As far as the concept of race and the how black males are perceived and portrayed in the media. Sadly, Lebron James did the dance for the $$$

African People and Their Names for God

Originally compiled by Prof. John Mbiti

_________________________________

ABALUYIA (Kenya): Wele, Nyasaye, Nabongo, Khakaba, Isaywa.

ACHOLI (Uganda): Juok or Jok, Lubanga

ADJURU (Côte d’Ivoire):  Nyam

AFUSARE (Nigeria): Daxunum

AKAMBA (Kenya): Mulungu, Ngai, Mumbi, Mwatuangi, Asa

AKAN (Ghana): Nyame, Nana Nyankopon, Onyame, Amowia, Amosu, Amaomee, Totorobonsu, Brekyirihunuade, Abommubuwafre, Nyaamanekose, Tetekwaframua, Nana, Borebore

ALUR (Uganda, Congo DR): Jok, Jok Rubanga, Jok Nyakaswiya, Jok Odudu, Jok Adranga, Jok Atar

AMBA (Uganda): Nyakara

AMBO (Zambia): Lesa, Cuta

ANKORE (Uganda): Ruhanga, Nyamuhanga, Omuhangi, Rugaba, Kazooba, Mukameiguru, Kazooba Nyamuhanga

ANUAK (Sudan): Juok

ARUSHA (Tanzania):  Engai

ASANTE (Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire): Nyame, Onyankopon, Bore-Bore, Otumfoo, Otomankoma, Ananse Kokroko, Onyankopon Kwame

AUSHI (Zambia): Makumba

AZANDE (Sudan): Mbori or Mboli, Bapaizegino

BACHWA (Congo): Djakomba, Djabi

BACONGO (Angola): Nzambi

BAKENE (Uganda): Gasani

BAKWENA-TSWANA (Botswana): Modimo

BALESE (Congo): Katshonde, Tole, Mongo, Mbali, Londi

BALUBA (Congo): Leza, Lesa-Waba

BAMBARA (Mali): Jalang

BAMBUTI (Congo): Arebati, Epilipili, Baatsi

BAMILEKE (Cameroon): Si

BAMUM (Cameroon): Njinyi or Nui, Yorubang

BANEN (Cameroon): Hoel, Kolo, Ombang

BANYARWANDA (Rwanda): Imana, Hategekimana, Hashakimana, Habyarimana, Ndagijimana, Habimana, Bizimana, Bigirimana, Ruremakwaci

BANYORO (Uganda): Ruhanga.

BARI (Sudan): Ngun

BAROTSE (Zambia): Lesa, Nyambe

BARUNDI (Burundi): Imana, Rangicavyose, Rugiravyose, Indavyi, Rurema, Rugoba, Haragakiza, Harerimana, Rutunga, Rutangaboro, Segaba, Umusemyi, Mushoboravyose, Nyeninganyi, Rushoboravyose, Ntakimunanira, Inchanyi, Ruremabibondo, Rufashaboro, Ntirandekuva

BASA (Nigeria): Agwatana

BASOGA (Uganda): Kibumba, Kiduma, Kyaka, Nambubi, Lubanga

BASUTO (Lesotho): Molimo

BAVENDA (South Africa): Raluvhimba, Mwari

BAYA (Central African Republic): So, Zambi

BEIR (Sudan): Tummu

BEMBA (Zambia): Lesa, Mulungu, Mwandanshi, Tengenene, Katebebe, Kaleka-Misuma, Kapekape, Kalamfya-Milalo, Kanshiwabikwa, Kashawaliko, Mulopwe, Mwine-twalo, Nalusandulula, Naluntuntwe, Nalwebela, Nafukatila, Kalenga, Nakabumba, Ndubulwila

BENA (Tanzania): Mulungu

BINAWA (Nigeria): Kashiri

BIRIFOR (Ghana):  We, Nawe, Wene, Yini

BONDEI (Tanzania): Mlungu

BONGO (Sudan): Loma, Hege

BORAN (Ethiopia, Kenya): Waqa

BULU (Cameroon): Mebee

BURJI-KONSO (Ethiopia): Illalei, Bambelle,

CHAGGA (Tanzania): Ruwa

CHAWAI (Nigeria): Bawai

CHEWA (Malawi): Mulungu, Namalenga, Leza, Cham’njili, Mphambe, Chisumphi, Chanta, Mlengi, Mlamulili, Mcizi, Mpulumutsi, Mlezi, Wolera, Mtetezi, Muweluzi

CHOKWE (Angola): Kalunga, Zambi

CHOPI (Mozambique): Tilo

DIDINGA (Sudan): Tamukujen

DIGO (Kenya): Mulungu

DILLING (Sudan): Abradi

DINKA (Sudan): Nhialic, Acek, Jok

DOGON (Burkina Faso, Mali): Amma

DOREI (Nigeria): Nillah

DUALA (Cameroon): Loba, Owasi, Iwonde, Ebasi

DUNGI (Nigeria): Kasiri, Kashira

DURUMA (Kenya): Mulungu

EBRIE (Ivory Coast):  Nyangka

EDO (Nigeria): Osanobua, Osa

EGEDE (Nigeria): Ohe

EKOI (Cameroon, Nigeria):  Osawa, Nsi

ELGEYO (Kenya): Asis

EMBU (Kenya): Ngai

EWE (Benin, Ghana, Togo): Mawu

FAJULU (Sudan): Ngun

FANG (Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea):  Nzeme, Nyame

FANTI (Ghana):  Nyame, Nyankopon

FINGO (South Africa):  Qamata

FON (Benin): Mawu-Lisa

GA (Ghana): Dzemawon, Numbo

GAALIN (Sudan):  Allat, Uzza, Manat

GANDA (Uganda): Katonda, Kagingo, Mukama, Ssewannaku, Ddunda, Lugaba, Ssebintu, Liisoddene, Nnyiniggulu, Kazooba, Namuginga, Ssewaunaku, Gguluddene, Namugereka

GBARI (Nigeria):  Shekohi, Sheshu, Soko, Esse, Sheko

GELABA (Ethiopia): Yer

GIKUYU (Kenya): Murungu, Ngai, Mwenenyaga

GIRYAMA (Kenya): Mulungu

GISU (Uganda): Wele or Weri, Omubumbi, Wele Wehangagi

GOFA (Ethiopia): Tsuossa

GOGO (Tanzania):  Mulungu

GRUNSHI (Ghana): We

GUMUZ (Ethiopia): Robboqua, Fogatza, Musa, Musa Gueza

GUSII (Kenya):  Erioba (Sun)

GWERE (Uganda):  Kibumba

HADYA (Ethiopia): Wa’a

HAYA (Tanzania): Ishwanga

HEHE (Tanzania):  Nguluvi

HERERO (Namibia ): Ndjambi Karunga, Mukuru

HOTTENTOS (South Africa): Utixo

IBIBIO (Nigeria): Abassi, Chuku

IDOMA (Nigeria): Owo, Owoico

IGBIRA (Nigeria): Hinegba, Ihinegba

IGBO (Nigeria): Chukwu, Chi, Chineke, Olisa bi n’igwé

IJAW (Nigeria):  Egbesu

ILA (Zambia): Leza, Chilenga, Lubumba, Shakapanga, Namulenga, Mutalabala, Namakungwe, Muninde, Chaba, Ipaokubozha, Ushatwakwe, Shakatabwa, Mangwe, Shakemba, Kemba, Namesi, Munamazuba, Luvhunabaumba, Mukubwe, Chembwe, Munakasungwe, Chaba-wakaaba-ochitadiwa, Shikakunamo

INDEM (Nigeria): Osowo

INGASSANA (Ethiopia): Tel

ITSEKIRI (Nigeria): Oritse

IYALA (Nigeria): Owo

JIE (Uganda): Akuj

JUKUN (Nigeria):  Shido or Chido, Ama or Ma

JUMJUM (Sudan): Dyong

KADARA (Nigeria): Onum

KAFA (Ethiopia):  Yaro

KANGORO (Nigeria): Gwaza

KAIBI (Nigeria): Kashiri or Kashira

KAKWA (Sudan): Nguleso

KAMASYA (Kenya): Asis

KAONDE (Zambia): Lesa

KARAMOJA (Uganda): Akuj

KARANGA (Zimbabwe): Nyadenga

KATAB (Nigeria): Gwaza

KEMANT (Ethiopia):  Sanbat

KIGA (Uganda): Ruhanga, Sebahanga, Kazoba, Rugaba, Biheko

KIPSIGIS (Kenya): Asis, Chebtalel, Cheptolel, Chebango, Ngolo

KISSI (Guinea, Liberia):  Hala

KITMI (Nigeria): Kashila or Kashiri

KOMA (Ethiopia): Yere Siezi, War, Wal

KONJO (Congo, Uganda): Nyamahanga

KONKOMBA (Ghana, Togo):  Omborr

KONO (Sierra Leone): Meketa, Yataa

KONSO (Ethiopia):  Bamballe, Adota, Waq

KONY (Kenya): Asis

KOREKORE (Zimbabwe): Wokumusoro, Musiki ,Chikara, Dzivaguru

KPE (Cameroon):  Lova or Loba

KPELLE (Liberia): Yala

KRACHI (Togo): Wulbari

KUCA (Ethiopia): Tosso

KUKU (Sudan): Uletet, Ngulaitait or Nguletet

KULLO (Ethiopia): Tosa

KUBA (Congo):  Nceme, Mbombo, Njambe

KUNG (Namibia ):  Khu, Xu, Xuba, Huwa

KURAMA (Nigeria): Ashili, Bakashili

KYIGA (Uganda): Weri

LALA (Zambia): Lesa, Mulenga, Cuuta, Lucele

LAMBA (Zambia): Lesa

LANGO (Uganda): Jok

LELE (Congo): Njambi

LENDU (Congo): Gindri

LIMBA (Sierra Leone): Kanu, Masala, Masaranka

LOBI (Côte d’Ivoire):  Tangba You

LODAGAA (Ghana, Burkina Faso): Na’angmin

LOGO (Congo): Tore, Ore, Ori, Djuka

LOKOIYA (Sudan): Oicok

LOTUKO (Sudan): Ajok, Naijok

LOZI (Zambia): Nyambe

LUAPULA (Zambia): Lesa

LUGBARA (Congo, Uganda): Adroa or Adronga, Adro

LUGURU (Tanzania):  Mulungu

LUIMBE (Angola):  Nzambi, Kalunga

LUNDA-LUENA (Angola, Congo, Zambia) Nzambi, Kalunga, Sakatanga

LUO (Kenya): Nyasaye, Wang’ Chieng’, Nyakolaga, Were, Tham, Wuonwa, Wuon kwere, Wuon ji, Ja Mrima, Jan’gwono, Jahera, Nyakalaga, Janen, Wuon Ogendni, Hono, Polo, Wuon lowo, Ratego, Jalweny, Kwar ji, Rahuma, Piny k’nyal, Wuon oru, Ruodh Ruodhi, Wang’ Chieng’, Nyakolaga, Uworo

LUVEDU (South Africa): Khuzwane, Mwari

MAASAI (Kenya, Tanzania): En-kai, Engai, N’gai, Ai, Parsai, Emayian

MADI (Uganda): Ori, Rabanga

MAHRAKA (Sudan): Mboli

MALE (Ethiopia): Sosi

MDINGE (Guinea, Mali):  Gala, Guele, Jalang

MAMVU-MANGUTU (Congo): Mai, Oti, Tore, Kundumbendu, Oto

MAO (Ethiopia): Yere, Yeretsi

MASONGO (Ethiopia): Waqaio

MATENGO (Malawi):  Ciuta, Mulungu, Mlezi, Cisumphi

MEBAN (Sudan): Juong

MEKAN (Ethiopia): Tuma

MENDI (Sierra Leone): Ngewo, Leve)

MERU (Kenya): Murungu, Ngai, Mwene inya

MONDARI (Sudan): Ngun

MORU (Sudan): Lu

MOSSI (Burkina Faso):  Winnam, Ouennam, Winde, Naba Zidiwinde

MURLE (Ethiopia): Tummu

NAMA (Namibia):  Tsui-Goeb (Supreme Being), Cagn or Kaang, Khub, Nanub

NANDI (Kenya): Asis, Cheptalil, Chepkeliensokol or Chepkelienpokol, Chepopkoiyo, Chebonamuni

NDEBELE (Zimbabwe): Unkulunkulu, Umlimo, Mwali

NDOGO (Sudan): Mbiri, Mviri

NGOMBE (Congo): Akongo, Bilikonda, Ebangala, Ebangala-e-mokonda, Eliamokonda, EliMalima, Endandala

NGONDE (Malawi):  Kyala, Mbepo Mwikemo, Ndolombwike, Kamanyimanyi, Mpoki

NGONI (Malawi): Unkurukuru, Utixo, Inkosi, Umkulunqango, Uluhlanga, Umkulu Kakulu, Umnikaze we zinto zonke

NKUM (Nigeria): Oshowo, Ebutokpabi

NKUNDO (Congo):  Djakomba

NSÓ (Cameroon): Nyuỳ

NUBA (Sudan) Kalo, Elo, Bel, Bel Epti, Kando, Kwarak, Masala, Elem

NUER (Sudan): Kwoth

NUPE (Nigeria): Soko

NYAKYUSA (Tanzania): Kyala, Tenende, Nkurumuke, Chata Kyaubiri, Kalesi, Ndorombwike, Mperi

NYANJA (Zambia, Malawi): Mulungu, Cuata, Leza, Mphamba, Cisumphi, Cimjili Namalenga or Nyamalenga or Mlengi

OKIET (Kenya): Asis

OROMO (Ethiopia, Kenya): Waqa

ORRI (Nigeria): Lokpata

OVIMBUNDU (Angola): Suku, Usovoli

PARE (Tanzania): Kyumbi, Mrungu, Izuva

PITI (Nigeria): Ure

POKOMO (Kenya):  Muungu

POKOT (Kenya): Tororut, Ilat

PONDO (South Africa):  uDali, uMenzi, u Tixo

PYGMY (Congo): Kmvoum

PYEM (Nigeria): Wudidi

RABAI (Kenya): Mulungu

RISHUWA (Nigeria): Kashiri, Kasiri

RUKUBA (Nigeria): Katakuru

RUMAIYA (Nigeria): Kashillo, Kashira

SAFWA (Tanzania): Nguruvi

SONATA (Congo): Nja

SAN (Botswana, Namibia): Urezhwa

SANDAWE (Tanzania): Waronge, Murungu

SANGAMA (Ethiopia): Zabi

SEBEI (Uganda): Oiki, Oinotet

SERER (Gambia, Senegal): Rog

SHERBRO-BULLOM-KRIM (Sierra Leone): Hobatoke

SHILLUK (Sudan): Juok

SHONA (Zimbabwe): Mwari, Nyadenga, Wokumusoro, Gore, Runji, Chipindikure, Chirozva-mauya Chirazamauya, Sagomakoma, Musiki, Muvumbi, Marure, Musikavanhu, Dzivaguru, Chidziva, Mutangakugara, Muwanikwa, Mupavose, Wemumbepo, Muponesi, Muyaradzi, Muratidzi

SIDAMO (Ethiopia): Magano

SONGHAY (Nigeria): Yerkoy

SONJO (Tanzania): Mugwe, Riob

SOTHO (Lesotho):  Molimo, Molimo o matle

SRUBU (Nigeria): Kasiri, Kahiri

SUKUMA-NYAMWEZI (Tanzania): Mulungu, Mungu, Seba, Kube, Kube-Nyangasa, Limi, Linyabangwe, Liwelelo, Ng’wenekili, Ling’wenekili, Likubala

SURI-SUMMA (Ethiopia): Tuma

SWAZI (Swaziland): Mkulumncandi, Umkhulumncandi, Inkosatana, Umvelingquangi

TALLENZI (Ghana, Burkina Faso):  We, Wene, Nawe, Nabwe

TEITA (Kenya): Mlungu

TEMBU (South Africa): uTixo

TEMNE (Sierra Leone): Kuru, Kurumasaba

TENDA (Guinea):  Hounounga

TESO (Uganda): Akuj, Apap, Edeke, Lokasuban

TEUSO (Uganda): Didikwari, Nakwit

THONGS (South Africa, Mozambique):  Tilo, Hosi, Xikwembu

TIKAR (Cameroon): Nyooiy

TIV (Nigeria): Aondo

TLHAPING (South Africa):  Modimo

TONGA (Malawi, Zambia): Tilo, Chiuta or Ciuta, Leza, Mlengi, Chata, Nyangoi, Wamu yaya, Wanthazizose, Mkana Nyifwa, Kajeti, Mtaski, Msungi, Mlezi, Mlengavuwa, Mnanda, Mananda, Mangazi

TOPOSA (Sudan): Nakwuge

TORO (Uganda): Nkya, Ruhanga, Kagaba, Nyamuhanga

TSWANA (Botswana, South Africa): Modimo

TUMBUKA (Malawi): Chiuta, Mulengi, Leza, Mwati, Mweni-Nkongono, Kajilengi, Wamtatakuya, Cinyetenyete, Mweneco, Mupi, Cilera-balanda, Karonga wa mabanja, Cimbatakwinya, Kamphanda, Kamanyimanyi, Wamalumya

TURKANA (Kenya): Akuj

TURU (Tanzania): Murungu, Matunda

TWI (Benin, Ghana): Onyankopon

UDHUK (Ethiopia): Arumgimis

URHOBO-ISOKO (Nigeria): Oghene, Oghenukpabe

VAI (Liberia):  Kamba

VENDA (South Africa): Nwali

VILI (Congo) :  Nzambi Mpungu

VUGUSU (Kenya): Wele

WALAMO (Ethiopia): Tosa

XAM (South Africa):  Kaang, Kaggen, Huwu or Huwe

XHOSA (South Africa):  uThixo, uDali (Maker, Creator ), uMenzi, uHlanga, Qamata

YACHI (Nigeria): Phahia

YAKO (Nigeria):  Ubasi

YAO (Malawi, Mozambique): Mulungu

YORUBA (Nigeria): Olodumare, Olorun, Olofin-Orun

ZALA (Ethiopia): Taosa

ZINZA (Tanzania): Isewahanga, Kazoba, Rugaba

ZULU (South Africa): Unkulunkulu, Inkosi, uDumakade, uGobungqongqo, uGuqabadele, uKqili, uMabonga-kutuk-izizwe-zonke, uSomoganiso, uZivelele.

Source

Igniting an Unspoken Conversation

by Anne Naylor

Personal motivation consultant and author

New York’s Useless Stop-and-Harass Policy

.0005!

That’s the batting average of the mayor of New York City and his police commissioner in patrolling New York City the week George Steinbrenner died. The Yankees owner would have fired them both a thousand times over for weak hitting.

New Yorkers, to their credit, tried to fire their mayor by twice voting to limit his terms. He overrode this, however, with the rubber-stamp consent of the city council and continues to reign as Mike ”Papa Doc” Bloomberg, mayor, perhaps, for life.

As for the NYPD’s batting average, last week the New York Times reported the city’s shameful performance in an eight-block stretch of Brooklyn over a four-year period. The controversial ”Stop, Question, Frisk” policy targets the predominantly black Brownsville area ”at a rate unmatched anywhere else in the city.”

The citywide program, according to the Times, is ”most urgently meant to get guns off the streets.” Yet ”the arrest rate is less than 1 percent … in the more than 50,000 stops since 2006, the police recovered 25 guns.” The Times’ estimate of ”less than 1 percent” understates the statistical rate of gun detection by a factor of more than a thousand.

Recovering a single gun in Brownsville requires the NYPD to stop, question and frisk an astounding 2,080 persons randomly — often harassing such citizens and sometimes shooting them dead in Brooklyn and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the gun discovery rate could likely be matched were cops to randomly frisk rabbis and Catholic priests, to say nothing of college deans or Wall Street brokers.

So why, in a supposedly open society promising all residents civil liberties, are Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly violating the rights of innocent citizens to move freely about?

Clearly, the police-state sweeps subjecting Brownsville — and other so-called high-crime-rate neighborhoods with non-white populations — do little to serve the official purpose of keeping guns off the streets. The buy-back-gun program, by comparison, brought in some 600 weapons in Brooklyn just last Saturday.

Last year the NYPD stopped and questioned some 580,000 residents across the city, over 90 percent of them were non-white; 55 percent were non-Hispanic blacks. With the overwhelmingly white force policing a city only 35 percent so, too many of these officers tend to view most black males as suspicious criminal types.

Thus, some 95 percent of those the NYPD stopped and frisked could not be hauled off to jail no matter how mightily the apprehending officer struggled to find weapons, drugs, contrabands, outstanding warrants or even overdue child-support payments. Still, Mayor Bloomberg and his police commissioner allow no such innocence to go unpunished.

An even more pernicious city practice kept electronic NYPD records of the names of all innocent residents stopped and let go. The aggressive Bloomberg-Kelly axis strongly urged outgoing Gov. David Paterson to veto a bill outlawing such record-keeping, without providing a scintilla of evidence that such files, which clearly violate citizens’ rights, helped to reduce crime.

Mayor Bloomberg argues that if one life is saved, despite, apparently, the massive infringement of civil liberties guaranteed under the Constitution, then the massive police sweeps are justified. (This is a point Josef Stalin might have made.) In fact, the mayor and police commissioner have presented no evidence that the stop-and-frisk policy has saved a single life despite the cost.

After reviewing city data supporting maintenance of the police files as essential to crime fighting, Gov. Paterson said the evidence ”overwhelmingly” proved the opposite. Even the Times news story stated that the supporting cases ”provide strong evidence that the stop-and-frisk data played a less than essential role — and sometimes hardly any role at all.”

To his great credit, Gov. Paterson signed the bill last week that ended the police-state record-keeping of massive files on innocent, law-abiding citizens. The chief offense of these overwhelmingly black and Hispanic residents appear to have been that they wandered under the suspicious gaze of jittery, overzealous cops who would have difficulty distinguishing between Creflo A. Dollar and 50 Cent in his street-running days.

Meanwhile, the NYPD is free to go not so merrily about misidentifying massive numbers of innocent targets to be stopped, questioned and frisked; and if history serves, their names will be placed in some secret police data bank, despite the newly signed state law.

Just watch.

Les Payne is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a frequent contributor to The Root.

Source



Mass Incarceration: A destroyer of people of color and their communities

Criminal Justice — By Jamaal Bell on May 17, 2010 at 1:02 pm

Dear Obama Administration, instead of having our Drug Czar focus on addiction recovery and prevention programs, how about changing the policy of our racialized criminal justice system that has used the “War on Drugs” policy to put more Black males in the criminal justice system than slavery in 1850?

Around this time last year, the Obama Administration’s Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske said he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,” which is a move that favors treatment over mass incarceration. While this approach is being taken, more than 60% of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities.

For Black males in their twenties, 1 in every 8 is in prison or jail on any given day. These trends have been intensified by the disproportionate impact of the “war on drugs,” in which three-fourths of all persons in prison for drug offenses are people of color, according to a report by The Sentencing Project.

The Obama Administration and the states must take racial disparities in our criminal justice system seriously because it affects the public safety of entire communities. Research shows that people of color who live in high crime areas fear victimization and express a need for increased public safety, yet empathize with offenders and the struggles that they face upon release from incarceration.

What are those struggles?

For example, ex-offenders struggle to find housing, transportation and basic health care upon release from prison, according to Minnesota’s Council on Crime and Justice. In fact, according to Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” ex-offenders aren’t eligible for public assistance such as public housing, Medicaid and welfare, moreover, are legally discriminated against when applying for employment.

Furthermore, if ex-offenders are fortunate enough to even find employment, in some states the government can garnish up to 100 percent of their income for the cost of their imprisonment, court and legal fees. This inequity, by our justice system in its failure to address the immediate needs of returning offenders, causes the families and the communities they live in to bear the burden of providing support.

Don’t forget about Native Americans in this injustice.

Much of the literature written about mass incarceration tends to be primarily about the Latinos, Blacks and Whites. What about our Native brothers and sisters?

The incarceration rate of Native Americans is 38% higher than the national rate. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights attributes this higher rate to differential treatment by the criminal justice system, lack of access to adequate counsel and racial profiling .

One example: in South Dakota, Native Americans make up 8 percent of the state’s population, they compose 22 percent of the state’s male prison population. Native women compose 35 percent of female prison population, according to a Dakota-Lakota-Nakota Human Rights Advocacy Coalition Report.

Law enforcement agents arrest American Indians and Alaskan Natives at twice the rate of the greater U.S. population for violent and property crimes. On average, American Indians receive longer sentences than non-Indians for crimes.

They also tend to serve longer time in prison for their sentences than non-Native Americans. The suicide rate is higher among American native inmates incarcerated in jails than non-Indians.

What needs to happen?

We need to admit that racial disparities are tied to our unequal justice practices, and develop strategies, in-cooperation, with law enforcement and community that will reduce racial disparity and enhance public safety.

We need to change policy by removing barriers for those with criminal records so they can gain access to employment, housing and civic engagement. What is the point of being released back into society if you can’t positively participate in society?

We need to create programs that support ALL families of offenders/ex-offenders. It is important for ex-offenders, the children of incarcerated parents, and their caretakers to establish a network of social support.

Thankfully, there are some states, NGOs, associations and research institutions around the nation advocating for the rights of ex-offenders and combating racial disparities in America’s prisons. However, there needs to be a shift in the administration and the states’ thinking and action.

Race needs to be explicitly discussed as it relates to policy change, mass incarceration, and criminal justice. Also how the racially disproportionate enforcement of the “War on Drugs” has negatively affected communities of color.

Sidenote: An example NGO is Rebuild Resources located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Rebuild Resources is a non-profit enterprise helping recovering men and women rebuild their lives through the most powerful social program… A job.

However, they are explicitly committed to serving people who struggle at the intersection of recovery, reentry and racism. “Rather than cherry-pick people who have the fewest barriers to overcome, we look to hire the people who most need our services, are committed to changing their lives, and are ready to work,” said Lori Stee, Program Director of Rebuild Resources.

Stee, knows the importance and the need for policy change as it pertains to mass incarceration. “[Rebuild Resources] is deeply involved in collaborative community partnerships to better serve people reentering the community after incarceration,” said Stee.

She went on to say that the public must be educated regarding the need for more effective reentry policy. “Policy changes must be from a 3-fold perspective: public safety, fiscal responsibility and social justice,” said Stee.

Rebuild Resources has helped more than 900 Minnesotans since 1984, however, 6,000 people are released from Minnesota prisons each year.

The Minnesota Second Chance Coalition and more than a dozen other NGOs advocate for fair and responsible laws, policies, and practices that allow those who have committed crimes to redeem themselves, fully support themselves and their families, and contribute to their communities to their full potential. View their 2010 legislative policy agenda.

Photo by Spencer Weiner, AP

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Fourteen examples of systemic racism in the U.S. criminal justice system

Criminal Justice, Featured — By Bill Quigley on July 26, 2010 at 9:40 am

The biggest crime in the U.S. criminal justice system is that it is a race-based institution where African-Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people.

Saying the US criminal system is racist may be politically controversial in some circles. But the facts are overwhelming. No real debate about that. Below I set out numerous examples of these facts.

The question is – are these facts the mistakes of an otherwise good system, or are they evidence that the racist criminal justice system is working exactly as intended? Is the US criminal justice system operated to marginalize and control millions of African Americans?

Information on race is available for each step of the criminal justice system – from the use of drugs, police stops, arrests, getting out on bail, legal representation, jury selection, trial, sentencing, prison, parole and freedom. Look what these facts show.

One. The US has seen a surge in arrests and putting people in jail over the last four decades. Most of the reason is the war on drugs. Yet whites and blacks engage in drug offenses, possession and sales, at roughly comparable rates – according to a report on race and drug enforcement published by Human Rights Watch in May 2008. While African Americans comprise 13% of the US population and 14% of monthly drug users they are 37% of the people arrested for drug offenses – according to 2009 Congressional testimony by Marc Mauer of The Sentencing Project.

Two. The police stop blacks and Latinos at rates that are much higher than whites. In New York City, where people of color make up about half of the population, 80% of the NYPD stops were of blacks and Latinos. When whites were stopped, only 8% were frisked. When blacks and Latinos are stopped 85% were frisked according to information provided by the NYPD. The same is true most other places as well. In a California study, the ACLU found blacks are three times more likely to be stopped than whites.

Three. Since 1970, drug arrests have skyrocketed rising from 320,000 to close to 1.6 million according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice.
African Americans are arrested for drug offenses at rates 2 to 11 times higher than the rate for whites – according to a May 2009 report on disparity in drug arrests by Human Rights Watch.

Four. Once arrested, blacks are more likely to remain in prison awaiting trial than whites. For example, the New York state division of criminal justice did a 1995 review of disparities in processing felony arrests and found that in some parts of New York blacks are 33% more likely to be detained awaiting felony trials than whites facing felony trials.

Five. Once arrested, 80% of the people in the criminal justice system get a public defender for their lawyer. Race plays a big role here as well. Stop in any urban courtroom and look a the color of the people who are waiting for public defenders. Despite often heroic efforts by public defenders the system gives them much more work and much less money than the prosecution. The American Bar Association, not a radical bunch, reviewed the US public defender system in 2004 and concluded “All too often, defendants plead guilty, even if they are innocent, without really understanding their legal rights or what is occurring…The fundamental right to a lawyer that America assumes applies to everyone accused of criminal conduct effectively does not exist in practice for countless people across the US.”

Six. African Americans are frequently illegally excluded from criminal jury service according to a June 2010 study released by the Equal Justice Initiative. For example in Houston County, Alabama, 8 out of 10 African Americans qualified for jury service have been struck by prosecutors from serving on death penalty cases.

Seven. Trials are rare. Only 3 to 5 percent of criminal cases go to trial – the rest are plea bargained. Most African Americans defendants never get a trial. Most plea bargains consist of promise of a longer sentence if a person exercises their constitutional right to trial. As a result, people caught up in the system, as the American Bar Association points out, plead guilty even when innocent. Why? As one young man told me recently, “Who wouldn’t rather do three years for a crime they didn’t commit than risk twenty-five years for a crime they didn’t do?”

Eight. The U.S. Sentencing Commission reported in March 2010 that in the federal system black offenders receive sentences that are 10% longer than white offenders for the same crimes. Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project reports African Americans are 21% more likely to receive mandatory minimum sentences than white defendants and 20% more like to be sentenced to prison than white drug defendants.

Nine. The longer the sentence, the more likely it is that non-white people will be the ones getting it. A July 2009 report by the Sentencing Project found that two-thirds of the people in the US with life sentences are non-white. In New York, it is 83%.

Ten. As a result, African Americans, who are 13% of the population and 14% of drug users, are not only 37% of the people arrested for drugs but 56% of the people in state prisons for drug offenses. Marc Mauer May 2009 Congressional Testimony for The Sentencing Project.

Eleven. The US Bureau of Justice Statistics concludes that the chance of a black male born in 2001 of going to jail is 32% or 1 in three. Latino males have a 17% chance and white males have a 6% chance. Thus black boys are five times and Latino boys nearly three times as likely as white boys to go to jail.

Twelve. So, while African American juvenile youth is but 16% of the population, they are 28% of juvenile arrests, 37% of the youth in juvenile jails and 58% of the youth sent to adult prisons. 2009 Criminal Justice Primer, The Sentencing Project.

Thirteen. Remember that the US leads the world in putting our own people into jail and prison. The New York Times reported in 2008 that the US has five percent of the world’s population but a quarter of the world’s prisoners, over 2.3 million people behind bars, dwarfing other nations. The US rate of incarceration is five to eight times higher than other highly developed countries and black males are the largest percentage of inmates according to ABC News.

Fourteen. Even when released from prison, race continues to dominate. A study by Professor Devah Pager of the University of Wisconsin found that 17% of white job applicants with criminal records received call backs from employers while only 5% of black job applicants with criminal records received call backs. Race is so prominent in that study that whites with criminal records actually received better treatment than blacks without criminal records!

So, what conclusions do these facts lead to? The criminal justice system, from start to finish, is seriously racist.

Professor Michelle Alexander concludes that it is no coincidence that the criminal justice system ramped up its processing of African Americans just as the Jim Crow laws enforced since the age of slavery ended. Her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness sees these facts as evidence of the new way the US has decided to control African Americans – a racialized system of social control. The stigma of criminality functions in much the same way as Jim Crow – creating legal boundaries between them and us, allowing legal discrimination against them, removing the right to vote from millions, and essentially warehousing a disposable population of unwanted people. She calls it a new caste system.

Poor whites and people of other ethnicity are also subjected to this system of social control. Because if poor whites or others get out of line, they will be given the worst possible treatment, they will be treated just like poor blacks.

Other critics like Professor Dylan Rodriguez see the criminal justice system as a key part of what he calls the domestic war on the marginalized. Because of globalization, he argues in his book Forced Passages, there is an excess of people in the US and elsewhere. “These people”, whether they are in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib or US jails and prisons, are not productive, are not needed, are not wanted and are not really entitled to the same human rights as the productive ones. They must be controlled and dominated for the safety of the productive. They must be intimidated into accepting their inferiority or they must be removed from the society of the productive.

This domestic war relies on the same technology that the US uses internationally. More and more we see the militarization of this country’s police. Likewise, the goals of the US justice system are the same as the US war on terror – domination and control by capture, immobilization, punishment and liquidation.

What to do?

Martin Luther King Jr., said we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. A radical approach to the US criminal justice system means we must go to the root of the problem. Not reform. Not better beds in better prisons. We are not called to only trim the leaves or prune the branches, but rip up this unjust system by its roots.

We are all entitled to safety. That is a human right everyone has a right to expect. But do we really think that continuing with a deeply racist system leading the world in incarcerating our children is making us safer?

It is time for every person interested in justice and safety to join in and dismantle this racist system. Should the US decriminalize drugs like marijuana? Should prisons be abolished? Should we expand the use of restorative justice? Can we create fair educational, medical and employment systems? All these questions and many more have to be seriously explored. Join a group like INCITE, Critical Resistance, the Center for Community Alternatives, Thousand Kites, or the California Prison Moratorium and work on it. As Professor Alexander says “Nothing short of a major social movement can dismantle this new caste system.”

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Drug bust or racist revenge?

Criminal Justice, Talk About Race — By Jordan Flaherty on May 14, 2010 at 10:52 am

Sheriff Scott Franklin of Jena says he is trying to rid his community of drugs. Critics say he is pursuing a vendetta against the town’s Black community.

At four am on July 9 of last year, more than 150 officers from 10 different agencies gathered in a large barn just outside Jena, Louisiana. The day was the culmination of an investigation that Sheriff Scott Franklin said had been going on for nearly two years. Local media was invited, and a video of the Sheriff speaking to the rowdy gathering would later appear online.

The Sheriff called the mobilization “Operation Third Option,” and he said it was about fighting drugs. However, community members say that Sheriff Franklin’s actions are part of an orchestrated revenge for the local civil rights protests that won freedom for six Black high school students – known internationally as the Jena Six – who had been charged with attempted murder for a school fight.

One thing is clear: the Sheriff spent massive resources; yet officers seized no contraband. Together with District Attorney Reed Walters, Sheriff Franklin has said he is seeking maximum penalties for people charged with small-time offenses. Further, in a parish that is eighty-five percent white, his actions have almost exclusively targeted African Americans. In a town with just over three hundred Black residents, he sent his 150 officers only into the town’s Black neighborhood.

Downtown Baghdad

According to a report from Alexandria’s Town Talk newspaper, LaSalle Parish Sheriff Scott Franklin prepared the assembled crowd for a violent day. “This is serious business what we’re fixing to do,” said Sheriff Franklin. “If you think this is a training exercise or if you think these are good old boys from redneck country and we’re just going to good-old-boy them into handcuffs, you’re wrong. These people have nothing to lose. And they know the stakes are high.”

“It’s going to be like Baghdad out in this community at five am,” he continued dramatically, explaining that their target was 37-year-old Darren DeWayne Brown, who owns a barbershop – one of the only Black-owned businesses in town – and his “lieutenants,” who Franklin said supplied eighty percent of the narcotics for three parishes. “Let me put it to you this way,” declared the Sheriff, “When the man says, ‘We don’t sell dope today,’ dope won’t get sold.”

Sheriff Franklin said that option one is for drug dealers and users to quit, option two is to move, and option three is to spend the rest of their lives in prison. And this day was all about option three. “They will get put in handcuffs, put behind bars today and never see the light of day again unless they are going out on the playground in prison,” he boasted.

At the end of the day, a dozen people were arrested on charges that ranged from contempt of court to resisting arrest to distribution of marijuana, hydrocodone, or cocaine. Despite catching the accused residents by surprise with early morning raids, in which doors were battered down by SWAT teams while a helicopter hovered overhead and then search teams were brought in to take houses and businesses apart, no drugs or other physical evidence were retrieved – other than small traces of marijuana at one house.

Virtually all evidence in the cases comes from the testimony of twenty-three-year-old Evan Brown of Jena, who also wore a hidden camera that parish officials have said provides powerful visual evidence. “We’re completely satisfied with the results,” said LaSalle Sheriff’s Department Narcotic Chief Robert Terral, who refused further comment on the operation.

LaSalle Parish is a politically conservative enclave located in northwest Louisiana. Former Klansman David Duke received a solid majority of local votes when he ran for governor in 1991—in fact, he received a higher percentage of votes in LaSalle Parish than in any other part of the state.

The Parish became famous in 2007 for the case of the Jena Six. In demonstrations that were called the birth of a 21st Century civil rights movement, an estimated 50,000 people from across the US marched in Jena – nearly twenty times the population of the town. They were protesting a pattern of systemic racism and discriminatory prosecutions. All six youths, who once faced life in prison, are now either enrolled in college or are on their way.

The Sheriff told the Jena Times that he began preparing for Operation Third Option in November of 2007, less than two months after the historic protests. The raid occurred just a few weeks after the Jena Six cases were finally settled.

A Terrifying Morning

Catrina Wallace, 29, was sleeping in her bed with her youngest child when her door was broken down and she awoke to the feeling of a gun to her head. When she opened her eyes, her small home was filled with police. “I never seen that many police at one time,” she recalled. “Everywhere I looked all I saw was police. There were six or seven just in my bedroom.” She says police pointed guns at her small children and wouldn’t let her comfort them.

Catrina Wallace is the sister of Robert Bailey, one of the Jena Six. Along with her mother, Caseptla Bailey, she was one of the leaders of the campaign to free the accused youths, and she organized meetings and protests for months. Wallace says her political activism made her a target. “I’m a freedom fighter,” she says. “I fight for peoples’ rights. I’ve never been in trouble.”

Police found no drugs or any other evidence of wrongdoing in Wallace’s home. Officers initially claimed they found marijuana on her kitchen table, but later discovered that they had collected broccoli stems, left over from dinner the previous night.

Despite the lack of evidence, and the fact that she has lived her whole life in Jena and is raising three small children, she was held for a $150,000 cash-only bond. Her car, a 1999 Mitsubishi Gallant, was also taken by police, who continue to hold it in an impound lot, along with about fifty other vehicles seized that day. If she wants it back, Catrina will have to pay twelve dollars a day to the lot for every day since July of last year – an amount already larger than the value of the car.

Tasered and Traumatized

Samuel Howard was sleeping in his bed, naked, when police broke down his door at five am. Howard says police tasered him three times, twice in the back and once in his arm, and pointed guns at his three kids. They took him out of his house still naked, and brought him to a baseball field, along with the other arrestees from that day.  There he says he spent another hour without any clothes, standing with the other arrestees, until police brought him an orange jailhouse jumper.

“They treated us like we was hard core killers,” says Howard, who says that in a small town like Jena where everyone knows each other, such violent tactics are uncalled for. “The sheriff knows me,” he says. “We went to school together. He knows I’m not a violent person.”

Howard is being charged with three counts of distribution of cocaine. His trial is scheduled for May 24 (Catrina Wallace’s is scheduled for the same week). As with the other defendants, the only evidence against him is the testimony and video from the police informant. Howard, who has seen the evidence, says he is not implicated in the video.

His home was badly burned up that day, apparently from flares that police fired inside, and his windows were all destroyed. Howard, who does some auto repair work, says his four vehicles – including two older cars that don’t run – were also seized by police.

Racially Motivated

Many of Jena’s Black residents say that the town’s white power structure – including the DA, Sheriff, and the editor of the local paper – wants revenge against Black people in town who stood up and fought against unjust charges. They complain that in a town that is mostly white, all but two of the people arrested were Black, and the only arrestees pictured in the town’s paper were Black.

The sheriff “Just wants to humiliate people,” says Caseptla Bailey, Wallace’s mother, “Especially the African Americans.” The editor and publisher of the Jena Times, the town’s only paper, is Sammy Franklin, who has owned the paper since 1968. His son is Sheriff Scott Franklin.

A white-owned store around the corner from the courthouse in downtown Jena sells t-shirts commemorating Operation Third Option, with a design of a person behind bars. Black residents of Jena say that an earlier version of the shirt featured a monkey behind bars. They say that white residents of Jena have gloated about the arrests.

Four of those arrested on that day have pled guilty. Chelsea Brown, who was arrested for contempt of court, received a sentence of 25 days. Devin Lofton, who pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute, received ten years. Adrian Richardson, 34, who pled guilty on April 23 to two counts of distribution, received twenty-five years. Termaine Lee, a twenty-two-year-old who had no previous record but faced six counts of distribution, received twenty years.

Some of the accused have hired attorneys, while others have had public defenders appointed. However, all involved say they doubt they can receive a fair trial in LaSalle. They say that white defendants with similar or worse charges received lower bonds, and face lesser sentences. “It’s crooked,” says Howard. “They ain’t playing fair down here, that’s all.”

Marcus Jones, the father of one of the Jena Six youths, doesn’t mince words. “This is racially motivated,” he says. “It’s revenge.” He says that the problem is that while the Jena Six youths were freed, there were no consequences for the Sheriff or DA. “Wouldn’t none of this be going on if justice had been done the way it was supposed to have been,” he says.

Jones was not among those arrested, but in a small town like Jena, he knows everyone involved. He says he was shocked at the resources the police brought in. “Why did you need helicopters and military weapons?” he asks. “I could see it if you were going to arrest Noriega or the Mafia, but these are people with kids in their homes. The Sheriff’s department never had any violent run-ins with any of these people.”

Jones believes the entire campaign by Sheriff Franklin has been a gesture of asserting control over the Black community, and he calls for a federal investigation of the Sheriff’s department and DA.

Samuel Howard says that now he mostly stays home with his three kids, ages 12, 14, and 15. He’s afraid of the Sheriff’s office arresting him if he leaves the house, and he wants to stay close to his kids, who were traumatized by his arrest. “It scared them to death,” he says. “They still talk about it to this day.”

“They know they’re wrong,” said Howard, referring to the Sheriff and DA, “You can’t tell me they don’t know.”

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