States Still Sentence Crack Far More Harshly than Powder

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University 

Years ago when the federal government produced disparities in sentencing of crack vs. powder cocaine, many states followed suit. As a result, the black community was devastated with Draconian prison sentences, in which individuals with barely enough crack to weigh were given dozens of years in prison.
The federal government finally came to its senses and changed the law, making it marginally more equitable than it was before. The problem is that many states have not yet made the same change.
The arguments used to justify longer sentences are that the crack trade creates more crime and that the drug is more addictive than powder. Also, the tougher sentences were imposed in 1986, when basketball star Len Bias died from an overdose. It was originally reported that Bias had smoked crack, but a teammate later testified that Bias had snorted powder cocaine instead.

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Dr. Boyce: DEA To Hire Ebonics Translators to Understand Drug Dealers

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Scholarship in Action – Syracuse University 

The Associated Press is reporting that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is considering hiring translators to help agents understand the language of drug dealers. Apparently, the agents are having trouble interpreting the words and sentences being used by suspects during wiretaps. The agency reached out to some translation services companies to find someone to help them with the problem. No, this is not a joke.
"They saw a need for this in a couple of their investigations," Special Agent Michael Sanders said. "And when you see a need - it may not be needed now - but we want the contractors to provide us with nine people just in case."
Yes, this story is making me laugh as much as you are. When I heard that the DEA was considering such a move, I could almost appreciate their intentions, but I think they might be a bit misguided. The first thought that came to mind was whether or not they are presuming that drug dealers speak a dialect of English which matches that of the rest of urban black America? Sure, there are going to be similarities, but most of my urban friends don't understand drug dealers either. Dealers don't just sound like rappers, but actually structure a variation of language and sophisticated codes that nearly anyone would have trouble translating. Rather than hiring an ebonics expert to understand the lingo of drug dealers, they'd be better off hiring a former drug dealer.

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Black Farmers Still Wait for Compensation

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Scholarship in Action 

Black farmers across the United States have been the victims of systematic discrimination for several decades. This has been proven in court, and the United States Department of Agriculture has agreed to pay a $1.25 billion dollar settlement. What is saddest about the settlement, however, is that Congress has not yet approved the funds. This is another form of racism that the farmers must face, since their justice is being consistently denied by government officials who are insistent upon remaining stubborn.

The USDA came under increased scrutiny recently in the unjust firing of Shirley Sherrod. I am hopeful that the sloppy handling of the Sherrod incident is not indicative of the way the USDA does business. In fact, groups have been calling for the firing of the Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. At the very least, the way Ms. Sherrod has been treated should be a lightning rod to bring the plight of black farmers to the surface of our collective conscience.

 

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SCOTUS: Sex Offenders Can Be Held Indefinitely

by Dr. Boyce Watkins

The United State Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the federal government has the right and power to keep sex offenders incarcerated after they've served their sentences. To keep him/her, the government must prove that the the offender may be "sexually dangerous" in the future.

"The federal government, as custodian of its prisoners, has the constitutional power to act in order to protect nearby (and other) communities from the danger such prisoners may pose," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the opinion for the majority.The primary plantiff in the case, Graydon Comstock, was certified to be dangerous six days before his prison term was set to end. Comstock had been arrested for processing child pornography and was filing suit with other inmates at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina.

 

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News: Is Elena Kagan Gay? Supporters Say She is

Elena Kagan's supporters don't do her or gay Americans any favors by publicly expressing their views on her sexual orientation. Whether or not a future justice is a heterosexual or homosexual is irrelevant to questions about fitness to serve on the Supreme Court. That there are some bigoted Americans who would make sexual orientation an issue is no reason to grant them any legitimacy, which occurs when their perverse and offensive interests are addressed. The proper response is to treat the question of sexual orientation as the non-issue that it is and place the burden on the bigots to make their case in the public square… if they dare.

 

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Why Elena Kagan is No Thurgood Marshall

 

From Colorlines.org

Obama’s second Supreme Court nominee clerked for one of history’s greatest racial justice champions. You wouldn’t know it by looking at her career since.

Despite all the hubbub Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination will generate, the truth of the matter is Kagan won’t make much difference to a judicial balance of power that leans rightward. She’ll maintain the status quo: four reliably liberal justices, four reliably conservative justices and one center-right swing voter in Justice Anthony Kennedy. Importantly, that means she will also do little to alter the court’s rightward trajectory on racial justice.

Both Kagan and the White House have made much of her time as a clerk for her self-described mentor, Thurgood Marshall. The hapless Republican National Committee has responded with a bizarre effort to tar her association with one of history’s most celebrated justices. But both sides overstate the connection. Kagan hasn't exactly spent her career as a champion of the racial justice principles Marshall articulated. We need to be asking why that’s the case.

As a Democratic president’s nominee, to be confirmed by a Democratic Senate, we can expect a would-be Justice Kagan to align herself consistently with the liberal voting bloc. After all, today’s Supreme Court appointments rarely let down the presidents who nominate them. Sure, David Souter—whom a wise Latina replaced last summer—was the bane of George H.W. Bush’s existence because of his pro-choice opinions. And retiring Justice John Paul Stevens certainly grew, during his three and a half decades on the court, to become a disappointment for President Gerald Ford’s legacy. I just don’t see that happening to our current constitutional-law-professor president.  

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Reports: Lawrence Taylor will use the "masturbation defense"

Read more about REPORT: Lawrence Taylor Will Use “Masturbation Defense” In Rape Case

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Kagan Hired No Black Professors While Dean of Harvard Law School

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Write your congressman to support the Democracy Restoration Act - Allowing Felons to vote

Here is a form letter you can use to write your Congressman about the Democracy Restoration Act, an act sponsored by Russ Feingold and John Conyers.  The act would restore voting rights to ex-convicts in federal elections.  In case you are unaware, slavery in the United States was never fully abolished.  Actually, it was only abolished for those who were not convicted of a crime.  Therefore, many hundreds of thousands of African Americans are still victims of slavery and involuntary servitude.  This has got to stop now.  To read more on this issue, please click here.

 

Here is the sample letter you can cut and paste to send to your representative.

 

To whom it may concern,

I am a member of the Your Black World Coalition, as well as a concerned American.  I would like to write to express my support for HR3335 - The Democracy Restoration Act, sponsored by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI).

I strongly believe that when felons have paid their debt to society, they deserve an opportunity and incentive to become a part of that society again.  Voting and participating in federal elections is an important part of being an American, and would serve to reduce recidivism, which hurts us all.  Additionally, it would ensure that these men and women receive the representation they deserve from elected officials, since most of us would agree that taxation without representation is fundamentally unfair and unAmerican.

We will continue to campaign on this matter, and hold our officials accountable.  Please do the right thing and vote "yes" on the Democracy Restoration Act.

Is the NCAA a Billion Dollar Sweatshop?

by Dr. Boyce Watkins 

I was invited this week to speak to the Stanford University NAACP about whether or not college athletes should be paid.  When I am asked whether I think college athletes should be compensated for their labor, I simply respond to the question with another question:  “Why shouldn’t they get paid?  Did they not earn the money?  Is someone else earning money from their labor? Is the labor of the athlete essential to the revenue-generating process?”  Answers to these questions help us to understand how insane it is that athletes earn billions of dollars for coaches, but aren’t entitled to any of that money for themselves.  I’ve seen race horses get better deals than that.

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Please join Your Black World to get the latest in black news from Dr. Boyce Watkins and leading black scholars.

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News: Community Outraged as Black Man Shot in the Back

Witnesses say the man was surrendering, but officials in Rockford, Ill., near Chicago dispute that version of events, saying that Mark Anthony Barmore grabbed for an officer's gun after they cornered him in the church.

 

This Aug. 25, 2009 photo shows onlookers, including Mark Anthony Barmore's father, Anthony Stevens, second from right, watching as police investigate the fatal shooting of 23-year-old Mark Anthony Barmore, inside the Kingdom Authority International Ministries Church in Rockford, Ill. The NAACP is renewing a call for federal standards on police use of force after what it describes as the police killing of an unarmed man inside a church as day-care children watched. (AP Photo/Rockford Register Star, Amy J. Correnti)

Both sides do agree, however, that Barmore fled when officers approached him in the church parking lot, which highlights the suspicion and fear that can poison relationships between police and minority communities across the country.

"There are no national standards for the use of force (or) training for use of force," Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said Friday.

The issue "is not primarily about racism," Jealous said, citing the recent case of a 72-year-old white woman tasered by a white Texas officer during a traffic stop. "We want to make sure the standards are the most modern and appropriate ones possible."

The NAACP scheduled a rally Saturday in Rockford and a march Oct. 3. Jealous was planning to attend both; it would be his first march since taking the NAACP's helm a year ago.

The NAACP is seeking the reintroduction of the Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act, first offered by John Conyers, D-Mich., in 2000. It was co-sponsored by 34 legislators but was never voted on by the full House.

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Jackson Estate Not Paying It’s Attorneys

If it is true, that any press is good press, then are quite a few folks in the music business who should be happy about the media spotlight shown on them this week.

The approach of year's end ushers in sadness as we remember the loss of the Michael Jackson, who died in June. Jackson's fans showed their support of his works, and spent a lot of money doing it.

According to reports, Jackson's estate is believed to have earned $100 million. While that is a good figure, there's a bit of an issue. The estate's administrators, lawyer John Branca and music business veteran John McClain, have reportedly not been paid

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Breaking News: Heather Ellis Takes the Plea Deal

Heather Ellis, now a schoolteacher, was a student in 2007 when the Wal-Mart incident occurred.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Ellis' permanent record will be cleared if she stays out of trouble for a year
• Heather Ellis agrees to probation, anger-management class
• Plea deal reached as jury deliberated
• Ellis testifies on her own behalf in racially charged case

Kennett, Missouri (CNN) -- A woman accused of cutting in line at a Wal-Mart, shoving merchandise and assaulting police officers will plead guilty to disturbing the peace and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors.

Under the agreement -- reached after the jury received the case for deliberations -- Heather Ellis will plead guilty to disturbing the peace and resisting arrest. She will serve a year of unsupervised probation, attend an anger management course and serve four days in jail before the end of the year.

The sentence stipulates that if Ellis stays out of trouble for a year, the charges will be sealed and the arrest won't be on her permanent record.

Ellis said after court was adjourned that she was "taking responsibility for her actions and [hopes] that everyone else involved in the case will take responsibility for theirs."

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Dr. Boyce Watkins: Minimizing Funeral Costs

by Dr. Boyce Watkins 

Funerals are never fun. They are emotionally draining and you are forced to endure the shock of knowing that your loved one will never be back in your life. In addition to the emotional devastation, you have to deal with the financial burdens of paying for someone to be buried. We all know that funerals are not free or cheap, and the last place you want to be cheap is when it comes to burying the person you love.
But there are ways you can keep the cost down. They say you can't take the money with you, but someone who doesn't plan for their death may be taking their relatives' money with them to the grave. Here are some ways that you can bury on a budget: giving relatives dignity without creating financial hardship.

There is a funeral cost calculator on FuneralswithLove.com that helps you to figure out how much your funeral might cost and whether or not you're going to be able to pay for it. Effectively, the cost estimator first determines your total resources from prepaid expenses, personal savings/investments, and death benefits. Once you know what is available to you, you have to determine how much you want to spend. Some of us want to go out in style and some of us figure that since we're dead, our relatives should be the ones having all the fun.

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Anderson Cooper 360 Weighs in on the Heather Ellis Case

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Heather Ellis is facing 15-years in prison for allegedly cutting line at a Wal-Mart store in Missouri.

Dr. Boyce Watkins
Special to AC360°

Heather Ellis is in trouble. The 24-year old preacher’s daughter has spent most of her life doing the right things: Going to college, getting ready for medical school and staying out of trouble. What Heather didn’t realize is that even when you do the right things, your margin of error as a person of color in America is virtually non-existent.

When I wrote my book, “What if George Bush were a Black Man?” the key point was that America’s justice system has a difficult time understanding that punishments must match the magnitude of the crime that has allegedly been committed. The actions that a “frat boy” can get away with 20 times during college can send an African American to prison for the next 20-years. America is a country that has, without question, consistently over-charged, over-searched, over-incarcerated and over-sentenced African Americans for the past 400 years of its existence.

Given its ugly past, the criminal justice system has very little credibility, and even police reports are subject to being questioned – especially in a town like Kennett, MO. My father’s a cop, so I know how all this works. Even when black men were lynched 100 years ago, there were always “witnesses” and police reports to say that he was a bad person. Fortunately, lynching does not occur anymore (although a black boy – Walter Currie Jr. – was burned alive by his white classmate in the same area as Heather), but the noose has been replaced with the long prison sentence as the most typical and most devastating form of punishment. As a result, black men and women are filling up America’s penitentiaries at an alarming rate, and it is destroying the core of the black family.

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Opinion: The Heather Ellis Case is Not the Only Injustice in Missouri

• Supporters of Heather Ellis gather on the Dunklin County Courthouse steps on Monday, Nov. 16, 2009, in Kennett, Mo. (AP Photo/Daily Dunklin Democrat, Deanna Coronado)
• by Brenda L. Jones – MSNBC’s TheGrio.com

When hundreds of people rallied outside a Wal-Mart in Kennett, Missouri Monday, they did so to protest the treatment by police and local prosecutors of Heather Ellis, the now infamous 24-year-old African-American college student who three years ago made a routine trip to that very same Wal-Mart to run some errands and ended up leaving in handcuffs after being accused of cutting a checkout line.

Led by civil rights activist Dr. Boyce Watkins and a coalition of civil rights organizations including the ACLU, the protesters marched to the Dunklin County Courthouse where, beginning today, Ellis, a Kennett native whose father still serves the Church in God in Christ congregation in town, will find herself fighting for her freedom after being charged with multiple felonies that could land her up to 15 years in prison. They were there to decry what Ellis has said was the abhorrent treatment she received from both her fellow shoppers and police. In a complaint she filed with the NAACP, Ellis says she was pushed by a white customer, hassled by store employees and called racial slurs by police who physically mistreated her. The police were called to the scene after Ellis and her cousin got into two separate checkout lines, and after Ellis joined her cousin when one line started moving faster than the other.

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Michael Baisden Signs on to Support the Heather Ellis Case

by Dr. Boyce Watkins 

Just when you thought black celebrities didn't care anymore, the "Bad Boy of Radio,"Michael Baisden announced today that he is going to give $5,000 to the legal defense fund of the family of Heather Ellis, a 24-year old black female college student who faces 15-years in prison after cutting in line at a Walmart.

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Black News: Judge Herman Thomas Acquitted of All Charges

A former Alabama judge was cleared Monday of charges that he spanked and sexually abused male inmates.

Former Mobile County Circuit Judge Herman Thomas was found not guilty on seven counts after more than a week of testimony. Judge Claud Neilson threw out the remaining 14 charges.

Thomas wept and hugged his wife and supporters after the judge threw out the remaining charges. He left court without comment. As he left, one supporter threw her hands in the air and shouted, "Thank you Jesus." Other supporters gathered in a circle to pray.

Defense attorneys had painted the 48-year-old as a prominent civic leader who became a victim of felons who lied about him to manipulate the court system.

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Black News: Rally to be held in Kennett, Missouri in Support of Heather Ellis

To join the Your Black World Coalition, please visit www.YourBlackWorld.com.

From Dr Boyce Watkins

www.BoyceWatkins.com

To the Your Black World family:

When the children of my assistant Shauntay (Justin and Journi) brought the case of Heather Ellis to me, I was in disbelief.  I was shocked that in 2009, a young college student, with no criminal record, could face 15 years in prison for cutting line at Walmart.  I was even more appalled by the threats from the KKK and allegations by local leaders that the town went as far as blacking out the local news coverage during the minutes that the family held a press conference in support of their daughter.  We sent information about the case to CNN and other media outlets, and they covered it (along with BET, Essence, ABC News and others), but I don't feel this is enough.  We've decided that we aren't going to take this sitting down, and we hope you won't either

In honor of Justin and Journi, the two young visionaries who convinced me to take on this issue, we've created the "Journey for Justice," set to take place in Kennett, Missouri on Monday, November 16 at 11 am.  On that day, we are going to meet at the Walmart where the incident took place (1500 1st St., Kennett, MO) and march to the steps of the courthouse(Square 200 Slicer St.).  You can find out more information about the case and rally on the site www.TheHeatherEllisCase.com.  Given that the prosecutor in the case (Stephen Sokoloff) has asked for a change of venue (to Bloomfield, MO - a town with less than 20 black people), some of the details of the rally might change (I have no doubt that they are scheming to make this as difficult as possible).  But I can guarantee you this: On November 16, we are heading down there to fight against the madness occurring in this county, no matter what the cost.

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Your Black News: Media Matters Discusses the Heather Ellis Case

Racial injustice rears its ugly head again, this time in rural Missouri, where heavy-handed prosecutor Stephen Sokoloff is threatening to impose a lengthy prison sentence on a woman after an altercation at a local Wal-Mart almost three years ago.

In January 2007, 20-year-old Heather Ellis, then a student at Xavier University, and her cousin David went to a Wal-Mart in Kennett, Missouri, near the Tennessee border, in an area commonly known as the Missouri Bootheel.  Kennett, in rural and conservative Dunklin County, which boasts that it seceded from the Union during the Civil War, is overwhelmingly white.

At the check-out line, the pair split up in order to find the shortest line.  When Ellis left her line to join her cousin at a shorter line, customers complained and a store employee accused her of cutting, at which point an argument ensued and a manager notified a security guard, an off-duty Kennett Police officer.  The situation escalated from there:

In the Ellis version, she was shoved by another customer, had her items pushed aside by the clerk and then was short-changed when she finally was checked out. The police affidavit contends, at numerous times, Ellis became belligerent, loud, abusive and cursing when she was told to leave by the store's assistant manager. Summoned by a frantic phone call from her son, as the pair walked out to the parking lot, [Ellis' aunt] Blackmon says she arrived in time to witness her niece being brutalized by police during attempts to place her in a squad car.

[...]

Ellis was charged with disturbing the peace, trespassing, resisting arrest and two counts of assaulting a police officer. Yet, curiously after being described in the police affidavit as "completely out of control" during her arrest, she was released to the custody of her parents to receive medical attention only 45 minutes after being jailed. However, her arrest triggered a whole series of problems. Although she returned to school in Louisiana, two months later, an attorney hired by the family tried to talk Heather into taking a plea deal offered by powerful Dunklin County Prosecutor, Stephen Sokoloff.

 

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