Motley Moose – Archive

Was browsing through the NY Times and this article caught my eye.

City’s Annual Cost Per Inmate Is $168,000, Study Finds

New York City is an expensive place to live for just about everyone, including prisoners.

The city paid $167,731 to feed, house and guard each inmate last year, according to a study the Independent Budget Office released this week.

“It is troubling in both human terms and financial terms,” Doug Turetsky, the chief of staff for the budget office, said on Friday. With 12,287 inmates shuffling through city jails last year, he said, “it is a significant cost to the city.”

Mr. Turetsky added that he was not aware of any previous studies that broke down the cost per inmate in the jails, but there have been national studies.

And by nearly any measure, New York City spends more than every other state or city.

At a time of heightened awareness and discussion of race, racism and racial prejudice in certain sectors of our populace, even in the face of efforts to dismiss them with claims that as of the election of Barack Obama we are currently “post-racial”, I would like to highlight the contributions of Edward Franklin Frazier to what we know and understand about oppressed communities in general and the black community in specific.

September 24th is the birthday of one of this nation’s foremost sociologists, who was born in Baltimore, MD in 1894 and who died May 17, 1962, in Washington DC where he was Professor Emeritus at Howard University. At the time of his death he was still carrying a full teaching load.

Frazier was a founding member of the D.C. Sociological Society, serving as President of DCSS in 1943-44. Frazier also served as President of the Eastern Sociological Society in 1944-45. In 1948, Frazier was the first black to serve as President of the American Sociological Society (later renamed Association). His Presidential Address “Race Contacts and the Social Structure,” was presented at the organization’s annual meeting in Chicago in December 1948.

Casual racism surrounds us. Yes, we have made strides addressing it, but the battle is far from won. Just read through the comment sections of any online news source and you will have waded through a sewer of racist bilge. But major campaigns by black civil rights groups have made changes over the years. No more “Sambo’s” restaurants spread through our cities. The use of blackface has been condemned and censured.

We have addressed the use of the ‘N-word’ in numerous forums, and there is no black person in America that fails to recognize that some white person screaming ‘N-r’ at them isn’t doing it with love.

As communities of color gain political clout, and a certain critical mass, we have launched campaigns to address racist language and imagery, along with legislation and social policy. The entire civil rights movement, which continues to battle (the war is far from won) is a testimony to this. As the Latino community (the group most often targeted as “illegal”) grows in numbers and strength we have seen recent campaigns like “Drop the I word“.    

The one community of color that does not have strength in either numbers or political clout, that does not have the benefit of a mass civil rights movement are our brothers and sisters who are Native Americans. It therefore becomes the responsibility for those of us who have been the victims and targets of racist epithets that are clearly dubbed unacceptable to fight against them when applied to other groups. That goes for the LBGT community who have fought against pejoratives like ‘f-t’ and the feminist community who have stopped the casual use of words like ‘c-t’ to denigrate women.

The Oneida Nation has just stepped up the pressure.

The Oneida Nation launched a new radio ad that began airing in the D.C. market on Sunday ahead of Monday night’s game between the Redskins and the Philadelphia Eagles. “That word, Redskins, is not a harmless term,” Halbritter says in the ad. “We do not deserve to be called Redskins. We deserve to be treated as what we are: Americans.”

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the KKK bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama in 1963. Four girls, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, who were  14, and Denise McNair, who was 11 died in this act of terrorism.  

There have been memorial events in Birmingham all week, and there will be a special service at the church today.

A memorial statue, was installed in Birmingham, this week.

The Four Spirits Statue, a tribute to the four little girls killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church on September 15, 1963. The statue is situated in Kelly Ingram Park between the statue of Martin Luther King Jr. and the church.

Joseph Lowery at memorial unveiling: ‘We need to turn to each other, not on each other’

When I read headlines announcing that Ben Jealous is stepping down as the head of the NAACP, I was surprised, and saddened.

I first joined the NAACP when I was a child. My parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles were members. I was raised with elders who taught me the history of the organization. I didn’t learn it in school. It was not part of my grade school curriculum. As a young teenager I joined my local NAACP youth group in NYC, in the chapter headed by William Booth, and participated in sit-ins to combat housing discrimination.  

I didn’t always agree with some of the positions they took. As a very militant young adult I was impatient with what I thought at times was a too conservative stance of the organization, especially under Roy Wilkins. Yet, I always thought of the NAACP as a rock. A solid foundation. That it would always be there.  

I spent yesterday, Labor Day, thinking about the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and my family ties to that union who played such an important role in black history.

One of the books I suggest you read if you are interested in both black history and sociology and the development of the labor movement is Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class, by Larry Tye

Although Tye focuses on Pullman porters and the formation of the black middle class, his analysis of class perceptions and race relations reverberates to the current day. Following Reconstruction, industrialist George Pullman took advantage of the limited opportunities available for freedmen, hiring and exploiting blacks–the darker the better–to serve as porters on his railroad. The porters suffered low wages, long hours, and weeks if not months away from home. In addition, they were expected to adopt a servile demeanor to provide comfort to the mostly white patrons of the Pullman sleeping cars. But the upside was employment, travel, and middle-class values and opportunities. Moreover, the fight for union recognition through A. Phillip Randolph’s leadership was the basis for progress for blacks during the pre-civil rights era. The porters’ labor dispute and efforts to include blacks in more favorable positions in the war industry led to the first march on Washington. Tye also explores the tension between the perception of Pullman porters as docile servants and their challenge to the status quo. Vernon Ford

Photo: NC Advancement Project

The Forward Together movement Moral Monday protests continue to gather momentum in North Carolina. Yesterday they gathered in Charlotte NC to continue protesting draconian voting restrictions legislation, House Bill 589, churned out by Republicans and signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory.

The central focus of this movement is captured in these words:

“Protection of voting rights must be at the center of a democracy, or do you not have a democracy”  Rev. Dr. William Barber, President, NC NAACP.

Amen Rev. Barber, amen.

It’s great to have some good news to report. Though the ruling on Monday by Federal Justice Shira Scheindlin doesn’t end the racist and discriminatory policy in New York City, this is being declared a victory for people fighting back against a racist system.

Here’s the statement from the ACLU, and a link to the Center for Constitutional Rights who have been waging the legal battle.

NEW YORK – Today in Floyd v. City of New York, a federal judge ruled that the New York City Police Department’s stop-and-frisk practices are unconstitutional.

Ezekiel Edwards, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Criminal Law Reform Project, said, “The ACLU celebrates today’s decision by Federal Justice Shira Scheindlin declaring the NYPD’s longstanding and widespread stop and frisk practices unconstitutional.

“As the decision exhaustively documents, the NYPD’s stop and frisk policy clearly violated the 4th and 14th Amendments, subjecting millions of innocent New Yorkers – overwhelmingly Black and Latino – to unlawful searches through systemic racial profiling. We hope that today’s decision, and the robust remedies the court has put in place, will mark the end to this dark chapter in the NYPD’s history.”

On August 16, Lee Daniel’s The Butler, a star-studded film from The Weinstein Company, who also brought us Fruitvale Station, will hit the nation’s movie screens.  

Based on the real life story of Eugene Allen, a black man born in 1919, who was hired to work in the White House in 1952, rose to the rank of butler and then to the top rank of Maître d’hôtel, served under eight Presidents. Allen, who retired in 1986, lived to see Barack Obama take office, and was a special guest at the inauguration.

As August 1st approaches, the day the British passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, which would be put in effect, August 1, 1834, freeing over 700,000 people held in bondage, which is celebrated in parts of the English speaking Caribbean as “Emancipation Day”, this last month has seen debate and discussion throughout the Caribbean, and in Great Britain, France and the Netherlands about a somewhat surprising unanimous statement issued by CARICOM in July on their final meeting day.  

Caribbean nations launch joint effort for slavery compensation former colonial powers

Leaders of more than a dozen Caribbean countries are launching a united effort to seek compensation from three European nations for what they say is the lingering legacy of the Atlantic slave trade.

The Caribbean Community, a regional organization that typically focuses on rather dry issues such as economic integration, has taken up the cause of compensation for slavery and the genocide of native peoples and is preparing for what would likely be a drawn-out battle with the governments of Britain, France and the Netherlands.

Caricom, as the organization is known, has enlisted the help of a prominent British human rights law firm and is creating a Reparations Commission to press the issue, said Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, who has been leading the effort.