For what else can you call a nation that was founded on the annihilation of the indigenous people of the land and the enslavement Africans who were inventoried with furniture and animals? What but savage can you call nation that has overthrown democracies and undermined freedom movements all over the world? A nation causing chaos from Congo to Iraq to satisfy our gluttonous need for other peoples' resources?
Tellingly, our savage nation still mandates state sponsored murder.
Think about it. This is a nation were black people were up until the 1950s routinely lynched: sometimes hung from trees, sometimes burned alive, sometimes mutilated beyond recognition and frequently all of the above, in front of large audiences of white onlookers, including children. Alongside this open brutality was an equally brutal practice that was less known.
Immediately following Reconstruction, the slavery-plantation agricultural complex was replaced by the prison industrial complex. Black men (and some black women) by the tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, were arrested on bogus charges of "vagrancy." They were then imprisoned indefinitely and their labor was illegally sold to the highest industrial bidder--"slavery by another name" as Blakmon rightly named it. Put differently black criminality is an invention of state-sanctioned white supremacy. Our oppressors, the savages, control the prison industrial complex, make, enforce and adjudicate the laws, and so forth. To this day the inequities in the American criminal (in)justice system remain staggering--a direct outcome of slavery and Jim Crow.
Which brings me to one of the latest acts of barbarity: the state-execution of John Muhammad. Mr. Muhammad was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for ten murders in around the Washington D.C. area.
Think about it. This is a nation were black people were up until the 1950s routinely lynched: sometimes hung from trees, sometimes burned alive, sometimes mutilated beyond recognition and frequently all of the above, in front of large audiences of white onlookers, including children. Alongside this open brutality was an equally brutal practice that was less known.
Immediately following Reconstruction, the slavery-plantation agricultural complex was replaced by the prison industrial complex. Black men (and some black women) by the tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, were arrested on bogus charges of "vagrancy." They were then imprisoned indefinitely and their labor was illegally sold to the highest industrial bidder--"slavery by another name" as Blakmon rightly named it. Put differently black criminality is an invention of state-sanctioned white supremacy. Our oppressors, the savages, control the prison industrial complex, make, enforce and adjudicate the laws, and so forth. To this day the inequities in the American criminal (in)justice system remain staggering--a direct outcome of slavery and Jim Crow.
Which brings me to one of the latest acts of barbarity: the state-execution of John Muhammad. Mr. Muhammad was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for ten murders in around the Washington D.C. area.
Muhammad's two former spouses appeared on the Larry King show the day before Muhammad's execution. His second wife, Mildred Muhammad, repeated several points that had been previously covered by the press: she said that Mr. Muhammad had been abusive, that he had threatened to kill her and that she believed Mr. Muhammad was in D.C. to carry out that threat. She also made it clear that she had made an emotional break with Mr. Muhammad. (interestingly, the first wife who has since remarried renewed ties w/Muhammad while he was in prison. the obvious bad blood between them was fascinating--but i will leave that for the tabloids.)
"I had emotionally detached from John when I asked him for a divorce," she told CNN. "And my emotions were severed when he said that you have become my enemy and as my enemy, I will kill you."
All of this is crucial information because it establishes that she had absolutely no reason to lie about her ex-husband's behavior. According to Mildred Muhammad, her former husband's personality had changed radically after returning from the Gulf War.
She has asserted that she was her ex-husband's target, and she blamed the first Gulf War for changing his personality.
"He went from someone who was always happy, that knew what direction he was going in, and was focused, to a person that was totally confused, depressed all the time, and didn't know how to do or get to where he wanted to be."
She said he never received counseling after his return to the United States.
But lawyer Gordon disputed her account, saying that Muhammad "was absolutely not affected by his time in the Gulf War. We did discuss that."
Its an open secret that our troops are returning from war zones and not receiving proper medical attention and Ms. Muhammad's observation strikes me as a credible. And what is up with John Muhammad's attorney? How could he possibly know with certainty that Mr. Muhammad "was absolutely not affected by his time in the Gulf War"?
I reject the death penalty because our criminal justice system is fundamentally racist. I also reject it on principle (in most instances)--the state should not be in the business of taking lives. Mr. Muhammad certainly deserved to be punished for his crimes, but he did not deserve the death penalty. No human being (or very few) deserves to die by state execution.
I am also opposed to war, but if we can send our troops to hostile theaters to risk their lives then we owe them the best possible medical care while on active duty and after discharge. Our government let Mr. Muhammad down and bears at least some responsibility for those ten lost lives.
Read entire CNN article here.
tags: crime, death penalty, gulf war, PTSD
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