The DISH

Unbossed and unbought news and information you can use

Vol. 14 No. 32…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…August 8, 2011

Update on the I-20 Train

By John Burl Smith

For 40 years South DeKalb County residents have been riding a merry-go-round trying to get a commuter train that runs out I-20. They were promised one after agreeing to pay the one-cent Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) sales tax in 1969. However, predominately white politically powerful North DeKalb and the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) never allowed the I-20 train idea to leave the station until last year. Back on Oct. 26 2010, MARTA began expressing interest in a rail line out I-20 to Stonecrest Mall, once the Transportation Investment Act of 2010 passed. MARTA held several meetings in South DeKalb --DeKalb Medical at Hillandale, East Lake and at the Gallery at South DeKalb-- to discuss a new I-20 East Transit Initiative.

As 10 years ago, the ride started out smoothly, with MARTA painting a rosy picture of a train rolling down I-20 to Stonecrest. Back in 1999, what began like a spin on a carousel was turned into a roller coaster ride by then-Gov. Roy Barnes. DeKalb residents had climbed aboard efforts for a MARTA rail line to Turner Hill Road, only to have their hopes derailed by Barnes' behind-the-scenes maneuvering. He steam-rolled a change in MARTA's leadership and engineered changes on the MARTA Board, effectively killing the $1.4 million 18-mile rail project which would have served 400,000 DeKalb residents and brought untold economic development to predominantly black South DeKalb.

While a member of the ARC, Barnes fought consistently to block economic development in South DeKalb. He claimed that, "There was not enough growth in that part of metro Atlanta to justify a train." He wanted to focus rail expansion on a west line to benefit the Fulton Industrial Park area, and a north line up Ga. 400 to Alpharetta. Barnes' approach was seen as racially motivated in South DeKalb.

Fast forward to Oct. 26, 2010, MARTA, DeKalb County government and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) all became involved in the new I-20 study. MARTA officials said the new initiative would identify and summarize the transportation and environmental impacts associated with completion of new east-west transit service from downtown Atlanta to the Mall at Stonecrest in Lithonia. Skepticism regarding this new plan was voiced by DeKalb NAACP President John Evans, who attended these meeting, as well as others in attendance who referred back to efforts that were killed by Barnes 11 years ago. "We've been through this process before and nothing has come out of them. Somebody needs to assure us that we will at least get a shot at it this time."

This study was prepared in compliance with the Transportation Investment Act of 2010 by MARTA's director of development and regional coordination, Dr. John Crocker, who said at the time, "In order to get the I-20 East project on the list we must have certain documentation, such as the locally preferred alternative or a completed environmental impact statement." Crocker said it's up to the community to continue to talk and convince DeKalb and regional officials that the project is something that the community needs.

A shortened commute to downtown Atlanta will help lure thousands of South DeKalb, Rockdale and Newton county drivers off I-20. Rail stations at major interchanges like Gresham Road, Candler Road, Wesley Chapel Road, Panola Road and Evans Mill Road would open up the whole southwest end of DeKalb for development of large tracts of undeveloped land along I-20 and in the Lithonia Industrial Park. The need for an I-20 rail line is all too obvious, if one has a futuristic vision for this region.

On Aug. 4 South DeKalb's hopes for an I-20 rail system were dashed once again when the I-20 rail line was passed over for two other rail projects in predominately white North DeKalb by the Atlanta Regional Roundtable's Executive Committee. By a 3-2 vote, they decided on a MARTA line to Emory University, a line from the Arts Center station to Cumberland in Cobb County, and part of the Atlanta Beltline even though these transit alternatives are far more costly than an I-20 line.

The Atlanta Regional Roundtable's Executive Committee completely disregarded the total cost involved in acquiring the right-of-ways to complete these lines. These lines will go though some of the most developed commercial and residential communities in DeKalb and Fulton Counties, which have very little potential for future development. Moreover, the Roundtable is assuming that property owners in these exclusive areas will embrace a rail line running through the heart of their community, which will require closing streets, blocking access to others and re-routing traffic though pedestrian friendly areas. Lawsuits will abound and the construction process could be delayed as much as 5 to 10 years.

Complicating matters, the amounts suggested for the transit projects are not enough to fully fund construction according to state estimates, and state Transportation Planning Director Todd Long said that concerned him. "If you've put Clifton for $700 million and you can't deliver it for $700 million, what do you have at the end of the day?" Another boondoggle on the present list of projects is a $100 million I-85 northeast corridor preliminary study and planning grant for a "possible" light-rail transit line to Gwinnett County, which has no existing rail transit lines. It is not clear whether any of these projects on the list have the documentation, such as the locally preferred alternative or a completed environmental impact statement, as the I-20 proposal received under MARTA' supervision.

Funding for the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA) Xpress buses ($180 million), Atlanta to Cumberland northwest corridor to Cobb County, possibly light rail ($825 million) and I-85 northeast corridor, ($100 million) for preliminary study and planning of a light-rail line into Gwinnett, reveal the obvious racist nature of how the ARC is implementing HB 277. The ARC is funding projects to go into Cobb and Gwinnett which have voted not to pay the MARTA one-cent sales tax in order to get MARTA rail service. While simultaneously, DeKalb and Fulton county residents are being asked to pay 2 cents to fund transportation improvements that will not benefit them directly.

Residents of South DeKalb have been riding a merry-go-round, while predominately white North DeKalb residents are getting a free ride. Malva Hubbard, a Lithonia resident, expressed the sentiments of most South DeKalb residents, "I would like to see this project get done because it would be beneficial to DeKalb County. If we have more rails and transportation options it will attract more businesses, which means more jobs, which is something we really need these days."

Echoing the consensus of DeKalb's elected officials, District 5 Commissioner Lee May said, "If I-20 rail is not on the [final] list, I will not support the referendum. If it is included, the referendum will pass; if not, it will not pass. Support for the I-20 project is non-negotiable."

Venue for an Artist

Katrina Clap

By Mos Def

This is for the streets, the streets everywhere,

The streets affected by the storm called, America,

I'm doin' this for ya'll, as for me, for the Creator,

God save these streets,

One dollar per every human being,

Feel that Katrina Clap,

See that Katrina Clap,

(Verse I)

Listen homie,

It's dollar day in New Orleans,

It's where there water everywhere and people dead in the street,

And Mr. President he 'bout that cash,

He got a policy for handlin' the bruthas and trash,

And if you poor you black,

I laugh a laugh, they won't give when you ask,

You betta off on crack, dead or in jail, or with a gun in Iraq,

And it's as simple as that,

No opinion my man it's mathematical fact,

Listen, a million poor since 2004,

And they got illions and killions to waste on the War,

And make you question what the taxes is for,

Or the cost to reinforce the broke levee wall,

Tell the boss he shouldn't be the boss anymore,

(Verse II)

It's like dollar day for New Orleans,

It's where the water everywhere and homies dead in the street,

And Mr. President's a natural ass,

He out treatin' bruthas worse than they treat the trash,

(Verse III)

Lord did not intend for the wicked to rule the world,

Say God could not intend for the wicked to rule the world,

God did not intend for the wicked to rule the world,

And even when they knew it's a matter of truth, before they wicked ruling is through

(Chorus)

God save these streets,

A-dollar day for New Orleans,

God save these streets,

Quit bein' cheap homie freedom ain't free,

God save these streets,

One dollar per every human being,

Feel that Katrina Clap!

See that Katrina Clap!

God save these streets,

Quit bein' cheap brutha freedom ain't free!

Feel that Katrina Clap!

Ghetto Katrina Clap!

Soul Survivor,

Lord God

God save our souls,

A- God save

B- God save our souls,

Feel that Katrina Clap!

Let's make them dollars stack!

And rebuild these streets,

God save these streets,

God save these streets,

God save the soul,

Feel that Katrina Clap!

See that Katrina Clap!

Soul Survivor,

Don't talk about it,

Be about it, Peace.

About Me: Born December 11, 1973 in Brooklyn, New York, Dante Terrell Smith is an actor and MC known by the stage name Mos Def. The above is an abbreviated version of this rap, which is best experienced on video at www.ilike.com/artist/Mos+Def/track/Katrina+Clap.

Hood Notes

Katrina Cop Killers Not Guilty of Murder

By Dot

On Friday, a federal jury convicted five current or former officers of civil rights violations and cover-up in the deadly shootings on Danziger Bridge in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. None of the officers was found guilty of murder, even though all those killed were unarmed and one was shot in the back.

Former officer Robert Faulcon, Sergeants Robert Gisevius and Kenneth Bowen and Officer Anthony Villavaso were convicted of civil rights violations and cover-up in the September 4, 2005 incident in which two unarmed black men died and four others were injured in a hail of bullets. Sergeant Arthur Kaufman, who investigated the shootings, was found guilty in the alleged cover-up.

Federal prosecutors contended at trial that Kaufman retrieved a gun from his home weeks after the shootings and turned it in as evidence in an attempt to pass the weapon off as the property of Lance Madison, the brother of Ronald Madison, who was present on the day of the incident. Kaufman was also accused of falsifying reports and fabricating nonexistent witnesses.

During the five-week trial, federal prosecutors sought to prove that the officers involved in the shootings participated in a cover-up to make their use of deadly force appear justified. Witnesses were made up, evidence was planted and reports falsified to make the officers' actions appear reasonable.

In his closing arguments on Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Theodore Carter said police had no justification for shooting unarmed, defenseless people trying to cross the bridge in search of food and help mere days after the August 29, 2005 storm devastated New Orleans. He said, "It was unreasonable for these officers to fire even one shot, let alone dozens."

Defense attorneys countered that the officers were returning fire and reasonably believed their lives were in danger. Timothy Meche, Villavaso's lawyer contended the police officers did their best, operating under "terrible, horrible circumstances" after Katrina. He claimed, "None of these people intentionally decided to go out there and cause people harm."

Prosecutors contended that Faulcon fatally shot Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old mentally disabled man, in the back with a shotgun as he fled from the bridge, and Bowen was accused of stomping on Madison as he lay dying at the foot of the bridge.

Faulcon, the only defendant to testify, said he was "paralyzed with fear" when he killed Madison, as he chased him and his brother across the bridge. While Faulcon did not deny shooting the unarmed black man in the back, he testified that he believed the fleeing man posed a threat.

James Brissette, 17, was also killed on the bridge. Along with Brissette, also injured in the shootings that day were four others -- Susan, Leonard and Lesha Bartholomew and Jose Holmes -- all of whom had sought refuge behind a concrete barrier on the eastern side of the bridge.

In addition to victims' testimony, the government's case hinged on the testimony of other officers. Michael Hunter, Robert Barrios and Ignatius Hills participated in the bridge shooting and pleaded guilty prior to the trial and were government witnesses against their fellow officers. Two other officers, Michael Lohman and Jeffery Lehrmann, who arrived after the shooting and cooperated with the government against the accused officers, admitted to helping in the cover-up.

The jury did not find that the shooting deaths of Brisette or Madison amounted to murder.

Federal Judge Kurt Englehardt set December 14 as the sentencing date.

News You Use

Worth Less than $1.25

By Dot

A reader sent the message below. The young man that died at the scene of the video was 19 year-old Kenneth Harding, Jr. Police are now claiming he killed himself. As part of the police routine in the use of deadly force incidents, the names of the officers involved in the shooting have been withheld and they have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. Also as part of standard operating procedures, the young man is being painted by the media in the most negative light.

The residents of Bayview that witnessed the July 16 incident are reluctant to accept the police version of what transpired. At least one eyewitness claims the young man was in full flight and never fired a shot at the pursuing officers.

In part, Bob Smith wrote, "How many more before we start fighting back? Locally cops shot gas into a woman's trailer because they thought her son who they had a warrant for was in there and nobody answered the door. The trailer burnt to the ground. The cops even prevented the fire department from responding. Turned out nobody was home.

For whatever reason, the film plays sideways. So, you'll have to watch it with your head tilted. The kid is dying on the sidewalk, with the cops ignoring him. He rode the bus without a ticket and bolted from police. For that, he was killed. This is SICK!

The MetroLink station is just a few blocks from me. This kid - maybe 22 years old - was riding without a ticket. When the marshal started checking, he bolted from the train. The marshal followed in hot pursuit and shot him dead. The MetroLink ticket costs $1.25. That kid died at age 22 for a dollar and a quarter. That's all a life was worth to that cop.

What the HELL are they teaching these thugs at the academy? What if it was a 10-year-old filching a candy bar from the market? Would they kill him? I'm sure they would.

I'm sick of badged thugs who think they have the right to brutalize and kill other people for the flimsiest of reasons and the most insignificant of infractions.

They don't analyze the situation. Someone got away with riding for free. In the grand scheme of things, does that really matter? Should a life be taken over it? Don't they teach these goons to use any judgment - to weigh the consequences of their actions against those of the offense? The bus company's out a dollar and change. The kid is minus his life. Do the two equate in any system of justice or morality?"

Warning! The video of Kenneth Harding's final moments is very graphic. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IJspAT67tw&feature=uploademail. You can read more about this incident online at www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016327/Kenneth-Harding-Jr-shot-dead-police-San-Francisco.html#ixzz1UMX3NGiX.

Politics Y2K11

Won't You Come Home, Jim Crow? (Excerpts)

By Tom Degan

Oh, they wish we were in Dixie! Oy vey! Oy vey!

Are you an African American? Are you poor? Are you elderly? Are you a young person living in a college town? Are you planning on voting in 2012? You had better start making other plans for Election Day.

The Republican Party is at this very moment mounting a campaign that, if successful, will disenfranchise the voting rights of African Americans - and everyone else who tends to vote left-of-center - all across America. Isn't that sweet?

They understand all too well that the mysterious and unknowable segment of the population that the sociologists describe as "moderate" or "swing voters" (I call them "purple agitators" myself) are starting to become disgusted by the extremists who hijacked the Grand Old Party decades ago.

What to do? Not to worry! Just bypass that nasty ol' Voting Rights Act of 1965. That'll learn 'em!

The tactics they so lovingly introduced in Florida in 2000 and then again in Ohio in 2004 are about to go nationwide. Think of it as some weird and twisted musical comedy that was edited and polished in a handful of, out-of-the-way off-Broadway theaters before the grand opening on the Great WHITE Way. How could this possibly happen? How could it be that the "party of Abraham Lincoln" is stooping so low as to steal from millions of people so fundamental a right?

What has happened to the GOP? Historically speaking, something just ain't right! A little history lesson is in order here:

First of all, the obvious: They are no longer the party of the great emancipator. They haven't been that since 1964. Do you find it as odd as I do that the two greatest Republican presidents in history - Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt - are no longer even mentioned in their campaign literature and propaganda? You would think that that party never even existed before that day in 1980 when they nominated uber dingbat Ronald Reagan as their standard bearer! What the hell's up with that???

"A man without a vote is a man without protection." -Lyndon Baines Johnson

LBJ never lived to be enlightened with regard to the Women's movement, but I am certain he had them in mind as well.

As their talking point never fails to remind us (and what cannot be denied) is that the Democrats stood in staunch opposition to Civil Rights in America prior to the nineteen-seventies. For a century after the end of the Civil War the boll weevil southern Democrats could never bring themselves to register with the party of "that bearded bastard what freed the slaves." Ironically, back in the days of yore the overwhelming majority of registered Republicans south of the Mason Dixon line were black! Everything changed in the mid-sixties.

After Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law the Civil and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 respectively, he told his two aides Bill Moyers and the late Jack Valenti, "We [meaning the Democrats] have lost the South for a generation." A generation??? He was kidding himself. He might as well have said, "We've lost the South forever."

Within a decade of the passage of these two monumental laws, a tidal wave of southern Dixiecrats fled - like psychotic rats - to the Republican Party. And that is where their ideological heirs reside to this day. Just before he left the Senate to become a highly paid lobbyist in 2006, Trent Lott told an interviewer that the mass exodus had nothing to do with race; that it was all about economics. Bullshit. It had EVERYTHING to do with race and nothing else. Who the hell is he kidding?

Fast forward to 2011. It's not like it was in the bad old days. Racism in the State House has to be a tad more covert than it was back then. Their solution was brilliant - in a perfectly evil kind of way that is. They decided that they needed to confront - head on, I tell you - the "plague" of voter fraud. The fact that there is no wide-spread epidemic of electoral fraud in this country (on the part of the Democrats that is) was irrelevant to these jackanapes.

What is their evidence for the widespread fraud? An edited video of some nitwit dressed as a pimp, walking into one ACORN office somewhere and getting a woman behind a desk to admit that fraudulent voting does occur. Case closed? Please.

Previously, the signature of a person who showed up at the polls would be matched against his or her voter registration. They would then be allowed to cast their precious ballot. If the Republicans have their way, from now on the people will be required to show identification. And if they lack a proper driver's license, they will be forced to purchase voter IDs.

Do you see a pattern here? You're blind if you do not. First of all, it puts at a decided disadvantage - not only blacks - but city-dwellers who rely on public transportation and don't drive - the very people who tend to vote for the Democratic Party. In order to obtain a proper, government-issued voter ID, they would be obliged to dig up their birth certificates. They would also be required to pay a fee for the ID itself, another disadvantage for poor people - traditional and reliable Democratic voters.

They're trying to pass laws that will make it more difficult to cast an absentee ballot. This would put the elderly at a disadvantage for the simple fact that voting at polling places, particularly in big cities, often involves standing in line for an hour or more. The elderly tend to vote for the Democrats. You're not surprised by this. I didn't think you would be.

In addition to all of the above they are looking into a nifty little scheme that will make it impossible for college students to register to vote in the towns where they attend school. College students also tend to vote Democratic. I'm sure that that's just a coincidence though.

What the Republicans have planned for 2012 is a subtle coup d'etat. "Subtle", that is, if you're not paying attention.

If you rely on Rupert Murdoch's propaganda empire for your news and information you will be forgiven for not having noticed that any of this is happening in this once-great nation. But it is happening. Don't take my word for it; look it up for yourself. These hideous people have a plan for this republic and it doesn't turn out well for the rest of us. Wake up - if you haven't already.

Bit of History

Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor (Excerpts)

By Mike Elk and Bob Sloan

The breaded chicken patty your child bites into at school may have been made by a worker earning twenty cents an hour, not in a faraway country, but by a member of an invisible American workforce: prisoners. At the Union Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Florida, inmates from a nearby lower-security prison manufacture tons of processed beef, chicken and pork for Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises (PRIDE), a privately held non-profit corporation that operates the state's forty-one work programs. In addition to processed food, PRIDE's website reveals an array of products for sale through contracts with private companies, from eyeglasses to office furniture, to be shipped from a distribution center in Florida to businesses across the US. PRIDE boasts that its work programs are designed to provide vocational training, to improve prison security, reduce costs and promote the rehabilitation of the state inmates.

A wide variety of goods have long been produced by state and federal prisoners for the US government -- license plates are the classic example, with more recent contracts including everything from guided missile parts to solar panels powering government buildings. Prison labor for the private sector was legally barred for years, to avoid unfair competition with private companies. But this has changed thanks to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), its Prison Industries Act, and a little-known federal program known as PIE (the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program.

ALEC helped pioneer some of the toughest sentencing laws on the books, like mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offenders, "three strikes" laws, and "truth in sentencing" laws. In 1995, ALEC's Truth in Sentencing Act was signed into law in twenty-five states. (Then State Rep. Scott Walker was an ALEC member when he sponsored Wisconsin's truth-in-sentencing laws.) More recently, ALEC has proposed innovative "solutions" to the overcrowding it helped create, such as privatizing the parole process through "the private bail bond industry." (The American Bail Coalition is an executive member of ALEC's Public Safety and Elections Task Force.) ALEC has also worked to pass state laws to create private for-profit prisons, a boon to two of its major corporate sponsors: Corrections Corporation of America and Geo Group (formerly Wackenhut Corrections), the largest private prison firms in the country. An In These Times investigation revealed that ALEC arranged secret meetings between Arizona's state legislators and CCA to draft SB 1070, Arizona's immigration law, to keep CCA prisons flush with immigrant detainees.

According to a 2010 report from National Correctional Industries Associations (NCIA), as of last summer there were "thirty jurisdictions with active [PIE] operations." These include Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and twelve more. Four states are looking to get involved as well; Kentucky, Michigan and Pennsylvania have introduced legislation and New Hampshire is applying for PIE certification.

Prison labor has already started to undercut the business of corporations that don't use it. In Florida, PRIDE has become one of the largest printing corporations in the state, its cheap labor is having a significant impact on smaller local printers. This scenario is playing out in states across the country. In addition to Florida's forty-one prison industries, California alone has sixty. Another 100 or so are scattered throughout other states. What's more, several states are looking to replace public sector workers with prison labor. In Wisconsin Governor Walker's recent assault on collective bargaining opened the door to the use of prisoners in public sector jobs in Racine, where inmates are now doing landscaping, painting, and other maintenance work. According to the Capitol Times, "inmates are not paid for their work, but receive time off their sentences." The same is occurring in Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida and Georgia, all states with GOP Assembly majorities and Republican governors. Much of ALEC's proposed labor legislation, implemented state by state is allowing replacement of public workers with prisoners.

Alex Friedmann, associate editor of Prison Legal News, says prison labor is part of a "confluence of similar interests" among politicians and corporations, long referred to as the "prison industrial complex." ALEC has been at the center of this confluence. "This has been ongoing for decades, with prison privatization contributing to the escalation of incarceration rates in the US," Friedmann says. Just as mass incarceration has burdened American taxpayers in major prison states, so is the use of inmate labor contributing to lost jobs, unemployment and decreased wages among workers--while corporate profits soar. (Source: www.thenation.com/article/162478/hidden-history-alec-and-prison-labor)

Intuit's Vibe

Priceless: Safer in Prison? (Excerpts)

By Rae Gomes

We've just learned that wealth disparities among whites, blacks and Latinos have reached critical mass. We've finally been able to acknowledge that the war on drugs is a racially charged exercise that targets "minorities" at a rate of incarceration 13 times that of their white counterparts, often for minor drug offenses. And now that we've realized the majority of America's poor are people of color, we have the Heritage Foundation telling us that ownership of material goods means poor people aren't actually as destitute as we thought.

Now a new study from the Annals of Epidemiology says a black man is half as likely to die in prison as he is outside of prison. The study focused on 100,000 men, aged 20 to 79 years, held in North Carolina prisons between the years of 1995 and 2005. Sixty percent of those in the study were black. Researchers found that less than 1 percent of the imprisoned men (black and white) died in that time period and there was no difference in death rates between black and white men in prison.

After collecting data from the prison sample, researchers compared it to the general population. When they separated the 1 percent who died in prison by race and compared each group, they found that the ratio of imprisoned black men to non-imprisoned black men contrasted far more sharply than the ratio of imprisoned white men to non-imprisoned white men. In other words, black men died at a higher rate than white men, unless they were in prison.

The causes of death examined were homicide, suicide, accidents, heart disease and cancer. There was a 0.52 percent less chance that a black man would die from traumatic and chronic incidents in prison than out. Black men in prison were far more likely to receive better health care, especially for chronic illnesses like diabetes, less likely to die from drug or alcohol-related incidents, and less likely to be victims of murder while in prison.

The study alerts us to two main dangers of being a black man in civil society. Exposure to violent crime and lack of access to sufficient health care are the biggest killers of black men in the United States. Far from being a critique of prison life, the study ends up shaming civilian society.

With all the "shoulds" and "if onlys," there's no analysis on the societal conditions that landed black men in the relative "utopia" that is prison. The war on drugs is 40 years old and its failed, racist policies have informed the way we see those most affected by it. Racial profiling is justified by police officers, the media and even in our consciousness; we are judge, juror and executioner of any black man suspected of any crime.

These studies, along with other outrageous claims of when and where life was better for blacks become the only frame of reference we use to discuss black folks in society. If you were to go only by the media coverage of black people you would believe that the unsafest place for a black child is in the womb, but if born, the safest place is in prison, and the best place for a black family to flourish was during slavery.

This study comes from asking very specific--and limited--questions. If we change the questions, we might get down to the root of the issue. Like, what are the specific policies and charges that led the 60 percent of the North Carolina inmates who are black to prison? What does it have to do with the police culture the war on drugs created? And why, just for good measure, are there so many cops on each corner of my majority-black, gentrified neighborhood?

Studies like this only add to the justification of the oppression of black men, rather than challenging the toxic societal conditions that land them behind bars or dead from violent crime or chronic disease. (Source: www.alternet.org/story/151829/shocking_new_report%3A_safest_place_to_be_a_black_man_is_in_prison)