Power2People

Michael Jackson Vindicated


Not to say the family and I ever truly met, our paths frequently crossed in my hometown of Gary. As a teenager, I was among the throng of youth who threw pennies at the brothers’ feet as they bested all the talent in every competition. I came to say, “that’s why Michael doesn’t like spare change today.”

Yes, MJ's death constitutes a sad story. I find symbolism in everything. I've long told my students that, if Western ideology did not predominate, our worldview would differ significantly. On one hand, as relates to cosmetic surgery....everyone's doing it. Not to be totally judgmental, but it is symptomatic of "insanity by majority rule." Michael's life was one of excess and so, of course, he'd take even this to the extreme.

However, he was a complex personality. When contacted by a local paper to comment on Michael Jackson, during his trial, I reported that he believed in crossing boundaries. Therefore, theoretically, it should not have mattered if he lightened his skin....whether he's black or white. He preached tolerance and embodied it. As a border crosser, he believed that he was Peter Pan and to attribute adult sexual behavior between him and children, I believe, demeaned what he tried to project.

Ironically, about a week before his premature death, I was reading the London Observer. It published an article, "Who Stole the Soul of the Boy from Indiana?" Now, I read it as his eulogy. I was telling everyone about the thoughtful in-depth commentary...the likes of which we still have to see in a US paper. Of course, the article was in anticipation of his London comeback. What really jerked me around was how the writer compared Michael's words with Jesus': "'This is it," he said, "this is reallyit, this is the final curtain call.' With the addition of the theatrical metapor, these are the last words of Christ, who announced his expiry by gasping, 'Consummatum est'." Deep, huh? Here's the URL:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jun/14/michael-jackson

By profession, I teach about spirituality and tolerance. Therefore, I will claim a direct line to MJ’s spirit force. I wept uncontrollably while tuned into his funeral, who knew that it would open with the gospel song, “Soon and Very Soon.” It also accompanied the body of my son, William, at his Homecoming in 2006. Two Gary boys transitioning in the spirit of celebration.

African Americans wake up....We tend to stereotype our sons, brothers, young adult men in a vacuum. I respect that in the U.K. the status of its youth is a worthy of regular journalistic commentary, even its parliament routinely debate and pass legislation related to academic testing, bullying, and surveillance. I use Will Hutton's column as a post to support my own views about the complexity of youth. Let's stop demonizing our young men without considering the added complexity of their childhood development. They are our children...They did not jes' grew like Topsy.

Let's not hate but appreciate the burdens and systematic oppression they must endure coupled with emotional and developmental needs.

Power2People!

The good news about boys ... they do eventually grow up
Last week, Will Hutton touched a nerve with many readers when he asked why teenage boys suddenly turn into monsters. But, he learns, there may be cause for optimism


Will Hutton
The Observer,
Sunday June 11 2006
Article history
I could never have predicted the depth and strength of feeling provoked by my column last week on the emotional turmoil of teenage boys. Hundreds of you blogged, emailed and wrote letters, lifting the lid on what is clearly a widespread and disturbing problem for many parents, and one that seems to many of you to be insufficiently acknowledged
Many of the respondents were mothers who despaired at what was happening to their sons. As they became teenagers, their sons became ever more distant, locked-off and impossible to reach. They retreated into aggression, drug abuse or obsession with games, instant messaging and the internet.

One single mother spoke for many. She had narrowly averted a complete nervous breakdown, she wrote, at one time reproaching herself for ever having had a child. Her son had begun smoking cannabis at 14, was regularly hauled in by the police, verbally abused her and got minimal GCSEs. Now, living with his father, he was beginning to get himself together and had started an apprenticeship.

The education system had let him down completely. She recalled a conversation at a parents' evening in which she disagreed with his woman teacher over whether her son would enjoy Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Some of the boys do, she was told, as if her son would be the odd one out for finding the book incomprehensible. Lord of the Flies, maybe, she replied. But Tess, no. The school system, she complained to me, echoing dozens of other emails, too quickly criticises boys for not being able to do what is prescribed, rather than trying to find ways of engaging them.
The other difficulty for boys, she concluded, was that they needed more contact not just with their fathers, but adult men generally. Too much of education was feminised. Now, as an apprentice, he at last had contact with older men who would have no truck with teenage tantrums. This had been the key to his beginning to recover his balance.

A growing number of relatively small pressure groups are now trying to put men's needs on the national agenda. The inability of boys to articulate their feelings and their tendency to hide behind an aggressive front too easily grows into lack of emotional intelligence as an adult, which in turn leads to behavioural problems and poor health.

This week is National Men's Health Week. Men, I learn, are more likely to die from skin cancer than women because they refer themselves too late. Men in general do not take health as seriously as women. The special week is intended to raise the salience of boys' and men's health; it will be interesting to see what kind of hearing the campaigners get.
The questions remain, though: is the 'boy' problem really getting worse? And can it really be said to eclipse problems for girls? Some angry women tore into last week's article - rape and male violence to women remained the number one issue. I am on their side, but with one enormous reservation. Sexual violence is as much rooted in emotional immaturity and vulnerability about masculinity as about aggression and power. I see no way of ever successfully challenging it without getting a better grip on what is going on in boys' and men's heads.

Last week, I argued that teenagers felt massively more disempowered today than 30 years ago; that being continually promised the prospect of choice without the capacity to realise it brought disillusion: someone else always seemed to be in control. This made deferring gratification, which boys seem to find more difficult than girls, even harder. What was the point? Hence the better exam grades for girls and growing teenage disaffection for boys.

The emails that have rained down on me since make me see that all this has touched a nerve. I have also been struck by the medical evidence that men are inherently more fragile and vulnerable than women, which runs counter to the iconic view of masculinity as an expression of autonomy, physical strength and self-reliance. Sebastian Kraemer of the child and family department at London's Tavistock Institute sent me a paper detailing medical and physiological evidence which points to exactly the opposite conclusion. Men may have more muscle bulk, but we should not be fooled into thinking that they are, therefore, more mentally robust.
Men are born with their cognitive facilities less developed than women and, as they grow, are three to four times more likely to suffer from developmental disorders, ranging from hyperactivity and stammering to Tourette's syndrome.

Kraemer argues, along with the Men's Health Forum, that much illness is gender specific. Women are more likely to suffer from depression and connective tissue disorders; men from circulatory disorders, duodenal ulcers and lung cancer. And men do far less to address their disorders than women.

In all societies, apparently, growing boys have a pattern of poor motor and cognitive regulation which leads to misjudgment of risk. This, together with their emotional illiteracy and loneliness, explains why boys more frequently commit suicide. In England and Wales, the death rate in boys under 16 from all causes is 41 per cent higher than girls and is related to social class. The death rate of boys in social class five is twice as high as in social class one.

Boy infants do show greater spatial, navigational and mathematical skills than girls which, together with their greater readiness to take risks, may have enabled them to deploy their greater muscle strength as hunter-gatherers. Since settled agriculture only emerged 14,000 years ago, a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms, men remain equipped with the cognitive skills that made them effective hunters. But now those skills are a source of potential emotional disorder.

In other words, boys' problems are not new; what is different is their growing inability to handle them. Harvard's Professor Robert Kegan is illuminating on this. In two great books - The Evolving Self and In Over Our Heads - he argues that we should see our mental and emotional life growing as our bodies do. Each period of mental development is a period of trying to understand and direct the feelings and emotions of the preceding period, a process which becomes ever more complex as our cognitive skills develop.

Kegan characterises the early teenage years as the 'imperial' stage; teenagers want to master their impulses and perceptions, but their cognitive skills are not yet sufficiently developed for them to understand and manage their emotions. All they are equipped to do at this stage in their emotional life is to express desires and needs that 'imperially' must be met immediately rather than managed.

Kegan's work begins to help us find an explanation for the 'boy' conundrum. It is not that teenage boys are being wilfully difficult. They simply do not have the emotional or cognitive capacity to behave any differently. They are wrestling with trying to align their deepest feelings with a world that disempowers them. The good news is, as Kegan argues, that as their mental faculties catch up with their emotions, they will get to the other side of their journey to adulthood. It is just that the transition is tougher than it used to be and that the risks are far greater of falling out altogether, at worst committing suicide or of carrying life-long wounds.
I am left where I began. The mental life of boys is a problem. Potential solutions are emerging. Boys need mentors. The apprentice system needs massively boosting. But maybe, too, we should relax a bit over how boys fare between 14 and 19; most will come through as long as they are better understood. Schools need to be more supple and society less demanding over its absolute deadlines about what exams have to be passed and when. First and foremost, we have to begin with the recognition of a truth. Boys may look tough, but they are very fragile. Just like men.

I base this blog on Dr. Julia Hare’s theories, related to the education of African American children. Unfortunately, we’ve elevated what she presents as a catastrophic view. I’ve never encountered so many African American adults ashamed of our youth and scapegoating them, especially in relation to hip hop culture. I plan to spend this upcoming Black History Year addressing this propensity.

Of course, beginning with statements made in the WPA (Works Progess Administration) slave narratives, we can note such expressions of a generational gap. However, now, as a prof, I experience the locus of such negative statements, about them, being regurgitated by my African American students. In my African American folklore class, these students are overly concerned by what their white peers think and ashamed of our coping strategies. It is not as simple of being a matter of social class. From the projects to subdivisions named for plantations, too commonly, African American youth accept the platform aired by Bill Cosby: “We Can’t Blame White Folks.”

Other scholars such as Michael Eric Dyson, in Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind, have dissected this politics. I want to reiterate some of what they say as well as narrate my own privileged position of studying African American culture and being able to bear witness to our strengths in the face of oppression. On the other hand, I am concerned about the general symptoms of internalized oppression. Too many accept uncritically the e-mail in recent circulation, allegedly written by a white male: "A great man once said, 'The best way to hide something from Black people is to put it in a book.'" It has all the earmarks of an urban legend. Regardless, it is one of the most insidious of those in circulation. Of course, we read; but do we deploy critical thinking as we read, whether the newspaper, e-mail, or a Tavis Smiley book?

To begin, we can credit African American scholars like E. Franklin Frazier, who promoted negative research on the Black family and bourgeosie, which many African
Americans accepted to our detriment. It is another commonality to trace any perceived deficiency to slavery and post-slavery experiences, despite the now mounds of research that indicates African Americans developed a multiplicity of adaptive mechanisms to facilitate our survival. We continue to be resistant. However, because these strategies deviate from assimilation models, even among countless African Americans not of this mindset, we still prefer to hear rhetoric about….more African American males in prison than college; sagging is another paean to a prison mentality; and hip hop culture purely propagates misogyny, capitalism, and worse.

Instead, I strive to assert otherwise. The travails experienced were real! But what about the triumphs? The truth is, that no matter how the statistics read, the majority of African Americans are not in prison! When Frazier was touting his theory about the demise of the Black family, 85% were intact!….Many accepted the myth of the matriarch and the welfare systems destruction of two headed households to the further downfall of our marital society. It appears that, without action, African American adherents to a catastrophic view won’t be placated until the majority of African Americans (males and females), indeed, are imprisoned. They will never question the politics involved because they, too, vie to build more cells so that they might have a job (with benefits) without questioning a judicial system that incarcerates at a rate higher than in the 1930s and South Africa during apartheid (see earlier my earlier blogs). The criminalizing of Iraqi civilians goes hand in hand with the criminalization of our youth. Please don’t perpetuate either one.

While "inspire" is the theme of a trendy group of these boutique hotels, my stay was less than inspirational. Buyer beware at this hotel site, which caters more to outside patrons than its own guests. On the surface, it appears to be open to diversity. Being Hotlanta, most of its clientele are African American professional. I found the staff rude and obnoxious, especially its glorified bouncer, Shaun, who exclaimedthat he "runs The Roof." The hotel's literature states that this venue is available by reservation. However, when inquiring, I was sent helter skelter from the lobbydesk to the adjoining restaurant's reservation desk. Finally, I was told that guests could gain access without reservation. Yet I was accused of "sneaking up." As an older African American adult, I felt threatened by the Aryan attitude and Gestapo tactics of Shaun. He really needs to aspire to achievepower and authority that does not entail being rudeand condescending about an amenity that is highly touted. I literally was barred from ever going there because I questioned his heavy handed approach to a "little ol' lady."In addition, over a two night stay, every other trip to my room resulted in my keycard being invalid and having to trudge back to the front desk. Check out also was a nightmare. It is as though once you've paid in advance there's no need for common courtesy. I spoke to an individual--coordinating Usher's little brother's birthday, who just paid $25,000 for a party there and received far less than bargained for. I've seen hotels of this ilk come and go. Moreover, my experience seems in line with that of African American women passengers being detained disproportionately by Atlanta's custom officers. I think the Aryan nation is not only alive but well dispersed throughout Atlanta to remind African Americans of our marginality.

The U.S. and its wars! The ongoing War on Drugs and now against Terrorism are appalling enough; however, it was The War on Poverty (1964-1968) that the rest emulate. Frankly, I haven't known this country to win a declared war in my lifetime-whether Korea, Vietnam, or even the Gulf War, which sought ultimate redemption. I am convinced that the War on Poverty, a campaign supposedly to alleviate impoverishment, gained legislative support due to the Long Hot Summers in urban America. Between 1965 and 1968, more than three hundred riots occurred, resulting in two hundred deaths and the destruction of several thousand businesses.

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the Watts rebellion, which launched the greatest amount of public scrutiny. On August 11, 1965, a routine traffic stop in South Central Los Angeles provided the spark that lit the fire of discontent. The rebellion lasted for six days, leaving 34 dead, over a thousand people injured, nearly 4,000 arrested, and hundreds of buildings destroyed. “Burn, Baby, Burn!” was the enraged battle cry, as beleaguered African American citizens expressed their pent up fury. Watts pointed to Northern problems as complex and urgent as those of the South—perhaps even more so.

I take exception with referring to Watts as a race riot. Historically, race riots resulted when white mobs wantonly attacked African Americans to further racial oppression. As for ‘riot,’ it is a term that trivializes African American overt expressions of violence. In Iraq, the media describes U.S. opposition as insurgency. These uprisings were a form of protest bordering on revolt, and they reflected the anger and confusion felt by many under ghettoized conditions. The nation was not aware of the depth of ghetto despair until the Watts rebellion.

Watts occurred eleven years after the Supreme Court struck down legislation upholding the separate but equal laws of the land. The Civil Rights Movement in the South galvanized attention. Meanwhile, a high jobless rate, poor housing, and bad schools plagued inner cities. Urban cities began to burn incessantly every summer for most of the 60s. Rather than being planned strategies, most of these uprisings were spontaneous as the result of a direct catalyst such as police brutality. As the Kerner Commission’s study of U.S. riots bears out the primary cause was racism: “White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it."

Although the War on Poverty generally focused on rural America, it functioned primarily as a weapon to pacify urban unrests. It is the same tactic perennially used by power structures. According to the July 10, 2005 London Sunday Times, before explosions rocked that city and as part of that government’s counter-terrorism strategy codenamed Operation Contest, the plan was “’to win over the hearts and minds’ with policy initiatives including anti-religious discrimination laws, Muslim mortgages and high-profile roles for leading Muslims.” This strategy of prevention speaks to how, regardless of what the nation says about its refusal to be provoked by violence, it only bows to the threat.

While not advocating violence, I only state an observation. I insist that Martin Luther King’s nonviolence movement was one tactic. Yet, when it came down to the passage of the federal civil rights legislation of 1964 and 1965, it was those Long Hot Summers, primarily in the urban North, that contributed to these results. By 1965, the use of nonviolent direct action increasingly came under attack by African American activists.

The history lessons from the past should prepare us all to recognize that, what government officials now prefer to call “The Struggle Against Extremists,” cannot be achieved. Downgrading their rhetoric from a war, for military recruitment purposes, bears out what I’ve been saying all along. It amounts to a concession. I aver that there should be no place for war, or its rhetoric, in the 21st century and beyond. Moreover, pacification movements never bring about peace and justice. Struggle, now there’s a great concept! Quoting abolitionist Frederick Douglass, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” Let us not abdicate the persistence of our struggle to the unjust. A luta continua….the struggle continues.

As a legacy of the forced servitude experienced by African Americans, historically, Emancipation Day is a celebration exclusive to them. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, in a Catch 22 situation and not wanting to alienate those slaveholding states that did not secede, issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Leading up to its passage, the Union army lost most of the early battles of the war. Therefore, the South had the upper hand. As the war progressed, there was a need for more manpower. After the Union army won the Battle of Antietam, one of the bloodiest scrimmages, as a strategy, Lincoln thought this was probably the best time to issue his Emancipation Proclamation. In effect, the Proclamation said that enslaved Africans in all states still in rebellion as of January 1, 1863, would be free. From that point, although considered contraband, thousands of African Americans flocked to the Union lines to help fight and to escape oppression. Finally, with General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Virginia on April 9, 1865, General Order Number Three authorizing their freedom traveled very slowly. So it wasn't until sometime later that African American in the Deep South and Texas acquired the news. Tallahasseans received notice on May 20, 1865 when General Edward McCook read the Emancipation Proclamation from the steps of what is now the Knott House on College and Park Aves.

By the following year, Emancipation Day celebrations sprang up immediately to memorialize this auspicious occasion. However, the date the freedom decree was delivered differs throughout the South. In Texas, Juneteenth celebrations originated to commemorate the date on June 19, 1865 when enslaved Africans there received official notice of their freedom. Due to the longevity of this celebration in Texas, other African American communities have since embraced this date. Yet if you traversed Centerville Road on this past, Saturday May 22nd, you possibly observed the festivities or overheard a cacophony of sounds. Interestingly, without a break, African Americans here still celebrate the 20th of May, speaking to their greater need to immortalize the plantation experience of their ancestors. Warding off encroachment by upscale housing developments, an enclave of African American residents reside there and maintain a park, which comes alive to educate and to ensure no one forgets the past infamy of slavery or the jubilation its abolition produced.

Traditionally, the observance constituted a day of remembrance and reclamation.
Celebrants always assembled on the actual date and referred to the holiday as the “20th of May.” Even most of their white employers recognized the importance of the day and released them from work. In rural sectors, administrators closed school for the day; whereas, in Tallahassee proper, they cancelled school a half day. People amassed in droves in their local communities to picnic, play games, perform, and dance. The celebration amounted to a feast day and offered a far greater range of food than any other holiday in the year. In addition, most remember most the homemade lemonade served from fifty-gallon steel drums. Also, the division of labor placed the making of lemonade and cooking of meats and frying of fish within the male domain, with women supplying main dishes and desserts.

In keeping with tradition, this year, several hundred guests began to assemble around 1 p.m. under a tent to witness a program consisting of sacred music and the spoken word. All participants are descendants of Sarah Johnson Hill, who initiated this particular celebration along with Debbie Edwards in 1924. Vera Jefferson Branton presided over the program intended to mirror the activities from days gone by. Hunter Hill, Jr. narrated the “Occasion,” specifying the longevity of the event and the family’s rich history. His brother, Otis Hill, provided a rousing overview entitled “Why We Celebrate.” He emphasized the family’s pride of place, emphasizing the planning that long accompanied Emancipation Day from the earlier building of a stage to the use of lime and water decoratively to whitewash the tree bottom of tree trunks. The real glory pertained to digging a hole to set the maypoles. The plaiting of the maypole remains a family tradition. As in bygone days, young children and then young adults embraced the opportunity to reenact a British custom that African Americans in the region have made their own to the artistic beating of snare and bass drums.

As in the past, the main theme of the celebration remained education. It is customary for school age boys and girls to recite poetry appropriate to their age by Langston Hughes and others. To foster an interest in intellectual pursuit, for about three weeks before the celebration, all the children in the community used to go to Mama Sarah's house to obtain a speech. Otis Hill stressed how as a child he had “to practice, practice, practice.” When their ancestors gave them something to learn, they expected compliance. Over a dozen descendants of the sponsoring families, the Hill, Jefferson, Jenkins, and Williams, did not disappoint. They performed group songs such as “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hand,” popularized by Mahalia Jackson. In conformity to past teachings, no detail seemed to be overlooked, except for the greasy pole, another European tradition local residents relished with their own twist. They would cut down a sweet gum tree and then take a knife and draw the bark off the tree. The tree would secrete resin that was very slippery and slimy. If you could climb to the top of the pole, you were the winner. According to family history, however, the man who brought the ham placed on top always took it back home. While lots of funs, no one could accomplish the deed.

Moreover, without charge or fanfare, the sponsors fed all in attendance and furnished entertainment performed by The Star Lite Rhythm and Blues Band. This Emancipation Day celebration continues to thrive strictly by word of mouth. For most guests, Emancipation Day remains as significant as Christmas or Easter. One does not have to be a direct descendant to benefit from sharing this glorious celebration of freedom, hope as well as continued spiritual and economic prosperity.

People Think That They Have Rights in This Country


For too many African American males, false imprisonment operates as a national means of sociopolitical control. Society tends to stigmatize young African American males, invisible no more, strictly as criminal elements. In “Portraits in Racial Profiling: When Clothes Make the Suspect,” written for the Village Voice in 2000, Peter Noel exposed how “’the felon look’ – that ‘Tupac-thug-for-life’ image – account[s] for a majority of the stops and frisks.” He also noted that whites wearing the same style are rarely criminalized According to one local public defender, the Tallahassee Police Department (TPD) generally casts a broad net to arrest these African American males at an exorbitant rate. Policemen establish charges that can be plea-bargained down but still translate into long sentences. Prosecutors insist on upholding the sentencing guidelines set by Florida legislators, seemingly in violation of the separation of the judicial and legislative branches. Tallahassee’s State Attorney, William Meggs, is known for his aggressive prosecution. As reported by James L. Rosica in 2002 for The Tallahassee Democrat, “State Attorney Willie Meggs' office filed formal charges in 93 percent of 1999 arrests; the statewide average was 77.5 percent.” And jurors are not from among the defendants’ peers. Based on licensed drivers, they derive almost solely from the middle class instead of registered voters.

Christopher Smiley (his name is changed) represents this grim reality. Chris comes from an upstanding family that was changed forever by the wrongful imprisonment of their son, grandson, and nephew. On a sweltering summer day in 2003, he discovered himself charged for grand theft larceny of $100, 000. The charge carries a maximum sentence of thirty years. His girlfriend, a bank courier, apparently, failed to lock her vehicle, allowing someone to abscond with bags containing bank receipts and checks. Of course, no money was being transported. But rather than conducting a full investigation, the TPD focused only on Chris, without any evidence linking him to the bank’s property. Eventually, after perjuring herself, the girlfriend copped a plea, and Chris was left holding the proverbial bag. Writing to the judge, Chris expressed:

Dear, Judge ________

This [is] Christopher Smiley, the young man who [was] sent to trial on the 25th and lose, well first thing first how could ya’ll find a person guilty when there is no witnesses only and she has a perjury charge and also it wasn’t no evidence to link to me. Sir, on the day this happen I really was to my sister-in-law’s house, I was thinking that Mr. ________ was going to put her on the witness stand so she could notify that I was to her house, but he didn’t. I never agreed to nothing when I was at trial, except I said that I wasn’t going on the stand if I would’ve known then I would have gotten up there. Mr. ______, I am innocent of this crime and, if I have to go to prison, I will be back to prove that I am. Sir, I am not a troublemaker or bad I always catch myself in some B.S. if you [know what] I mean. I am not the mastermind behind this. In fact, I never knew nothing about this ‘til I got arrested the first time. Like I said, sir, my sister-in-law and my lover, which is her next-door neighbor, can notify that I was to her house. Sir, you can go check my record and you will not find grand theft or burglary on it because I am not that type of person.

His voice speaks for many presently in the Leon County jail and state prison system due to legal ineptness and misguided justice, not criminal activities. The public defender’s office is deluged with such cases. According to a well-known local criminal attorney, such letters are usually indicative of a defendant who retained poor legal council. Chris wrote his judge four letters. At one point in our history, we would expect this disregard for human rights and liberty from Leon County sheriffs. But today, the TPD defies all the gains of the Civil Rights Era and wantonly creates criminal records by entrapping unsuspecting youth. Of course, I do not equate all prisoners with false incarceration. In 2001, a Citizen Task Force Committed submitted to County Commissioners a report on the “Over-Representation of Black Youth and Adults in the Leon County Jail,” which revealed a nearly 1:4 ratio (white to African Americans). Being the highest of eight Florida counties, I would also project this predatory beast feasts on considerable monetary incentives for the arresting agency. In the Fiscal Year 2004, the Police Department's operating budget totaled $38.7 million dollars. In 2003, it reported an average daily population of 1,035. The TPD, with the unbridled support of the State Attorney’s Office, clutters the jail without regard to the truth behind convictions such as that experienced by Chris.

Mr. Judge ______________

This is Christopher Smiley again writing you to ask you to spare my life from the situation I am in. Mr. _________ I know I haven’t been a perfect person in my life, but everyone make mistakes, but these charges the state have on me is not one of the mistakes I made. Mr. ________ I was on my way to be a successful career man and probably to be an army man as soon as I would of got my G.E.D. I had goals I was trying to achieve, but now I can’t because I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. Sir just because the juror found me guilty really doesn’t mean I am, they don’t even know me not even as a person who has these charges pending on them. I am not a bad person Mr. ________ I’m just trying to straighten my life out. Sir, I will tell you and I will tell the whole world that I am innocent and that I have been lied on by a person who has a perjury charge and cant get her stories right. Sir, if you go back and look at my case she had told the police a million stories and she doesn’t know how to be honest. When I say her I mean _________ __________. She got on the stand and lied on me. The reason why I didn’t get on the stand was Mr. ________ said it wouldn’t be my best entrance [sic]. That’s why I kept saying ‘no’ when you were asking me. I never been to trial on a case before. So I didn’t know what to expect, I was just following my lawyer procedures as told. Before you make the decision on what you going do with me just go back and look at my case and you will wee how I have been framed. Please, Sir, I am innocent and I really need you to help me.

Do not let this melancholic voice go unrequited. The citizens of Tallahassee should call for a moratorium on the sentencing of young African American males arrested by the Tallahasse Police Department for nonviolent crimes to determine those wrongfully accused. Other city and state governances have imposed moratoriums on the use of stun guns (Chicago) and on the issuing of the death penalty (Illinois). We have no reason to feel safe in our homes knowing a general population is being preyed upon by city workers, whose sworn duties are to serve and to protect. As for Chris, he is supposed to be happy with a 48-month prison sentence at a facility where he cannot even earn his G.E.D.

More information:
For Rosica’s article, which bears out much of what is stated here, see www.kri.com/papers/greatstories/tally/justice1.html.