Opinion
No stimulus plan for Black inmates
By ALTON H.MADDOX, JR.
Wherever the American economy is headed, the American judicial system will have already entrapped Blacks. The New York Legislature, for example, passed its gradual emancipation statute in 1799. On the same day in 1799, the New York Legislature also established a statewide prison system. Coincidence?
After the ratification of the 14th Amendment, kangaroo courts were in full bloom, and the terms of the 14th Amendment were being routinely honored in the breach. The American economy still needed a bailout after chattel slavery. Blacks were pawns, and the nation's judicial system would punish any Black loiterer who refused to participate in volunteer slavery. Today, there are more Black men in prison than in college, and more than half of the Black men in urban centers are unemployed. It costs more to imprison a Black male than to send him to college. New York refuses to accord a Black inmate a college education. Black inmates are subject to Dred Scott. The average cost of incarceration is $29,000.
Terrorism thrives when Blacks seem to be making progress. It is worse in prisons. Attorney General Eric Holder is the nominal defender of the constitutional guarantees of Blacks. He is currently nursing bruises for, within reason, describing the state of race relations in the United States.
He described this country as a "nation of cowards." History has proven that this country is, in fact, a nation of racial racketeers and conspirators. Mr. Holder was being kind to white critics who advocate and perpetuate the notion of white superiority. These are racial zealots.
The First Amendment rights of first lady Michelle Robinson have already been checkmated. This is reminiscent of the gag rule against abolitionists in the U.S. Senate. If Mr. Holder is unable to exercise free speech rights, it is doubtful he can be of any assistance in ameliorating the plight of Blacks.
Like this country's banking system, the judicial system is also bankrupt and corrupt. Some of the victims of this banking system are on unemployment lines. The banking parasites are receiving bailout checks and Bernard Madoff is squirreling away his loot They are too white to fail.
While the economic system is plagued by greed, the judicial system is plagued by racism. In 1991, for example, a blue-ribbon commission described New York's judicial system as "infested with racism." Black leaders immediately stuck their heads in the sand. They have refused to come up for air. Judicial racism remains unchecked, despite exorbitant costs to Blacks.
Tavis Smiley's "State of the Black Union" exemplifies the problem. Racism, incarceration and poverty (RIP) are ripping the Black colony apart. A community, on the other hand, controls its politics and economics There were no poor people or ex-cons on any of the panels. None of the panelists had missed a meal. They are receiving white funds. A Black agenda is still an illusion.
If politicians and racketeers can propose the nationalization of banks, the Obama administration should be able to put all state judicial systems in receivership. They were never intended to manage the judicial affairs of Blacks in accordance with the Constitution.
Approximately eight million people in this county are under correctional control. While one in every 31 Americans is in the criminal justice system, the ratio for Blacks is one in 11. Half of the convicted persons in the correctional system are Black. No country approaches the United States in imprisoning its residents.
In terms of Blacks, the separation of powers doctrine is inoperable. The three branches of government are acting in concert. When Blacks stand in the well of the courtroom, there are no checks and balances, and appellate courts routinely rubberstamp judgments of conviction.
One of the benefits of the prison-industrial complex for whites is the transfer of political power from Black urban centers to white rural areas. Prison inmates are counted in their actual residences and not in their domiciles. This means the transfer of Black political power is shifted to white areas where Black inmates are disenfranchised.
This is not the case in Maine and Vermont, however. I wonder why? The U.S. Supreme Court, this past Monday, ruled that some members of the Congressional Black Caucus should start packing their bags. This decision aids those racists who are using prisons to create a slave auction for private enterprise. Black leaders are unable to connect the dots.
States and the federal government are unable to meet their correctional expenses. This is putting the lives of Black inmates in jeopardy. Many of these persons are innocent or have been denied the right to a fair trial. Only half of the states allow for some semblance of compensation to wrongfully convicted defendants.
As the economic conditions of the states worsen, many inmates will be eating bread and water amid unsafe temperatures. The alternative is to release them. To make matters worse, Mr. Obama has failed to fashion a stimulus package for prison inmates, and Black politicians refuse to inspect these modern-day slave quarters.
Virtually every week, a wrongfully convicted inmate is released from prison because of DNA. At least six states prevent, outright, the release of wrongfully convicted inmates because of the exculpatory potential of DNA. Other states have cumbersome and flawed legislation regarding the release of wrongfully convicted defendants based on DNA.
A case in point was the wrongfully convicted defendants in the Central Park jogger case. Kharey Wise was the worst-case scenario. He spent 15 years behind bars. The minimum stay for these young men was seven years. The exculpatory results of DNA tests were of no assistance to them. Justice Thomas Galligan ignored their innocence.
Even though Blacks, Latinos and Asians occupy 25 of the 51 seats on the New York City Council, Council Speaker Christine Quinn is preventing them from representing historically oppressed persons. Whites are over-represented by nine members. A white minority runs municipal government. Black "citizens" have as much political power as Black inmates. In the meantime, Mayor Michael Bloomberg will go back to the New York Legislature this spring to secure a renewal of his firm grip on public education in New York City. He also opposes compensation for these five Central Park victims, despite irrefutable evidence that they were framed and railroaded. If he harbors this unfounded attitude towards these five victims, why do we suspect that his attitude is any different towards the Black and Latino students in the public school system, which is already barring equal employment opportunities for Black children in New York City?
Black leaders are living in fear of white supremacists, but they are eating out of their oppressors' troughs. As the late Dr. William A. Jones would often say, "If you eat the king's meat, you must do the king's bidding."
