The DISH

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Vol. 12 Issue 32…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…August 9, 2009

Bit of History

Granville Sharp (1735-1813)

Granville Sharp was born on November 10, 1735 in Durham, England. Along with his eight older brothers and five younger sisters, Sharp was home-schooled. But his father, an archdeacon on a small income, managed to send him to the Durham local grammar school. Sharp was placed by his father in an apprenticeship at the age of 15 with a London Quaker as a linen draper. Early on, his associations helped improve his keen intellect and love of debating. A fellow-apprentice was a Socinian (a Christian sect that denied the divinity of Christ); the association forced Sharp to teach himself Greek. Another was Jewish, so he learned Hebrew; both encounters buttressed his theological debating skills.

The direction of Sharp's life changed drastically when both parents died and his apprenticeship ended in 1757. He accepted a position as Clerk in the Ordnance Office. While visiting his brother William, a surgery to London's poor, he met Jonathan Strong, a young black slave. Strong had been badly beaten with the butt of a pistol by his 'master' and left for dead. After recovering, Strong worked for a friend of Sharp's. His 'master' discovered him and sold Strong, without his knowledge, to a Jamaican planter for £30.

Strong was kidnaped and taken aboard a ship bound for the Caribbean. Sharp intervened and learned that a slave remained chattel of his master even on English soil. Sharp spent the next two years studying English law while fighting for Strong. Even though the law was not changed, the slave was freed after several hearings.

By this time, the slave trade and slave labor were major factors in the British economy. England was by far the largest trafficker in slaves, transporting more Africans across the Atlantic than all other nations combined. Sharp was appalled that the law refused to recognize slaves as God's creatures, human beings and treated them as property.

The unsatisfactory outcome that left the law unchanged prompted Sharp to publish A Representation of the injustice and dangerous tendency of admitting the least claim of private property in the persons of men, in England, etc, in 1769. The first major anti-slavery work by a British author, it amassed a considerable volume of legal arguments against slavery. Appealing to what became established as 'the rights of man,' Sharp attacked the existing precedent that "slaves remain the property of their owners in England as well as in the colonies." Sharp joined such anti-slave advocates as Anthony Benezet, a Quaker whose writings were known on both sides of the Atlantic. Sharp joined forces with John Wesley to ignite the first sustained campaign against slavery in Britain.

A Christian who believed in acting on his faith, Sharp used his legal research during the late 1760s to help slaves and former slaves that had been kidnaped and forcibly put aboard ships bound for the colonies in the New World. Sharp diligently brought such cases into court saving many from forced bondage.

The major test for Sharp was provided by James Somerset, a runaway, who evaded slave hunters 56 days. Somerset, a slave from Virginia in America, had been brought to England by his master in 1769. Following his capture, Somerset was sold and put on a slave ship bound for Jamaica. He appealed to Sharp for help in 1772. Through a writ of habeas corpus, Sharp and supporters sought his release. Although they won the case, the verdict is often misunderstood to mean the end of slavery in England. However, it only dealt with the question of the forcible sending of someone overseas into bondage or a slave becomes free the moment he sets foot on English territory. Nonetheless, more for its effect than for its actual legal weight, it was one of the most significant milestones in the campaign to abolish slavery throughout the world.

In the mid-1780s, Sharp became a supporter of the ill-fated Sierra Leone resettlement effort. The poor black population in London grew to over 15,000 as former slaves who fought for the British in the American War came to London to receive the freedom and wages they had been promised. Most were never paid and were forced into destitution. The idea was to get rid of the problem by "resettling" these former slaves in a new colony in Sierra Leone, West Africa. However, the utopian ideal quickly went sour. The ships caught afire before sailing. Only 411 sailed for Africa, arriving in May 1787 at the onset of the five month rainy season. The colony was ravaged by fighting and disease. By 1791, only 60 colonists survived the ordeal.

The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was organized on May 22, 1787. Seen as "the father of the movement," Sharp was appointed chairman. Remaining as an active campaigner, Sharp worked closely with Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce. He personally lobbied William Pitt, Prime Minister of Britain to abolish slavery. He also corresponded with leaders of the French abolition society, Les Amis des Noirs.

When the Act of Abolition was finally passed by both Houses of Parliament and given Royal Assent on March 25, 1807, it is said Sharp fell to his knees and prayed. Sharp died at age 71 at his Fulham House on July 6, 1813; a memorial was erected in Westminster Abbey. He is buried in the churchyard of All Saints Church, Fulham.

Granville Town in Sierra Leone and the free village of Granville in Jamaica are named in his honor. In 2007, the Royal Mail issued a set of 50p stamps bearing Sharp's image in recognition of his historical importance and to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the United Kingdom. A prolific writer, Granville Sharp's papers are deposited at the Gloucestershire Archives, reference D3549. There is also a substantial collection of his letters at York Minster Library.

Venue for an Artist

Destruction of the Black Middle Class

By Barbara Ehrenreich and Dedrick Muhammed

To judge from most of the commentary on the Gates-Crowley affair, you would think that a "black elite" has gotten dangerously out of hand. First Gates (Cambridge, Yale and Harvard) showed insufficient deference to Crowley, then Obama (Occidental, Harvard) piled on to accuse the police of having acted "stupidly." Was this "the end of white America" which the Atlantic had warned of in its January/February cover story? Or had the injuries of class -- working class in Crowley's case -- finally trumped the grievances of race?

Left out of the ensuing tangle of commentary on race and class has been the increasing impoverishment -- or, we should say, re-impoverishment -- of African Americans as a group. In fact, the most salient and lasting effect of the current recession may turn out to be the decimation of the black middle class. According to a study by Demos and the Institute for Assets and Social Policy, 33 percent of the black middle class was already in danger of falling out of the middle class at the start of the recession. Gates and Obama, along with Oprah and Cosby, will no doubt remain in place, but millions of the black equivalents of Officer Crowley -- from factory workers to bank tellers and white collar managers -- are sliding down toward destitution.

For African Americans -- and to a large extent, Latinos -- the recession is over. It occurred between 2000 and 2007, as black employment decreased by 2.4 percent and incomes declined by 2.9 percent. During the seven-year long black recession, one third of black children lived in poverty and black unemployment -- even among college graduates -- consistently ran at about twice the level of white unemployment. That was the black recession. What's happening now is a depression.

Black unemployment is now at 14.7 percent, compared to 8.7 for whites. In New York City, black unemployment has been rising four times as fast as that of whites. Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, estimates that 40 percent of African Americans will have experienced unemployment or underemployment by 2010, and this will increase child poverty from one-third of African American children to slightly over half. No one can entirely explain the extraordinary rate of job loss among African Americans, though factors may include the relative concentration of blacks in the hard-hit retail and manufacturing sectors, as well as the lesser seniority of blacks in better-paying, white collar, positions.

But one thing is certain: The longstanding racial "wealth gap" makes African Americans particularly vulnerable to poverty when job loss strikes. In 1998, the net worth of white households on average was $100,700 higher than that of African Americans. By 2007, this gap had increased to $142,600. The Survey of Consumer Finances, which is supported by the Federal Reserve Board, collects this data every three years -- and every time it has been collected, the racial wealth gap has widened. To put it another way: in 2004, for every dollar of wealth held by the typical white family, the African American family had only one 12 cents. In 2007, it had exactly a dime. So when an African American breadwinner loses a job, there are usually no savings to fall back on, no well-heeled parents to hit up, no retirement accounts to raid.

All this comes on top of the highly racially skewed subprime mortgage calamity. After decades of being denied mortgages on racial grounds, African Americans made a tempting market for bubble-crazed lenders like Countrywide, with the result that high income blacks were almost twice as likely as low income white to receive high interest subprime loans. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, Latinos will end up losing between $75 billion and $98 billion in home-value wealth from subprime loans, while blacks will lose between $71 billion and $92 billion. United for a Fair Economy has called this family net-worth catastrophe the "greatest loss of wealth for people of color in modern U.S. history."

Yet in the depths of this African American depression, some commentators, black as well as white, are still obsessing about the supposed cultural deficiencies of the black community. In a December op-ed in the Washington Post, Kay Hymowitz blamed black economic woes on the fact that 70 percent of black children are born to single mothers, not noticing that the white two-parent family has actually declined at a faster rate than the black two-parent family. The share of black children living in a single parent home increased by 155 percent between 1960 to 2006, while the share of white children living in single parent homes increased by a staggering 229 percent.

Just last month on NPR, commentator Juan Williams dismissed the NAACP by saying that more up-to-date and relevant groups focus on "people who have taken advantage of integration and opportunities for education, employment, versus those who seem caught in generational cycles of poverty," which he went on to characterize by drug use and crime. The fact that there is an ongoing recession disproportionately affecting the African American middle class -- and brought on by Wall Street greed rather than "ghetto" values -- seem to have eluded him.

We don't need any more moralizing or glib analyses of class and race that could have just as well been made in the 70s. The recession is changing everything. It's redrawing the class contours of America in ways that will leave us more polarized than ever, and, yes, profoundly hurting the erstwhile white middle and working classes. But the depression being experienced by people of color threatens to do something on an entirely different scale, and that is to eliminate the black middle class.

About Me: Originally printed in the Huffington Post www.huffingtonpost.com on August 3, 2009. Barbara Ehrenreich is the president of United Professionals and author, most recently, of This Land Is Their Land: Reports From a Divided Nation. Dedrick Muhammad is a Senior Organizer and Research Associate of the Institute for Policy Studies.

DISHing It Up Hot!

On Slavery

By Dot

Amendment XIII: Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Black folks erroneously labor under the assumption that slavery ended with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, when in fact it only identifies the conditions under which individuals can be imprisoned and held in bondage and forced to work for free. Until the Thirteenth Amendment, the word "slavery" did not appear in the US Constitution. Yet, slavery was and remains a legal institution.

At the drafting of the Constitution, the founding fathers struck a grand bargain to settle the dispute over taxation and representation between the large-slave and the small-non-slave states. The founders described slavery in political and economic terms in Article 1, Section 2 - the white supremacy clause. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The "three-fifths of all other Persons" specifically refers to slaves, which were primarily black Africans.

Institutions were erected to insure this grand bargain could be carried out. The most apparent include the Electoral College system used to elect the US President and the Senate in which every state regardless of its population has two senators. Obviously, the small states, which have majority white populations, enjoy greater representation in this body. Other systems were erected throughout the various states to insure taxes and representation could be achieved based on this bargain.

Neither the Thirteenth Amendment nor subsequent amendments fully repealed Article 1, Section 2. None of the political and economic systems erected under Article 1, Section 2 were dismantled, which is why conservatives, including George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, wanted to appoint only "strict construction' judges to the court system. Conservatives understand that a strict reading of the Constitution leaves the 3/5th Compromise intact. They also use political code, such as "family values,' knowing full well the reference has nothing to do with the sanctity of marriage, caring for a spouse and children. Instead, they use the mantra to refer to their commitment to preserve the values assigned by the founders to black and white persons. They are talking about maintaining white supremacy. Now you know!

I am a firm believer that people armed with the truth are better prepared to respond to the challenges they face, whatever form those challenges may take. Far too many black Americans do not understand the nature of the challenge we face as a people, because they simply do not comprehend their unique situation. We reside in a nation in which we do not enjoy the full rights of citizenship, even though all outward appearances suggest otherwise. With all the hypocrisy and lies about democracy and equality to which we are subjected in our daily lives, it is no wonder so many of us are confused. We are indoctrinated, educated, to believe the opposite of our experiences.

Know this! The struggle for equality is far from over, as evidenced by racial profiling, the numerous disparities that exist between black and white Americans, and most recently "Gates-gate." Had Professor Henry Gates enjoyed the full rights of a citizen, the white policeman would have provided his name and badge number; he would certainly not have been arrested in his own home for demanding such information from a public servant. Moreover, the president would not have issued an invitation for beer and conversation, which amounted to a photo-op to appease white America. It basically assured them that white supremacy remains the status quo. The ugly truth is black Americans have a long way to go to achieve the exalted state of equality. Now you know!

News You Use

Know Your Rights

Courtesy of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the following information pertains to your rights and responsibilities in certain situations involving law enforcement officials.

If stopped by the police, think carefully about your words, movement, body language, and emotions. Don't get into an argument with the police. Remember, anything you say or do can be used against you. Keep your hands where the police can see them. Don't run. Don't touch any police officer. Don't resist even if you believe you are innocent. Don't complain on the scene or tell the police they're wrong or that you're going to file a complaint. Do not make any statements regarding the incident. Ask for a lawyer immediately upon your arrest. Remember officer's badge and patrol car numbers. Write down everything you remember ASAP. Try to find witnesses and take their names and phone numbers. If you are injured, take photographs of the injuries as soon as possible, but make sure you seek medical attention first. If you feel your rights have been violated, file a written complaint with the police department's internal affairs division or civilian complaint board.

What you say to the police is always important. What you say can be used against you, and it can give the police an excuse to arrest you, especially if you bad-mouth a police officer.

You must show your driver's license and registration when stopped in a car. Otherwise, you don't have to answer any questions if you are detained or arrested, with one important exception. The police may ask you for your name if you have been properly detained, and you can be arrested in some states for refusing to give it. If you reasonably fear that your name is incriminating, you can claim the right to remain silent, which may be a defense in case you are arrested anyway.

You don't have to consent to any search of yourself, your car or your house. If you DO consent to a search, it can affect your rights later in court. If the police say they have a search warrant, ASK TO SEE IT.

If you are stopped for questioning, remember it's not a crime to refuse to answer questions, but refusing to answer can make the police suspicious of you. If you are asked to identify yourself, see paragraph 2 (previous section).

Police may "pat-down" your clothing if they suspect a concealed weapon. Don't physically resist, but make it clear that you don't consent to any further search. Ask if you are under arrest. If you are, you have a right to know why.

Don't bad-mouth the police officer or run away, even if you believe what is happening is unreasonable. That could lead to your arrest.

If you are stopped in your car, upon request, show them your driver's license, registration, and proof of insurance. In certain cases, your car can be searched without a warrant as along as the police have probable cause. To protect yourself later, you should make it clear that you do not consent to a search. It is not lawful for police to arrest you simply for refusing to consent to a search.

If you're given a ticket, you should sign it; otherwise you can be arrested. You can always fight the case in court later. If you're suspected of drunk driving (DWI) and refuse to take a blood, urine or breath test, your driver's license may be suspended.

If you are arrested and taken to a police station, you have a right to remain silent and to talk to a lawyer before you talk to the police. Tell the police nothing except your name and address. Don't give any explanation, excuses or stories. You can make your defense later, in court, based on what you and your lawyer decide is best. Ask to see a lawyer immediately. If you can't pay for a lawyer, you have a right to a free one, and should ask the police how the lawyer can be contacted. Don't say anything with out a lawyer.

Within a reasonable time after your arrest, or booking, you have the right to make a local phone call; to a lawyer, bail bondsman, a relative or any other person. The police may not listen to the call to the lawyer.

Sometimes you can be released without bail, or have bail lowered. Have your lawyer ask the judge about this possibility. You must be taken before the judge on the next court day after arrest. Do not make any decisions in your case until you have talked with a lawyer.

In your home, if the police knock and ask to enter your home, you don't have to admit them unless they have a warrant signed by a judge. However, in some emergency situations (like when a person is screaming for help inside, or when the police are chasing someone) officers are allowed to enter and search your home without a warrant.

If you are arrested, the police can search you and the area close by. If you are in a building, "close by" usually means just the room you are in.

We all recognize the need for effective law enforcement, but we should also understand our own rights and responsibilities - especially in our relationships with the police. Everyone has the right to courteous and respectful police treatment.

Politics Y2K9

Prisons Not the Answer

By Abdon M. Pallasch

More prisons are not the answer to America's crime problems, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told the nation's lawyers on Monday.

"We will not focus exclusively on incarceration as the most effective means of protecting public safety," Holder told the American Bar Association delegates meeting here for their annual convention. "Since 2003, spending on incarceration has continued to rise, but crime rates have flattened."

Holder conceded that the massive build-up of prisons -- a seven-fold increase over the past 40 years -- probably has something to do with the crime rate dropping 40 percent since 1991.

"Today, one out of every 100 adults in America is incarcerated -- the highest incarceration rate in the world," he said. But the country has reached a point of diminishing returns at which putting even greater percentages of America's citizens behind bars won't cut the crime rate.

That's in part because once people spend time in prison, they're likely to keep engaging in the kind of behavior that sends them back to prison, he said.

"Most crimes in America are committed by people who have committed crimes before," Holder said. "About 67 percent of former state prisoners and 40 percent of former federal prisoners are re-arrested within three years of release. If we can reduce the rate of recidivism, we will directly reduce the crime rate."

Prisoners who undergo drug treatment and/or work training in prison are 16 percent less likely to re-offend after their release, he said.

Diverting non-violent drug offenders away from prison and into treatment programs, as New York State does, saves taxpayers money, better rehabilitates offenders and helps reduce the crime rate, Holder said.

"Every state in the union is trying to trim budgets," Holder said. "States and localities are laying off teachers, cutting back on public health, and canceling after-school programs for our children. But in almost all cases, spending on prisons continues to rise. This is unsustainable economically."

Holder provoked applause from the delegates when he complained that across the country, state and local governments are under-funding public defenders, whose growing caseloads make it difficult for them to adequately represent their clients.

Holder did not speak on the delegates overwhelming voice vote to ask Congress to repeal part of the Defense Of Marriage Act that prevents same-sex partners receiving federal benefits even in states that have legalized gay marriage.

This and other news about mass incarceration can be found at www.realcostofprisons.org/blog/

Disgruntled says: The prison-industrial complex offers a salient example of US neo-slavery that works as a political and economic redistribution system. Many private prisons are based in rural communities; they provide employment opportunities for the areas' mostly white residents. Most of the inmates are the former residents of urban communities; many are black and poor. The system works to increase the population of rural communities based on census count and government income distribution purposes. In most states, where these facilities are located, prisoners cannot vote and have no input in the local governmental decision-making process. Their incarceration adds to the per capita income or welfare of rural populations and potentially increases the population count for congressional representation. In every sense of the economic and political ramifications of this system, as understood by the founding fathers, prisoners in these facilities are slaves.

Disgruntled feels: Blinded! My family spent most of this past week vacationing in Florida. The youngest member of the family has been talking about going to the beach for months. Unfortunately, when we arrived in Panama City Beach hyped after a long drive and ready to experience the sea, it was filled with vegetation, which was so thick, the gulf look like a bowl of soup. The girls played for a while in the sand, then we got into the hotel swimming pool to cool off and splash around a bit, doing the things kids do in a pool. We could not help but notice that we were the only blacks in the facility. Blinded by hatred, fear, loathing or whatever drives people to behave irrationally, the white folks that were in the pool when we arrived gradually vacated; even the children ended up standing around or sitting on deck chairs in the hot Florida sun watching us, rather than sharing the pool. When we got out and gathered our things to leave, they returned to the pool. It was a though we had some disease that could rub off on contact, but left no ill effects behind in the pool. You would think these adults would feel foolish, passing on their blind racial prejudice onto another generation; instead they seemed to project an air of superiority for this display of stupidity.

Disgruntled wants to know: In 2000 during the presidential election in Florida, disruptive groups of mostly white men, led by GOP operatives, shut down the canvassing board conducting the vote recount. The media portrayed their actions as democracy at work; citizens displaying their anger and distrust of a "corrupt" system. No one was arrested, even though their actions disrupted a legal authority on government property. Now, some of the same groups, more than likely funded by the health-care industry, are disrupting health-care reform town hall meetings. In some instances, the disturbances have been described as rioting, given the physical violence. The question that arises is, why is it that when white folks engage in disruptive behavior, such as the town hall riots, no one is arrested for disturbing the peace and the media call it democracy in action, whereas when black folks riot over perceived injustices by the same system it is called protests, labeled criminal behavior and as many as possible are carted off to prison?

Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Phone Calls

Email www.telegraph.co.uk/ ...Barack Obama faces 30 death threats a day, stretching US Secret Service... US President Barack Obama is the target of more than 30 potential death threats a day and is being protected by an increasingly over-stretched and under-resourced Secret Service, according to a new book. Since Mr. Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President [sic] George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President's Secret Service. Some threats to Mr. Obama have been publicized, including an alleged plot by white supremacists in Tennessee late last year to rob a gun store, shoot 88 black people, decapitate another 14 and then assassinate the first black president in American history.

Email www.nytimes.com ...A federal court jury in Alexandria, Va., deliberated for five days before finding Mr. William Jefferson, 62, a New Orleans Democrat who served in Congress for 18 years until being defeated in 2008, guilty of 11 of 16 counts of bribery-related crimes. Jurors rejected defense assertions that his business-promotion activities in Africa did not qualify as "official acts" under public corruption laws. Jefferson faces a long prison term, unless his conviction is overturned on appeal. In a six-week trial, prosecutors said that from 2000 to 2005, Mr. Jefferson sought hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from a dozen companies involved in oil, communications, sugar and other businesses, often for projects in Africa. In return, prosecutors said, he used his position as a member of the House Ways and Means trade subcommittee to promote the companies' ventures without disclosing his own financial stakes in the deals. While he sought millions of dollars in bribes, Mr. Jefferson may have actually received less than $400,000, the prosecutors said.

Email www.wdsu.com ...A federal investigation is being conducted into the New Orleans Police Department to determine if police violated the civil rights of people killed and injured in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. FBI agents raided NOPD headquarters this week in connection with the infamous Danziger Bridge shooting, but that case may just be the beginning of bigger investigation. This investigation has been years in the making; the probe into the police department is broader than the events on Danziger Bridge that left two dead and four wounded. Files and computer hard drives are what sources said federal investigators were after when they raided police head quarters. In a statement, the special agent in charge said, "The FBI executed a search warrant as it relates to the ongoing civil rights investigation into the Danziger Bridge shootings post-Katrina. The affidavit remains under seal." Beyond the Danziger Bridge, sources familiar with the investigation said the FBI is looking into the police-involved shooting of Adolph Grimes on New Year's Eve and the death of Henry Glover, whose body was found in a burned out car in the days after Hurricane Katrina.

Email www.sacramentobee.com ...Fed judges order Calif. to cut inmate population....By Don Thompson....A federal judicial panel on Tuesday ordered California to reduce its prison population by 40,000 to improve treatment of ailing and mentally ill inmates. The three-judge panel ruled that cutting the number of inmates is the only way to bring the system's medical care up to adequate standards. Judges said the billions of dollars the state has spent on prisons have not kept inmates from dying regularly from suicides or medical neglect. Federal courts previously found the level of care was so poor that it violated inmates' constitutional rights.

Email ProudLiberal7@aol.com ...When someone talks back to a cop in his own house, that's disorderly conduct. When people make death threats and start fights in public, that's exercising their First Amendment rights.