I appreciated the way Chris Hayes contextualized the issue of crime in the early nineteen-nineties in response to her critique of the Clintons and mass incarceration. It was good to see her admit to the fact that at that period of time, violent crime ran rampant across the nation.

As I pointed out in a previous post, most critics of the 1994 Crime Bill signed by then president Bill Clinton, often fail to acknowledge the reality that was violent crime at that time. In doing so, they ignore the fact that gun homicides in America peaked in 1993 at the very height of the drug wars. Instead, their argument against the Clintons borders on yet another grand conspiracy against black people by the government.

The post WATCH: Michelle Alexander Endorses the Bernie Sanders “Revolution” appeared first on Madness & Reality.

I wonder how many of the people trying to convince me to support Bernie Sanders that use the, “Well, you know Hillary is racist and called black people ‘super-predators’ back in 1995,” actually voted for her in 2008? Of course, none of them reading this today will answer or admit to doing so.

Which begs the question: Where was all this concern for black and brown folks then? I’m only asking because none of this talk about mass incarceration, welfare reform, Wall Street etc. and the Clintons were an issue then. Wassup with that? Why didn’t black lives matter then?

Of course, none of them reading this today will answer or admit to doing so. Which begs the question: Where was all this concern for black and brown folks then? I’m only asking because none of this talk about mass incarceration, welfare reform, Wall Street etc. and the Clintons were an issue then like it is in this current election cycle. Wassup with that?

Seems like the fact that with Hillary’s main opponent being a black guy named Barack Obama, these issues would’ve been a concern for many then. But, they were not. Instead, today we’re taking her to task and asking her for apologies for legislation signed into law by her husband.

Again, where were these concerns in 2008?

I could be way off base with this – and yes, I’m sure that much of our consciousness as it relates to racial justice has been shaped by the Black Lives Matter movement. Yet and still, I’m at a place where I’m questioning the veracity of the people troubled by these issues today.

And yes, that means you too, black people.

Do you want to know the truth? The truth is that, collectively,  none of us black voters were offended by the use of the term “superpredators” to describe the hypercrimal activity of the nineteen-nineties. If you ask any of us old enough to remember, the one thing we remember most about the nineteen-nineties is the economic prosperity. For the most part, we all had jobs. And, we were making good money until George W. Bush and his Republican compadres came along and totally fucked everything up.

So, loyalty to the Democratic Party aside, quite naturally, Hillary Clinton has and will continue to garner majority support from black voters. This doesn’t mean that she hasn’t worked her ass off this election cycle to earn it. Insofar as her tying herself to Barack Obama and everything he has done, she has. In fact, I would argue that she has done more to earn the black vote than Bernie Sanders has. Unlike Sanders, Clinton has been on the ground in the right spaces properly communicating and articulating her political positions in a language easily understood by black folk.

Yes, believe it or not, when we black people wake up every day we’re not mad at Wall Street. Instead, we’re more pissed off because we’re not getting callbacks for job interviews. We’re not mad because one of our cousins got arrested for marijuana possession while nobody on Wall Street has yet to go to jail – if anything, we’re mad because that fool will try to blow up our phones with collect calls. No, we don’t think like that. See, we think about being able to keep what little shit we have without having to pay more for it while trying to come up in this world. And I’m sorry, nowhere in American history has anyone black looked to Wall Street as a symbol of racial oppression like we do “The Man”.

Wall Street didn’t bring down the Black Panther Party.

Wall Street didn’t kill Martin Luther King Jr.

I could go on and one with this but I’ll end it here. The fact that black folks are overwhelmingly supporting Hillary Clinton has nothing to do with us being mindless sheep or that somehow we’re all shills for Wall Street.

We work hard and pay taxes just like everyone else in this country. So, when someone comes along and talks about raising taxes on everyone to be able to pay for free stuff like college and healthcare – when you haven’t had a raise in ten years and you’re over forty-five and barely clinging to the job you do have – maybe, just maybe, we’re not buying into that hype. Yeah, and that whole idea of race relations in America “absolutely” being better under a Sanders administration? Yeah, well, we’re not buying that bullshit as well. Hell, Bernie might as say that we’ll all be white with him as president of the United States, and that’s why things will get better for us.

At the end of the day, to black folks, Hillary Clinton is like our old auntie – she’s been around the family for a very long time and we trust her. Bernie Sanders? Well, he’s like our momma’s new boyfriend just coming in and trying to be our daddy. And that’s really what it’s all about, folks.

Whether you hate Hillary or not, you can’t say that she’s over-promising.

The post Unlike Hillary, Why is Bernie Struggling with Black Voters? appeared first on Madness & Reality.

The brother talked about how America incarcerates more people than all of Europe combined. Obama explained in stark terms how the black incarceration rate greatly exceeds the white incarceration rate. He explained how African Americans receive much harsher sentence than whites who commit the same crimes.

Not only did Obama discuss the problem, he put forth concrete proposals to address the problem of mass incarceration. He discussed reducing sentences for non-violent drug offenses. He mentioned how he commuted the sentences of over 40 people. He discussed increasing educational programs and other beneficial programs for people who are in prison. Such programs will reduce the recidivism rate and help transform ex-offenders into productive citizens. He mentioned the need to restore voting rights for ex-offenders.  Obama further discussed how investing more in education and other preventive measures is fiscally responsible. The costs of such measures is much lower than the cost of mass incarceration.

The President’s proposed reforms are crucial. We must make sure that Obama’s speech is not just another speech. We must pressure Congress and the President to actually implement and enact those proposals.

[Originally posted at New Possibilities]

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I am fatigued.

Ron Heifeitz, the leadership guru, simplifies the gist of my fatigue when he illuminates what it means to have technical and adaptive challenges.  For example, if the heat in your office isn’t working, you approach simply as a technical challenge: you call someone and they fix it.  It becomes an adaptive challenge when you’re told that no one can fix the heat and you therefore find innovative ways to keep warm: wear layers, buy a space heater, install weather stripping around the door etc.  The fatigue comes when you call for an HVAC technician who tells you the heat is working and the thermometer in the office during winter is a chilly 55º with no warmth in sight because you’ve spent energy vacillating between an adaptive challenge and a technical challenge.

Black folk in this country exist in a perpetual state of this fatigue.  Many of us find ourselves always tired.  It is existentially draining.  This fatigue manifests itself in fits of anger and even rage.  It can carry itself out on a national stage like the riotous behaviour following the no-bill issue of Darren Wilson, or in the personal relationships (or lack thereof) of individuals with boots on the ground.  Sleepless nights, weight gain, weight loss, general mood disorder, hair loss, alcoholism, drug use can all be a direct cause of being perpetually angry, fatigued and enraged.  It’s a wholly unhealthy state of being.

I felt that the court of black public opinion summarily took the likes of Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart to task when he took the public opportunity to pillory those who hung their social justice Super(wo)man capes on the hook of “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” in the early days of protest following the death of Mike Brown.  Capehart’s column formed the triad of Common’s apologetic approach to racism that black folk should just be more loving, and the awful image of black elected and civic leaders standing around Levi Petit of the Oklahoma University fraternity of ill-gotten fame, and willingly accepting his apology.  Capehart’s article functioned as a liberal blackface for impassioned whites who either lived in a white bubble of liberalism that operates from defensiveness or self-exoneration or for the white conservative ilk who simply think the only racists in the world are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.  Ronald Kuykendall in a recent article aptly entitled “The Logic of Whiteness” says that the nature of whiteness is antidialogical.  He asserts that “antidialogue is a means of dominance which disposses the other of their testimony and their expressiveness.  It is an indispensable tool in the preservation of dominance and oppression, and consequently the preservation of whiteness.”  Capehart’s column performs whiteness by devaluing the testimony of protesters behind “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” and measuring the standard of truth against a DOJ report.  The death of Walter Scott changes all of this.

For generations whenever a case of police brutality manifested itself, where the existence of racism and racial bias had an immediate and lethal component, black folk were gaslighted into believing that their perception wasn’t real, that in fact there was a boogeyman who was making us believe this.  Performed whiteness shuffled responsibility from themselves as a group and as individuals and it played out in complex forms of victim blaming and pathologizing anything from poverty to drug-use to welfare abuse.  Ever since the Moynihan report this tactic has been a staple in addressing the problem of racism.  However, approaching the conversation from this angle, as Kuykendall says, is antidialogical.  This boogeyman often, not always, had a white face that had a near perfect clearance rate as far as the police officer either not facing charges, or ultimately facing acquittal.  The death of Walter Scott, so far, is proof that this boogeyman exists and that the boogeyman is a murderer with a white face.

As the use of body cameras is still debated, and even in what many see as an open and shut case with the death of Eric Garner, it is clear and present that a video tape doesn’t mean anything.  Just ask Rodney King.  However, with an immediate charge of murder against Michael Slager, bypassing the grandstanding and prosecutorial brinksmanship surrounding Darren Wilson, for me, it vindicates the position of “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.”  With the Department of Justice (DOJ) finding no fault against Darren Wilson, yet finding reasons to lay into the Ferguson Police Department, for many, myself included, the two findings just didn’t line up.  How could the finding of a police department so corrupt with racial bias, ergo racism, somehow find Darren Wilson as the shining exemplar free and clear from the muck the rest of his comrades were now so deeply mired?  Capehart’s column was this finger-wagging tale toward the black community that took his plea almost to the edge stopping short of requiring those black protesters to apologize to white America.  The DOJ’s finding gave legitimate legal support to the cries of white Americans that the boogeyman of bad policemen really didn’t exist.   Capehart is entitled to his opinion, that’s his right, but I hope he and his supporters can see the ways in which that point of view rests on a power systems that favors those already in the position of power.  The power of facts and of what is perceived as a singular truth literally rests in the hands of the ones who have both a gun and who can legally put you to death.

The standard of truth, unfortunately, is determined by who has the power.  “Never the twain shall meet” is a refrain often echoed by those who are torchbearers of the marginalized truth in the face of tyrannical power.  Part of the narrative surrounding the Bill Cosby rape allegations and why it has proven to be such a divisive issue is rooted in the fact that the standard of truth does not rest with the word of the women.  The knee-jerk reaction is that the word of the women can only be substantiated by some form of perceived truth.  The same is the case in many police brutality cases, or cases where the police officer actually kills the alleged perpetrator.  Unfortunately, it becomes a one-sided story because the other story is now locked behind the eternal and immutable veil of deadness.  Dead people tell no tales.

Power brokers dictate the narrative of truth over those whom they hold power.  But, these power brokers are a boogeyman of sorts.  It’s never just one person.  Take the Ferguson Police Department for instance.  While the police chief may have resigned, doing so doesn’t automatically mitigate the situation to being fair and just.  The boogeyman of whiteness is everyone and no one all at the same time, it can present itself as a technical problem–forcing a police chief to resign who oversaw a department rife with racism, but also an adaptive problem–addressing diversity hiring on the force, racial bias, police stops, arrest rates for blacks versus that of whites.  This boogeyman of whiteness is a non-specific but very real embodiment of fear.  The fear exists in the intangible systemic realm that a black man would not receive a fair trial in the criminal justice system to a black parent’s fear about their child’s classroom behavior being seen in a criminal light.  The acquittal of George Zimmerman and the failure to return a bill of indictment by a St. Louis grand jury all embody this fear and send a signal that the boogeyman is real.  Students in Meridian, Mississippi that were sent to the juvenile detention center over tardies, and failure to notify a teacher to go to the bathroom are all real-life incidents that tell everyone in black America that the boogeyman is real.

Those are current realities for many whose phenotype tells the world that they are black.  The statistics along the gender lines for the ways in which black women or black men, boys or girls suffer any given horror is a burden that no demographic singularity should have to face.  The reason why “the Man” always existed in American Negro folklore because it was always understood that not all white people, as individuals, are bad, but that the evilness of racism can permeate through any and everything all at once.  When black folk would get a so-called “good job” they were working for “the Man” was a existential gut check that freedom was relative and that they understood the ways in which they were a small, albeit real, part of the larger system that was not always kind to them.  While “the Man” exists beyond racial boundaries, within the Black experience, we’ve always been clear that the faceless boogeyman that terrorized our existence was always white, and always male.

The cruel paradox that the boogeyman presents is that is a tool that parents (power holders) use to get their children to behave a certain way.  This basic fear tactic that exists in many forms across global cultures presents the standard of behavior that blacks are expected to perform based on whiteness, to not live up to these standards will invoke the wrath of the boogeyman.  This dynamic produced the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 restricting the movement of runaway slaves and threatening the lives of free persons of color, the Black Codes and Jim Crow laws.  The extralegal occurrence of lynching was the way in which the boogeyman was unleashed on people who failed to “act” a certain way and perform forwhiteness in a way that was acceptable.  In the 20th century, we saw this played out through restrictive housing covenants and for blacks to break those so-called rules could result in the boogeyman enacting property vandalism and other terrorist-like attempts to force the family out of the neighborhood.

The boogeyman exists for two reasons: fear and the unwavering fact that no one believes it exists.  There is a legitimate fear of police officers within the black community.  Many black men know the knot of dread that forms in their stomach when they see blue lights in their rearview mirror, or that ever so slightly leery look one may give a police officer passing by the street simply because you know that the power rests in their hands and they may decide to stop and frisk you simply because.  The boogeyman, however, is able to exist mostly because no one ever believe that it exists, much like a parent telling their child that the boogeyman isn’t real.  For the lives of black folks in this country, American life has been one continual horror story in which no one in power ever believes what we are saying.

The parent-child dynamic is important to understand in this case.  In the folklore about the boogeyman, it is completely dependent on the child insisting and searching fervently for proof to show their parent that the boogeyman is real and parents either simply not believing their children or parents willfully ignoring the signs.  There’s also the power play that is extremely crucial to understanding why this boogeyman is the transmogrified personification of evil–white people have the power (some may say privilege) to ignore the signs.  While no, white people aren’t some parental force over the child-like black people of this country, they do occupy the positions of power to enforce rules and mete out their truths.  For them, their truth does not include the existence of the boogeyman.

The truth of white America is overwhelmingly interpreted through that lens of self-exoneration and defensiveness that allows individual whites to say “I’m part of the problem, but I’m also not part of the problem.”  It also allows whites to peer through rose-colored glasses and often dismiss black claims of racist sentiments and institutional racism as being hypersensitive.  Because for them, the boogeyman simply does not exist, so why entertain any discussion in which that is real.  To admit that complexities of racism permeate not just institutions but daily life, even police departments, would almost naturally connect the need for reparations.  For many whites, that is seen as a slippery slope no one wants to explore.

To admit something exists in the intangible is something that most people don’t do well–except when it comes to faith and spirituality.  That is to say, white Americans have not been required to do much work when it comes to deconstructing their framework of reality; they have not been required to adopt multiple consciousnesses for the sake of weaving in and out of the intricacies and levels of societies that exist here in America.  Black folk have been required to have that “double consciousness” because our actual lives depended on it.  That vacillation has been trying to thread the needle between appealing to white sensibilities and trying to preserve our own life.  The results have not always ended well.  To risk upsetting white sensibilities, or white fragilities, can in fact be perilous in and of itself.  Walking down the street dressed with baggy jeans and hands in your pocket seems to be enough to be stopped by cops, or enough to warrant neighbors to call the police, or even for a rabid citizen to follow a young unarmed teenager, shoot and kill him and be acquitted.

As the family of Walter Scott prepared for a funeral, the story of Eric Harris emerged in the last week, yet another name to the seemingly endless list of unarmed black men killed by over-zealous white cops, evidence emerged that the boogeyman exists.  As the law enforcement officer shot Harris in the back, and Harris mustered the words that he couldn’t catch his breath, the ancient devilment of a racist past rose up in Robert Bates as he said “Fuck your breath” displaying the cold-blooded, heartless and evil sentiments the comprise the boogeyman.

[Originally posted at The Uppity Negro Network]

The post The Murder of Walter Scott and the Boogeyman of Whiteness appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Unfortunately, thanks to a clerical error, Lima-Martin now sits in prison a mere 5 months into finishing what was supposed to be a 98 year prison sentence. Now mind you, Lima-Martin was released after serving 10 years of what was explained to him and his attorney as a 16-year-sentence with good behavior. However, as Fox 31 Denver reports, clearly someone dropped the ball here.

He says his appeals lawyer told him 13 years earlier that his sentence was just 16 years.

 

“She was like, in this appeals process, the best thing that could have possibly happened to you was that everything would be ran concurrent and you would have 16 years. And that’s what you have right now. He says she told him, in her advice, to withdraw his appeal for a reduced sentence.

 

But her information was wrong—as was the court file sent to the Department of Corrections stating his sentences should run all at once, instead of back-to-back.

 

“I would have never had a wife. I would have never had children. I would have never bought a house. I would have never done any of those things. But I did those because you let me out. And now they are being punished for something they had absolutely nothing to do with,” he says about his family.

 

It’s a punishment he says is excessive.

Excessive? To me, that’s the understatement of the year. In my mind I’d call a 98-year-sentence for two separate armed robberies where no one was hurt pretty fucked up. Why? Because there are people who have committed worse crimes who are sentenced to less prison time. Lima-Martin makes this point in his interview where he says, “People have raped, molested kids, taken lives and 15, 20, 25 years. And I made a mistake and tried to steal some money and I am given my entire life in prison? It just doesn’t make sense.” You’re exactly right, Mr. Lima-Martin; none of it makes sense.

What’s really hard for me to understand here, is that Lima-Martin’s sentence didn’t fall under mandatory minimum guidelines — at least, it doesn’t seem to be that way. Perhaps if that were the case, as bad as it is, perhaps this story may have been easier to stomach. According to a 2014 report from National Research Council the likelihood that someone arrested would be sent to prison increased substantially between 1980 and 2010. Additionally, as of 2004, just 5 percent of all felony convictions came from a jury. The rest come from defendants who would rather plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence and not risk a heavier sentence with a jury trial. Here’s the thing: Lima-Martin was not convicted by a jury of his peers at a trial.

Which in this case calls into question the motives of the people who aggressively prosecuted Lima-Martin under the now defunct COP (Chronic Offender Program). A program which comprises of a board of police, citizens and district attorneys who approved cases where there were multiple acts of criminal behavior or extensive criminal history. From the looks of it, Lima-Martin would have been better off with a trial by jury or even a mandatory minimum sentence as a rapist or a murderer had the COP program not been in place. But I guess when certain people want to sell the community on being tough on crime, this is what you get.

His eight convictions led to a 98-year sentence. The judge ordered each sentence to run consecutive to each other.

 

Three counts of armed robbery got him 10 years each for a total of 30 years. It’s a crime that normally carries a term of just four to 16 years.

 

The convictions also included three counts of kidnapping, each carrying 16 years.

 

Rich Orman, Senior Deputy DA with the 18th Judicial District says Lima-Marin was charged with kidnapping because he moved three people from the front of the store to the back.

 

He also got 10 years each for two counts of burglary.

 

The Colorado State Public Defender says had Lima-Marin’s case been prosecuted today, he’d likely get a more reasonable offer of between 20 to 30 years.

Lima-Martin says “I did something wrong. I acknowledge the fact I did something wrong. I take responsibility for the fact I did something wrong. But I also believe I completed the punishment, the just punishment for the crime.” Now I’m sure that some of you may not agree that Lima-Martin has repaid society for his crime. And I’m sure that to some of you, a 98-year-sentence is just. Keep in mind that as it now stands, Lima-Martin will not be eligible for parole until 2054 — that’s 40 years from now when he’s 75. Now you tell me, given that he has already proven that he can be a good citizen, is it just that he is made to spend the next 40 years in prison — after having already served 10 years — for a crime he committed at 19 and more so for juvenile convictions.

Seriously, I can’t wait to hear your answer.

In the mean time, Rene Lima-Martin’s wife has started a petition asking that he is released. If you’re like me and you believe that was he has to endure is “cruel and usual punishment” — a clear violation of the 8th Amendment of the US Constitution. Please, do the right thing by clicking and signing the petition below, will you? If so, let me know that you did in the comments.

FREE RENE LIMA-MARTIN PETITION

The post Rene Lima-Martin: Court Error Orders Free Man Back to Prison for 98yrs After Serving a 10yr Sentence appeared first on Madness & Reality.

When Torrence Hatch was finally released from prison, I was actually glad. To me, it was another person released from the clutches of the prison system. Not only that, it was a person that had talent renown across the country. Plus, Lil Boosie has children to take care of. So, having him released from prison would probably signal a win for his family, friends, and many of his hip hop fans.

But that tide took a questionable turn as soon as he was released. As happy as the situation was, there seemed to be way too much attention drawn to the situation. While people had the right to be happy, I found it troubling that so many took their happiness too far. People made it seem like Lil Boosie is a war hero that was released after the antagonist of all of our African American angst placed him behind bars for being a king for his people. It seems as, once Torrence Hatch was released from prison, the hood wanted to throw him a ticker tape parade.

And I’m not completely sure as to “why” they feel this way.

The Lil Boosie Reaction

The problem is that people treated Lil Boosie like he was a great contributor to the state of Black America. When Bun B noted that “They [Fans] waited for Mandela… They waited for Pac, and they waited for Lil Boosie”, I was almost stuck in a state of confusion [1].

And then there was the Jason Weaver Response. Jason Weaver equated his disgust with the madness quite thoroughly:

Ok so…. I see a lot ppl on IG posting stuff about Lil Boosie gettin out of prison, talmbout “Welcome Home” “Boosie Back” and all kinds of other coon shit. Listen man, no disrespect to Boosie or anyone else for that matter who has ever been incarcerated, but the problem I have with the IG posts regarding him gettin out is it’s being displayed like it’s some kind of thing to celebrate. I’m sorry man, but why can’t we celebrate young black men who have stayed OUT of prison?

I’m not judging Boosie or any other individual who may have faced similar circumstances. It would sure be cool though if we posted more pics of our young brothas receiving high school diplomas, college degrees, and cool shit like that instead of a playa gettin out of prison mane. I’m about celebrating milestones in young black men’s lives that we can REALLY be proud of! Like for real… C’mon son!! Sorry for the rant, but I just had to say it. #KanyeShrug [2]

To be honest, I could not have said it better myself. There comes a time in which we have to realize that we are celebrating the wrong thing. Then again, I have my doubts on that overall realization in the first place.

The Lil Boosie Understanding

This entire situation only reveals that too many people in the hood lack heroes. I must concur that Lil Boosie does make quality hood music. However, what is this man’s great contribution to society as a whole? I am still questioning the celebration of a man that got himself put into prison for doing things the common person would consider “stupid”. Is this what we have evolved (or devolved) into? Are we here to make a hero out of someone that actually hasn’t made any significant change to the way we think and act as a people?

Lil Boosie did not fight apartheid just to go to prison. So, he is no Mandela.

Lil Boosie did not actually make music that inspired people to keep their heads up. So, he is no 2Pac.

Lil Boosie is Lil Boosie.

And we need to question what the hell is wrong with us when we overly celebrate the release of people from prison that actually worked hard to get themselves there. I, myself, am no fan of the prison system; it is basic institutionalized slavery. However, it should seem weird to be ecstatic about the release of someone that deliberately put their own self in prison. I know that people should be happy. Still, we need to be more cognizant of what, and why, we celebrate.

The post Lil Boosie and the Lack of Hood Heroes appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Yes, it happens all the time; and, unfortunately the only time we hear about it is when they’re released. Of ten, for us, we’re left to wonder what it must be like for them as they transition back into society.

There’s an ACLU report titled “Faces of Failing Public Defense Systems: Portraits of Michigan’s Constitutional Crisis” that highlights Dwight Love’s case and the ordeal to have his conviction overturned in 1998. The Huffington Post has a nice breakdown of his case below:

A man was shot to death outside Love’s apartment in Detroit while he was sleeping with his girlfriend on a September night in 1981. Though he did not match the physical description given by a witness, Love was put in a lineup and identified as the shooter. That was the prosecution’s only evidence.

 

But the public defender failed to investigate and mount a proper defense, according to the ACLU report. They did not call on a witness who would have been able to testify that no one had entered Love’s building after the shooting, nor question the first witness about the discrepancy between Love and his first description of the shooter.

 

A jury in Third Judicial Circuit Court convicted Love of first-degree murder and assault in 1982, but Love worked to get his case overturned. Years later an attorney discovered the prosecution withheld evidence that someone else had confessed to the crime.

 

The ACLU report said Love contracted a pulmonary condition while incarcerated at Wayne County Jail.

 

”I don’t have the words to say how I feel,” Love told The Detroit News in 2001. He was eventually released in 1998 after the case was thrown out in 1997, but prosecutors filed a new case that wasn’t dismissed until four years later. ”It’s been a nightmare. I guess I can start living my life now.”

Have you ever wondered what happens to someone who is wrongfully convicted upon release? Do you ever wonder how their lives ever turn out with the challenges they face? Surely they’ll ride on off into the sunset to live happily ever after having regained their freedom, right? But what if you’re Dwight Love and you contract pulmonary heart disease while serving 16-years of a life sentence?

Surely you’d never expect the system to ever fail you again on the off-chance that you collapse after a heart attack, right? I mean, that’s why we have a 911 emergency system, right

? I guess the answer to that last question depends on where one may live. Because like Flavor Flav told us back in the 90s: 911 is a joke. And unfortunately for Dwight Love — a man once wrongfully convicted — he had to die earlier this month after waiting for 46 minutes for an ambulance in the city of Detroit. As if being wrongfully convicted wasn’t bad enough, the system had to fail him again.

If you’re not angry after reading up to this point, here’s something to really get you fired up. Last December, the city of Detroit received 13 brand new ambulances. The 13 ambulances were the last of 29 ambulances donated at the cost of $160,000 per ambulance. Metro Detroit companies as part of the Downtown Development Partnership donated $8 million which facilitated the purchase.

But yet for some reason, the Interim Detroit Fire Commissioner Jonathan Jackson says that on the day that Dwight Love died, there were only 19 ambulances available in the city, but they were all tied up at the time, and that “We want to do better,” as told to Detroit’s WJBK..

Check out the video below via myfoxdetroit.com:

The post Once Wrongfully Convicted Detroit Man Dies While Waiting 46 Minutes For Ambulance appeared first on Madness & Reality.

But you get the point, as usual, media outlets continue to be fascinated with the idea of a violent criminal having the opportunity to be within arms length of President Barack Obama. What is tragic, in my opinion, is how little many are empathetic towards the mental health of Thamsanqa Jantjie. Not that anyone reading this may care, but as bad as South Africa’s mental health system is currently, it’s good to see that he’s getting help.

This from Al Jazeera:

The sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s memorial, who said he suffered a schizophrenic episode during the service after being labelled a fraud, has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, South African media reported.

Thamsanqa Jantjie sparked outrage with his performance at last week’s event, with sign language experts saying his translations of the eulogies, including those by US President Barack Obama and Mandela’s grandchildren, amounted to little more than “flapping his arms around” and “just making funny gestures”.

On Thursday the Star newspaper said Jantjie’s wife Siziwe had taken her husband for a check-up at a psychiatric hospital near Johannesburg on Tuesday, which suggested he be admitted immediately.

“The past few days have been hard. We have been supportive because he might have had a breakdown,” she was quoted as saying.

Jantjie had been scheduled for a check-up at the Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital in Krugersdorp, west of Johannesburg, on December 10.

But the appointment was moved after he was offered the job to sign at the memorial which took place the same day, the newspaper reported.

Jantjie has claimed that he is a qualified signer but that his performance was down to a sudden attack of schizophrenia, for which he takes medication.

“I saw angels falling on the stadium. I heard voices and lost concentration,” he has said.

Local media have since reported that he was part of a mob that burnt two people to death 10 years ago, allegations he has denied, and that he had also faced rape, kidnapping and theft charges.

Mandela’s memorial was attended by nearly 100 sitting and former heads of state or government. The government apologised to the deaf community following the scandal.

In recent media interviews, Jantjie has come across as incoherent.

In his home province of Free State, local media have accused Jantjie of impersonating a lawyer and a traditional healer, though he has not commented on those claims.

Prior to this latest development, a South African deputy minister explained that the company who hired the sign language interpreter has “vanished into thin air.” Thankfully, however, there’s at least one institution available to tend to the needs of Thamsanqa Jantjie and other like him. Because according to Think Progress, when it comes to mental health care in South Africa there’s a lot to be desired.

There is no official mental health policy in South Africa. The country drafted a set of policies in this area in 1997, but they weren’t officially put into practice, and mental health services remain decentralized and underfunded throughout the country’s provinces. Although lawmakers passed a relatively progressive Mental Health Care Act in 2002, it’s not necessarily funded or enforced in the absence of this official policy.

That’s created an environment in which there’s a huge need for this type of medical care that’s largely going unmet. It’s estimated that one in five people in South Africa struggles with mental health issues, but nearly 75 percent of them aren’t getting the treatment they need. Just 15 percent of South Africans can afford private sector health care, but there are big shortages in the public health sector — there are only 18 beds in mental health facilities for every 100,000 people, and just one percent of them are specifically reserved for minors.

Those statistics may even be relatively optimistic, according to the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG), because many people don’t realize they have mental health issues in the first place. Mental health stigma is yet another stumbling block to connecting South Africans with the treatment they need.

“In Zulu, there is not even a word for ‘depression’ — it’s basically not deemed a real illness in the African culture,” SADAG’s operations director, Cassey Chambers, explained in an interview in October. “As a result, sufferers are afraid of being discriminated against, disowned by their families or even fired from work, should they admit to having a problem. There is still the perception that someone with a mental illness is crazy, dangerous or weak. Because there is often an absence of physical symptoms with mental illness, it is considered ‘not real,’ a figment of the imagination.”

While we may find comic relief at the expense of a mentally ill man, it’s important to note that there are many like him here in the United States in need of care. Unfortunately, for many like him, the only resource for mental health care are the many overcrowded jail cells across the country.

Here in the United States, gaps in the mental health care system — including a dwindling number of available beds in psychiatric hospitals — prevent some people from receiving the treatment they need, sometimes withtragic consequences. States have been slashing funding for these services for years, a dynamic that’s pushed a growing number of mentally ill Americans into the criminal justice system. Nearly half of psychiatrists don’t accept private insurance, and many Americanssimply cannot afford mental health treatment.

Watch the following report:

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Because being a prison guard can be monotonous and boring — aside from the occasional riot or scuffle. Prison Guards are sadly dauted with the task of finding a source of entertainment for themselves when not participating in prison corruption, by making money on the side from the promotion of contraband. So, as result, because absolute power corrupts absolutely, apparently this happened in Pennsylvania:

State police say the events all happened in the south block of York County prison, under the organization of corrections officers David Whitcomb, Mark Haynes and Daniel Graff.

[…] The inmates reported the corrections officers would organize fights between the two inmates and also fight them in closets themselves.

Both inmates told investigators they had been punched repeatedly to the point they went numb in their arms and legs, and the fights sometimes involved being choked.

The reports also said one of the inmates also told police about what they had dubbed “retard Olympics.”

Hicks described it as “try(ing) to drink a gallon of milk in an hour, trying to swallow a spoonful of cinnamon, eat fruit with the peels left on, drink water that had pepper foam in it, snort crushed up candy, snorts spicy vegetable powder.”

Whitcomb has been in the headlines before. In March 2013, he was shot during an argument at a York County pizza bar. The man accused of shooting him in the hip was a former inmate in Whitcomb’s block.

At the time, while recovering in the hospital, Whitcomb told York newspaperThe Daily Record, “I’m not a trouble-starter,” and of the inmates he said, “I treat them like people. … As long as you’re firm, fair and consistent in what you do, you have an easy work day.”

According to the Patriot-News, the three men are charged with official oppression. Prison officials say they are currently on unpaid administrative leave. (Source: WDAM)

Watch the video below:

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Currently, there are 2.5 million individuals incarcerated, or under supervision of the justice system in America. Though there is debate as to how, and why it is this way (think: racism), it’s surprising to see that Wisconsin leads all fifty states when it comes to the incarceration of Black men. The truth is, I always thought it would’ve been a southern state. Heck, Louisiana has the dubious distinction of having the most people incarcerated per capita . At any rate, this information might be helpful to any Black man who plan to visit the state any time soon — yeah, watch ya’ back out there fellas; it’s ugly out there in the Badger State, fellas.

Story Below:

What is going on in Wisconsin?

A new study from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that looked at the prison population there found that the state has the highest percentage of incarcerated black men in the country. About 1 in 8 black men of working age (13 percent) are in state prisons or jails. The national average is 6.7 percent.

According to census figures, African-Americans make up 6.5 percent of the state’s population.

Wisconsin also leads the nation in the percentage of Native men behind bars; 1 in 13 Indian men are incarcerated there.

Wisconsin, though? Really?

And Wisconsin’s lead on this count is pretty big: It beats the state with the next-highest rate of imprisoned black men by nearly 3 percentage points — a gap bigger than the total distance between the second- and 10th-place states.

A big chunk of the state’s black male prison population comes from Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s biggest city. According to the researchers, more than half of all black men in their 30s and 40s had been incarcerated at some point. That means there’s a large population of men in the state’s biggest city who are essentially unemployable, which puts a huge drag on the economy — and a big reason Milwaukee is one of the poorest big cities in the country. (Milwaukee’s metro area also boasts one of the biggest gaps in incomes between blacks and whites.)

And Milwaukee’s poor felons are concentrated in the same neighborhoods: The study also found that almost two-thirds of Milwaukee County’s incarcerated black men come from the city’s six poorest ZIP codes.

“I do think that a lot of it has to do with sentencing policy,” said Jeanne Geraci, who runs the Benedict Center, a Milwaukee-based organization that advocates for community-based responses to criminal justice. Geraci said that the state has a much more aggressive stance to incarceration; Minnesota, which has similar demographics and crime rates, has a prison population half the size of Wisconsin’s prison population. (Source:WBAA)

To learn more about mass incarceration, listen to Michelle Alexander speak below:

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