Liss is away taking care of personal matters and will not be posting today. She may be back tomorrow. I'll keep you updated as information becomes available.
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Unsung S/heroes Teaspooning to Eradicate the Ultimate Injustice
by Shaker Kathy
[Trigger warning for violence and dehumanization. Thank you, Liss, for giving me the privilege to write this letter to all the Shakers out there!]
Dear Shakers,
Please bear with me. This is going to be a long post.
Today is October 10, World Day Against the Death Penalty.
Imagine being accused of a crime you didn't commit.
Now imagine being condemned to die for a crime you didn't commit.
Here is a stark fact: 139 people have been exonerated from death row since 1973. That is approximately one for every eight executions. How many more were the victims of state-sanctioned murder for crimes they did not commit? We don't know.
Is one innocent person murdered by us, the taxpayers who fund the death penalty, worth it?
I am going to humbly ask you all to do a lot of heavy lifting with your teaspoons today, but I want to introduce you to just a few of my heroes, who tirelessly work teaspooning away the oceans of injustices and privilege in our society that led them to prison and ultimately to death row for crimes they did not commit.
And they were the "lucky" ones. In spite of the unimaginable pain, suffering and injustices committed against them and their families and loved ones (and make no mistake, a death sentence is visited on the entire family, not just the individual), they were ultimately exonerated and released. Some spent close to two decades on death row, almost a whole generation. Some came within hours of being murdered by the State. They left prison not knowing how to use a cell phone, what gel deodorant was, never surfed the internet. Most received no compensation. With a couple of rare exceptions they struggle financially, and all of them will suffer forever the trauma of their experiences.
And yet my heroes chose to dedicate their lives, and re-live their hell on earth every time they publicly speak, to educate all of us – including those progressives against the death penalty, but who usually don't give it too much thought with all the other urgent issues we face today – about why state-sanctioned murder is unacceptable and has no place in the only Western democracy that continues to execute its citizens. (By the way, a 2005 Gallup Poll had 58% of Democrats supporting the death penalty – support for the death penalty is more non-partisan than many progressives think. Roughly 63% of our citizenry still support it, although recent polls suggest more support for a moratorium on executions. Progress of a sort, I guess. Personally, I have very liberal friends who support it, and a few very conservative family friends who are against it. I bet you do, too.)
How do I know all this? These heroes are my bosses.
Image Description: A few of my heroes and bosses (clockwise) – Delbert Tibbs, Gary Drinkard, Shabaka WaQlimi, and Randal Padgett.
I work for them at Witness To Innocence, gently cajoling, bargaining, and otherwise trying to convince my fellow citizens to host them at their colleges, schools, houses of worship, and professional and civic organizations and conferences so that people may hear their powerful, compelling stories of heartache and hope, inequity and injustice, and leave with hearts and minds changed and charged up to take up teaspoons against the death penalty.
Although they shouldn't have to, my heroes are dedicated to illuminating the inhumane logical conclusion of the almost all the intersections we blog incessantly about or demonstrate against, but rarely connect when it comes to the death penalty.
They travel the country and the world to tell us about who gets to live and who is condemned to die and why. Racism, poverty, class, poor legal representation, political cowardice and corruption, torture (one of my heroes, Harold Wilson, served in the same prison where some of the guards eventually wound up torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib), the shredding of fundamental constitutional rights like due process, abuse of state power, police coercion and brutality, prosecutorial misconduct leading to wrongful convictions in too many cases to count, shoddy forensics, perjury, false identification, our national ethos that believes violence based on vengeance is the solution for all our country's problems both at home and abroad, and on and on and on. In short, our criminal justice system is fundamentally broken because our society is.
Let me briefly tell you about just a few of the men I am privileged to work for. I will link to their longer stories, and I really hope you will honor them and their work with me today by spending sometime with them. 
Image Description: Shujaa on the podium with Ron Keine and Curtis McCarty.
Shujaa Graham, the son of sharecroppers in the Jim Crow South, spent much of his youth in juvenile detention centers and wound up in Soledad Prison when he was 18. There he taught himself to read and write, studied world history, and became a leader in the Black Panther Movement in California prisons. He was framed for the murder of a white prison guard, and sent to San Quentin's death row in 1973. The district attorney systematically excluded all African American jurors. He was finally found innocent and released in 1981. Shujaa now travels around the country and around the world speaking about racism, the death penalty, and gang violence. Not surprisingly, one of his favorite audiences is young people. Shujaa and his wonderful wife Phyllis, a long-time activist on social justice issues and nurse, both serve on our Board, as well. I have heard Shujaa speak – he leaves his audiences in tears and transformed, and has hugs for everyone who wants one.
Ron Keine, one of our assistant directors for communications and training, found himself framed for the kidnapping, rape and murder of a University of New Mexico student in 1974, based on a bizarre campaign to coerce testimony from somebody who knew nothing about the crime or Ron. He was finally exonerated in 1976 after the murder weapon was traced to a law enforcement officer who confessed to the crime. Because of the corruption surrounding Ron's case, the assistant prosecutor was disbarred and three sheriff's detectives were fired because of their actions in the case. Ron is a life-long Republican who regularly gets on his Harley and rides hundreds of miles on his own dime to join vigils where executions are taking place, will speak to everybody and anybody about his experiences, politics be damned, and recently wrote this awesome op-ed about his experiences. I hope you will read it.
Then there is Delbert Tibbs, a former seminary student, poet, writer, and Florida death row survivor who was convicted of rape and murder in 1974 by an all-white jury in less than two days, based on the false eyewitness testimony of the 16-year-old rape victim. Delbert was "lucky" – celebrities like Joan Baez, Angela Davis and Pete Seeger – who wrote a ballad, "Ode to Delbert Tibbs" – rallied and raised money for the Delbert Tibbs Defense Committee. He was able to hire better legal representation and get a retrial, but it was 1982 before the district attorney dropped the case. Very cool fact: Delbert and his story have been portrayed on stage and screen by the great actors Delroy Lindo, Danny Glover and Charles Dutton. In spite of advancing age, Delbert still keeps a busy schedule, talking about his extraordinary journey at colleges and churches around the country. He is also one of the biggest-hearted and hopeful persons I have ever met. Delbert works closely with Ron as an assistant director of communications and training, too. Watch "The Exonerated" to hear the story of Delbert and other exonerees.
(That picture is blurry, but made me *blub* - Juan and his mother reunited following his release.) Finally, I want to introduce you to Juan Melendez, who spent almost 18 years on the Sunshine State's death row. His case truly represents the perfect storm of intersectional bigotry at its worst. Juan could not afford an attorney, spoke little English, and his alleged victim was, like in all the other cases, white. The prosecutor deliberately withheld exculpatory evidence. Juan's co-defendant was threatened with electric chair unless he implicated Juan, and only received a sentence of two years probation after testifying against him. Had it not been for the fortuitous discovery of a transcript of the taped confession of the real killer sixteen years after Juan was sentenced to death, he almost certainly would have been executed.
Juan is on the Board of our organization, and has a passion when speaking about his experiences that is breathtaking. Like Shujaa, he loves talking to youth, but will go anywhere and everywhere to speak as a dedicated abolitionist. An internationally acclaimed documentary was made on his case, Juan Melendez 6446. Judi Caruso, Juan's lawyer and partner, has been an indefatigable activist in the anti-death penalty movement, and has worked with Juan to have him speak to audiences around the world and to get his documentary distributed to anyone who is interested. So shoot me an email via our website if you are interested in acquiring a copy at a very low price. It is a great teaching tool.
Very cool fact about Juan: He along with other exonerees met with Gov. Bill Richardson in the campaign to end the death penalty in Juan's current home of New Mexico. Gov. Richardson specifically cited the possibility of executing innocents when New Mexico became the most recent state to outlaw the death penalty in 2009. There is no better example that teaspooning makes a difference!
I am leaving out so many others here, whose stories are just as outrageous and compelling, so I hope you will read about the rest of them at our website. And order from your local library or purchase the books that have been written about the cases of Freddie Lee Pitts (our Board chair), Invitation to a Lynching, or Randy Steidl, Since When Is Murder Too Politically Sensitive?, the horrific story of how the Governor's Office in Illinois was actually involved in framing him for a murder committed by a major campaign contributor. John Grisham couldn't make these stories up.
Now comes my pitch – the biggest teaspoon of all for you to lift is to spread the word far and wide about these and the other exoneree heroes I work for, and hopefully somebody at your college, place of work or worship, civic club, etc. will extend a warm invitation to them to come share their stories. I won't lie – it will cost, as these events help supplement their mostly very meager incomes, and their travel costs are not subsidized – but I guarantee a life-affirming, inspirational experience that will motivate people to become more aware, more educated, more outspoken and more active in ridding the world of the death penalty and the causes behind its existence. My heroes and bosses will go to the four corners of the earth, and I will work with you to make it happen.
Finally, if you can stand ONE FINAL teaspoon on the issue of wrongful convictions, I want Shakers to give a special shout-out to Julie Rea Harper, who is organizing the first-ever conference of wrongfully convicted women, along with activists and academics, in Troy, MI, this November 5-7. Julie was accused of killing her beloved 10-year-old son, Joel, who was actually murdered by serial killer Tommy Lee Sells. The Illinois prosecutor in the very conservative county where she was tried used her ex to turn the jury against her by falsely claiming she wanted an abortion when she was pregnant, I kid you not. It worked, and Julie was sent to prison for 65 years, and served three when she was finally exonerated. She is my new shero.
Justice is a slow moving train, but thanks for hopping on board with us today.
Sincerely,
Kathy
Open Thread
Hosted by Gilda Radner.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by her.
And I really, really miss her.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
WTF
A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do.When the FBI left Afifi's apartment, they told him, "You don't need to call your lawyer. Don't worry, you're boring." Um.
It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted their expensive device back, the student told Wired.com in an interview Wednesday.
The answer came when half-a-dozen FBI agents and police officers appeared at Yasir Afifi's apartment complex in Santa Clara, California, on Tuesday demanding he return the device.
Afifi, a 20-year-old U.S.-born citizen, cooperated willingly and said he'd done nothing to merit attention from authorities. Comments the agents made during their visit suggested he'd been under FBI surveillance for three to six months.
Suffice it to say, Afifi did call his attorney, who "said this kind of tracking is more egregious than the kind her office usually sees."
"The idea that it escalates to this level is unusual," said Zahra Billoo. "We take about one new case each week relating to FBI or law enforcement visits [to clients]. Generally they come to the individual's house or workplace, and there are issues that arise from that."My head is swimming with reactions to this story, but the thought that keeps floating to the top is the bitter irony that about half this country thinks our president is a secret Muslim trying to covertly turn the US into a radical Islamic nation, while, in reality, the FBI under his administration's governance is harassing US-born Arab-Americans for no discernible reason.
However, she said that after learning about Afifi's experience, other lawyers in her organization told her they knew of two people in Ohio who also recently discovered tracking devices on their vehicles.
[H/T to Shaker Selby.]
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Trigger warning for Fred Phelps and homophobia. The image has been placed below the fold because of the signs Phelps carries in it, which are real and undoctored examples of his typical fuckery.]
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
I Write Letters
Dear Martha Plimpton:
I adore you.
When I was 11, this totally awkward thing with too-short hair and too-big glasses, kind of a tomboy with a best friend who was prettier than I was, and already having begun construction on a fortified wall of sarcasm behind which I'd hide for the next ten years (or so), I saw Goonies. It is a film remembered primarily as a boys' adventure, but tucked in among them was Stef Steinbrenner, this totally awkward, kind of a tomboy, sarcasm-wielding revelation.
Stef Steinbrenner pretty much rocked my world.
She was a girl like me, or, at least a girl I wanted to be—a smart and adventurous and tough and cynical and vulnerable and sentimental and funny girl. With gigantic glasses. I lived and died with every step that Mikey and Mouth and Data and Chunk and Brand and Andy and Sloth took, too, every one of the nine billion times I watched the movie until I wore out my VHS tape, but it was Stef whose Converse I felt like I really filled.
Then there you were the year after, as the rebellious daughter of Christian missionaries in The Mosquito Coast. Emily Spellgood was not at the center of story, but she was important. She was dependable, resourceful. It was because of your real boyfriend—and my imaginary one—River Phoenix that I wanted to see the film. But twenty-four years hence, it's you I remember. And by the time Running on Empty came out two years later, I wanted to see it as much because you were in it as because he was.
I was just at the age then when I was starting to notice actors who chewed the scenery, to tell the difference between good actors and bad. And it was watching Running on Empty, for the third or fourth or fifteenth time, that I saw how good you really are. Good like whoa. You were the only girl whose picture, cut from teen magazines, hung on my wall. You and River and Tom Cruise.
I watched for you in other films: I saw Parenthood (oh how I loved Julie Buckman! Julie Buckman and her shaved head!) and Stanley & Iris and Inside Monkey Zetterland because you were in them. I watched Law & Order: SVU because you were a guest star.
And I danced with delight when I got tickets to see you at the Steppenwolf in Chicago. Martha Plimpton at my favorite theater. Oh. Mah. Gawd. You were so good. So fucking good.
When I read that this season's new shows included a sitcom featuring you and Cloris Leachman (who, let's face it, deserves a letter like this of her own), I was so there. And, yeah, you aren't "the only reason 'Raising Hope' could be the best new sitcom of the season, but [you are] the main reason," and it is indeed because of the "incandescence in the way that [you manage] with two words to morph into a comically hardened, uneducated, working-class mom without becoming either a caricature or a cruel joke." You are, as always, good like whoa—but now you're making me laugh.
And the thing about Virginia Chance—mother, grandmother, granddaughter, provider of elder care and child care, cleaner of homes she dreams of owning, realist, optimist, and world-class malapropism machine—is that I really like her. She's hard but she's nice. Of course that's down to the writing, but it's easy to see how Virginia would be a harpy or fool if she were inhabited by someone less deft at her craft than you are.
(I apologize in advance that it's destined to be canceled, since virtually every sitcom I've ever watched and enjoyed from episode one goes off the air in record speed. I'm sorry, "Everything's Relative." I'm sorry, "It's Like, You Know…" I'm sorry, "Sports Night." I have many more apologies to make, but I digress…)
While watching the latest episode, I thought about how Virginia is flawed but well-meaning, moving into middle-age still open enough to the possibility she could do better, be better, and I realized that you have created yet another character that I wouldn't mind being a little bit like.
Over the years, I've read articles about you that have suggested if you were a little more conventionally beautiful, looked a little less like your dad, perhaps, that you might have had a different sort of career (thus far). That's probably true. And for all the things that alternate career universe might have given you, selfishly I'm glad for all the things the career you've had has given me.
...And all the other totally awkward, kind of a tomboy, sarcasm-encased girls who maybe felt a little feistier, a little less self-conscious, a little more rebellious because of the characters you played, because of the way you played them.
Thanks, Martha.
Love,
Liss
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Sophie Brand Monitor Warmers.
Recommended Reading:
Fannie: But Articles Like This Are Totally Helping [TW for homophobia, gender policing, and suicide]
Renee: Here Comes The Rain Again: Disability and Pain
Grace: Google Doesn't Want to Give Us Lesbians [TW for homophobia and violence]
Andrew: Rutgers President Defends School's Handling Of Clementi Case
Cripchick: Happy Disability History Month!
Riot Nrrd: Defense
Action Item: Tell North Carolina to Overturn Decision Legalizing Rape
Leave your links in comments...
Quote of the Day
"We need to make sure someone has seen the video. I am quick to jump to conclusions but want to be certain it is what it is said to be before I tell the Secy."—Department of Agriculture official Krysta Harden, seemingly the only person with any sense involved in the decision-making process about Shirley Sherrod's job at the USDA, after Andrew Breitbart posted a selectively and misleadingly edited video of Sherrod, cut to make her words appear racist. Administration emails obtained by CNN through a Freedom of Information Act request appear to confirm the worst (and the obvious): That politics was prioritized over people, and over truth.
When Harden suggested they hold off on a decision about Sherrod's fate until the entirety of the video was seen by someone at the USDA or the White House, she was overruled.
Obama said he'd bring change to the White House, and he sure did: When the Bush administration shit-canned people for political expediency and threw public servants to the wolves, at least they knew why they were doing it.
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Why Some People Have Issues With Men: Misandry is not in everyone's dictionary but it's out there.
Another awesome bit of reading material, care of the always-hilarious Psychology Today.
What Happens
[Trigger warning for rape (including descriptions in the New York Times article), abuse of prison inmates, and transphobia]
I apologize to folks at Questioning Transphobia for stealing the title from one of their posts earlier in the year, but honestly, it's the most appropriate thing I can think of.
Intersectional transphobia, for a variety of reasons, leads to trans people (especially, I suspect, younger trans women, especially especially younger trans women of color) to be incarcerated at [TW] disproportionately high rates.
Locked up in prisons, governments attempt to do whatever they can to disrespect the autonomy of trans inmates, including but not limited to housing transsexual inmates in the incorrect sex-segregated facilities.
And then this disrespect leads to sexual abuse, which very, very rarely leads to the arrest (and/or punishment) of abusers and/or mention in the pages of a major newspaper:
[TW] NYT:
A New York City correction officer was arrested and charged on Thursday with forcing a transgender inmate to engage in a sex act with him at a Manhattan jail.Words fail to the extent of my outrage and complete and utter lack of surprise.
...According to a complaint filed in court, the victim had filed a grievance with the Correction Department about a month before the stairwell attack took place, complaining that [the officer in question] had repeatedly harassed her.
...In her suit against the city, the woman alleged that she was also assaulted earlier in the summer of 2009 when — as an inmate at Rikers Island — she was taken to the prison ward of a hospital for treatment. In that incident, a nurse forced her to perform oral sex on him in her hospital room, the suit contends. The nurse, Carl Wiley, later pleaded guilty to committing a criminal sexual act.
Fuck.
Ozzy Osbourne to Westboro Baptist: STFU
Ozzy Osbourne is none too pleased that Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church, they of the "God Hates Fags" signs, played his song "Crazy Train" on the steps of the United States Supreme Court yesterday.
"I am sickened and disgusted by the use of 'Crazy Train' to promote messages of hate and evil by a 'church,'" said Ozzy, referring to the iconic song off 1980's Blizzard of Ozz.Ozzy Osbourne spent nearly four decades, in his own words, destroying his brain with booze and drugs, and he's still got more sense than the Westboro Baptist clan.
We are officially living in Bizarro World when Ozzy Osbourne, who spent the entirety of the '80s being condemned by Christian groups for his music, is now lambasting a Christian group for misusing his music.
Fr. Madigan Is Not A Good My-Team Player
Tea Partiers want to "take back our country". After all, (some of) our ancestors stole it from the Native Americans, instituted registration of private property so that they could legally prove ownership of what they'd stolen, and contemplated contentedly the prospect of never having to share it with anyone not on their team.
The system wasn't perfect, alas. Some of our ancestors had stolen a bunch of people, too, and brought them here as more legally-owned property, to work, but the ingrates struggled for their freedom, and some ancestors actually thought that legally owning people was carrying the system of your-life-is-what-you-own a tad far, and before 200 years of saying, "The Bible treats slavery as a fact of life, therefore it is a holy estate," or the simpler "But they're mine! I paid for them!" had gone by, those people were free. Well, technically.
Not letting them own anything much, taking their property away and giving it to a team member when they had managed to acquire some, limiting their educational and employment opportunities and not allowing them any say in making the legal system which controls who is entitled to what did provide some excellent controls on their freedom for many decades.
Then too, some of those Native Americans insisted on hanging about the place, despite their reduced numbers being chivvied from their homes to lesser lands repeatedly. So, in spite of the laws about not letting not-our-team people into the country except to build our railroads and wash our shirts and stuff, over time our team kind of expanded.
But it worked out okay so long as those not-us types who weaseled their way in proved how devoted to the team they were by immediately turning around and condemning as evil and sure to be the destruction of our team anyone not-us-or-almost-us was.
Unfortunately, not all of those ungrateful jerks recognize their responsibility to do this. Sometimes you get one of these bleeding heart-types who says, "I didn't enjoy being treated like that, and I don't want to treat anyone else that way." Or even something so ridiculous as, "We're all in this together, and weapons turned on you can be turned on me." And, of course, if that's already happened, it may seem even more plausible.Many New Yorkers were suspicious of the newcomers’ plans to build a house of worship in Manhattan. Some feared the project was being underwritten by foreigners. Others said the strangers’ beliefs were incompatible with democratic principles.
And thus, the Rev. Kevin V. Madigan, current pastor of St. Peter's — which is located two blocks from the proposed Muslim community center and place of worship which has drawn outraged protests, along with displays of political cowardice from those who say that of course, 1st amendment, blah, blah, but maybe the developers should move it anyway, to avoid upsetting bigots — has written and preached to his congregation on the parallels of the history of their church with that of the Muslim center, Park51.
Concerned residents staged demonstrations, some of which turned bitter.
But cooler heads eventually prevailed; the project proceeded to completion. And this week, St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in Lower Manhattan — the locus of all that controversy two centuries ago and now the oldest Catholic church in New York State — is celebrating the 225th anniversary of the laying of its cornerstone.
Regrettably, in his defense of the Muslim group developing the Park51 center, the priest is quoted by the NY Times as saying that, "Park51’s organizers would have to 'make clear that they are in no way sympathetic to or supported by any ideology antithetical to our American ideals, which I am sure they can do'.”
As this requirement is imposed on no one developing a site for the use of any religious group other than Muslims, I see no reason why it should be an expectation here. I assume Fr. Madigan is just being "practical" and thinking that the mob must have some assurance from the Park51 developers that they are just as good Americans as the bigots themselves.
But Fr. Madigan also saysCatholic New Yorkers have a special obligation to fulfill.
I think we all have an obligation to prevent the mistreatment of others. But I also think that, when you know yourself, or others like you, to have experienced suspicion, discrimination and abuse based on being seen as Other, you do have an obligation to recognize that this was not unjust simply because it affected you, that the many faces of injustice stem from the same source, and the many faces of the victims of injustice can include your own, or those of people you care about — that injustice allowed to feed freely on bigotry will grow too big to direct only at those whom you consider satisfactory targets, or to whom you are simply indifferent.
The discrimination suffered by the first Catholics in America, he said, “ought to be an incentive for us to ensure that similar indignities not be inflicted on more recent arrivals."
When you see that the target could be you, you have a choice: Join the team feeding the beast of bigotry, or simply try to blend in with them and hope to escape its appetite, or recognize that the risk of speaking for justice may seem more immediate and scarier than the risk of encouraging the beast while hiding behind it, but that there is risk each way, and you can share that risk with bigots and haters, or with those working against such things who, in my view, make better companions, anyway.
And if there is any part of yourself with which you have not yet made peace, which you fear may seem alien or unwelcome to others — not harm you have done, but simply who you are — then, especially, trying to blend in with the my-teamers is surely a losing move. When you are finally ready to claim that part of yourself, or when hiding it is no longer possible, if you are among those constantly fighting the Other, you may lose your every place in their world.
Whereas, if you are among those fighting for equality, you will already have the friends you will need.
Question of the Day
Following up on yesterday's question... What's your favorite board game?
I like all kinds of board games, particularly classic puzzle and word games. Top of the list are Boggle, Scrabble, backgammon, and mahjong.
A contemporary favorite is Apples to Apples.
