Volume 4 Issue 50…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…December 21, 2001

by John Burl Smith

Scientific research shows American slave descendants experienced a different environment than whites. Blacks, relative to whites, experienced disparities that are functions of slavery and lynching. Moreover, viewing slavery/lynching as classical conditioning treatment reveals that particular behaviors exhibited by blacks are latent residual expectancies.

Even though it cannot be shown absolutely how humans select behaviors that are successful and delete or discontinue those which are not, learning theorists believe environmental outcomes determine responses. Dr. M. Seligman and researchers used Pavlov's classical conditioning theory to postulate "learned helplessness" in humans. More appropriately, this researcher believes "learned helplessness" theory explains lynching's affect as a socializing force on blacks' behavior today. Seligman, et al, proved it is possible through avoidance training to condition animals and humans to respond against their natural tendencies, such as flight or fight. Their electric shock regime convinced subjects that outcomes were not contingent on their behavior. Consequently, subjects' expectancies conformed to the uncontrollability of the situation, and they no longer tried to avoid shocks. Consistent with resignation in lynching victims, "learned helplessness" occurs with the expectancy of no control in the situation.

Author James Allen's Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America brings the gruesomely horrifying events of lynchings up close. A collector of hundreds of lynching photographs, Allen presents irrefutable evidence, lynching was a socializing treatment designed to terrorize blacks. Community institutions and government apparatuses facilitated, aided and abetted lynching; it was entertainment. Newspapers provided graphic descriptions of the ritualistic acts performed on victims to maximize shock value. Public lynchings and the fact no one was arrested and charged strengthened the response of helplessness in blacks. No matter what the subjects did, Pavlov's classical conditioning led to Seligman's "learned helplessness" and produced blacks with expectations of powerlessness, which is exactly as it was designed.

Emblematic of the electrified grid of Seligman and colleagues, Dr. E. M. Beck's small sample (2,805) in A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930 completes the picture of lynching as a socialization treatment for blacks. An extra legal function, according to Dr. Beck, lynching had four purposes: social control through terrorism, a means of eliminating black competitors, a means of stabilizing the white class structure and preserving the status of white elites. According to Dr. Beck, "The terrorism of night riders and lynch mobs was a weapon for maintaining control over blacks, until passage of Jim Crow laws, which formalized and codified a system of state-enforced de jure segregation and racial domination. The defacto legitimacy of mob rule was championed by many southern newspapers, often pardoned by southern churches and implicitly upheld by southern courts. The message to blacks was as unambiguous as it was frightening." John 2001

The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is sailing right along maturing in his own unique way. When I asked for his weekly comments, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro, a poet at heart, rhythmically declared, "I am A-Okay, and that is all I can say!"

Gail P. Myers is a qualitative researcher and Ohio State University Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology. Her article, Where Have All the Black Farmers Gone? (http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/Where-Black-Farmers.htm) - highlights the disappearance of black farmers from the American landscape. Myers' look at black farming through the lens of 92 years old William Chambers is an eye-opener. Chambers practices "natural agriculture that harnesses natural resources and converts them into foodstuffs for animals, fertilizer for the soil, or wholesome foods for humans."

The natural farming approach addresses long-term strategies and long life. Mr. Chambers learned farming from his mother who lived to be 107; his grandmother lived to be 116. In natural farming, everything has a season. For example, chickens do not naturally produce eggs all year. Sure, you can give them something to make them lay eggs, but according to Chambers, it wears their bodies out; "if you let a chicken do it natural, its body can rest. Hogs and cows (are) the same way." Unfortunately, the natural approach is declining, like black farmers, as conglomerates of the unnatural approach produces most American foodstuffs.

"Black farmers have had a very short life in the United States. Currently, there are less than 16,000, owning less than two million acres. From the 1910s through the 1920s, over 920,000 black farmers owned more than 16 million acres, although 680,000 were sharecroppers or tenant farmers. It could be argued that from the beginning black farmers in the US were doomed because black farmers were working against a dominant ideology that strongly believed that they were inferior and not at all deserving of opportunities to own land or raise families or build communities."

Myers lists seven reasons for the rapid decline of black farmland, i.e., taxes, partition sales, foreclosures, failure to write wills, land ownership limitations on welfare recipients, eminent domain and voluntary sales. Myers does not mention lynching. However, it played an important role in the decline in black land ownership.

Disgruntled says: There is no getting around the truth. Too many 'good blacks' and 'black leaders' maintain their slave conditioning. They want to be plugged into the power plant, so they step and fetch.

Disgruntled feels: Enlightened! Unnatural, modified foods may not promote good health and longevity. We have no idea what they do or what will become of us from consuming modified foods like hormone-treated meat. Bitter or sweet, it is a link to American obesity.

Disgruntled wants to know: There is no Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, in Georgia's hills, but Vice President Dick Cheney was seen shooting quail. With licenses to kill, Cheney and other hunters bagged big buck and bird trophies. One cannot help but wonder, does Cheney eat his kills on hunts in Georgia hills?

Mob executions of black men, women and families were public spectacles and theater. Advertised in newspapers, special excursion trains transported spectators to the scene, some employers released workers to attend, parents sent notes to school asking teachers to excuse children for the event. Entire families attended, the children hoisted on their parents' shoulders to keep from missing any of the gruesome action.

After learning of the lynching of her husband, an eight-month pregnant Mary Turner vowed to find those responsible, swear out warrants against them, and have them punished in the courts. For making such a threat, a mob of white men and women decided to 'teach her a lesson.' After tying her ankles together, they hung her from a tree, head downward. Dousing her clothes with gasoline, they burned them from her body. While she was still alive, someone used a knife ordinarily reserved for splitting hogs to cut open the woman's abdomen. The infant fell prematurely from her womb to the ground and cried briefly, whereupon a member of this Valdosta, Georgia mob crushed the baby's head beneath his heel. Hundreds of bullets were then fired into Mary Turner's body, completing the work of the mob. The Associated Press, in its notice of the affair, observed that Mary Turner had made 'unwise remarks' about the execution of her husband, 'and the people, in their indignant mood, took exceptions to her remarks, as well as her attitude.' (Posted by Barutiwa News Service with biographical notes: Savannah Tribune, May 25, 1918; Walter F. White, "The Work of a Mob," Crisis 16 (Sept. 17, 1918) and sent to us by universalwoman9@yahoo.com)

Anthony P. Crawford was one of the most prosperous farmers in Abbeville, S.C. until October 21, 1916, when the black farmer hauled his cotton to town. Crawford 'seems to have been the type of negro who is most offensive to certain elements of the white people," wrote the wife of J.B. Holman in a letter published by The Abbeville Press and Banner. "He was getting rich, for a negro, and he was insolent along with it."

Crawford entered the mercantile store of W.D. Barksdale. Barksdale offered him 85 cents a pound for his cottonseed. Crawford said he had a better offer. Barksdale called him a liar; Crawford called the storekeeper a cheat. Three clerks grabbed ax handles, and Crawford backed into the street, where the sheriff appeared and arrested him for cursing a white man. Released on bail, Crawford was mobbed by whites. The sheriff carried him back to jail. A few hours later, a deputy gave the mob keys to Crawford's cell.' At sundown, they hanged him from a Southern pine tree.

No one was tried for his murder. Afterwards, hundreds of blacks fled Abbeville. Two whites were appointed executors of Crawford's estate. One was Andrew J. Ferguson, cousin to the mob's ringleaders. Crawford's children inherited the farm, but Ferguson liquidated much of the rest of Crawford's property, including his cotton, which went to Barksdale. Ferguson kept $5, 438, more than half the proceeds, and gave Crawford's children $200 each. Crawford's family lost the farm when they could not pay off a $2,000 balance on a bank loan. At the time, the farm was assessed at $20,000; a white man paid $504 for it at the foreclosure auction. Today, International Paper Company owns former Crawford land. (Source: http://truthout.com/12.05D.Blacks.Land.htm based on AP documentation of 57 violent land takings).

Not since Pablo Picasso (1971) was named an honorary citizen of Paris has the special designation been bestowed. In a show of solidarity, the Paris City Council named U.S. death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal an honorary citizen. Jean Vuillermoz, leader of the Communist Party members on the council, said the decision came on the heels of "alarming news" about Mumia. On November 21, a Philadelphia court ruled it lacked jurisdiction over Mumia's request for a new trial. In his appeals for a new trial, Mumia argued his former lawyers did a poor job, and he has new evidence that could clear him. The death row inmate's federal appeal is pending. Celebrities, death penalty opponents, foreign politicians and The DISH have rallied to the political prisoner's cause. Convicted by a biased system, Mumia personifies injustice in America's chasm of inequality. A talented journalist, Mumia's latest work is online at http://www.mumia.org.

Email lostgenera@hotmail.com On Tuesday, December 18, 2001, Judge William Yohn struck down Mumia Abu-Jamal's current death sentence, leaving open the possibility of yet another death sentence. Denying Mumia's appeal for a new trial, Yohn announced that a re-sentencing hearing should be held within 180 days. The District Attorney can ask for a new death sentence or the sentence may be converted to life imprisonment. Yohn's decision was based on flawed 1982 jury instructions during the original sentencing. Information was withheld that could have influenced their decision.

Yohn's decision did not overturn Mumia's conviction for first-degree murder, nor did it make Mumia supporters happy. They point to 20 years of evidence, which has yet to be put on the record in the case, including Arnold Beverly's confession to the murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner and numerous testimonies from witnesses who describe having been coerced by police to lie in favor of the prosecution.

Email CWMeb@aol.com: Parts of this report on what happened to black land ownership are appearing in newspapers across the country. However, I highly recommend going to the Associated Press site and reading the entire report. The link is provided below.

When you go to the site, you will see: PART I: AP Documents Land Taken From Blacks Through Trickery, Violence and Murder, Peculiar Land Swaps Leave Blacks With Little of Their Ancestors' Georgia Island, Alabama Pushed Black Family Off Its Land, Car Dealer Acquired Land by Foreclosure, No Guarantee Against Land Grabs and An Interactive Look at One Case; PART II: Landownership Made Blacks Targets of Violence and Murder, Taking Away the Vote - and a Black Man's Land, A Man Is Jailed for Defending His Land and An Interactive Look at One Case. You will need to click on each article individually to read it. See http://wire.ap.org/APpackages/torn/cover.html.

Conservatives, such as George Will, downplay the Civil Rights Commission Election 2000 Report, claiming the bias of its chairperson, Mary Frances Berry.

Certainly not biased in that respect, Southern Changes (www.southerncouncil.org) devoted its Summer 2001 Edition to Election 2000. "Southern Changes is published by the Southern Regional Council, Inc., a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization which works for racial equality and social and economic justice in the Southern United States through research and action which engages and transform individuals, communities, and institutions." Its academic research echoes the Civil Rights Commission's findings, as well as dovetails the investigative reports of Greg Palast and others.

According to Southern Changes, "in Florida's majority black voting precincts, residents were four times more likely to have their 2000 Presidential Election ballots disqualified than voters in majority white precincts. At the behest of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, many counties used inaccurate databases to 'scrub' felon names from their voter rolls. But hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens were removed from the list of registered voters. When they went to the polls, election officials turned them away. In short, the election made a mockery of democracy."

 "Methods employed in Florida are commonplace across America. More than two million Americans who went to the polls did not have their presidential ballots counted. Another 3.9 million Americans were denied the right to vote because of a felony conviction."

 South DeKalb County, Georgia is the funky hood. Location of one of the wealthiest black enclaves in America, it is the metro area waste dump. On the heels of discovering that Seminole Landfill and the Snapfinger Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant, which are both owned and operated by DeKalb County, plan and/or are already engaged in expansion activities, South DeKalb residents learned last week that the DeKalb County Zoning Board approved a re-zoning request from light to heavy industrial for Hickory Ridge, one of two privately owned landfills in South DeKalb County.

 Understandably, given all the landfills and most of the waste treatment facilities are located in South DeKalb, area residents were upset to learn county officials are making it easier for private corporations to dump more garbage in South DeKalb. Unfortunately, area residents are powerless to prevent environmental racism. Invariably, our elected officials tell us to "let's study the issue before we come to a decision and not do it based on emotion," while they side with those who want to dump garbage or put other funk factories in the backyard of predominantly black South DeKalb County.

by Dot

Reflecting views on the value of blacks expressed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in the Dred Scott slavery case and held by the founding fathers, America is by definition a hostile environment for slave descendants. In employment, racial discrimination is the rule of thumb. Blacks are the last hired and first fired, insuring a cycle of relative poverty. Reports that blame black poverty on out of wedlock births or other statistics excuse institutionalized racism. Fact is, blacks are trapped in the chasm of inequality, which is borne out by a retrospective analysis of the economic welfare loss due to recessions and unemployment.

Chasm analysis shows blacks bear the brunt of the economic pain of downturns in America's business cycle. Blacks have unemployment rates normally twice that of whites. Even that number is deceiving, because more are not counted as unemployed because they work for temp agencies that operate like company stores and milltowns of ole or they work part-time without benefits. Victims of predatory lending practices and police profiling, blacks are losing homes and being locked away in prison faster than black farmers are being pushed off their land. The slave descendants' collective experience epitomizes a hostile environment. Whether we examine it from an anthropological, economic, political, psychological or social perspective, the black experience reflects the 3/5 Compromise of white supremacy.

Ironically, the US has admitted its racism in documents submitted to the United Nations. Yet, there is no dialogue on reparations. While our black leaders appear unclear about the state of black America, let us be clear: The state of black America is characterized by the chasm of inequality, a condition that screams hostile environment and demands reparations to improve it.

THINC  || The DISH || 2001 Issues