Wednesday, December 31, 2014

A True Black Man, Quiet as a Mouse, but all About Power.

A  brother with a quiet resolve
One mouse has already changed the world.  Not Mickey Mouse.  It's the mouse at your fingertips.  I have learned so much from it.  The world's economy is an ecommerce economy: we get our news online, watch movies online, date online, and shop online.  But our voices are online, too. Lately, with the events of Ferguson and exposure of police-instigated deaths of Black men in the U.S., that little mouse has made us all roar like lions on the #Twittersphere.

On #Twitter, especially, we speak our minds, we share ideas, and we are all pitching something for people to hear.  But, truthfully, raising our online hands to speak is like an audience member in a stadium yelling, "Choose me! Choose me!" amidst the cacophony of other people yelling the same words.  Can one hear anything else yelling herself?

Everyone is selling their jewelry, marketing/editing/writing services, and books, and I am no different.  After all, this blog is about my novel.  I do want to get followers so that when my novel does come out, some of you might be inclined to read it.  So, I cannot pretend that I do not want some level of notoriety or recognition through writing my book (I just don't think you need to know what I look like). Would I like for it to be a bestseller? Of course! But I have no delusions. I am grateful for each read that I get on my blog, here, and I'll be equally grateful should any of you purchase my ebook.


All the above kinda-sorta leads me to this brother that I met on Twitter.  When he likes what you tweet, he retweets it. He might say a couple of words to you, now and then, such that whenever I got an RT from him, it really meant something to me.  Then, I started to wonder why.  His Twitter avatar shows a handsome Black man with a kind face that also shows resolve, a Malcolm X kind of quiet.   He has a cool Twitter personality. Understated. And powerful, because he's not saying, "Look at me! Listen to me! I'm more important to listen to!" I recognized and understood his true depth when he tweeted a link to a Vimeo of a British documentary that totally shocked my conscience (first video), about how Americans have always been duped into being consumers more than people of conscience. It has confirmed what I always believed; but to realize that our consumerism was orchestrated as far back as the early 1900s was mind-boggling.  So, somehow we got to dialoguing on our direct message and I learned a bit about him. Who is this man, who seems too cool for school, who is perfectly alright with sitting on the sidelines?


The @TrueBlackPower handle belongs to Carl. He lives in Michigan, went to a four year university, but couldn't finish. He was happily married until he lost his wife to an aneurysm.  He grew up in a family that believed in striving, and had small home-based businesses (soul food dinners) in their local neighborhood. He is a student of a martial arts style called Isshinryu Karate.  He explained it as an Okinawan-based style of marshal arts derived from peasants who found ways to fight off invaders using common sense or practical tools and methods. He explained that he was bullied, growing up, and martial arts has equipped him with the tools to "redirect the pain and disappointment from many."


A quiet warrior.  

His moniker says it all. And so do his tweets: they are informative, commanding one's attention.  This brother keeps his nose to the grindstone and channels information for Black and other followers who want to be educated about the great history, culture, and sociopolitical plight of Black Americans.  His tweets are selective and each one is a treasure trove of information. Almost every tweet has info worth reading.  Given his tweets, and acknowledging his choice of identity, I thought to ask him via email where his head was at where Black people are concerned. His answers to my questions about what we regular folk can do about our circumstances were very commonsensical, real, and, though brief, are worthy of repetition:

Q: What about our economic situation? How do we, as Blacks, handle the economy?

A.  The problem is that many of us get stuck. We become used to one way and when things begin to change, we reject the change so we all suffer from generational stubbornness.  We also lack resources knowledge, and pride.  I'm all for celebrating our accomplishments as a people but many times it's condescending and used against us.  We should learn where we live, and understand that we cannot trust the financial industry. That's the first step for economic empowerment. The second is to just do our thing and keep our mouth closed while doing it. Third is to use and know all defense mechanisms for our survival and teach it through the generations.

Q.  How do we reconcile Blacks' contribution to the rampant commercialism in this country; are we not victims of it, too?

A.  The "haves" use media and culture to psychologically keep us, "the have nots," down, which is why the Internet is so dangerous. We now have the ability to research and think for ourselves. Nowadays, ignorance is voluntary. As for our victimization, Blacks are victims because we love our families and want to protect them and provide for them. But, of course, our families are in danger.  The suffering of our people is not as worse as our not fighting back.  We must go about our business, collectively, leave petty differences alone, and be realistic. In moving forward, disruptions are going to come our way, and will always be the case.  But we must adjust quickly and with purpose.  Once we learn to adapt and adjust more quickly, and with purpose, and we do our part for each other as a people, we will assert our power, sending a clear message: enough with the B.S.

I'm highlighting Carl on my blog because he is an example of how the struggle will be won: quietly, purposefully, and with resolve.  @TrueBlackPower

Explore more on Google + links below - I have not vetted the sites, so please research at your own peril. 

Happy New Year.  I wish all readers a prosperous New Year.  And thanks for reading my Blog!

Friday, December 19, 2014

A poem: "Our Beautiful Black Struggle."

 
Our struggle.

Our drama.

Our fortitude.

Our strength.


Our capacities for kindness.

Our diverse hair lengths.
















Our skin color tells the whole world to behold.

Our hue is our badge...and yes, it is bold.

Our blackness.

Our brown-ness.

Our tans and our yellows.


Our genes in all races (though they murmur and bellow).


Our wheeling.

Our dealing.

Our hurt.

 









Our anger.

Our ability to speak truth to any stranger.


Our laughter.

Our humor.

Our creativity.

Our steadfast in the face of incivility.


Our passions.

Our sadness.

Our intelligence.

Our defiance against government intransigence.


Our Thurgoods.














Our Tubmans.
















Our Kings.




Our Truths.














Our Garveys.

 











Our Xs.
 









Our African roots.



Our ability to withstand the slings and the arrows.

Our greatness is world-known, right down to our marrow.


Our hearts.

Our smiles.

Our true reality?

We are innocent compared to man's inhumanity.













Copyright (c)  2014 by VL Towler 
All rights reserved. 
No copyright claim to photographs.

**** I just learned that another author used the title, "Our Beautiful Struggle," for his widely-celebrated book, which I have not read and about which I was not consciously aware until today 11/29/15. To the extent that I may have subconsciously heard it, I will be the first to state that the other author thought of the title first.






Saturday, December 6, 2014

This Year Will be a "Kwanzaa" Christmas.

When my mother announced to me that we will not be celebrating Christmas this year, I could not hide my shock. If you knew my mother, you would understand my reaction.

My mother has always lived for holidays.  When we were young, she would give us cards for St. Patrick's Day (in honor of her dark-skinned father, my grandfather, who was part-Irish), Happy Sweetest Day, Halloween, Easter, Christmas--you name it. I have boxes of cards from her over my lifetime.  She is always eager to take down the storage boxes for whatever holiday is approaching so she can decorate the house.  She does things in reverse order and it is always a source of rancor in our two-person household: I prefer to clean, then decorate; she prefers to decorate, then clean.

I get it.  She's had a very, very hard life in this country of her birth.  Her only country.  That denied her so much because she was Black and brilliant. When her career as a classically-trained pianist dictated that she would only be able to have a career in Europe, she opted to get married, instead, and raise six children with her husband, my father, a carpenter.  While raising us, working four jobs, and being in a marriage devoid of a true partnership and love, she overcame alcoholism and addiction to pills.  Finding happiness in other less deleterious outlets, like celebrating holidays, is essential, I guess. It beat drinking.

Ergo, for my mother--holidays were something to live for.

Until the Eric Garner verdict.

It is as though a light-bulb went off in her head.  She had bought into a system that only wanted her to buy happiness, not experience it. America wants Black money, but doesn't want Black participation in daily life. If we're on stage performing, making people happy, we're good to go.  But can we shop in any store we want to, walk down the middle of the street, even sell a cheap cigarette and not get killed? Black people can be killed for petty crimes, while society gets away with wholesale purposeful subjugation of a whole people because they had the temerity to stay alive and not jump overboard on the way to slavery in America?

And we are still alive. And boy, do we love to shop. We can look good, even if society hates us. We give money to a country that does not want us. Our whole government system is based upon our subjugation:

1. The electoral college was created so that Blacks couldn't numerically overwhelm the white electorate in the South.
2.  Grand juries are supposed to rubber-stamp a prosecutor's predilection for putting Black people in prison, disproportionate to our numbers.
3.  Corporations owned by White shareholders could get tax breaks, while Black men who could not find work were forced to abandon their families so their wives could get assistance.

But the one part of American life we are asked to wholeheartedly participate in is consumerism. And we are the most patriotic on the planet. The world watches us shop, then buys what we buy.  And we buy White.

Yes, me, too:

I used to buy designer Ferragamo and Bruno Magli shoes.
Tag Hauer and Longines watches.
The Tommy Hilfiger outlet has some really affordable buys.
Jones of New York suits when the brand was still good.
European bras.

I am not immune to wanting quality clothing and accessories.  But in whose pockets was that money going and was any of it going into the Black community? Of course not.

Black Americans need to stop supporting an economic system that does not support us.  There are millions of Black Americans who came to this conclusion years before my mother's light-bulb moment.

To Buy Black is not to hate Whites. It means you are proud of your heritage and support it.
Irish support Irish.
Italians support Italians.
Asians support Asians.
Latinos have businesses that support each other.

What happens when Blacks congregate?

We're asked why we're eating together at the lunch tables in school, segregating ourselves.
Black men are not allowed to congregate in threes.
Besides Barbershops and hair salons that specialize in Black hair care, economically, Black Americans support every race on the planet.
Certain institutions historically do not want Blacks to have rights--just spend money and make them rich.

In declaring this manifesto, are we planning to sever ties with our White friends? Of course not. We know that the pain of the verdict is felt in the hearts of many people who are not Black. We have spent numerous Christmas dinners with our close friends, who, though White, are like family, to us, and this Christmas will be no different. 

To affirm our ethnic solidarity is not heresy. It is pride. It is a conscious decision to uplift our brethren, economically.  We have been doing it for low-income job seekers as resume-writers for over 12 years now, but that's another story. 

Kwanzaa was always "in" in our family, but, now it's going to be 365 days of the year.

Black America may be late to the game. But the game isn't over. We can become the economic powerhouse that we should be. Buy Black. Support Black.

There are hundreds of businesses who have been preaching the gospel for years.  Here is a directory to get you started in your searches.


http://www.blackownedbiz.com/directory/
http://www.msoyonline.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BlackFolkHotSpots
http://www.blackbusinesslist.com/
http://bbala.org/

Add your organizations names to this list in the comments section. 








Friday, November 28, 2014

Ferguson Says Forget Due Process--A Secret Jury Trial is More "Cop-Aesthetic."

Mike Brown, "the demon."
The grand jury proceeding in Ferguson Missouri is a metaphor for the country's continued biased [mis]application of the rule of law where both Black American victims and/or perpetrators are concerned: the hell with due process--the facts are more important.

Nowadays, it is the facts that prevail--no matter the procedure used to draw them out.

The Supreme Court has long since destroyed the 4th Amendment, the erstwhile rule to prohibit unlawful search and seizure.  So the principle of protecting citizens from an out-of-control police is gone. Now it's a "rules-be-damned-I-know-you-did-something-wrong," legal system. It might appear that I want criminal perpetrators to get away with their conduct, but that could not be further from the truth. 


So, lest you think me a hater of government and the police, my work history is my disclaimer: I worked for law enforcement for 11 years, first as a federal immigration attorney, then as an ivory tower international criminal law attorney. I was never in the court room. I worked with U.S. prosecutors and foreign governments to bring fugitives to their nations' courtrooms for trial. I helped the Secret Service and the FBI bring criminals "to justice," in the United States.

Furthermore, I detest criminals in general. For instance:

I don't like drug dealers.

I don't like white collar fraudsters.

Let me also declare that I really, really, really, don't like pedophiles (a subplot of my upcoming novel) and in a parallel universe I wish we could burn them alive; but on this earth in the here and now, I am a pacifist and don't believe in the death penalty.

We learned about grand jury proceedings in law school, and I remember my shock at how flimsy the process appeared to be.  Basically, it's just a way to make sure the police aren't too crazy when they bring criminal cases to their superiors. They put a panel together to look at evidence and confirm that the prosecutor has or does not have probable cause--in essence, a legitimate reason to move forward with a case.

They decide whether there is enough evidence to bring forward a case.

Let me say it another way to let this sink in:  the grand jury is supposed to look at the evidence and answer the following question put to them by the prosecutor, "Do you think this police officer's or detective's case is strong enough for me, as an attorney, to go forward, to bring charges against this defendant--FOR A JURY TO DECIDE his guilt or innocence?

Let me break it down even more:   Let's say you're making a cake. What are the ingredients to determine whether one can make a cake: flour, eggs, milk, baking powder/soda, sugar...  is that enough to make a cake? Ta-da! That's probable cause.

Now, nobody knows if the cake is truly going to taste good, but... it's the ingredients that count. Is that enough to make a cake? Again, it is the trial jury who will decide if it tastes any good.

Grand jury proceedings are usually pro forma:  the prosecutor presents his case, brought by the police (or detective) who created the case, and the grand jury says, yes or no, we think you have enough evidence to prosecute - to take the case to a full criminal proceeding.  To indict is to charge.  Not try the case.  That's what a full criminal proceeding is about.  A criminal proceeding is when the lawyers sit on opposite sides of the courtroom and they get to make their client's case. In the case of the police, they are supposed to make the case for the PEOPLE of the jurisdiction in which they work, in this case, Ferguson, Missouri, a city that happens to have a Black majority. In Missouri, a grand jury of 9 must agree to put forward an indictment -- NOT TO CONVICT. TO INDICT.  We won't address the implications of the serendipitous (for Officer Wilson) make up of the jury right now.... there were 9 Whites and 3 Blacks. Do the math. 


In Ferguson, however, something different happened than happens in most grand juries:  the prosecutor was going to prosecute one of his friends, a fellow member of law enforcement. So, instead of deciding whether there was enough evidence to go forward, the grand jury proceeding turned into an investigation into why Michael Brown deserved to die. The prosecutor explained why it was perfectly all right to kill the teenager:

1. Mike Brown stole some cigars from a liquor store.
2. Mike Brown was big like Hulk Hogan.
3. Mike Brown looked like a demon.

Those are reasons for disliking someone.  Not killing him.

There's only one person who, conceivably, may have had a right to kill Mike Brown: the liquor store owner, to protect his property. Yes, the owner backed down, too, on the video, when Mike turned to him, using his girth to prevent him from doing anything to stop Brown from leaving the store with his cigarette contraband.  But the police officer, who might have had a right to shoot, had no right to kill.  Period. He had a right to maim, a right to impede; he could have shot him in the shoulders, in the knee caps, in the pelvis, or even in the foot. But he had no right to kill--considering that his menacing assailant was unarmed.

Unarmed.
UN-armed.


But, in the case of the Ferguson prosecutor, the standard changed because his "brother," a police  officer, Darren Wilson, was the one being scrutinized like a criminal.  Where the mythical police officer that should have arrested Darren Wilson would have said to the prosecutor, "I think we need to arrest this police officer because he's going around shooting people that he fears are a physical threat to him."

That didn't happen.  It was okay to shoot Mike Brown, because in the eyes of law enforcement, Mike Brown represents everything wrong with Black American youth: they wear their pants down, walk around like they own the joint, and are petty thieves. Of course, Wall Street got bailed out $700 billion dollars for bilking Americans out of their hard-earned money, and what happens to them?
They get a raise.

Had I met Mike Brown, I might have thought he was a jerk for taking those cigarillos, but I would never wish him death.  But a lot of hateful Americans feel otherwise: he deserved to die and got his comeuppance because he was a "bad person. " Imagine how many people would "deserve to die" for being bad people:  at the risk of being investigated for my opinions, let's just say that many politicians would not be holding office today if being a good person were the standard for whether they continued to live on this earth.

The United States legal system is derived from the British, who devised a system whereby the King could keep people "in check" in their communities by granting grand juries the right to assemble and decide to file charges against criminal wrong-doers far from the King's or Queen's watchful eyes. These people supported the Crown, obviously. Nothing has changed in the purpose of the grand jury here, in the U.S., except that we don't have Kings and Queens. We have authority in the form of the local police, who are supposed to be the stewards of peace and tranquility in our communities.  The grand jury generally supports the police.

Police who prosecute.

The grand jury is supposed to rubber stamp the police's abilities to go after a criminal suspect, and arm them with the power to arrest and bring them to justice.  The British system acknowledged this fact. In an article entitled, "Abolition of the Grand Jury in England," Chief Clerk of the Bow Street Magistrates, Albert Lieck, explained:
Originally the grand jury, in criminal procedure, were the informants.  They told the King's judges what crimes had been committed in their venue, or neighborhood as the better Saxon word has it. In exceptional times and places their refusal to find true bill defeated tyrannous prosecution, but if history instead of vague sentiment be our guide we shall realize that such happenings were exceptional, and that to talk of the loss of a great safeguard of personal liberty is to talk nonsense.
Translation in American English: grand jury prosecutions were almost, without a fault, in favor of the police, allowing a case to go to trial, and the exception was very rare. 

Now, take away Darren Wilson's uniform, and Mike Brown's menace to car-driving society (he drew Officer Wilson's attention because he had the audacity to be walking down the middle of the street).

That didn't happen here. A man who should have been given a public audience to publicly make his case for why he killed a Black teenager--was spared the embarrassment of being made accountable, to look jurors in the eye, instead of a sympathetic grand jury. 

The British abolished the grand jury in 1933.  Always late to the party, the U.S., might need to do the same. Why should we  countenance a system of secrecy, of laissez-faire evience-gathering, which ultimately impacts upon the liberties of Black accused and Black victims who are allowed to be killed with police impunity, by officers like Darren Wilson, who said he would kill Mike Brown again if he had to. 

RIP Mike Brown.  You may have stolen a pack of cigarillos, but your life was stolen from you, in a heinous way. And the world knows now that our democracy has grave flaws--with headstones for Black people.  I'm not sure when things will ever change.  Will it be once there are no more Black people to arrest, because the grand jury will put us all in jail, or will it be once we are all killed by grand juries like the one that justified Mike Brown's murder?

This is why I will always support the existence of the federal government.  The Department of Justice must come forward and address this horrible wrong.

This is not a Happy Thanksgiving, America.




Saturday, November 22, 2014

Speaking Black...Statistically, that is... Do the Numbers Speak for Themselves?

What do our stats say about Black America?
--> So, all you mathematicians and statisticians out there: what do the facts and figures below tell you about the quality of life for Black Americans in American cities?
This information is not meant to be cited for its accuracy. It is culled, cut, and pasted from different sources, one of them: http://blackdemographics.com/ -- the brainchild of Akim Deshay. This brother has done an amazing job and even the White House used his information to learn more about Black demographics in America.

Another site is listed here:  http://www.statisticbrain.com/african-american-black-statistics/

What do you see when you look at the information below? Do you have any Eureka thoughts about the economic state of Black America?

Share what you think in the comments section. I don't have answers, but I do have lots of questions:

1) What is it like to be a young Black teenager or young adult in our American cities?
2) What happened to Black American households, and why have they dwindled to 1/3 of our population?
3) Why do Black people spend so much time in front of the television (74 hours per week)?
4) Are Black Americans suffering disproportionate health problems, such as high blood pressure and obesity, due to our economic circumstances?
5) If Black Americans contribute almost 1.2 Trillion dollars to the American economy, why is so little of it trickling down to our communities?
6) Are Black businesses truly "black businesses" if they don't contribute to Black economic life in a meaningful way?

Share your thoughts; I share my opinions a lot; but now wish to listen.

http://www.dol.gov/_Sec/media/reports/blacklaborforce/
Total number of Americans on welfare12,800,000
Total number of Americans on food stamps46,700,000
Total number of Americans on unemployment insurance5,600,000
Percent of the US population on welfare4.1 %
Total government spending on welfare annually (not including food stamps or unemployment)$131.9 billion
Welfare Demographics
Percent of recipients who are white38.8 %
Percent of recipients who are black39.8 %
Percent of recipients who are Hispanic15.7 %
Percent of recipients who are Asian2.4 %
Percent of recipients who are Other3.3 %
Welfare Statistics
Total amount of money you can make monthly and still receive Welfare$1000
Total Number of U.S. States where Welfare pays more than an $8 per hour job39
Number of U.S. States where Welfare pays more than a $12 per hour job6
Number of U.S. States where Welfare pays more than the average salary of a U.S. Teacher8
Number of African Americans in the US in 200036,400,000
Number of black households there are in the US12,000,000
African American region concentrationPercent of Black Population
South54.8 %
Midwest18.8 %
Northeast17.6 %
West8.9 %
Number of African Americans who live in suburban neighborhoods14,000,000
African American Education LevelsPercent
High School Graduates77.6 %
Bachelor’s degree or higher14.6 %
Advanced degree4.3 %
African American Financial StatisticsData
Average income of African Americans$32,436
Annual spending power for African Americans$1.2 Trillion
Percent of African American households with incomes of $50,000 or more27.4 %
Percent of African Americans living in poverty23.5 %
Percent of African Americans that are homeowners49 %
African American Business Statistics
Number of African American owned businesses800,000
Revenue generated by African American owned businesses$71,200,000,000
Number of African American fortune 500 CEOs3
Top Five Expenditures of African-American consumersSpending
Housing$121.6 billion
Food$59.2 billion
Cars$32.1 billion
Clothing$27.7 billion
Health Care$17.8 billion

Saturday, November 15, 2014

The "Case" Against Reparations (And Not for the Reasons You Think)

Dr. Martha Stephens fought for "dignity" back in 1972
While doing legal research, I came across a case that I didn't really want to read, but because it related to the subject I was researching, I was forced to slog through it.  Being a lawyer is both an asset and a curse: I can pretty much decipher most legal documents; however, on a practical level, much of what I read doesn't make sense in application, and that premise explains the inherent bipolarity of our legal system:

1.  We believe in separation of Church and State, but fight for the 10 Commandments to be on state property.

2.  All men were created equal.

3.  We espouse the principle of "one man, one vote," but then try to prevent certain people from voting, and the Supreme Court, in Bush v. Gore, basically said, "nah.... you can stop counting...give it to Bush."

4. We call ourselves civilized, but kill people for killing other people, something most of the civilized world doesn't do.

5. We believe in equal rights for women, but not equal pay to that of their male equivalent.

6. We all pledge allegiance to the flag, but a Congressman in a hallowed building can shout that our President is a "liar." 

7. We allege to love our country, but want our President to fail.

8. We have a democratically elected President take office, and when it's time to symbolically unite at the White House, one political party is missing: the one that boasts how much it loved President Lincoln, who freed the slaves, but which hates his Black successor.

I have come to realize that our country is inherently schizophrenic, especially, for those who have benefited the most from America's bounty, like the legacy kids of Ivy League schools, who can go to the best schools in the country because their parents attended or were donors, then bemoan when Black kids get an opportunity to go (who have to work hard to graduate) without their parents' connections.


So....

Reparations, anyone?

I'm all for it. And if you want the seminal history of why the reparations debate is timely, read this.  Ta-Nehisi Coates certainly deserves a Pulitzer for his in-depth, exhaustive analysis of the economic experience of Black Americans in this country.  I cannot even bear to read all of it, honestly, as it hurts me to the core. I can read it only in doses.

I don't dare try to match literary wits with Mr. Coates, but rhetorically, I ask myself -- will reparations happen?

I doubt it.

Here's why:

In all of our greatness as a country, throughout all of the strides we have made, post-slavery, in all of our flag-waving and belief in so-called fundamental constitutional rights, there is one prize that many alleged "lesser" countries around the world espouse that we do not:  the right to human dignity.

Let's define the word dignity:

dignity |ˈdignitē|
noun ( pl. dignities )
the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect:
  
Where the post-Nuremburg European powers have announced their respect for human dignity, no where is it enshrined in American law. The U.S. courts have said as much in the very small progeny of cases that succeeded the In re Cincinnati Radiation Litigation, a case decided in the United States District Court, S.D. Ohio, Western Division, in 1995.  Although the question of human dignity was not a part of the Cincinnati case, the implications of the case brought up the specter of Hitler's experimentation on Jews.

I won't dwell on the obvious horrors of the story - horror because this didn't happen during the "get- over it-that-was-so-long-ago (slavery) - but only forty years ago, during the heralded post Civil-Rights era. Basically, Black Americans were experimented on [like the 3/5s of a human being they once were believed to be] in a municipal hospital in Cincinnati, under the financial oversight of the Department of Defense. The experiments were done between 1960 and 1972, at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and Cincinnati General Hospital, on at least 87 people. The subjects of the experiments were exposed to total or partial body irradiation.  All this was done without the permission of the patients, a majority of whom were Black Americans, who believed that they were being treated for cancer. 

Let that sink in.  

The judge in the case couldn't contain her own disgust at the facts: "The allegations of the Complaint make out an outrageous tale of government perfidy in dealing with some of its most vulnerable citizens. The allegations are inflammatory and compelling." That being said, the law is the law, and the judge had to deal with the procedural and legalistic matters that superseded questions of "dignity" and "humanity," not to mention shock that a democratic government would even think to do this to its own "alleged" citizens.  

Despite that judicial admission of the factual horrors of the case, even the name of the actual lawsuit caption doesn't go far enough. The caption, itself, "In re Cincinnati Radiation Litigation," protects the defendants so as not to ascribe a "name" or identify the malfeasants.  Usually case captions name the parties, but in this case, as it was, in effect, a class action of numerous plaintiffs, and the defendant was the "government," and its employees, the individuals who performed the experiments are spared the embarrassment of being named. I'll do so here, however (excerpted verbatim from the judge's lengthy opinion):

The individual Defendants are denominated as follows: Eugene L. Saenger, M.D. was employed by the Department of Radiology of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and was the lead researcher conducting the Human Radiation Experiments at Cincinnati General Hospital. Dr. Saenger is alleged to have designed, supervised and conducted the experiments that are the subject of this Complaint.

Edward B. Silberstein, M.D.; Bernard S. Aron, M.D., Harry Horwitz, M.D., James G. Kereiakes, PhD, Harold Perry, M.D., Ben I. Friedman, M.D., Thomas L. Wright, M.D., I-Wen Chen, Ph.D., Robert L. Kunkel, M.D., Louis A. Gottschalk, M.D., Theodore H. Wold, PhD, and Goldine C. Gleser, Ph.D. also were employed by the University of Cincinnati and are alleged to have assisted Dr. Saenger in the Human Radiation Experiments.

Warren O. Kessler, M.D., and Myron I. Varon, M.D., were medical officers in the United States Navy and are alleged to have been the Project Officers charged with providing federal oversight of the Human Radiation Experiments. Because Drs. Kessler and Varon were federal officials, their conduct will be examined along with that of the other individual Defendants under the doctrine of qualified immunity and as regards Section 1985 and the Price-Anderson statute. However, the claims against Drs. Kessler and Varon will also be analyzed separately under the Bivens doctrine, which specifically permits claims against federal employees who violate constitutional law.6
The City, a municipality in Hamilton County, Ohio, is also a Defendant. The Complaint alleges that the City sanctioned, funded, and actively participated in the Human Radiation Experiments.

Finally, the University of Cincinnati ("University"), including its constituent College of Medicine and University Hospital (formerly Cincinnati General Hospital) is also named as a Defendant.
None of the individuals listed above were criminally prosecuted. Thanks to a thinking judge, Sandra Beckwith, a Republican appointee, at least the Defendants weren't allowed to escape from the tentacles of the legal system via the heralded concept of jurisdiction. They were under the clutches of the court, at a minimum, which was a Herculean feat, given the various arguments they raised to avoid the court's ability to decide the case. In a nutshell, this is what the defendants claimed in their defense:

1. You can't sue us for our atrocities, because... we're in another state.
2. Some of us were merely Project Officers, not real supervisors of the experiments.
3. We were government officials only doing our delegated jobs.
4. The radiation subjects weren't prisoners--they came to the hospital of their own volition and could have left the hospital whenever they wanted to (have you ever told your doctors during an examination to "go to hell?")


Notwithstanding that prosecutorial mistake in judgment for not putting them all in jail for at least the equivalent number of years that they committed these indignities against these human "guinea pigs," this discussion is less about the radiation litigation, and more about the settlement, and the implications for reparations.

When the case settled (because of course, who wants to sit in a witness chair in a public trial to defend the indefensible?), the Defendants, after alleging that they could bring a private cause of action against individual defendants, changed their minds about whether Plaintiffs could opt out. As most Americans know when they are advised of a class action against a corporation, individuals are allowed to "opt out," and bring their own personal cause of action, with a private attorney.  Most of us accept the $1.00 coupon awarded at the end of a class action settlement, and skip merrily along while the attorneys divide the millions of dollars in fees, the spoils of litigating and [almost always] settling.

In the Cincinnati case, the government, essentially alleging that it would exhaust its funds in settling the case, argued that all of the plaintiffs would have to accept the settlement.  There would be no opportunity for the plaintiffs to bring private causes of action against the defendants. Instead, they were to be pooled together, in a class action of faceless litigants, like the nameless slaves on a slave ship bound for the New World.  Only after Public Justice filed a "friend of the court" brief against disallowing opt-outs was this argument shelved.  The settlement awarded the 87 victims $50,000 each.  Sure, that's not small change, especially since the awards were made in 1998.  As I explained in an earlier blog, Black farmers got the same settlement amount from the government: $50,000. For 12 years of a terrible practice, of being experimented on as human beings - some of whom actually died during the experimental period--all they got was $50,000.


My people were separated from our heritage.
We were stripped of our native language and the familial and social bonds that go with it.
My people were beaten.
My ancestors were likely raped, and the women sired children born into slavery.
When my people were supposed to be freed, some of us weren't told about it.
When we were freed, we were not allowed to go to school in many instances, forced to work in menial jobs.
After we were freed, we were forced to sit in the backs of buses and take our lunch while traveling (to avoid being turned away in restaurants).
After we were freed, we were denied opportunities to flourish as full-fledged human beings with talent, except for a preponderance of entertainers who had to "shuck and jive," to be able to use their crafts.
After we were "freed," we were forced to fight for the freedom of other people while, we, ourselves, were not free.
Now we are sent to school, only to be ushered into prison for infractions for which Whites are rarely or barely punished.
And you want to give me $50,000?

Japanese-Americans were herded into concentration camps (without being declared subhuman; they were full-fledged citizens!) and received $20,000--50 years later. On the whole, the Japanese do not show any bitterness, openly, at least:  they don't call people racists, likely for fear of being sent back to those camps, because the Supreme Court case that said it was okay to treat them as second-class citizens, Korematsu v. U.S., is still good law.


The point is that, though made up of individuals, the government is an omnipotent monolith, a monster that can crush all of us and then argue against the individual actor's fault. Changing the mantra of finding the enemy and the enemy is us, instead, for legal purposes, we refuse to sue ourselves: "We are the government and the government is us," making individuals not responsible for their collective acts of heinous government policy.  I am an unlikely ally with the libertarians who eschew government intrusion in our lives, but I echo their sentiment, under a different theory: if the government overseas horrific medical practices that jeopardize the lives of individuals with the "perfidy"  that the government has shown over the centuries, what is the likelihood that we can ever  expect the government--made up of [some] truly horrible people who can exert their power over the most vulnerable--to do the right thing and redress their wrongs?

Germany did.

According to Ta-Nehisi Coates:

Germany ultimately agreed to pay Israel 3.45 billion deutsche marks, or more than $7 billion in today’s dollars. Individual reparations claims followed—for psychological trauma, for offense to Jewish honor, for halting law careers, for life insurance, for time spent in concentration camps. 
I do not wish to draw comparisons between the tragedy of the respective Jewish and Black diasporas. My point in bringing up Germany's reparations (the story of the signing ceremony is riveting reading in Mr. Coates's article), is to show how one "bad" government came to terms with its actions, while another, allegedly "good" government--did and does nothing.

If the past is prologue, it don't look too good, my brothers and sisters, and I'm not sure we Americans have what it takes to do what Germany did after WWII.  The Declaration of Helsinki and the Nuremberg Code declared that persons could bring a  private right of action for violation of international law for the protection of human research subjects, under principles invoking the right to human dignity.  The U.S. courts said, instead, "we don't need to 'steenking' international law concepts to do our job," finding that the legal standards for conducting research on human subjects contained in the United States Code of Federal Regulations should suffice.

There goes our chance at asserting our right to dignity, Black America.

The solution?

I'm not sure.

Will it take another Republican appointee to redress so grievous a wrong? Because the Democrats aren't likely to step up to the plate (their Dixie masks are still in their closets, and many have proven to be traitors to their own Black President). Generations from now, Americans will be too far removed from making this an issue, as even some of today's youth consider Rosa Parks' place in history too old to respect; and views of race have changed so much that hip-hop and interracial dating has turned everybody fashionably "light brown."  

What happens, in the meantime?

Our country, 'tis of thee.... the State of Ferguson
More of Ferguson, an inherent parodox explained by writer Bob Cesca's recent portrait of our schizophrenia -- the glimpse into what we truly fear.

Should Black America ask the United Nations or some other international body for support, like Mike Brown's parents?

America will continue to live in a quiet state of Ferguson, of perennial doubt and distrust, of guilt, rage, and hatred of self, that will spin Blacks and Whites out of control, while more perfidious forces (everyone should adopt "perfidy" as a new vocabulary word) take over our so-called democracy.  Race is sport in America. As long as the lines are drawn, we'll always have something to fight over, raise money over, and justify our respective positions as the powerful and the powerless.

Our Founding Fathers said that it's all about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Imagine how much different history might have been had they added the word, "dignity" to that political canon. And how tragic for Black America, that even as recent as 2008, the U.S. determined that "there is no universal agreement on the meaning of the term, human dignity."


































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