Jermaine Williams, a 30-year-old African-American man from Bolivar County, MS, died in police custody on July 23, 2010. Little has been released about the circumstances of his death—except that the local deputy coroner is calling it a homicide by taser.

On Saturday, Bolivar County Deputy Coroner J.O. Trice said he considered the death of Williams a homicide and attributed it solely to the TASER.

“The cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia that was induced by the electrical tasing device (TASER),” he said on Saturday. “The young man was quite healthy for a 30-year-old fellow.

“Most of it is still pending,” he said. “We’re just waiting on the results from the toxicology but it has not changed my opinion about the cause of death. The toxicology report may take a month or so before we get all the results back.”

Trice’s superior, Bolivar County Corner Dr. Nathaniel Brown, has told the press that there was alcohol in Williams blood and cocaine in his urine.

“The blood/cocaine level is still pending,” Brown said. “Cocaine can cause heart arrhythmia and death by itself. The cocaine coupled with an electrical shock … that combination could have caused his death.”

Regardless, Williams’ death could still fall under accidental or justifiable homicide, according to Brown who said that was just his opinion as he is not an attorney.

It is notable that Tasers are quite new to the Cleveland, MS police department in Bolivar County. According to the Bolivar Commercial:

The Cleveland Police Department recently started using TASERs as a way to subdue resistive and combative individuals.

The department underwent training as well as having to be on the receiving end of a TASER before they were allowed to use them on the street.

The newspaper also reports that the taser used was TASER X26 Electronic Control Device (ECD), which has “a recording device built in that cannot be tampered with.” According to the 2008 Amnesty International report Less Than Lethal: The Use of Stun Weapons in U.S. Law Enforcement, the X26 is

programmed to be activated in automatic five-second bursts, although the officer can stop the charge at any time by engaging the safety switch. The charge can also be prolonged beyond five-seconds if the trigger is held down continuously. The operator can also inflict repeated shock cycles with each pull of the trigger as long as both barbs remain attached to the subject. The only technical limit to the number or length of the electrical cycles is the life of the battery, which can be ten minutes or more.

It will therefore be important to establish how many times the device was used on Mr. Williams, at what interval if more than once, and whether the electrical charge put into Mr. Williams body was prolonged beyond the 5 second default. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigations is investigating, according to the local news report.

I am talking to local sources and will be reporting more information about this case soon.

Thanks to los anjalis for also transcribing important portions of Officer Dobson’s statement:

So under SB1070 I know that people will not call officers in the case of a real emergency. I could see this type of scenario: a woman is being beaten by her husband or her significant other. And, if I show up, and I develop reasonable suspicion, or LESS, even, that the person that is a perpetrator in this case, is in this country extralegally, i’m going to start heading in the direction of asking the victim of the case, are you here illegally? I will have to arrest both of them—I’ll be required to—and both will be deported. It violates our calling to serve and protect. It violates, under our Constitution, the requirement to serve and protect.

That the racist law will deter women from seeking needed protections against domestic violence and could result in victims of abuse being deported with their abuser is an important point. My Physicians for Human Rights colleagues Kathleen Sullivan and Erin Hustings have made a similar point about how the law will affect asylum seekers who have fled abuse and torture in their home countries.

In 2009, J-H- was an asylum seeker living in Phoenix, Arizona. J-H- is a survivor of female genital cutting (FGC) in her African homeland. As a victim of and activist against FGC, J-H- was targeted and violently attacked in her country, and her home was burned to the ground. Fearing for her life and safety, J-H- fled to the US without good immigration documents, and with almost no material possessions.

In Arizona, J-H- was fortunate to find a volunteer lawyer who helped her apply to the federal government for asylum. Physicians for Human Rights was able to find a physician from our Asylum Network who was willing to evaluate J-H- in support of her claim to legal protection in the US.

Based on their experiences as advocates for immigrants, Kathleen and Erin elaborate on the type of concern expressed by Officer Dobson:

Past experience with campaigns of immigration raids has shown that legally present immigrants and US family members are more reluctant to take part in civic activities, visit family members, or seek medical help for which they are legally entitled if doing so exposes them to potential questioning and arrest. If SB 1070 had been in force last year, fear of accessing community services may have prevented J-H- from seeking the legal help she needed to obtain asylum in the US. A life of fear and insecurity could have added to the physical and mental suffering she endured due to FGM.

SB 1070 is scheduled to be enacted on July 29. Earlier in July, the US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state of Arizona to invalidate SB 1070. This past week, a coalition of civil rights groups filed a separate lawsuit to block enforcement of SB 1070 while its constitutionality is assessed in the DOJ lawsuit.

Further Reading

• DETENTION AND DEPORTATION CONSEQUENCES OF ARIZONA IMMIGRATION LAW (SB 1070) (Detention Watch).

(Photo: Thomas Hawk)

I have been trying to wrap my mind around BART police officer Johannes Mehserle’s defense in the shooting death of 22-year-old black man Oscar Grant.

Mehserle’s supposed weapon confusion is at the heart of why he was not convicted of voluntary manslaughter, let alone of second degree murder. The underlying logic of the defense seems to be that drawing the gun was an illegitimate, death dealing mistake but tasing Oscar Grant would have been a legitimate course of action.

A photo of Mehserle and surveillance video of his fellow officer Tony Pirone show each of them brandishing their tasers during the events prior to the shooting on the BART platform.

We are to suppose, then, that when police arrive on a scene where fighting that they have not observed has reportedly occurred it is acceptable to brandish weapons to gain compliance from black men. We are to suppose it is proper procedure to threaten any young black man with weapons if he is suspected of having been fighting prior to the arrival of the police.

We are also to suppose that tasers are not themselves lethal weapons. Electronic Village has compiled a list 84 documented taser death incidents since the beginning of 2009. In addition to a growing body of evidence that tasers are unpredictably lethal, there is evidence that they are over-used by law enforcement and that law enforcement officers tase blacks disproportionately.

A 2008 Amnesty International study found that 90% of those struck by tasers since 2001 were unarmed. Overall, among the 2009-2010 victims on the Electronic Village list, 38% were black, though blacks are only 13% of the total US population. Furthermore, tasers seem to be especially problematic in California. According to the Amnesty study, California and Florida have the highest taser death rates in the country. Among the taser deaths recorded by Electronic Village, twenty-one—or 25%—occurred in California.

The logic that legitimates using tasers, despite data such as above, is the logic of fear. Adam Serwer recently put it this way:

To convict on the higher charge of voluntary manslaughter, the prosecution would have had to prove that Mehserle’s fear of Grant and his friends was ‘unreasonable.’ It decided the crime was involuntary. In other words, Mehserle’s fear? That was reasonable.

Serwer provides broad historical context for America’s fear of black men, from Toussaint L’Overture to Oscar Grant. In the spirit of collaboration, I’d like to add some information to Adam’s history.

In Franklin County, Mississippi, May 1964, two black 19-year-old men, named Henry Dee and Charles Moore, were kidnapped, tortured and murdered by a band of Klansmen. The abductions and torture of Dee and Moore were preceded by a spate of similar kidnappings and beatings, at least 16 according to one set of government documents, all in the same small, southwest corner of Mississippi.

During that four month period, bands of Klansmen ambushed black men coming home from work at night or lured them out to deserted roads on false pretenses, brought them out into the woods or oil fields and whipped them and interrogated them. Were their victims—or other blacks the victims knew—members of the NAACP, the Klan wanted to know?

It appears that until May 2, 1964, all of the victims of these abductions got away alive; some have lived with effects of severe injuries the rest of their lives. What brought the Dee-Moore abductions to a deathly end?

There is no evidence that the instigator of the Dee-Moore kidnapping and beatings was involved in the other incidents from early 1964. But when he targeted Henry Dee, he was not worrying about the the NAACP. When Klansmen threw Henry Dee and Charles Moore on the ground, tied them up and beat them with bean poles, the torturers asked the 19-year-olds about a black insurrection instead of about the NAACP.

Henry Dee had recently been to Chicago to visit relatives there. He came back to Mississippi wearing a do-rag and exhibiting other trappings of northern city life. This, with rumors that had started circulating that black Muslims from Chicago were bringing guns into Mississippi to arm local blacks, made Dee an embodiment of much that the Klan feared and had mobilized to suppress. The Klansmen were so intent on getting Dee that when his friend Moore joined him on the street and the two started hitchhiking together from Meadeville to Natchez, the Klansmen took Moore along for the ride and killed them both.

The Dee-Moore case is rare. Unlike scores of other cold cases from the Civil Rights Era, after 43 years, it was finally brought to court. One of the Klansmen involved went to prison in 2007 on federal kidnapping charges for his role in the murders, and, more recently, Franklin County settled a landmark civil suit with the families. Yet, even here, with significant closure for the victims’ families and government being held to account for collusion with the Klan, no perpetrator has been charged with murder and no government official has admitted to any wrongdoing.

In this history of fear, self-possessed black men, who advocate for their rights and are willing to defend themselves when attacked (or are suspected of these things), are met with pathological, frenzied violence. We have not faced this history or held past perpetrators accountable. Until we do, we will continue to have Oscar Grants and we will continue to lack the will for adequate justice.

(A note of thanks to David Ridgen, who made factual corrections and shared his original research for the passages on Henry Dee and Charles Moore.)

On June 30, the Delaware Senate passed a bill ensuring that incarcerated persons will be counted as residents of their home addresses when new state and local legislative districts are drawn in Delaware. The bill previously passed in the House, and is now awaiting Governor Jack Markell’s signature.

The U.S. Census currently counts incarcerated people as residents of the prison location. When states use Census counts to draw legislative districts, they unintentionally enhance the weight of a vote cast in districts that contain prisons at the expense of all other districts in the state. Delaware is the second state to correct this problem and adjust Census data to count incarcerated persons at their home address, joining Maryland which enacted a bill in April. Similar legislation is pending in New York.

“Delaware’s legislation recognizes that prison-based gerrymandering is a problem of fairness in redistricting. All districts — some far more than others — send people to prison, but only some districts have large prisons. Counting incarcerated people as residents of the prison distorts the principle of one person, one vote, and we applaud the Delaware General Assembly for enacting this common-sense solution,” said Peter Wagner, Executive Director of the Prison Policy Initiative.

The problem is national as well. One state assembly district in New York includes 7% prisoners; a state house district in Texas includes 12% prisoners; and 15% of one Montana state house district consists of prisoners imported from other parts of the state. Prison-based gerrymandering was not a serious problem when the prison population was tiny, but the 2010 Census will find five times as many people in prison as it did just three decades ago.

“The Delaware legislature has taken a much-needed step to reflect incarcerated populations in a more accurate way. Delaware’s action should help pave the way for other states to end the distortions caused by counting incarcerated persons in the wrong place,” said Brenda Wright, Director of the Democracy Program at Demos.

The legislation, passed as HB384, applies only to redistricting and would not affect federal or state funding distributions.

What is prison-based gerrymandering, you ask? Here’s a little video to help elucidate the subject. That’s Prison Policy Initiative’s executive director, Peter Wagner, doing the Bob Dylan thing with the cue cards.

Henry Dee

Settlement Reached in Civil Suit Charging Franklin County, MS Role in 1964 KKK Murders

On Monday, June 21, Franklin County, Mississippi agreed to a settlement in an historic civil suit with the families of Charles Moore and  Henry Dee, two 19-year-old Black men who were kidnapped, tortured and murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan on May 2, 1964.

“This is the first time, to my knowledge, that any civil lawsuit against public officials for collaborating with the KKK has reached the point of settlement,” said Margaret Burnham, lead attorney for the family members who brought the suit against Franklin County. Klansman James Ford Seale went to prison in 2007 for his role in the murders; this landmark civil suit addressed the roles of Mississippi government officials in the double murder and subsequent cover-up of what had occurred.

“It’s a bit of a stretch to say they were ‘held accountable,’” Burnham added, “because they did not admit to the facts we presented.”

“I’m convinced there’s nothing else that I can do to get any more truth,” said Thomas Moore, brother of victim Charles. Moore said further that African Americans in his home county “are joyful that somebody brought Franklin County officials to reality and to the way they treated other people.”

Thomas Moore and Thelma Collins, sister of victim Henry Dee, filed the civil suit against Franklin County, MS in August, 2008. The suit focused on the respective roles and actions from 1964 to 1967 of Franklin County Sheriff Wayne Hutto and Franklin County Deputy Sheriff Kirby Shell, both now deceased. “In the aftermath of the killings,” according to the complaint by Moore and Collins,

Sheriff Hutto misled the Plaintiffs when they inquired of the Sheriff about their loved ones. Further, Sheriff Hutto deceived the Plaintiffs into thinking he knew nothing of the whereabouts of Moore and Dee when in fact he did.

Throughout 1964, Hutto and Shell misled investigative agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the murders, concealing their participation in the events of May 2, 1964, the day the two young men were killed.

Hutto and Shell covered up their role in these crimes, deceiving law enforcement officials as well as the Plaintiffs.  Plaintiffs did not become aware of the participation of Hutto and Shell as co-conspirators until the federal indictment was returned on January 24, 2007. Nor could Plaintiffs have discovered Hutto and Shell’s culpability before the indictment. The U.S. Justice Department immunized Charles Edwards, one of the coconspirators and, on November 3, 2006, obtained from Edwards a full statement of the crimes revealing for the first time ever the involvement of Franklin County on the day the men were slain.

Thomas Moore holds photo of his brother, Charles. (Postcard for Mississippi Cold Case, created by David Ridgen.)

“The settlement didn’t need to happen,” noted documentary filmmaker David Ridgen, “if Franklin County officials would have simply apologized to the Moore and Dee families for the actions and inactions of their officials in colluding with and in some cases participating in the Ku Klux Klan’s reign of terror during the civil rights era.”

Ridgen’s film Mississippi Cold Case documented Thomas Moore’s quest to learn the truth about what happened to his brother Charles and to Henry Dee. In their work together on the film Ridgen and Moore uncovered evidence that led to the indictment, trial and conviction of Klansman James Ford Seale.

“I am proud of Thomas Moore for being the juggernaut that pushed this civil suit forward with his lawyers,” Ridgen said, “and I am hopeful that it will lead to civil trials in the near future that will hold Mississippi and elsewhere, state and county, accountable.”

“This is a case about unconscionable crimes and unconscionable deception,” Moore and Collins charged in their complaint.

It is also a case about the systematic denial by Franklin County of law enforcement protection to African-Americans and to whites suspected of opposing the Klan’s campaign of racist terror.

It is a case about the collusive and unlawful relationship between the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and Franklin County.

Franklin County officials stated in their resolution that they do not condone “the horrific deaths of Charles Moore and Henry Dee. “The county desires not to imply the deaths were anything but abhorrent.”

But the county denied any responsibility for the deaths of the two 19-year-old Black men. The officials resolved that the county had not “caused or contributed to the deaths of these two young men. These deaths are believed to have resulted solely from the criminal actions of the Ku Klux Klan.”

In their resolution, the Franklin County officials questioned the evidence in the civil complaint, drawn substantially from the evidence presented in the criminal trial of James Ford Seale that led to his conviction.

George Colllins, President of the Franklin County Board of Supervisors, who signed the resolution accepting the terms of settlement with Thomas Moore and Thelma Collins, had no comment when he was reached on the phone on Tuesday night.

“What we sought to prove was common knowledge at the time,” Margaret Burnham said, “that these crimes could not have persisted without the support of local officials….There is no statute of limitations on murder, no expiration date on moral obligation, and there should be no impunity for human rights violators.”

“I am satisfied with the verdict of the criminal trial, and I’m satisfied with the settlement,” concluded Thomas Moore. “I ran the race and I fought a good fight. I am finished with this case.”

“I am at peace for the first time in 46 years,” Moore said.

(Cross-posted at Civil Rights Cold Case Project)

Podcast

Documents

• Franklin County Board of Supervisors Resolution (PDF)
• Statement, Civil Rights and Restorative Justice, Northeastern University School of Law (PDF)
• Moore v. Franklin County Complaint (PDF)

Additional Coverage

• Michele Norris, “Miss. Officials Agree To Settlement In ’64 Slayings” (NPR)
• Jerry Mitchell, “Lawsuit over ’64 deaths settled” (Jackson Clarion-Ledger)
• Jonathan Saltzman, “Justice follows decades of silence” (Boston Globe)

Many thanks to Pam Spaulding for capturing John Lewis’ speech at Equality Alabama’s gala a couple of weekends ago. John Lewis is an American hero and a powerful speaker; it is fantastic to hear him speaking so strongly on this issue and declaring himself an ally to the GLBT community.

John Lewis took batons to the head, was beaten to unconsciousness multiple times for equality — courage and moral conviction that [Bishop Harry] Jackson and his fellow charlatans of bigotry are bereft of.

Rep. Lewis spoke eloquently about the simplicity of the government staying out of the lives of gay and lesbian couples — there is no need to “save” marriage from two people who simply want to love one another and be legally affirmed in the same way that heterosexual couples are when they marry.

But perhaps the most powerful message was to those in the LGBT community who are waiting for equality to come to them — Lewis charged us to seize the moment, do not accept being told to wait your turn, to demand your rights through your representative, and most of all take personal responsibility — the message we all heard was loud and clear.

(Read the rest of Pam’s post on Lewis’ appearance at the Equality Alabama gala.)

Glad I checked my RSS feeds tonight and tuned into the Jack & Jill Politics coverage of the Valley Swim Club incident. I found Cheryl Contee’s post with the video above (“Hi, my name is Elon James White and I’m broadcasting from 1952…”), and I found the ColorOfChange.org call for letters asking Attorney General Eric Holder to

investigate whether the Valley Club violated federal civil rights laws when it kicked out a group of children from the Creative Steps Day Camp and canceled the camp’s contract.

Please sign the ColorOfChange.org petition to Attorney General Holder now. You can also send a letter to the Valley Swim club via the same petition page at Color of Change.

To recap, the Valley Swim Club, a private swim club that advertises open membership, accepted over $1900 from the Creative Steps Day Camp so their campers could have a place to go swimming this summer.

“When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool,” Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. “The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately.”

The next day the club told the camp director that the camp’s membership was being suspended and their money would be refunded.

One of the most astounding of many astounding moments in this story was the public statement from John Duesler, president of the Valley Swim Club, which said:

“There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club.”

As the ColorOfChange.org letter to Holder notes, canceling the Creative Steps Day Camp’s contract

after learning that the children at the camp were largely African-American and Latino [is] a possible violation of section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

I was pleased to learn via a commenter at Jack & Jill Politics, named Miranda, that while we are waiting for appropriate response from the Department of Justice, a local Philadelphia college has come forward to offer the Creative Steps kids space in its pool.

[T]he staff at Girard College, a private Philadelphia boarding school for children who live in low-income and single parent homes, stepped in and offered their pool.

“We had to help,” said Girard College director of Admissions Tamara Leclair. “Every child deserves an incredible summer camp experience.”

The school already serves 500 campers of its own, but felt they could squeeze in 65 more – especially since the pool is vacant on the day the Creative Steps had originally planned to swim at Valley Swim Club.

“I’m so excited,” camp director Alethea Wright exclaimed. There are still a few logistical nuisances — like insurance — the organizations have to work out, but it seems the campers will not stay dry for long.

NBC Philadelphia also reports that US Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) will investigate the discrimination claim.

“The allegations against the swim club as they are reported are extremely disturbing,” Specter said in a statement. “I am reaching out to the parties involved to ascertain the facts. Racial discrimination has no place in America today.”

If you haven’t already headed over to ColorOfChange.org, please go now and ask Attorney General Holder to investigate possible violations of federal civil rights laws by the Valley Swim Club.

Oh, lastly, kudos to the owners of Gumdrops & Sprinkles in Wayne, PA who gave the Creative Steps kids a free day of candy and ice cream making while they are waiting for all the the details with Girard College to be worked out. If you want to show Gumdrops & Sprinkles some love for showing the Creative Steps kids some love, click on the store photo and leave Gumdrops & Sprinkles a comment on their Yelp page.

Is this what the police in Fort Worth, TX call “Stonewall Commemoration”? A gay club called the Rainbow Lounge opened in the city and Todd Camp, the founder of Q Cinema and former reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, was celebrating his birthday at the club and two Stonewall docs were being screened.

That evening the Fort Worth Police decided to pay a visit and re-enact good-old-fashioned “law enforcement.” Camp told the local LGBT news outlet The Dallas Voice about the incident: Photo of police pinning a patron to the ground. (by Chuck Potter via The Dallas Voice).

The not awesome thing was the paddy wagon of homophobic police that showed up … looking for trouble. My group and I were sitting on the back patio at a picnic table. Nobody was being wild out there. [The police] came through with flashlights, being loud asking what was going on out here, then asked why everyone was all the sudden being quiet. When one group started up their conversations again, they took one guy away. I left shortly after and as I walked through the front bar there were numerous cops with plastic handcuffs all ready to go. I [left] the bar and they [had] a big van in the parking lot and numerous cars on the street. And just so you know, it wasn’t fire hazard crowded or seedy wild in there. … The worst part is [friends later told me] that [the police] had numerous people face down on the ground outside. I just moved to Fort Worth from Dallas, so this is such a shock to me. I know Dallas would not put up with this.  … I am still so shocked it is 2009 and this just happened.

A Black kindergarten girl in Pinellas County, Florida had a tantrum in school. The school decided the best way to handle it was to call the police and request that the girl be charged and arrested. St. Petersburg Police officers responded to the call; the officers felt the best thing to do was handcuff the small child. Because handcuffs are not designed to fit five year olds they had to use plastic ties on the girl’s wrists; they hand cuffed her ankles and kept her bound in the back seat of police cruiser for several hours, while they sought to press charges against her. Footage of the police forcing the girl’s hands behind her back and cuffing her and of excerpts of tantrum went viral on the web and played repeatedly on TV for some days.

The city of of St. Petersburg settled with the girl’s mother, Inga Akens, for $18,000 in an out of court settlement for claims against the police department. The Pinellas County School Board has refused to settle out of court; a lawsuit is now underway.

The suit accuses school officials of mishandling the situation when the girl threw a violent tantrum in class at Fairmount Park Elementary.

The girl, now 8, will need long-term therapy, says the lawsuit, filed March 12 in Pinellas circuit court by Inga Akins, 27, the girl’s mother.

“As a result of this incident, (the girl) is petrified about attending school, is afraid of law enforcement officers, has been severely traumatized and suffers from fear and anxiety,” the suit says. The girl “has a permanent impairment related to the situation with the police and will require continuing long-term therapy and neurodiagnostic testing.”…

The suit, which accuses Fairmount Park Elementary and the School Board of negligence, malicious prosecution for calling police and a civil rights violation, seeks more than $15,000 in damages. Akins has hired high-powered attorney Willie Gary.

“Obviously, we deny liability and will defend it,” said School Board attorney Jim Robinson.

I blogged the hell out of this story for several months. Here’s a selection of my posts, by no means exhaustive:

• St. Petersburg Police Bind Hands And Feet Of 5-Year-Old African-American Girl
• Arresting Children Under 12 In Florida
• Discerning The Social Fabric Of St. Petersburg, Florida (I)
• Discerning The Social Fabric Of St. Petersburg, Florida (II)
• What Is Going On In The Pinellas County Schools??
• Accounts Of Police Involvement In Ja’eisha Scott Case Raise New Questions About Assist. Principal Dibenedetto’s Intent
• “I think they were good people . . . [Ja'eisha] didn’t act like that over here.”
• Criminalizing Children In Florida
• What’s Race Got To Do With It?
• They Kept Ja’eisha Cuffed In Their Cruiser For Hours After Her Mom Arrived
• Ja’eisha Scott Update: Officers Let Off Easy, Cover-up Of School Responsibility Continues

It’s disappointing to read in the new article about Inga Akins’ lawsuit against the School Board that

A police investigation found race was not a factor; the lead officer, who isn’t seen on the tape, was black. But the incident led the department to outline strict rules regarding the handcuffing of children under age 8.

In 2005, I emphasized that

By the time the police arrive and handcuff Ja’eisha it does not matter what color the officers are. Her treatment takes place in a context of persistent inequality and especially punitive attitudes towards African American students…. The presence of an African American police officer overseeing the handcuffing does not mitigate the racism inherent in the event.

I doubt current coverage of the lawsuit will

• mention the alarming number of children under 12 being arrested in the state of Florida as a whole;
• acknowledge that Pinellas County leads the state in these incidents;
• mention that African American children are grossly over-represented among young children who get arrested;
• deem it relevant that Pinellas County has been hit with a class action lawsuit for not educating its African American students; or
• mention other incidents where it appears students have been targeted for abuse by administrators and teachers for no other reason than being African American.

“[S]trict rules regarding the handcuffing of children under age 8″ sounds like a bit progress, but does that even mean the practice has been forbidden? (And should 9 year olds expect to be handcuffed if they get out of line?) A ban on handcuffing young school kids would be a good start but it would not address the repressive atmosphere that Ja’eisha Scott and other Black kids have found themselves in.

In Pinellas County, Florida, it is standard procedure to call the police on small children who are having behavior problems. It is standard procedure to charge children in Pinellas County with felonies. It is standard procedure in Pinellas County to handcuff children as a means of discipline . It is standard procedure in Pinellas County to use police, criminal charges, and handcuffs disproportionately on African American children: 55% of children under 12 charged with crimes in fiscal year 1999-2000 were African American, though they were only 20.95% of the school age children in the state.

If you are unfamiliar with the footage of the handcuffing of Ja’eisha Scott, it is still online (see YouTube player, below). One of the things that is so remarkable is that when the officers arrived, Ja’eisha was seated and not acting out. You can hear someone, probably the assistant prinicipal, reporting on Ja’eisha’s behavior. The cuffing looks like a punishment for the reported behavior more than it looks like restraint of a supposedly uncontrollable child. In 2005, it seemed to me that the assistant principal Nicole Dibenedetto’s behavior needs to be scrutinized. Some reports contradict Dibenedetto’s claims that she tried to pursue other avenues before calling city police to arrest a 5 year old. I am still flabbergasted to have read that Dibenedetto was disappointed when charges were not filed against five year old Ja’eisha Scott.

“To think we would consider charging a child of that age with a crime is almost comical,” said Bruce Bartlett, chief assistant state attorney. Di Benedetto, 31, was disappointed charges were not filed because it was the third time the girl had behaved violently, the police report says (emphasis added).

If the characterization of Ja’eisha’s past behavior is accurate, I would expect an assistant principal, concerned about the well-being and development of young children, to focus on much different interventions than criminal charges for temper tantrums.

As a lifelong New Englander, I spent the final days of this election season in California. On the evening of November 5, after searching every newsstand for a newspaper to remember the historic day that came before, I finally found a copy of the San Jose Mercury Times. The two headlines read: “Obama Elected Nation’s First Black President in Commanding Victory” and “Gay Marriage Ban Heads Toward Victory.”

A week later, the word “victory” still stings.

I am not from California, I am not gay and the idea of marriage is not particularly appealing to me, and yet I am profoundly troubled by the vote last week to approve proposition 8, a ban on same-sex marriage in California.

You should be troubled too, whether you are directly affected or not. From Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” On November 4, a great injustice was brought upon California as well as Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas, where other discriminatory propositions were passed.

President-Elect Barack Obama is living proof that injustice can be overcome and equality can triumph over intolerance. And yet, being in California after volunteering with the Vote No on Prop 8 Campaign to defend marriage equality, I could not help but feel disheartened on election night by a loss that I was not expecting.

Just a short time after leaving my Vote No on 8 polling station in Alameda County on Tuesday night, my grandmother called to tell me that Barack Obama had been elected president. I was heading to the San Francisco Vote No on 8 Campaign party. I was preparing for a long night of nervous, but cautiously optimistic TV watching and couldn’t quite believe this incredible news. I had to grill my overjoyed grandmother on her sources before I believed it.

The streets of San Francisco sprang to life. People were honking horns, yelling “Yes we can!” and dancing in celebration outside the Vote No on 8 party location. People were celebrating inside too—at least in the beginning.

The first poll numbers listed on the LA Times California electoral map projected on two giant screens in the main room showed Proposition 8 ahead in the polls right from the start. But we told ourselves not to despair; after all, the numbers only reflected a few reporting precincts and didn’t yet include the major metropolitan areas of LA and San Francisco.

When the LA area poll numbers started popping up on the screen, I felt the caution in the air.

As the night went on, and the number of reporting precincts increased with little change in the percentage of no on 8 votes, the mood became decidedly somber. I looked to the Vote No on 8 Campaign organizers who had given me my volunteer training. They looked scared. I watched as the line of reporters packed up their cameras and computers. The press would not be covering a victory party that night.

I thought of one of my fellow Vote No on 8 polling station volunteer, who had just married his husband the week before. Would courts end up deciding if the passing of proposition 8 would alter the legal standing of his marriage?

Disillusionment set in as I stood in a room amongst people who were stripped of a fundamental right, vote by unfair vote. Perhaps I hadn’t been in CA long enough to be bombarded by all the negative ads or to understand the size and scope of the Yes on 8 Campaign. Visiting from my beloved Cambridge, Massachusetts, I was baffled by the poll numbers that came flooding in to support a ban on same-sex marriage. Surely on a night so victorious for racial equality in America, such overt discrimination against another group of Americans could not be injected into the California constitution?

Through lies and manipulative advertising, proponents of proposition 8 were able to force discrimination into the California constitution and, on a day that will always be known as a victory for racial equality, we received a painful reminder of how far we have to go on the road to GLBTQ equality.

The GLBTQ community is being singled out because of the pervasive and accepted discrimination throughout our society, now further established into law. GLBTQ rights are human rights. “Young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled,” as President-Elect Obama called out during his victory speech, must play a role in defending and promoting the rights and dignity of one and all.

On November 15, be part of history. Join the Impact is a nationwide protest of proposition 8 being organized at City Halls across the country this Saturday. Join the protest at location near you and get involved in your community. The movement for equality is not just a gay rights movement; it is a civil rights movement. It must not be a Californian movement; it must be an American movement.

There’s no stopping the movement that has started, and I am so proud to have joined my friends and family in the struggle. Someday people will look back and marvel at the progress we made for equality, as we are marveling today at the progress marked by President-Elect Obama.

Amanda Cary is a global AIDS advocacy associate at a health and human rights organization in Cambridge, MA.