Breaking The Silence about the Civil Rights Movement Conformity and Sexism

When director Ava DuVernay decided to helm the Martin Luther King, Jr. biopic Selma, she noticed something missing from the script.

"When I first came on board the project, the women were not there at all," she told Melissa Harris-Perry in an MSNBC interview.http://mashable.com/2015/02/05/civil-rights-women/#Ql9pDAq0Kiq6

Wednesday January 23, 2013 4pm Cecil B. Moore Branch Library, 2320 Cecil B. Moore Avenue,  i attended the Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice with the Cecil B. Moore Philadelphia Freedom Fighters– Co-sponsored by:   Moonstone Art Center, Cecil B. Moore Philadelphia Freedom Fighters and the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Temple University Libraries. Very interesting conversation about the history of the Philadelphia Freedom Fighters. I learned from Mr. Larry Ribon that media changed the fight for African American human rights movement into the African American civil rights movement. 

Doing further research on Ida. B. Wells i learned that she started the NAACP to give voice to people of color only for the conformed African American men to take the organization from her. The lives of W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells often ran along parallel tracks. Both used their journalistic writing to condemn lynching. Wells and Du Bois seemed to disagree on the story of why her name did not appear on the original list of NAACP founders. Du Bois implied that Wells had chosen not to be included.^[39] But, in her autobiography, Wells complains that Du Bois deliberately excluded her from the list.^{[40] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wells}

Further research into the civil rights movement reveals those challenging conversations of 

the African American man versus the African American woman. I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. Conceptualized 

Reduced to sound bites and videoclips, Martin Luther King's image has become one of a starry-eyed dreamer and conformist, contends Dyson (Making Malcolm, etc.) in this attempt to reclaim the man he views as heroic and flawed from biographers, conservatives and cultural pundits who, Dyson maintains, have molded King's myth to fit their own political agendas.

Dyson tackles such difficult issues as the exclusion of women activists from civil rights organizing. He also deals adeptly with King's adulterous liaisons, his disillusionment with whites, the accusations of plagiarism against him and the troubles in King's marriage. His attempt to resurrect King as an evolutionary and revolutionary thinker who was not ""down"" with the status quo brings home that his stance on economic equity and the Vietnam War intensified the FBI surveillance that Dyson believed led to his death. In the end, Dyson successfully proves how vital King's true political views and personality are to struggling and frustrated black youth today. (Jan.)http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-684-86776-2

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Sexism in the Civil Rights Movement: A Discussion Guide

Blogs and Articles:

 

Civil Rights Movement

 

Gender Equity

Overview: 

A closer examination of heroes in our culture.

Teaching about the Civil Rights Movement used to be easy. These days, however, when educators assign research projects about the struggle to end U.S. apartheid, students are likely to stumble upon resources that contain disturbing and seemingly adverse information.

One such resource is Michael Eric Dyson's recently released I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. Conceptualized and written for today's "hip hop" youth, this new biography delves deeply into allegations about King's chauvinism and promiscuity as well as into sexism in the Civil Rights Movement generally. In this way, the text complicates the commonly held, one-dimensional perceptions of King and the struggle to end segregation.

Teachers can handle resources like I May Not Get There with You in several ways. We can revert to lecturing about the Civil Rights Movement, telling students only what we may want them to know. We can assign research projects and then wait for students to ask questions about the allegations, hoping that they never do. Or we can assign research projects, anticipate students' discovery of controversial materials and then provide a framework for classroom discussions about the allegations.

After reading or hearing about books like Dyson's I May Not Get There with You, many students may question the very heroes whom they have admired from a very young age. Others may be tempted to discount the Movement's heroes or even the Movement itself. But by talking with students about the allegations, educators not only can help students reclaim the importance of the Movement and the contributions of its leaders, they also can help students recognize their own capacity to do good works.

The following points are designed to help teachers of the upper grades navigate classroom discussions about King's alleged promiscuity and chauvinism, as well as sexism in the Movement generally; they are not intended to simplify a complicated issue.

Point #1: Sexism in the Civil Rights Movement did not exist in a vacuum.
Dyson quotes civil rights activist Bernard Lee as saying: "Martin … was absolutely a male chauvinist. He believed that the wife should stay home and take care of the babies while he'd be out there in the streets." This sentiment -- that a woman's primary role is as a homemaker or caretaker -- certainly is not limited to King, to other black leaders in the Civil Rights Movement or to the black community.

In 1963, for example, Betty Friedan, founder of the National Organization for Women, published The Feminine Mystique, which exposed the strict and confining gender roles instilled in U.S. society in the 1950s and 1960s -- and, arguably, today. A frank and troubling exploration of the white housewife's daily existence, The Feminine Mystique revealed how white girls were socialized to marry and then live vicariously through their husbands and children, without establishing their own identities or interests. Further, the volume identified the ways in which society justified and perpetuated this system of male domination -- mainly through reinforcement of unquestioned societal assumptions about gender via media outlets, schools, houses of worship and other venues.

The sexism that was present in the Civil Rights Movement was a continuation of oppressive mentality that existed in the larger U.S. culture, which was and is a white, male-dominated culture.

Point #2: The leaders of the Civil Rights Movement never intended to end all forms of oppression in the U.S
Movement leaders set out to tackle one specific type of oppression -- racism -- focusing primarily on racial segregation. The Civil Rights Movement accomplished what it set out to do; it secured equal legal rights for people of color in the U.S. The value of the Movement's success cannot be overstated.

Oppression, however, is a complex system of isms and phobias that work both independently and in coordination with one another. The term "African Americans" denotes a racial group in the U.S., but that racial group also includes members of other marginalized identities, such as women, gay men and lesbians, people with disabilities, poor people and others. Thus, while African Americans are united in their experience of racial oppression, they also struggle against sexism, homophobia, ableism, classism and other forms of oppression. Likewise, many members of these other groups benefited directly from the Civil Rights Movement's successful effort to dismantle racial segregation.

King himself recognized the intersection of race and class in the black experience and spent the last years of his life working for economic justice. Had an assassin's bullet not cut him down, King may well have advocated for other forms of equity. His wife, Coretta, has served as a spokesperson for both women's and gay rights in the years since her husband's death.

The Civil Rights Movement sought to secure equal protections for people of color in the U.S. The struggle was about racism and racial segregation; we should not presume that it was about anything else.

Point #3: The Civil Rights Movement has served as a model for other social justice movements.
Although the Civil Rights Movement did not deal explicitly with issues like sexism, it has provided a paradigm for other groups interested in challenging oppression. In Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, editor Lee Ann Bell argues:

The Civil Rights Movement fired the imagination of millions of Americans who applied its lessons to an understanding of their own situations and adapted its analyses and tactics to their own struggles for equality. For example, Native American, Chicano and Puerto Rican youth styled themselves after the African American youth in SNCC [Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee] and the Black Panther Party. The predominantly White student antiwar movement drew directly from the experiences of the Black freedom struggles to shape their goals and strategies. Early women's liberation groups were spawned within SNCC itself as black and white women applied the analyses of racial inequality to their own positions as women, as did Latinas within the Puerto Rican Youth. The gay liberation and disability rights movements also credit the Civil Rights Movement as a model for their organizing and activism. Poor people's movements and welfare rights likewise drew upon this heritage.

By providing a replicable platform, the Civil Rights Movement has impacted and vicariously lent its support to almost every subsequent effort for social change in the U.S.

Point #4: Women contributed significantly to the Civil Rights Movement.
Although sexism limited the roles that women could play in the Civil Rights Movement, we should not devalue or minimize the impact of female activists in the struggle to end U.S. apartheid. Books like Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers, 1941-1965clearly establish the ways in which women contributed to the Movement's success. Indeed, it relied heavily on women and their labor to secure its goal.

The most well-known female activist of the civil rights era is Rosa Parks, fondly known as "the mother of the Civil Rights Movement." It was Mrs. Parks, of course, who refused to vacate her bus seat to make room for a white man. Her single act of defiance on a cold winter day in 1955 drew national attention to the plight of blacks in the Jim Crow South and resulted in a 381-day bus boycott that succeeded in forcing the desegregation of the Montgomery, Ala., public transportation system.

Following her display of courage, Mrs. Parks did not exactly rise through the Movement's ranks as one might expect. In fact, by the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march for voting rights, many people were unaware of her contribution to the Movement. She recalls her experience in that march: "[The young people] didn't know who I was and couldn't care less about me because they didn't know me." For many, Mrs. Parks had faded into the background, spending the years subsequent to the bus boycott working in a sewing factory in Detroit. In 1965, she joined the staff of newly elected Michigan Congressman John Conyers and served as his aide until her retirement in 1988 at age 75.

According to her biographer, historian Douglas Brinkley, Mrs. Parks has only recently begun her assent back into the national spotlight, receiving the credit that she is due. On June 6, 1999, 44 years after that fateful day on a Montgomery bus, President Clinton presented Mrs. Parks with a Congressional Medal for Lifetime Achievement.

In the years since the Movement, Mrs. Parks has spoken publicly about the dangers of sexism. When she met Pope John Paul II in St. Louis, Mo., in 1999, she shared these words with the pontiff: "My lifetime mission has been simple -- that all men and women are created equal under the eyes of our Lord." In the spirit of her activist mantra "quiet strength," this simple sentence was Mrs. Parks' way of challenging women's secondary status in the Catholic Church.

Mrs. Parks' story illustrates that, although sexism limited the roles that women could play in the Movement, their contributions were crucial. Further, her long-standing work for justice reminds us that many of the Civil Rights Movement's female activists have continued the struggle against racial oppression and have gone on to combat multiple forms of oppression, sexism included.

Point #5: Martin Luther King Jr. and other male Movement leaders remain heroes.
Although King and other male Movement leaders participated in seemingly contradictory behavior (advancing racial equality, yet subjugating women), they are heroes. What is a hero? One of the best definitions comes from the Giraffe Project, a nonprofit organization that finds, commends and publicizes the efforts of people who "stick their necks out for others." Heroes, according to the Giraffe Project, are people who take risks for the common good: "By risk, we mean the possibility of losing a job, health, safety, significant amounts of money, or acceptance by the community or by peers. By common good, we mean that [the actions] benefit many people."

History will never tell us what would have happened had women served in prominent leadership positions during the Civil Rights Movement, but it does reveal clearly that Martin Luther King Jr. and other men took risks for the common good. Indeed, many of these activists met death and imprisonment while advancing this nation's promise that "all men are created equal."

Point #6: By acknowledging the imperfections of the Civil Rights Movement's male leaders, we recognize not just their humanity, but ours as well.
In his impressive volume, Soul of a Citizen, Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time, author and scholar Paul Loeb explores the ways in which everyday citizens excuse themselves from activist efforts. He writes:

Chief among the obstacles … is a mistaken belief that anyone who takes a committed public stand, or at least an effective one, has to be a larger-than-life figure, someone with more time, energy, courage, vision or knowledge than a normal person could ever possess. This belief pervades our society, in part because the media tends not to represent heroism as the work of ordinary human beings, which it almost always is. ...

Loeb continues:

As a result of such images, many of us have developed what I call the perfect standard. Before we will allow ourselves to take action on an issue, we must be convinced … that we have perfect understanding of it, perfect moral consistency in our character, and that we be able to express our views with perfect eloquence.

King and other Movement heroes were just like the rest of us -- flawed. In U.S. culture, role models are often expected to be superhuman or to possess character beyond reproach. But heroes are not perfect; they are people. We must find a way to embrace human weakness and human accomplishment at the same time. If we do not, what do we say about our own capacity to serve the common good?

Conclusion
No amount of context can offset the disturbing revelation that King and other male leaders not only ignored sexism but were complicit in it.I May Not Get There With You may leave readers embarrassed by the sexism that seemingly permeated the Civil Rights Movement. One is tempted to ask, "Why must Dyson soil the reputations of these leaders? Why must our memories of the Movement be polluted? Couldn't he just leave well enough alone?"

It is Dyson himself who responds most eloquently to these questions. He writes:

King's failures were significant, but they pale in comparison to the majestic good he did. As King knew, character should never be judged in Manichaean terms. Human striving to do right must balance human wrongdoing, since, at its best, life is a tattered quilt of the good and the bad. King lived a life obsessed with helping others. He loved when he was hated. Her forgave when he was despised. ...

If he could forgive his enemies and friends for their faults, we can forgive him his. We need not idolize King to appreciate his worth; neither do we need to honor him by refusing to confront his weaknesses and his limitations. In assessing King's life, it would be immoral to value the abstract good of human perfection over concrete goods like justice, freedom, and equality -- goods that King valued and helped make more accessible in our national life.

Indeed, by looking into all aspects of King's character (some would say disparaging his character), Dyson builds a new vision of the Movement and casts its leaders in a new light. The result is powerful: As we begin to see King and other male activists more clearly, we also begin to see ourselves as their peers. We are imperfect, yet capable of enacting enormous good. Dyson's portrayal of the Movement not only is more honest than other historical accounts, it is perhaps more inspiring.

(Sept. 2007)http://www.tolerance.org/article/sexism-civil-rights-movement-discussion-guide

IN THE ROOT Ahmad speaks: "We gathered because we wanted to discuss ways to dismantle the patriarchy within. We pinpointed key ways to stand in support of black women survivors of sexual and intimate partner violence. We also vowed to be conscientious of our socialization into a society that prizes misogyny and sexism, and strategized ways to move from theory to praxis and from talk to action".-Ahmad Greene http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/01/stand_with_her_black_men_as_anti_rape_activists.html?wpisrc=topstories

Why Are Young Girls and Women The Fastest Growing Prison Population? #FreeHer #SayHerName #OurDuty

School To Prison Pipeline

But Mrs. Nalls thinks her granddaughter, now 22, deserves the possibility of a second chance. 

“I believe that she should have gotten 15 or 20 years,” Mrs. Nalls said. “If children are under age, sometimes they’re not responsible for what they do.”

The group that plans to release the report on Oct. 17, the Equal Justice Initiative, based in Montgomery, Ala., is one of several human rights organizations that say states should be required to review sentences of juvenile offenders as the decades go by, looking for cases where parole might be warranted.

But prosecutors and victims’ rights groups say there are crimes so terrible and people so dangerous that only life sentences without the possibility of release are a fit moral and practical response. 

“I don’t think every 14-year-old who killed someone deserves life without parole,” said Laura Poston, who prosecuted Ms. Jones. “But Ashley planned to kill four people. I don’t think there is a conscience in Ashley, and I certainly think she is a threat to do something similar.”

Specialists in comparative law acknowledge that there have been occasions when young murderers who would have served life terms in the United States were released from prison in Europe and went on to kill again. But comparing legal systems is difficult, in part because the United States is a more violent society and in part because many other nations imprison relatively few people and often only for repeat violent offenses.

“I know of no systematic studies of comparative recidivism rates,” said James Q. Whitman, who teaches comparative criminal law at Yale. “I believe there are recidivism problems in countries like Germany and France, since those are countries that ordinarily incarcerate only dangerous offenders, but at some point they let them out and bad things can happen.”

The differences in the two approaches, legal experts said, are rooted in politics and culture. The European systems emphasize rehabilitation, while the American one stresses individual responsibility and punishment.

Corrections professionals and criminologists here and abroad tend to agree that violent crime is usually a young person’s activity, suggesting that eventual parole could be considered in most cases. But the American legal system is more responsive to popular concerns about crime and attitudes about punishment, while justice systems abroad tend to be administered by career civil servants rather than elected legislators, prosecutors and judges.

In its sentencing of juveniles, as in many other areas, the legal system in the United States goes it alone. American law is, by international standards, a series of innovations and exceptions. From the central role played by juries in civil cases to the election of judges to punitive damages to the disproportionate number of people in prison, the United States is an island in the sea of international law. 

And the very issue of whether American judges should ever take account of foreign law is hotly disputed. At the hearings on their Supreme Court nominations, both John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said they thought it a mistake to consider foreign law in constitutional cases.


But the international consensus against life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders may nonetheless help Ms. Jones. In about a dozen cases recently filed around the country on behalf of 13- and 14-year-olds sentenced to life in prison, lawyers for the inmates relied on a 2005 Supreme Court decision that banned the execution of people who committed crimes when they were younger than 18.

American Exception

Without Parole

This is the first in an occasional series of articles that will examine commonplace aspects of the American justice system that are actually unique in the world.

That decision, Roper v. Simmons, was based in part on international law. Noting that the United States was the only nation in the world to sanction the juvenile death penalty, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said it was appropriate to look to “the laws of other countries and to international authorities as instructive” in interpreting the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

He added that teenagers were different from older criminals — less mature, more susceptible to peer pressure and more likely to change for the better. Those findings, lawyers for the juvenile lifers say, should apply to their clients, too.

“Thirteen- and 14-year-old children should not be condemned to death in prison because there is always hope for a child,” said Bryan Stevenson, the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, which represents Ms. Jones and several other juvenile lifers. 

The 2005 death penalty ruling applied to 72 death-row inmates, almost precisely the same number as the 73 prisoners serving life without parole for crimes committed at 13 or 14.

The Supreme Court did not abolish the juvenile death penalty in a single stroke. The 2005 decision followed one in 1988 that held the death penalty unconstitutional for those who had committed crimes under 16.

The new lawsuits, filed in Alabama, California, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina and Wisconsin, seek to follow a similar progression. 

“We’re not demanding that all these kids be released tomorrow,” Mr. Stevenson said. “I’m not even prepared to say that all of them will get to the point where they should be released. We’re asking for some review.”

In defending American policy in this area in 2006, the State Department told the United Nations that sentencing is usually a matter of state law. “As a general matter,” the department added, juvenile offenders serving life-without-parole terms “were hardened criminals who had committed gravely serious crimes.”

Human rights groups have disputed that. According to a 2005 report from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, 59 percent of the more than 2,200 prisoners serving life without parole for crimes they committed at 17 or younger had never been convicted of a previous crime. And 26 percent were in for felony murder, meaning they participated in a crime that led to a murder but did not themselves kill anyone. 

The new report focuses on the youngest offenders, locating 73 juvenile lifers in 19 states who were 13 and 14 when they committed their crimes. Pennsylvania has the most, with 19, and Florida is next, with 15. In those states and Illinois, Nebraska, North Carolina and Washington, 13-year-olds have been sentenced to die in prison.

In most of the cases, the sentences were mandatory, an automatic consequence of a murder conviction after being tried as an adult.

A federal judge here will soon rule on Ms. Jones’s challenge to her sentence. Ms. Poston, who prosecuted her, said Ms. Jones was beyond redemption.

“Between the ages of 2 and 3, you develop a conscience,” Ms. Poston said. “She never got the voice that says, ‘This is bad, Ashley.’ ”

“It was a blood bath in there,” Ms. Poston said of the night of the murders here, in 1999. “Ashley Jones is not the poster child for the argument that life without parole is too long.”

In a telephone interview from the Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Ala., Ms. Jones said she did not recognize the girl who committed her crimes. According to court filings, her mother was a drug addict and her stepfather had sexually molested her. “Everybody I loved, everybody I trusted, I was betrayed by,” Ms. Jones said. 

“I’m very remorseful about what happened,” she said. “I should be punished. I don’t feel like I should spend the rest of my life in prison.”

Mrs. Nalls, her grandmother, had been married for 53 years when she and her husband, Deroy Nalls, agreed to take Ashley in. She was “a problem child,” and Mr. Nalls was a tough man who took a dislike to Ashley’s boyfriend, Geramie Hart. Mr. Hart, who was 16 at the time of the murders, is also serving a life term. Mrs. Nalls said he deserved a shot at parole someday as well.http://www.chicagolandsportbikes.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-62979.html

In May 2013, Kiera – a standout student from Polk County, Fla. – was handcuffed, hauled to jail and booked on two felony charges after her volcano science experiment malfunctioned. She was later expelled. Her mother Marie Wilmot, spent thousands of dollars trying to clear her daughter’s name and ensure she could finish her studies. Her twin sister, Kayla Wilmot, was harassed and called a terrorist by classmates. After widespread media attention and pressure from groups such as the NAACP Florida State Conference, Kiera was allowed to return to school, albeit with an arrest record. Last year, Advancement Project released a video documenting how Kiera and other students of color are unfairly criminalized and pushed out of schools.

Kiera’s experience is not atypical. Just last month, Ahmed Mohammad, who will also attend the White House event, was arrested in Texas due to a White teacher’s suspicion that his clock was a bomb. While Kiera and Ahmed’s experiences have drawn widespread attention, the plight of other students caught up in the school-to-prison pipeline often goes unnoticed and underreported. Such is disproportionately the case with Black girls who are suspended from school six times more often than their white counterparts around the nation according to the African American Policy Forum.

Across the country, Black girls were six times as likely to be suspended as White girls in 2011-2012.

While Kiera has graduated and was invited to attend the White House event, her story remains a happy ending with residual consequences. She’ll likely spend the foreseeable future explaining why she has an arrest record. Many young people arrested in schools have more traumatic outcomes, as they are less likely to graduate from high school, find good jobs, enroll in college, or enlist in the military.

“We should be encouraging young scientists like Ahmed and Kiera, not criminalizing them because of race,” said Thena Robinson Mock, Project Director for Advancement Project’s Ending the Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track campaign. “I applaud the White House for not only recognizing Ahmed’s brilliance, but highlighting the plight of black girls through Kiera Wilmot.”

- See more at: http://www.advancementproject.org/news/entry/honors-student-kiera-wilmot-who-was-expelled-over-science-project-holds-pre#sthash.SJubdNvg.dpuf

You can learn more about GSA Network Reports: Discipline Disparities, School Push-Out, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline

The Schott Foundation’s National Opportunity to Learn Campaign is a growing collaboration of local, state and national organizations, grassroots community leaders, policymakers, youth organizers, business leaders, and philanthropic partners working to ensure that every public school in the nation provides each child with the opportunity for a high-quality education. It aims to  bring about substantive and systemic education reform in public school systems by supporting grassroots organizing, sharing and expanding stories of success, reshaping education policy, building a network of thought leaders, and leveraging resources to build public will. Most recently, the Campaign launched Solutions not Suspensions, a call for a nationwide moratorium on out-of-school suspensions.

Would you like to express what you would like to see in your community public school?

I Dream A+ School is looking for your story, you can video or write your story at this link http://www.idreamaschool.org/stories/submit

The Game of K-12 Life is a free youth and community friendly workshop resource designed byAdvancement Project and Gay Straight Alliance Network as a fun way to facilitate a discussion around the school-to-prison pipeline.  In the game, players take on the role of a student with a unique identity and background, which may be a white student, a black student, a queer student, an undocumented student, or a student with a learning disability.  Participants follow what happens to these individual students when they encounter behavioral challenges throughout their school career, and how their odds of survival and ultimate victory can vary depending on their identity.  The Game of K-12 Life also includes a free expansion pack for communities to design their own student identities and outcomes to make them fit with their unique local situations.

The game is not only a fun way to discuss a serious topic like the school-to-prison pipeline, but allows participants to discuss both causes and solutions.  Relevant to all age groups, the Game of K-12 life has something to offer everyone.  We hope you enjoy playing the game and sharing it with your peers.http://safequalityschools.org/pages/gameofk12life

Is AnyOne Listening? Broken Systems Cover Up Numerous Tax Funded Rape from the School To Prison Pipeline To Covering Up Sick Men of Power Given A Pass on Raping Children

Those disconnected curtains are coming down, exposing the silent aka peaceful rape taking place in the United States of America. Thanks to no fear advocate Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who went up against the powers that be by exposing Porn Gate. Porn Gate exposed emails of elected officials containing racism along with derogatory treatment women working for the old boys society, have to go trough just to maintain their life styles. These women were sexually exploited and the derogatory talk of secret circles.

The Pennsylvania justice system is publicly in chaos. Our Attorney General Kathleen Kane vowed to end the corruption in the justice and political systems of Pennsylvania. I voted for her because I would also like to see an end to all the corruption polluting our legal system. The impact of this clean up is huge. 

"Breaking The Silence" Broken Systems   

2 ex-guards convicted of mistreating inmates; 3rd acquitted

Updated 5 days ago

YORK, Pa. (AP) — Two former central Pennsylvania prison guards accused of mistreating inmates by forcing them to fight or do demeaning stunts have been convicted of charges in the case, but a third ex-guard was acquitted.

Jurors in York County on Friday convicted David Whitcomb Jr., 30, and Daniel Graff, 40, of official oppression, criminal conspiracy and harassment but acquitted Mark Haynes, 28, of similar charges.

Prosecutors say the three forced the inmates to engage in a range of activities for their entertainment, from eating a spoonful of cinnamon to taking pepper spray to the face, in exchange for food and other privileges. Defense attorneys argued that other current or former inmates made up the allegations.

Deputy Prosecutor Kelley Nelson said the prosecution was "ecstatic" by the convictions but disappointed that Haynes was acquitted, although she said he was less culpable than the others because he appeared to be following their lead.

The defendants declined comment after the verdict. Hayne's attorney, Chris Ferro, said he and his client are thankful for the acquittal, while Graff's attorney, Steve Rice, said he needed to talk to his client to "evaluate where we are and where we want to go."

Nelson took jurors through a timeline of what she called "circus antics" that she said happened around May 2013 in a supply closet where there was no surveillance video. She said inmates were bribed to wrestle each other, to allow themselves to be punched or hit in the arms and legs or to allow themselves to be "choked out" by Graff and Whitcomb.

Police said after one fight, the inmate who lost also lost his privilege to work in the prison hallways. One inmate, state police said, "was challenged to drink a gallon of milk in an hour, eat a spoon full of cinnamon ... snort a crushed up candy bottle cap, drink a bottle of water with pepper foam in it, and eat fruit with the peels still on them. When he completed a challenge he would get lounge food and coffee."

Nelson told jurors that inmates have the right to be treated with respect by the corrections officers guarding them, "not to be treated like a bunch of circus freaks."

Defense attorneys said the inmates had motive to lie, including not incurring the ire of prison officials. Rice suggested that prison officials wanted someone criminally charged after learning of the allegations because "it's damage-control time."

Ferro said inmates frittering away time in prison have "nothing better to do" than tell, and make up, stories.

"It's a complete fabrication. ... Clearly the lack of evidence proves it," Ferro said. "Don't ever forget, (prison) is an 'us and them' situation."  http://m.heraldcourier.com/news/virginia/ex-guards-convicted-of-mistreating-inmates-rd-acquitted/article_f0381e49-12ba-59cc-baf7-50d4583cec8f.html?mode=jqm

New York Prison Guards Instigated Attack on Inmate and Engineered Cover-Up

But a state investigation of the 2014 attack found that there was much more to it. The inquiry concluded that it was in fact instigated by corrections officers to punish Mr. Thorton, apparently because he had complained about prison staff members and would talk to senior prison officials during their rounds, according to records obtained by The New York Times. The investigation also found that the officers stood by during the attack — one even watched from outside the cell — and then engineered an elaborate cover-up, the records show.

But the harsh dynamics of prison life are clear.

The records do not go into detail about why the other inmate, Raffi Mata, attacked Mr. Thorton on behalf of the officers. But the arbitrator in Mr. Dysard’s case found that as the officer escorted Mr. Mata to Mr. Thorton’s cell, he insulted Mr. Thorton and told Mr. Mata, “Do what you have to do.”

Mr. Mata testified at one of the hearings that the officer had told him he should “take care of business.” Mr. Mata told the hearing officer, according to the opinion, that meant “I should fight the inmate” and the corrections officers “would take care of me.”

“I went to the new cell where the inmate was showering and we started fighting,” Mr. Mata testified. “I threw the first punch and hit him on the left side of his face by his left eye.”

Mr. Thorton sustained minor injuries in the assault.

After the fight, one of the officers got Mr. Thorton to sign a false statement saying he suffered his injuries during a fall in the shower, records show. Then, another officer persuaded an inmate to report falsely that Mr. Thorton had talked of plotting against the officers.

Mr. Mata was later made a porter, he testified, a “privilege you get when you’re good.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/08/nyregion/new-york-prison-guards-instigated-attack-on-inmate-and-engineered-cover-up.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=1&referer

"I just needed somebody to talk to, somebody who coulda helped me find another way. I never heard of any other options, or I wouldn’t be here. Kids like me, we don’t know nothin’ but the streets. We need to know there’s something else out there – but we just don’t. – A CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING SURVIVOR

We must center the voices and experiences of youth in ‪#‎sextrafficking‬ policy. ‪#‎SB851‬ ‪#‎SafeHarbor‬, not only cops but those public defenders and interviewers for the public defenders

http://nywf.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/NYWF_Sex-Trafficking-of-Minors.pdf

Click  here for More on Human Trafficking

"The She Book" Donating to The Fight against Human Trafficking by Michelle Myers

http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/michelle-myers/the-she-book-volume-1/
paperback/product-14455629.html

Michelle Myers, co-founder of the Philadelphia spoken word duo Yellow Rage and co-host of Asian Arts Initiative’s Family Style Open Mic series, wrote The She Book to celebrate how women’s powerful voices can build communities.

Born in South Korea and now living in South Jersey, Myers explores personal experiences from her life, as well as an array of political situations and mythical images, through poetry. Audience members should expect storytelling, spoken word poetry and song in Myers’ performance, which is dedicated to honoring the whole-self identity of women.

“It’s about celebrating the strength and beauty of women, especially in their most vulnerable moments,” said Myers, whose children created the book’s cover.

One poem in The She Book, “She Home-Bound,” explores immigration and otherness:

But this place could not be the

land in which She was born for

restless feet had carried her from post-war

Korea, fatherless and therefore nameless,

a might-as-well-have-never-been-born existence,

on child-sized feet that bore witness to

moving spaces to which She had

no connection.

In giving shape and life to these vibrant stories, Myers hopes to build a community united in the restorative energy of love, acceptance and personal power. All proceeds from the book will be donated to aid anti-trafficking efforts and community building in Haiti and Cambodia. 

http://asianartsinitiative.org/press-releases/philadelphia-poet-and-storyteller-michelle-myers-kicks-off-book-tour-for-the-she-book-at-asian-arts-initiative-march-22

                                                                                During One Book Philadelphia Michelle and Catize aka "Yellow Rage" allowed me to host "A write Your Block Session" where i was able to meet Kit Yan a proud Femme and hear their stories of being them and not what society wants them to be.

I Am

I'm A Women Not A Flavor

Listen Asshole

Human Trafficking Has To Stop

"I just needed somebody to talk to, somebody who coulda helped me find another way. I never heard of any other options, or I wouldn’t be here. Kids like me, we don’t know nothin’ but the streets. We need to know there’s something else out there – but we just don’t. – A CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING SURVIVOR

We must center the voices and experiences of youth in ‪#‎sextrafficking‬ policy. ‪#‎SB851‬ ‪#‎SafeHarbor‬, not only cops but those public defenders and interviewers for the public defenders

http://nywf.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/NYWF_Sex-Trafficking-of-Minors.pdf

Art For Dawn's Place

"Peculiar Relationships" by Gwen Ragsdale

“Peculiar Relationships” by Gwen Ragsdale explores the unspoken history between African and White women from slavery to present time. If you are looking to bridge relationships that address racism and build understanding for how we become who we are. Then please invite other concerned people to have a book discussion about “Peculiar Relationships”.

Mrs. Gwen Ragsdale co-founder of Lest We Forget Slavery museum 3650 Richmond Street, wrote “Peculiar Relationships” so that women can understand that our skin color may be different but we have so much in common. Our strength to be seen as women and not property stands out most for me. On the ugly side the system of dependency created delusional and selfish human beings who choose to put their own desires before the respect of African’s life. These tough conversations of slavery can bring about a better life for all human beings if when we read the book we understand that we are reading the book to grow into better human beings from learning from our past.

As a community advocate I was able to learn more about the derogatory treatment African and African American women have suffered through. I learned about what our men have been through also but my focus was our women. Before interviewing Mrs. Ragsdale I listened to her interview on C.O.W. S internet radio.
http://www.blacktalkradionetwork.com/2015/12/14/the-c-o-w-s-gwen-ragsdale-peculiar-relationships/ about her book. During that interview she mentioned that she felt that “we have a duty to tell the stories of our ancestors. We all need to understand what our sisters went through and we all have an inner slave sister. The angry black women or tender loving wife just wanting to be love and cared for. We need to recognize appreciate and love our inner slave sister.”

I feel my inner slave sister, often say I was raped four generations ago and because of that rape have a hard time accepting inter-racial relationships that produce mix children. I feel the porch monkey, mulatto name calling that my great, great grandmother Sallie Biddle went through. I feel the hate of being a product of my white ancestor raping my African slave ancestor only to throw us away. My inner slave sister, my great, great grandmother is at peace now, because I was able to connect with her pain and leave all the speculations behind. Thanks to Gwen Ragsdale "Peculiar Relationships"!!