President Obama Condescends to African Americans in Congressional Black Caucus Dinner Speech

President Obama

The President and First Lady Michelle Obama
at 2011 Congressional Black Caucus Dinner

http://www.popularcritic.com/2011/09/26/president-obama-is-not-a-fighter-michelle-obama-regal-in-black/

All,

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) speech by President Obama last saturday night (before a nearly all black audience) was not only a corny insipid speech full of empty clichés and hollow platitudes but was also incredibly condescending, patronizing, and downright INSULTING. What is wrong with Barack? Has he lost his damn mind? I can tell you all one thing for damn sure: If he had given this same type of dismissive, insulting speech to any other constituent group of American citizens in the entire country (i.e. Hispanics/Latinos, Jews, labor unions, Gays and Lesbians, members of the military, poor, working and middle class whites, etc. etc.) he would have been justifiably VILLIFIED and attacked by these groups and the media for his outrageous arrogance, smugness, and incredible rudeness. The utterly patronizing way the President talks DOWN to black folks in public is absolutely appalling and one more indication that he is only taking us and our legitimate and important concerns and issues as a People AND as American CITIZENS for granted. A LOT of black people across the country (myself included) were highly upset with the president's overly cavalier and pompous attitude and have said as much, including our black Congressional Representative from Los Angeles, the always redoubtable and gutsy Maxine Waters:

(See her important response to the speech in the CBS YouTube videolink below)...Just below her link is one to an excerpt of the President's CBC speech...Stay tuned...

Kofi

Maxine Waters response:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd5ZnSOYUkg

Excerpt from President's speech:



President Obama Is Not A Fighter;
Michelle Obama Regal In Black
September 26, 2011
Posted by Popular Critic

Tags: Barack Obama, Congressional Black Caucus, Michelle Obama, President

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama wrapped up the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference on Saturday night at the Phoenix Awards in the Washington, D.C. Michelle Obama was her usual regal self in all black. But this time, Michelle’s fashion choices took the back seat to her husband’s speech. President Obama is working really hard to maintain his track record for saying things that contradicts his base. He knows he needs black voters, as he stated in his speech, “And I know we won’t get where we need to go if we don’t travel down this road together. I need you with me.” Yet, for such an eloquent speak President Obama manages to put his foot in his mouth – again!

Here’s another snippet below:

“So I don’t know about you, CBC, but the future rewards those who press on. With patient and firm determination, I am going to press on for jobs. I’m going to press on for equality. I’m going to press on for the sake of our children. I’m going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I am going to press on.” “I expect all of you to march with me and press on. Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We’ve got work to do, CBC.”

Well, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Nick Chiles had a thing or two to say about President Obama:

"Last week President Obama stepped onto the stage of the Congressional Black Caucus desperately trying to light a fire under black folks before the election season heats up—just as we got word that he is having trouble eliciting campaign contributions from the army of small donors who threw money at him in 2008. It occurs to me that the President is in such a vulnerable state because he forgot a fundamental lesson he probably learned in elementary school: People will have more love and respect for the guy who stands up to the bully—even if he gets his face bashed in—than the guy who tries to pull the bully aside and talk the bully out of beating him up..."

Read the full article below: "When Will President Obama Start Fighting Back?"

http://dimewars.com/Blog/ViewBlogArticle.aspx?vn=When+Will+President+Obama+Start+Fighting+Back?&BlogID=f6076015-c288-4279-bf8a-fc29d36830b8


When Will President Obama Start Fighting Back?
By Nick Chiles

Nick Chiles

Last week President Obama stepped onto the stage of the Congressional Black Caucus desperately trying to light a fire under black folks before the election season heats up—just as we got word that he is having trouble eliciting campaign contributions from the army of small donors who threw money at him in 2008. It occurs to me that the President is in such a vulnerable state because he forgot a fundamental lesson he probably learned in elementary school: People will have more love and respect for the guy who stands up to the bully—even if he gets his face bashed in—than the guy who tries to pull the bully aside and talk the bully out of beating him up.

The Republicans in Congress have been acting like bullies since the day Obama took office. He thought he could get things done by reasoning with them, trying to compromise with them, caving in to them when necessary, with the ultimate goal being a track record of legislative achievement. While we all may intellectually understand the wisdom of that approach, it’s hard to be inspired and stand behind someone who we believe deep in our hearts has acted like a punk. Human nature compels us to be attracted to the guy who goes down swinging, who confronts the bad guy and takes his shots, even if he is badly defeated in the end. It’s the formula of a thousand Hollywood features, from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” to Queen Latifah in “Set It Off.”

During the election, Obama inspired us with the message that he could bring together a divided country, Gandhi-like, and lead us to a new age of harmony. That all sounded wonderfully utopian, but the Republicans wanted none of it. They wanted a fight. And as they started throwing their blows, it began to sound suspiciously like a race war, with a lot of veiled insults that were clearly the 2011 version of nigger. Black people have a lot of experience with racial conflicts in this country; they are an indelible part of our history. And when they go down, we don’t want a leader who is busy trying to make nice with the other side, trying to conciliate and negotiate. One of our most revered leader, Martin Luther King Jr., a well-known pacifist, was not a conciliator. After all, there is nothing more confrontational and assertive than refusing to move to the back of the bus or give up the lunch counter seat. Fighting back is not necessarily a reference to violence; it means using whatever means you have at your disposal to take down the opposition. Giving in to the opposition is not an acceptable battle strategy.

When a fight breaks out, we want to march into battle behind Duane “The Rock” Johnson, not Gandhi. We will always fall in love with the fighter, while we tolerate the thoughtful negotiator. We worship revenge and confrontation, not reasoned discussion and capitulation.

Being a bully is mostly about PR—convincing onlookers that you are a big, bad, scary dude. When the bully is revealed as a coward or an idiot, his cloak of invincibility is snatched away. Obama has badly lost the PR battle—he has capitulated to the bully so many times that it may be nearly impossible for him to alter our deep-seated fear that he is a punk. He has 13 months to go before the election. After all the debates are done, the country has been crisscrossed many times over and the hundreds of millions of campaign dollars are spent, his success in November 2012 will depend largely on how our gut answers one basic question: Is he ready to fight?


Nick Chiles is a New York Times bestselling author and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

President Obama, the Republican/Tea Party Right, and the Historical Persistence of Electoral Racism in the United States

http://www.thenation.com/article/163544/black-president-double-standard-why-white-liberals-are-abandoning-obama?rel=emailNation


"President Obama has experienced a swift and steep decline in support among white Americans—from 61 percent in 2009 to 33 percent now. I believe much of that decline can be attributed to their disappointment that choosing a black man for president did not prove to be salvific for them or the nation. His record is, at the very least, comparable to that of President Clinton, who was enthusiastically re-elected. The 2012 election is a test of whether Obama will be held to standards never before imposed on an incumbent. If he is, it may be possible to read that result as the triumph of a more subtle form of racism.'

"The 2012 election is a test of whether Obama will be held to standards never before imposed on an incumbent. If he is, it may be possible to read that result as the triumph of a more subtle form of racism."

--Melissa Harris-Perry

All,

Generally I have a lot of respect for Melissa Harris-Perry and have stated as much many times in the past but the glaringly feeble "argument" she makes here about President Obama is not merely wrong but pure bullshit. For example, the deceptively false comparisons to Bill Clinton--no matter what one may think of his administration's actual policies and programs (and I was never enthusiastic about Clinton any more than I am "enthusiastic" about Obama now)--obscures the fact that neither man ever got more than 43% of the national white vote (contrary to the rather misleading and odd assertion by Harris-Perry in this article that 61% "supported" Obama in 2009 and that this number has now "declined" to a 33% approval rate). It's also patently false that Clinton was, in the words of Harris-Perry, "enthusiastically re-elected" by the (white) American electorate. Clinton received a mere 43% of the overall national vote in 1992 but won because a conservative third party candidate (Ross Perot) won 20% of the national vote and thus successfully undermined and sabotaged George H.W. Bush's chances for re-election, and in the re-election year of 1996 Clinton received a mere 49% of the national vote overall and Ross Perot's conservative third party candidacy still received 8.4% of the national vote (and over 8 million popular votes!) to the 40% that Republican candidate Bob Dole received. Thus Clinton's re-election was hardly "enthusiastic" by any measure. Clinton barely squeaked by with a paper-thin 1% margin.

In fact without the great majority of the black and Latino vote in 1996 Clinton would have LOST his bid for re-election (just as Obama would have LOST his first time around in 2008 when he received only 43% of the white vote to McCain/Palin's whopping 55% of that same national vote demographic). Once again the HUGE black and Latino vote of 81% overall (and a stunning 95% of the national black vote!) SAVED Obama from certain defeat--and by an electoral landslide at that-- if McCain had somehow managed to get at least a mere 35% of the national black and Latino vote (he wound up with a feeble 19%!).

My purpose then in all this is to point out that neither of Harris-Perry's main premises in this article are fundamentally relevant or significant. The "electoral racism" that she refers to is still very much intact at ALL times in American politics generally despite Obama's win against another black candidate for Senate in 2004 and his Presidential victory in 2008 obscures and even distorts a very important and disturbing fact. Obama is in every sense of the word a complete anomaly and utter exception in the history of American politics and here's the obvious historical proof: Only three (3) African Americans have ever been elected Senators in the entire history of the United States and only (2) have ever been elected Governors; Obama is the ONLY black person ever to be NOMINATED by a major party for President in the United States-- let alone win. An even more revealing fact about contemporary American politics and race is the fact that the national white vote is and has been for over 60 years now overwhelmingly conservative and Republican no matter who's running

(OMINOUS FACTOID: Since 1952--a period of 15 national elections for the Presidency--white Americans have voted for the Republican candidate 14 times or a jawdropping 93% of the time!). This means that whatever color the Democratic Party candidate or any other "liberal" or "progressive" was or is white folks in general ain't voting for them. The fact that Obama received virtually the exact same percentage of white votes as Kerry in 2004, Gore, in 2000 or Clinton in '92 and '96 doesn't indicate that there is a significant decrease in electoral racism at all--quite the contrary. It just means that in real terms the white conservative/reactionary vote is as racist now as it was in 1952. In this case the lone exception in 150 years of a victorious black candidate (Obama) only winds up once again proving the rule since if not for the overwhelming black and Latino vote in 2008 Obama would have lost in a landslide because a rock solid 57% of the national white vote went to his Republican opponents or someone else on the ballot. This means that the great majority of white voters openly preferred that SARAH PALIN be only one heartbeat from the Presidency rather than elect "the black guy." THINK about that absolutely chilling prospect for a moment and tell me that "electoral racism" has significantly diminished or "changed" in this country! So ultimately whatever happens in 2012 it won't be because Obama is held to a "different racial double standard" than he was in 2008. Not at all. Rather, the 'racial standard' will be the exact same one as before--AND if the overall black, Latino, and Asian American vote for him is not at least 85% this time around--only a slight increase from 2008--Obama will most certainly lose in 2012 because we all know for damn sure that he is NOT gonna get MORE than the 43% of the national white vote he received in 2008. Very likely the chances are the national white vote for Obama will probably be even LESS than 43% in 2012. Freak anomaly or not...

Kofi


Black President, Double Standard: Why White Liberals Are Abandoning Obama
by Melissa Harris-Perry
September 21, 2011
The Nation

Electoral racism in its most naked, egregious and aggressive form is the unwillingness of white Americans to vote for a black candidate regardless of the candidate’s qualifications, ideology or party. This form of racism was a standard feature of American politics for much of the twentieth century. So far, Barack Obama has been involved in two elections that suggest that such racism is no longer operative. His re-election bid, however, may indicate that a more insidious form of racism has come to replace it.

The 2004 Illinois Senate race between Obama and Alan Keyes, two African-Americans, was a unique test of the persistence of old-fashioned electoral racism. For a truly committed electoral racist, neither Obama nor Keyes would have been acceptable—regardless of policy positions, biography or qualification—because both were black.

One way to determine how many people felt this way is to measure the “roll-off.” In presidential election years, a small percentage vote for the president, but then “roll off” by not casting ballots for state and local offices. A substantial increase in roll-off—larger than usual numbers of voters who picked John Kerry or George Bush but declined to choose between Obama and Keyes—would have been a measure of the unwillingness of some to vote for any black candidate. I tested this in 2004 and found no increase, statistical or substantive, in roll-off in Illinois. Faced with two black candidates, white voters were willing to choose one of them.

The 2008 general election was another referendum on old-fashioned electoral racism—this time among Democratic voters. The long primary battle between Hillary Clinton and Obama had the important effect of registering hundreds of thousands of Democrats. By October 2008, it was clear that Obama could lose the general election only if a substantial portion of registered Democrats in key states failed to turn out or chose to cross party lines. For Democrats to abandon their nominee after eight years of Bush could be interpreted only as an act of electoral racism.

Not only did white Democratic voters prove willing to support a black candidate; they overperformed in their repudiation of naked electoral racism, electing Obama with a higher percentage of white votes than either Kerry or Gore earned. No amount of birther backlash can diminish the importance of these two election results. We have not landed on the shores of postracial utopia, but we have solid empirical evidence of a profound and important shift in America’s electoral politics.

Still, electoral racism cannot be reduced solely to its most egregious, explicit form. It has proved more enduring and baffling than these results can capture. The 2012 election may be a test of another form of electoral racism: the tendency of white liberals to hold African-American leaders to a higher standard than their white counterparts. If old-fashioned electoral racism is the absolute unwillingness to vote for a black candidate, then liberal electoral racism is the willingness to abandon a black candidate when he is just as competent as his white predecessors.

The relevant comparison here is with the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton. Today many progressives complain that Obama’s healthcare reform was inadequate because it did not include a public option; but Clinton failed to pass any kind of meaningful healthcare reform whatsoever. Others argue that Obama has been slow to push for equal rights for gay Americans; but it was Clinton who established the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy Obama helped repeal. Still others are angry about appalling unemployment rates for black Americans; but while overall unemployment was lower under Clinton, black unemployment was double that of whites during his term, as it is now. And, of course, Clinton supported and signed welfare “reform,” cutting off America’s neediest despite the nation’s economic growth.

Today, America’s continuing entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan provoke anger, but while Clinton reduced defense spending, covert military operations were standard practice during his administration. In terms of criminal justice, Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which decreased judicial disparities in punishment; by contrast, federal incarceration grew exponentially under Clinton. Many argue that Obama is an ineffective leader, but the legislative record for his first two years outpaces Clinton’s first two years. Both men came into power with a Democratically controlled Congress, but both saw a sharp decline in their ability to pass their own legislative agendas once GOP majorities took over one or both chambers.

These comparisons are neither an attack on the Clinton administration nor an apologia for the Obama administration. They are comparisons of two centrist Democratic presidents who faced hostile Republican majorities in the second half of their first terms, forcing a number of political compromises. One president is white. The other is black.

In 1996 President Clinton was re-elected with a coalition more robust and a general election result more favorable than his first win. His vote share among women increased from 46 to 53 percent, among blacks from 83 to 84 percent, among independents from 38 to 42 percent, and among whites from 39 to 43 percent.

President Obama has experienced a swift and steep decline in support among white Americans—from 61 percent in 2009 to 33 percent now. I believe much of that decline can be attributed to their disappointment that choosing a black man for president did not prove to be salvific for them or the nation. His record is, at the very least, comparable to that of President Clinton, who was enthusiastically re-elected. The 2012 election is a test of whether Obama will be held to standards never before imposed on an incumbent. If he is, it may be possible to read that result as the triumph of a more subtle form of racism.

Ralph Nader and Cornel West To Lead a Democratic Party Primary Challenge Against President Obama in 2012

http://www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=3032

All,

While it's obviously clear that a serious primary challenge to Obama is not politically possible and can't possibly work on a practical level in 2012, it's still another ominous and significant sign that the President's re-election campaign is in serious trouble overall given the fierce and vicious opposition of the right and the growing deep demoralization, disaffection, and alienation on the left. While most of Obama's progressive and liberal base and coalition remains generally intact on the surface, it is still not clear at this point if the overall turnout of these voters will be as large, reliable, and secure as it was in 2008. It thus should be noted that if there is at least a 7-10% decrease in the voter turnout of his base (and a corresponding increase in turnout among Republicans and Tea Party voters) Obama could very easily lose his bid for re-election next year...Stay tuned...

Kofi

September 19, 2011

RALPH NADER CORNEL WEST UNVEIL PROPOSAL TO CHALLENGE OBAMA IN PRIMARIES

Progressive leaders led by Ralph Nader and Cornel West unveiled a proposal today to challenge President Obama in the Democratic Party’s presidential primaries in 2012.

The proposal, which has been endorsed by over 45 distinguished leaders, seeks to have a slate of six candidates run against President Obama, each representing a field in which Obama has never clearly staked a progressive claim or where he has drifted toward the corporatist right.

“Without debates by challengers inside the Democratic Party’s presidential primaries, the liberal/majoritarian agenda will be muted and ignored,” said Ralph Nader.

“The one-man Democratic primaries will be dull, repetitive, and draining of both voter enthusiasm and real bright lines between the two parties that excite voters,” Nader said.

A letter is being sent to a list of distinguished elected officials, civic leaders, prominent members of academia and the NGO community who represent the fields of labor, poverty, military and foreign policy, health insurance and care, the environment, financial regulation, consumer protection, and civil, political and human rights/empowerment.

The list of potential candidates also includes progressive democrats who have held national and state office and have fought for progressive reforms.

“We need to put strong democratic pressure on President Obama in the name of poor and working people” said Cornel West, author and Professor at Princeton University. “His administration has tilted too much toward Wall Street, we need policies that empower Main Street.”

The letter pronounces that without primary challengers, President Obama will never have to seriously articulate and defend his beliefs to his own party. Given the dangers our nation faces, that option is unacceptable.

“It’s time for the White House to get into the trench with organized labor and lend a hand. We know what we need, and we don’t need another campaign speech,” said Chris Townsend Political Action Director, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. “The absence of discussion or debate about the failed strategies of this administration only emboldens the corporate onslaught.”

The letter points to numerous decisions that have drawn criticism from Obama’s own Democratic Party including his decision to bail out Wall Street’s most profitable firms while failing to push for effective prosecution of the criminal behavior that triggered the recession, escalating the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan while simultaneously engaging in a unilateral war in Libya, his decision to extend the Bush era tax cuts, and his acquiescence to Republican extortion during the recent debt ceiling negotiations.

“Robust debate on the crucial issues facing our nation, including global environmental devastation, should characterize all races for national public office and the Democratic presidential primaries are no exception,” said Brent Blackwelder, President Emeritus of Friends of the Earth. “The public needs to hear whether a second term Obama will be like the first term Obama, or perhaps more like the 2008 presidential candidate Obama or something else altogether.”

The list of prominent leaders receiving the letter is being kept private as a courtesy.

Here’s a partial list of endorsees:

James Abourezk
Former U.S. Senator, South Dakota
Gar Alperovitz, Professor University of Maryland, Co-Founder Democracy Collaborative
Norman Birnbaum
Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University Law Center
Dr. Brent Blackwelder
President Emeritus of Friends of the Earth
Ellen H. Brown
Lawyer and Author of Web of Debt
Edgar Stuart Cahn
Professor of Law, University of the District of Columbia
Co-founder Legal Services for the Poor
Pat Choate
1996 Reform Party Vice President Candidate
Charles Cray
Director of the Center for Corporate Policy
Peter Coyote
Actor, Author and Director
Ronnie Cummins, Executive Director, Organic Consumers Association
Charles Derber, Professor, Boston College
Ronnie Dugger
Founder, Alliance for Democracy
John Fullerton
President, Capital Institute
Rebecca and James Goodman, Northwood Farm
Randy Hayes
Director, Foundation Earth
Rainforest Action Network Founder
Chris Hedges
Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist of the New York Times and Author
Hazel Henderson,
Author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy
President, Ethical Markets Media, LLC.
Jean Houston
Psychologist, Anthropologist and Author of The Possible Human and The
Possible Society
Nicholas Johnson
Former Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission
Former Administrator, Federal Maritime Commission
Alan F. Kay
Author of Spot the Spin and Locating Consensus for Democracy
Harry Kelber
The Labor Educator
Andrew Kimbrell
Executive Director, Center for Food Safety&
International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA)
Jonathan Kozol
Educator, Author of Savage Inequalities
Lewis Lapham
Former Editor, Harper’s Magazine
Leland Lehrman, Partner, Fund Balance
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Editor, Tikkun Magazine
Chair, Network of Spiritual Progressives
Dr. Richard Lippin, MD
Physician Forecaster, Board Certified in Preventive Medicine and
Advocate for both Individual and Institutional Prevention
Robert D. Manning
Founder and CEO, Responsible Debt Relief Institute
Author of Credit Card Nation
Dr. Samuel Metz, MD
Mad As Hell Doctors, founding member
Physicians for a National Health Plan, member of Portland chapter
Carol Miller, Community Activist, New Mexico
E. Ethelbert Miller, Board Chair Institute for Policy Studies

Ralph Nader
Citizen Advocate
Michael Parenti
Author
John Passacantando
Former Executive Director, Greenpeace USA
Erich Pica
President of Friends of the Earth
Vijay Prashad
Author and Professor, Trinity College
Nomi Prins
Author and former Managing Director at Goldman Sachs
Marcus Raskin
Author of The Common Good and former White House Advisor
Andy Shallal
“Democracy’s Restauranteur” and Owner of Bus Boys& Poets
Michelle Shocked
Musician
David Swanson
Author, War is a Lie
Chris Townsend
Political Action Director, United Electrical, Radio and Machine
Workers of America (UE)
Gore Vidal
Author and Political Activist
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Chair, The Shalom Center
Harvey Wasserman
Author of Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth
Cornel West
Professor and Author of Race Matters
Quentin D. Young MD
National Coordinator, Physicians for a National Health Program

Troy Davis, 1968-2011: Racism and the Institutional Criminality of Capital Punishment

Law enforcement secure the prison entrance as protestors gather across from Jackson State Prison for the planned execution of inmate Troy Davis on September 21, 2011. (Photo by Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)

Photo: Creative Commons/World Coalition Against the Death Penalty

http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/09/american_punishment_in_life_and_death.html


Beyond Troy Davis: How Race Colors Death Row ‘Justice’
by Jamilah King, Hatty Lee
September 23 2011
Colorlines

A Wrenching Night of Global Solidarity as Troy Davis Dies

The state of Georgia ignored a mountain of evidence and killed Troy Davis on Wednesday night. But the movement that grew out of the effort to save his life has cast irreparable doubt on the country’s death penalty system. That a man whose innocence seemed so clear to many—or, at the very least, worth of a second look—can be so hastily killed casts doubt over nearly every stage of his prosecution. And that fact has become a rallying cry for people around the world.

Davis’s case is sadly typical. The Chicago-based Innocence Project, a group that has successfully fought for the exonerations of dozens of people from Illinois’ now-defunct death row, lists eyewitness misidentification and government misconduct as two of the leading causes of wrongful convictions. And even then, questions of guilt or innocence seem almost beside the point when you consider the fact that people of color often receive more harsh sentences for the same crimes as whites, especially when the victim is white. As historian and author William Jelani Cobb told our own Akiba Solomon this week, “The implication is that a white life is worth more.”

Anti-death penalty groups like Amnesty International and the NAACP are working hard to use the momentum surrounding Davis’s case to ask more probing questions about how to fix America’s broken punishment system. Here’s a closer look at who ends up paying the most for which crimes: [SEE DATA AND GRAPHS ABOVE AT TOP OF THIS PAGE]

Troy Davis, 1968-2011
Photo: AP Photo/The Savannah Morning News

http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/09/the_long_murderous_arm_of_the_law_has_killed_troy_davis.html


The Long, Murderous Arm of the Law Has Killed Troy Davis
by Kai Wright, Jamilah King
September 21 2011
Colorlines

Let us not mince words: The state of Georgia just murdered Troy Davis. The state coroner will list homicide as his cause of death. But he wasn’t the first and, sadly, he won’t be the last person slaughtered in the name of U.S. law and order. There are today dozens more people scheduled to be killed by states, according to Amnesty International. Their likely deaths represent the ultimate act of perversity in a system that destroys untold thousands of primarily black and brown lives every day.

The execution came following a harrowing and wrenching night for Davis’s family and supporters all over the world. Hundreds had gathered for a vigil outside of the Jackson, Ga., prison where Davis was put to death. Literally minutes before Davis’s scheduled 7 p.m. execution, the U.S. Supreme Court delayed the killing in order to review a final appeal. A little over three hours later, news broke that the court had refused to block the execution. He was slain at 11:08 p.m. eastern.

As the world waited those agonizing hours, the crowd chanted, sang songs and prayed. Perhaps the most moving speaker of all was Davis’s 17-year-old nephew DeJaun Davis-Correia. Jen Marlowe has reported for Colorlines.com on how DeJaun grew up visiting his uncle in prison, and was inspired by his plight to get involved in the fight against inequity in the criminal justice system. In an interview with Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman outside of the prison, DeJaun said pointedly, “I am Troy Davis, we are Troy Davis, and you could be Troy Davis, too, Ms. Amy Goodman.”

Amnesty International director Larry Cox offered that, importantly, the massive movement that developed around this case offers an opportunity to question this country’s values. And it offers a chance to engage the many people who are repulsed that the state would murder in our names and yet remain silent about it. “We have to take people who were against the death penalty and never did anything about it,” Cox told Goodman, and mobilize them. “Now is the time.”

Davis’s case offers a bracing and depressing illustration of capital punishment’s many problems. In their eagerness to prosecute a black man for murdering a white cop, local officials set in motion a killing machine that, once turned on, is near impossible to halt without executive intervention. Much has already been written about the details of Davis’s case; no reasonable observer can deny there is significant doubt as to his guilt. But our criminal justice system is anything but reasonable. Those who don’t come into contact with it can sit in self-satisfied assurance that our cops and courts measure out blind justice that keeps society well ordered. The evidence simply does not support that fantasy, as Davis’s life and death so dreadfully illustrate. In fact, if we are to judge our criminal justice system by its outcomes, it is built to round up masses of black men, transfer public funds to private companies to warehouse them, and then kill them in cold blood.

Colorlines.com will write much more about this case and about criminal justice reform broadly in the coming days and weeks. For tonight, we mourn not only Davis’s life, but all of those lives that have been destroyed and taken in the name of a criminally unjust system of law and order. Can this nation do no better? Georgia Rep. John Lewis perhaps put it best. “Do not weep for Troy Anthony Davis, he will be with God,” Lewis tweeted as his state committed murder, “weep for Georgia and for our Nation. Capital punishment is barbaric.”


http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/09/the-night-they-killed-troy-davis/245515/


The Night They Killed Troy Davis
By TA-NEHISI COATES
SEPTEMBER 22, 2011
THE ATLANTIC

Rutgers historian William Jelani Cobb was outside of the prison, last night, where Troy Davis was held and executed. He filed this report while bearing "witness to a great evil." Jelani has guest-posted here before. We're always happy to have him back offering his unique mix of politics, history and on-site reporting.

Erik S. Lesser / AFP-Getty Images / September 21, 2011)

JACKSON, Georgia -- The Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison sits a quarter mile off Interstate 75 in Jackson, just outside the commuter suburbs of Atlanta. The technical name for the place obscures its most notorious function: it houses the death chamber for the state's executions. Last night, for more than seven hours, hundreds of people prayed, chanted, sang, hoped and shouted in front of that building in a vain effort to prevent the state of Georgia from extinguishing the life of Troy Davis.

A trickle of people began showing up outside the prison in the late afternoon. By 5 p.m. they had grown to about 200 and been cordoned off by police tape in front of a truck stop across from the prison. A knot of organizers from Amnesty International unfurled a huge banner saying "Free Troy Davis" and another set of activists held a sign saying we had returned to the days of the Scottsboro Nine. A principal came out with several of his elementary school students and a busload of students poured in from Spelman and Morehouse Colleges. But the largest group was from Al Sharpton's National Action Network -- at least thirty of whom had driven up from Savannah, where the murder of Mark McPhail took place. They set about coordinating the chants, moving people with signs to the forefront so that passersby could see exactly what we were protesting and generally keeping the protests going.

Initially the police outside the prison were unfazed by our presence, relaxed enough to be polite. But that changed as we drew closer to the scheduled hour of the execution. At about 6 p.m., local law enforcement, sheriffs, SWAT teams and state troopers began putting on riot gear. Over the course of the next hour they moved closer and closer to the protesters with their batons in hand. For their part they may have hoped that their show of force would prevent things from getting out of control but the reality is that it appeared that they wanted to instigate violence. It was impossible not to realize that from their perspective, we were praying for a man who had gunned down their fellow officer.

By 6:30 the crowd numbered at least 500 people. We spilled past the tape and onto the grassy barrier between the truck stop and Prison Boulevard where the facility is located. Trucks pulled in and out of the station began honking their horn in support of Troy Davis's cause.

But what was most surprising and disturbing is that the group was more than 90% black. For all the discussion about the implications of the death penalty for the country at large this broke down, as always, to an issue of race and black people would have to do the heavy lifting if any change were going to occur. The racial balance skewed so heavily that when a young white couple sat down on the grass next to me I asked them what organization they were with. The woman reply hit me hard: "We're not with an organization. I know Troy Davis -- my brother is on death row with him."


By 7 p.m. people nearly everyone there was crying or praying or both, imploring God to save Troy Davis's soul if he would not save his life. In the midst of this I realized that there were no counter-protests. Later I learned there were a few. But still I saw no crowds gathered to voice their support for what was happening inside that prison. This was a small grace but it was also possibly because few believed that Davis' fate was ever in doubt. And they had no reason to.

Georgia's criminal justice system is a microcosm for the kind of racial disparities that plague the entire country. Blacks are 30.5% of the state's population but make up 61% of Georgia's prisoners. A few years back the state legislature, in the name of getting tough on crime, passed a bill that created draconian penalties and allowed juveniles to be charged as adults for a wide array of crimes, including simple robbery, which would normally be handled by a juvenile court. The legislation was so poorly written that in the state if a 14 year old and a 35 year old rob a liquor store together, the teenager can - and in some instances has -- received a sentence longer than that of the adult. It can go without saying that these laws have disproportionately impacted black youth.

Both the state legislature and the governorship are firmly in the hands of the GOP and, though the newly elected Nathan Deal remains the subject of a federal corruption probe, no Democrat has stood a chance of becoming governor since Roy Barnes was turned out of office for opposing the Confederate flag nearly a decade ago. This is Georgia in the 21st century, the state that claimed, despite recantations, police coercion, contrary evidence and the lack of physical evidence, that it was certain beyond a reasonable doubt that Troy Davis was responsible for the death of Mark McPhail and that he should die for it.

The sobs of the mourning crowd were punctured by shouts when we heard that the Supreme Court had stepped in to review the case. The reality is that this crowd, predominantly African American, many battle-wearied activists, still believed that this execution simply could not happen. For hours, their energy and commitment unflagging, people beat drums, held candles and sang civil rights songs. And here lies the paradox: even as people most intimately aware of the failings of this country, so many of us subscribed to a faith that justice would prevail that when we received word of the court's refusal to grant a stay the reaction was stunned disbelief.

The feeling, as I stood in front of the truck stop in the middle of the night, was that we were witness to a great evil -- not solely the taking of what may well have been an innocent life, but also in the false certainty that sought to sell this killing as justice. When word came at 11:08 p.m. that Troy Davis was no more, women began wailing; several of them fell to the ground heaving inconsolably. A few men offered stumbling, meandering prayers that some good might come of this, that it would inspire some greater reckoning with the arbitrary, corrupted realities of capital punishment in this country.

And I, at that point, thought about my father, a native of Hazlehurst, Georgia who had abandoned his home state for New York in 1941. He lived the remainder of his life there, firm in his belief that a black man's life was seen as worthless in Georgia. I grew up hearing the stories of the sadistic violence that was commonplace there, about a black women he'd known growing up who was raped and tortured by white men who went unpunished. I moved to Georgia in 2001, secure in my belief that the place had changed, that our efforts had yielded success and the stories my father told me were now consigned to the horror closets of history.

But last night, progress, hopes and a black presidency be damned, the state of Georgia had the last word. And they were determined to prove the old man right.


http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/09/william_jelani_cobb_on_the_tragedy_of_troy_davis.html


William Jelani Cobb Reports from the Prison Gate

by Akiba Solomon
September 22 2011
COLORLINES

Last night, historian and author William Jelani Cobb spent seven hours outside of the Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia, demonstrating, documenting—then mourning—the execution of Troy Davis. Excerpts from our talk the morning after:

For some reason I didn’t think the execution was going to happen.

I know. Despite all we know about this country, you want to believe that things have changed.

You posted lots of photos and tweeted throughout the night, but you weren’t there in a professional capacity. What compelled you to go down there?

Well, it was political and personal. Politically, I felt that as a person of conscience I could not just sit back and not let my voice be heard when the state was going to execute a man [amid] damning questions about the nature of the trial. Personally, I think about this in terms of my father who left Georgia in 1941 for New York and never came back. When you’d ask him about his home state, he would spit before describing how a black man’s life had no value there. Now, I believed in this narrative of me coming back to Georgia. [Living and teaching here] was almost a way for me to prove that things had changed, that the efforts of all of our people had born some fruit. But now, ironically, I can see where my father was right. It turns out these people have no concern for justice and the judicial system is a sham. When you look at the evidence in this particular [case], this literally could be any of us.

I can understand why Officer Mark MacPhail’s family wanted the execution to take place, because they truly believe Troy Davis killed him. But given the glaring questions, I’m puzzled about others who weren’t intimately connected. Did you see any people demonstrating in favor of the execution?

I didn’t see any, and I was there from about 5:20 until almost midnight. The people out were saying, “Spare this man’s life.” At the height of it, there were probably about 500 of us out there.

When the word came out that the Supreme Court wouldn’t [stay the execution], how did the crowd react?

I’ll just take you through the whole night. In the beginning, we were crushed. People were just wailing out there. As we got closer to the initial execution hour, the tension ratcheted up. The police—whether they were anticipating things getting out of control or whether they were attempting to provoke things—were getting closer and closer to us. When word came that the Supreme Court was stepping in, there was elation. But we just sank when we learned that there wasn’t going to be any change in his fate. People quietly gave in. As Davis was in the process of dying, some prayed. Some people fell out on the grass. Others were talking about what we should do next. It was a roller coaster. And, you know, one of the things I was really disturbed about was that the crowd was about 95 percent black. At no point could you say that this was a cross section. It was up to black folk to say that this was a miscarriage of justice.

Why would a predominantly black crowd disturb you?

Because it felt black people had to shoulder the burden on our own, but this wasn’t a black issue; this was a death penalty issue. We can’t ever get around the implications of this case for everyone. I think about this young white couple that was standing next to me last night. Because there were so few white people there, I [assumed] they were part of an organization. But when I asked them why they’d come out, the woman said, “I know Troy. I’ve spoken to him.” I asked her how. She said,”My brother’s on death row.”

Was she agitated?

No. She was very matter of fact. To me, it was outstanding that despite the turmoil and difficulty of having a brother on death row, she was out there to the last trying to fight for Troy’s life. … Overall, it felt like the crowd was out there doing our best to keep our spirits up and to encourage everyone else, but it was a horrible place to be.

Take me back to the police. How did protestors react as they were inching in?
When I got there at roughly 5:20, police were across the street directing people and traffic and they were noticeably polite. But at about 6:00 or 6:15 the sheriffs came in and put up barricades and put on riot gear.

You actually saw them putting on riot gear?

Yes. Soon another group of police came, and [stood] 40 to 50 feet from prison. Then yet another group came. They were getting farther and farther from the prison and closer and closer to us [holding] these, like, three-foot wooden batons. Maybe they thought a show of force would diminish the possibility of something jumping off. They also could have had the impression that we were there because we love someone who had killed one of their own. The mood was really tense. There was a vibe there—it was as if police were just waiting for an excuse to crack some heads.

Did you see anyone get arrested?
At one point they rushed into the crowd and arrested three people. They just yanked them out. One young man, a white guy, walked across the street with his sign. The police told him to [move] and he just turned around and put his hands behind him to permit himself to be arrested. Overall, this wasn’t a hardcore, radical crowd. It was a diverse group of people—including elderly people, pregnant women and children—who were there because of their conscience. This was a matter of morality for them.

On Facebook and Twitter, I saw several people asking why Obama didn’t step in. Since you wrote a book about him [The Substance of Hope], what are your thoughts?
I think that if Obama had stepped in, he would have aborted his presidency. I suspect that he and/or his administration was working behind the scenes. But if he had come out publicly, he would have no political capital to do anything else. Now we can have a debate about whether that would have been a fair exchange—saying something about Troy Davis in exchange for everything else. But I don’t doubt the stakes. The other thing is that legally, I don’t know if a president can grant clemency in a state case. I do wonder about how [George W. Bush] granted Scooter Libby a pardon for leaking the identity of [CIA agent Valerie Plame] to the [press], or how the pardons at the end of the Clinton administration happened. But I don’t know what Obama’s capacity was to intervene in this case. *[Edtior’s note: The president does not have the authority to intervene in state convictions, but the Justice Department could investigate claims that Davis’s civil rights were violated in his trial.]*

But what makes you think the president or the administration acted behind the scenes though?

Well when the Supreme Court looked at it again, I wondered if there had been a phone call. But this is purely my assessment, my guess. Maybe that makes me feel more comfortable.

So after the execution, what kinds of conversations were you having about what to do next?

We were talking about how to organize and fight against the death penalty in the broader sense. I think in some ways, [by expecting Obama to step in] we want to do an end run around the work we have to do. The truth is, a majority of people in this country support the death penalty. Only just over a third are opposed to it. They don’t understand that it is virtually impossible to have a death penalty that is fair. So we have to fight the unshakeable faith people have in the idea that [only] people who are guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt are executed. I mean, look at the people who said that it was OK to execute Troy Davis. There is no rational argument for it because witnesses said police forced them to lie. Others said that the person who reported [Davis] to the police was the one who actually shot [Officer MacPhail]. The people who presented this case with a veneer of infallibility willfully turned off their power of deduction.

I’ve heard people talk about racism in this case, but they weren’t citing specifics. There’s just a general sense that, as you said, a black man’s life isn’t worth much. But is that all there is to it? Do you think race played a direct role?

I think it was racial in the sense of who the victim was. In the landmark Baldus study, what the death row team found was that, statistically, courts are more likely to impose the death penalty when the victim is white, regardless of the makeup the jury. [The implication] is that a white life is worth more.

Does last night’s execution of Russell Brewer—a [white supremacist] responsible for James Byrd’s dragging death—say anything about equality in the death penalty?

I saw comments to that effect on the Internet. But I would argue that the system is so flawed that advocating the killing of a white supremacist only allows us to pretend that we have equality. It’s like, “We’ll use this one instance to rationalize this entire system.” To me, that’s the criminal justice version of tokenism.