the world’s population but we incarcerate 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, this in a nation that’s obsessed with the idea of freedom, the question is why, why do we incarcerate so many people than other places in the world, we clearly don’t have the answers so we are here to say we have to stand up for people like Mumia Abu Jamal. - JOHANNA FERNANDEZ, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, BARUCH COLLEGE, CUNY

It is imperative that we continue to bare witness to the many injustices suffered particular by people of color and poor people in general, all across these United States of America – a country where as you know, said people are over-represented within the criminal justice system, by no accident.

The post “Occupy the Department of Justice”: Trayvon Martin, Mumia Abu Jamal, & Mass Incarceration appeared first on THE INTERSECTION | MADNESS & REALITY.

Alright, so I realize that coming from me, that has to be an absurd question. But ever since a good friend and long-time reader tipped me off to a recent incident in Austin, Texas where she lives, I’ve been struggling to answer that very question myself. Now I realize that for someone like me — a professional racism-chasing minority — to be in support of racial profiling automatically makes me a hypocrite. Not only that, but by having that opinion serves as grounds for having my hood pass revoked and labeled a slave-catcher like Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson and others. So with that in mind, I found myself asking myself the following question: would racial profiling be a bad thing if it involved the profiling of white folks? After all, don’t we look at the redneck in his pickup truck with the Confederate flag  bumper sticker sorta funny? Or what about the white boys with shaved heads, and swastika tattoos who wear Doc Marten boots? Or what about the guy in the child molester conversion van who just loves to pass out candy to kids at playgrounds?

Is it wrong to racially profile those guys?

After reading the story of Scott Henson, and his recent run-in with the police while walking down the street with his 5-year-old granddaughter, after a 911 caller reported what appeared to be an attempted kidnapping. I found the scenario to be familiar with one exception: Hanson is white and his grandchild is black. And let’s be honest: as oddly unusual a sight, I can see why someone would assume this to be an attempted kidnapping. And quite frankly, I can see why someone would want something done about it; at least, that’s what I think.

This according to newsone.com:

Scott Henson (pictured), a self-described White Texas redneck, was cuffed last Friday by a swarm of policemen, because he was walking his Black 5-year-old grandchild down the street. The Austin resident spoke to NewsOne about how he was accosted by police for being in the company of his grandchild, Ty(pictured).

Ty’s mother is not Henson and his wife’s biological child; the couple decided to raise her after her own father died.  Still, the woman calls Henson and his wife “Mom” and “Dad,” and naturally, her daughter refers to the couple as her grandparents.

Henson’s grandchild typically spends Friday nights with her grandfather and his wife, so that the little girl’s parents can get a break.  Last Friday, Henson, who is a journalist and creator of two popular blogsGritsforBreakfast and Huevos Rancheros, took his grandchild to a skating rink near his home as a reward for being a high achiever at school.  The kindergartener grew tired of skating, so the pair decided to walk home rather than have his wife pick them up from the rink.

Ty’s mother is not Henson and his wife’s biological child; the couple decided to raise her after her own father died.  Still, the woman calls Henson and his wife “Mom” and “Dad,” and naturally, her daughter refers to the couple as her grandparents.

Henson’s grandchild typically spends Friday nights with her grandfather and his wife, so that the little girl’s parents can get a break.  Last Friday, Henson, who is a journalist and creator of two popular blogsGritsforBreakfast and Huevos Rancheros, took his grandchild to a skating rink near his home as a reward for being a high achiever at school.  The kindergartener grew tired of skating, so the pair decided to walk home rather than have his wife pick them up from the rink.

After walking a distance from the rink, Henson felt as if he was being followed.  Suddenly, someone called out to them, and it turned out to be a deputy constable.

“She told me to take my hand out of my pocket and to step away from Ty, declaring that someone had seen a White man chasing a Black girl and reported a possible kidnapping. Then she began asking the 5-year-old about me. The last time this happened, Ty was barely 2, and I wasn’t about to let police question her. This time, though, at least initially, I decided to let her answer. “Do you know this man?” the deputy asked. “Yes, he’s my Grandpa,” Ty said.  “What did you say?” the deputy repeated. “He’s my Grandpa!” Ty yelled, then rushed back over to me and grabbed hold of my leg. “Okay,” the deputy responded.

The constable asked for Henson’s name and address, and he chose not to answer stating that if he was not being held for anything, he would like to take the child home.  The woman complied and allowed Henson to leave.

Just as Henson and Ty were approaching their home, a police cruiser that had passed them by after the constable released them suddenly turned around and threw on his flashing lights.  Four more police cars joined, surrounding Henson and Ty.  Officers jumped out of their vehicles with tasers drawn, demanding that Henson throw up his hands and step away from the child.  The officers grabbed the child and put her in the backseat of a vehicle.  By now there were a total of nine to ten police cars surrounding Henson and his granddaughter.

“ I gave them the phone numbers they needed to confirm who Ty was and that she was supposed to be with me (and not in the back of their police car), but for quite a while nobody seemed too interested in verifying my story. One officer wanted to lecture me endlessly about how they were just doing their job, as if the innocent person handcuffed on the side of the road cares about such excuses. I asked why he hadn’t made any calls yet, and he interrupted his lecture to say, ‘We’ve only been here two minutes, give us time” (It had actually been much longer than that). Maybe so, I replied, sitting on the concrete in handcuffs, but there are nine of y’all milling about doing nothing by my count so you’ve had 18 minutes for somebody to get on the damn phone by now so y’all can figure out you screwed up.”

According to Henson, the same  deputy constable who had questioned him earlier walked in on the scene and briefly looked his way as she spoke to police personnel. Soon after, a supervisor arrived and began questioning the officers.  The woman came over to Henson and began explaining how the police department has to take complaints about possible kidnappings seriously. By this point, though, Henson felt he was guilty in the eyes of law enforcement for the “heinous crime of babysitting while white.”

After Henson was released, there were no apologies issued.  After being interrogated, Ty was given a flashlight as a consolation prize.  According to Henson, the deputy constable who could now barely look him in the eyes, “You knew better. This is on you.”

Now of course you know my motto: there are three sides to every story – there’s bullshit, bullshit, and there’s the truth. So with that in mind, and after reading Henson’s blog post myself, I decided to take a look into it and see what the police was saying. And well, I found their story to be intere4sting. Yep, their story even included a release of the dashboard camera video that tells a different story. Yep, Henson wasn’t beaten, tasered, or had a broomstick up the butt like any innocent Black man would have; but, I guess that’s because he was melanin deficient:

Yes, so with that in mind, I’d have to say that the woman who found Scott Henson to be “suspicious”, just like George Zimmerman, she was right to call 911. For me, being vigilant and acting in the interest of safety and security in my neighborhood is what being a good neighbor is all about. But I guess in today’s world where we don’t even know our next door neighbors, being vigilant is a lost art. Hell, no wonder young folks are into that whole “Stop Snitching” thing.

This is what ignorance looks like; and why racial profiling continues to negatively impact the lives of minorities. This is what keeps us apart.

Look, the fact that we live in a society riddled with racism and prejudice is undeniable. As such, racial profiling will always be the order of the day. It has always been a problem for minorities when employed as a crime fighting tool by the police. As trusting as we’re taught to be of people in positions of power, the truth is, they’re not always right. Contrary to what your nightly news tells you, not all Black people are criminals; not all Latinos are “illegal immigrants”; not all people of middle-eastern heritage are terrorists; not all people of Asian persuasion are math, science, and computer geeks; and, though they may not say it on the news regularly, not all white people are racist and fearful of people of color. But maybe if more white folks were racially profiled and it lead to negative consequences, maybe the evil practice of racially profiling minorities would stop.

Maybe then and only then, would my 60-year-old mother would be without fear when she encounters young Black males in hoodies, baggy jeans, and doo-rags while she walks the streets of Brownsville out in Brooklyn, New York as she often does. Talking to her about Trayvon Martin I was ashamed when she told me this, but given the society within which we live, I can totally understand.

Now watch and learn about one Black police officers fight for justice:

The post Scott Henson, Trayvon Martin, & the Kinda Sorta Argument in Support of Racial Profiling appeared first on THE INTERSECTION | MADNESS & REALITY.

I wonder about Anna Brown, a single mother who happens to be Black who died in a St. Louis jail cell after being arrested for seeking medical attention in a hospital emergency room. Above all, I wonder how something like this could’ve happened in America and go unnoticed, or fail to gain national attention in the past six months since her death in a jail cell. It was then it hit me: Anna Brown was a Black woman living on a very limited income, and she was homeless. It was after I read the following piece from Christine Byers at stltoday.com that it all made sense:

Anna Brown wasn’t leaving the emergency room quietly.

She yelled from a wheelchair at St. Mary’s Health Center security personnel and Richmond Heights police officers that her legs hurt so badly she couldn’t stand.

She had already been to two other hospitals that week in September, complaining of leg pain after spraining her ankle.

This time, she refused to leave.

A police officer arrested Brown for trespassing. He wheeled her out in handcuffs after a doctor said she was healthy enough to be locked up.

Brown was 29. A mother who had lost custody of two children. Homeless. On Medicaid. And, an autopsy later revealed, dying from blood clots that started in her legs, then lodged in her lungs.

She told officers she couldn’t get out of the police car, so they dragged her by her arms into the station. They left her lying on the concrete floor of a jail cell, moaning and struggling to breathe. Just 15 minutes later, a jail worker found her cold to the touch.

Officers suspected Brown was using drugs. Autopsy results showed she had no drugs in her system.

Six months later, family members still wonder how Brown’s sprained ankle led to her death in police custody, and whether anyone — including themselves — is to blame.

There seems to be no simple answer.

St. Mary’s officials say they did all they were supposed to do for Brown. Richmond Heights police said they trusted a doctor who said she was fit for jail.

Brown’s mother, Dorothy Davis, isn’t sure what to think.

“If the police killed my daughter, I want to know,” she said. “If the hospital is at fault, I want to know. I want to be able to tell her children why their mother isn’t here.”

Davis also faults the St. Louis County Family Court, which she said forced her into a heartbreaking dilemma after the state took away Brown’s children on a claim of neglect. Davis could take in her grandchildren or her daughter, a judge said, but not both.

“I’m mad at myself because if I hadn’t listened to the courts, she would still be here,” Davis said. “If she had been here at this house, she would be here today.”

[...] Anna Brown was one of 10 children. She graduated from Kirkwood High School. At 18, she had her first child, a boy. She had a daughter nine years later. Brown was raising them alone when a tornado destroyed her north St. Louis home on New Year’s Eve 2010. She moved to Berkeley.

Shortly after, she lost her job at a sandwich shop. Bills lapsed. The electricity was turned off. So was the gas. And the water.

Family members say Brown and her children appeared fine during visits at Davis’ home in Normandy.

They weren’t.

In April, a state Children’s Division representative found Brown’s toilet filled with feces. Burn marks scarred the floors and sinks where Brown had used small fires to stay warm. One refrigerator could not be opened. Insects and rotting food filled another, according to state reports given to the Post-Dispatch by Brown’s family.

Brown was not lucid and seemed confused as Berkeley police arrested her for parental neglect. The courts awarded legal custody of the kids to the Children’s Division. Davis could have physical custody, as long as Brown didn’t live with her.

Brown’s home was condemned. She ended up on the streets. She lived in four homeless shelters from May to September 2011.

Brown struggled with officials’ requirements for reuniting with her children. She passed two drug tests but balked at others. “She felt that she had passed them, so there was no point in doing them again,” Davis said.

A court-ordered psychological evaluation to determine whether Brown had cognitive, developmental, behavioral or mental illnesses came back inconclusive. So the courts ordered a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether Brown needed medication or a doctor’s treatment.

But Brown resisted, not understanding the difference between the two evaluations, according to her caseworker’s notes.

Still, she may have known something was wrong. She joined the St. Louis Empowerment Center, a drop-in center for the mentally ill.

“It was like a light bulb went on when she heard others tell their stories,” said Kevin Dean, a peer specialist at the center. “She was just starting to make progress.”

Brown’s witty comments often broke the ice during group meetings, said Warren Brown, another peer specialist and no relation to Anna.

Anna Brown one day said she hurt her ankle while walking near a ditch, Dean and Warren Brown recalled.

The last time they remember seeing her was in August 2011; she said she couldn’t walk up the stairs.

Brown told her caseworker on Sept. 14 that she had been admitted to St. Louis University Hospital for a sprained ankle.

Bills her mother received show Brown stayed at that hospital from Sept. 13-15 and underwent an EKG, some radiology services, lab work and cardiovascular services.

Dorothy Davis, holding 2-year-old granddaughter Isabel Price, talks about the death of her daughter during an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at her home in Normandy, Mo.

“She wasn’t very eager to go home, but we do all we can to take care of the whole patient, and we want to make sure that we do not push someone out the door as soon as she came here,” said SLU spokeswoman Laura Keller. She said there was no indication of a blood clot in Brown’s leg.

Krystle Brown said she saw her sister for the last time after she was discharged from SLU. She dropped Anna off on Market Street downtown, where Anna said she wanted to be.

Davis didn’t want her daughter out in the rain and ordered Krystle to bring her home — regardless of the court order. It was too late. Krystle couldn’t find her sister.

Four days later, Brown had her last supervised visit with her children. She was on crutches.

[...] State inspectors working for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — a federal agency that regulates hospitals — interviewed St. Mary’s staff and reviewed medical records after the Post-Dispatch asked about Brown’s case in January.

They found that on Sept. 20, Brown returned to SLU Hospital for knee and ankle pain. X-rays of her knees were negative and she was given a prescription for a painkiller.

She refused to leave. Hospital security called St. Louis police, who responded about 5 a.m. Brown told them she wanted to go to a better hospital but refused to go in an ambulance, police said.

She then wheeled herself next door to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center, where doctors found tenderness in her legs. They told her she was at a pediatric hospital. She said she wasn’t leaving unless someone took her to an adult hospital, according to the inspectors.

An ambulance then took her to St. Mary’s, inspectors found. She arrived at 11:45 a.m. Her left ankle was swollen. She was there for about seven hours, during which ultrasounds on both of her legs were negative for blood clots. A nurse said she saw her stand up. A social worker gave her a list of shelters and a phone number for transportation.

She returned eight hours later by ambulance complaining of abdominal pain only, inspectors said. She refused to sign discharge papers but was discharged at 7 a.m.

Richmond Heights Officer Jason Tharp was at St. Mary’s on another call about 10 a.m. when a security officer, Steve Schaffer, told him a woman was claiming she “did not receive adequate medical attention and did not have to leave.”

She was sitting in a wheelchair and told officers she was waiting for a ride. Tharp told her to wait outside or face arrest for trespassing.

“You can’t arrest me. I know my rights, I can’t even stand up!” she yelled, according to police.

Officer Scott Stebelman said he waited for about three hours for a doctor to examine Brown before taking her to jail. At 12:30 p.m., a doctor issued a “Fit for Confinement” report, according to the state inspectors.

The irony of the above story being written this week, is that the Supreme Court listened to arguments on the constitutionality of the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Over the past few days, there have been many people in Washinton DC protesting outside of those hearings either in support of or against the current law now touted as “Obamacare”. I’ve even heard it said that a repeal of Obamacare would negatively impact the lives of women across the country. Even so, I wonder just how many people protesting are aware of Anna Brown’s story, and the countless stories of women like her? It’s one thing to rightfully fight for justice for for Trayvon Martin; and, in doing so taking the opportunity to speak out against the racial profiling of Black men in America.

However, with the fastest growing prison population in the last decade or so being women, I believe there is room for a conversation about Anna Brown and the numerous stories of struggling poor Black women like her. Please believe, many of them are dying in prison without being able to receive the proper medical attention. And like Anna, many of them can be diagnosed as mental patients; but, nobody seems to care about them. But this is to be expected when gender and race intersests.

It’s not right, and it’s not acceptable.

The post What Does Trayvon Martin and Anna Brown Have in Common, Besides Being Black and Dead? appeared first on THE INTERSECTION | MADNESS & REALITY.

Systemic racism? What the hell is that? They ain’t burning crosses and hanging Black folks anymore. Hell, we’s post-racial now, RiPPa! Yeah I know, stories or studies like the following and the one I shared recently about Black folks and bankruptcy are all made up. Yep, studies such as this one aren’t valid. That is, unless they come from white comedians in Blackface on college campuses across America. I mean, why even listen to complaining Black folks, right?

A new academic study of 58,000 federal criminal cases has found significant disparities in sentencing for blacks and whites arrested for the same crimes. The research led to the conclusion that African-Americans’ jail time was almost 60% longer than white sentences.

According to M. Marit Rehavi of the University of British Columbia and Sonja B. Starr, who teaches criminal law at the University of Michigan Law School, the racial disparities can be explained “in a single prosecutorial decision: whether to file a charge carrying a mandatory minimum sentence….Black men were on average more than twice as likely to face a mandatory minimum charge as white men were, holding arrest offense as well as age and location constant.” Prosecutors are about twice as likely to impose mandatory minimums on black defendants as on white defendants.

In federal cases, black defendants faced average sentences of 60 months, while the average for white defendants was only 38 months.

The report concludes that sentence disparities “can be almost completely explained by three factors: the original arrest offense, the defendant’s criminal history, and the prosecutor’s initial choice of charges.” (source)

At any rate, what does it matter to have information like this if nothing is going to be done about it? Yep, simple-minded readers will say this is yet just another reason for people like me to “hate whitey,” I suppose. Rather than act in the interest of justice and equality. I’m pretty sure someone will digest this info and suggest that it’s better that Blacks are locked away longer, because we are genetically predisposed to commit crimes. Sounds crazy, but people actually believe we are.

The issue of mass incarceration is almost never discussed within our political discourse. That is with the exception of the occasional racist Willie Horton ad if you’d like to give the impression that as a candidate, you’re tough on crime. This is one issue that I suppose many see as a political liability. I mean how dare anyone running for president speak about the racial disparities in sentencing, the prison industrial complex, or even the opportunity cost of it all, right?

The post Post-Racial Update: Blacks Receive 60% Longer Criminal Sentences than Whites appeared first on THE INTERSECTION | MADNESS & REALITY.