150 Years Since Emancipation: We’ve (Hardly) Come a Long Way, Baby

Saturday, Sept. 22 marked the 150^th anniversary of President Lincoln’s early emancipation of slaves from Confederate States which were still rebelling against Union authority by the beginning of 1863.  The official Emancipation Proclamation would be signed into law on January 1, 1863.  But slavery wasn’t constitutionally abolished until December 18, 1865, when the 13^th Amendment was passed. Perhaps because it was the preliminary announcement, there was very little fanfare, save for several NYT pieces. One was a column on Lincon’s Great Gamble, and the other an editorial that traced the beginning of the Laws of War to that event.

Still, some things that come to mind:

1. The Republicans, in spite of their supposed zeal to appeal to African Americans and other minority voters, missed an opportunity to trumpet the fact that it was a Republican President whose actions would eventually free several million black men and women. There’s still time to commemorate the actual anniversary of the Lincoln’s signing of the EP on Jan. 1, 2013—well after the election. It could mark a change in long-term strategy. Will they?
2. As Angela Davis (philosopher, Black Panther, and ex-prisoner), Cornel West, and Michelle Alexander have been arguing, the abolition of slavery did not lead to the freedom of black men and women, but rather to the continuation of slavery by other “legal” means.  Other means included Jim Crow (apartheid and indentured servitude); more recently, we see the continuation of apartheid and slavery through the massive imprisonment, voter suppression and abrogation of other rights of convicted African Americans and other minority populations for non-violent offenses.
3. Innumerable Black men, such as Mumia Abu-Jamal are in prison due to shoddy representation, improper trials, or other irregular procedures.
4. Populations of color make up 30% of the US population, but 60% of the prison population.
5. 1 in 3 Black men in the U.S. can expect to go to prison in their lifetimes. 1 in 10 Black men is in prison or jail in the U.S.
6. Plea bargains—agreeing to concede guilt in exchange for a shorter sentence—account for 95% of all felony convictions in the U.S.  90% of all criminal convictions are the result of plea bargains. Plea bargains save the courts time and money by bypassing trials; and save prisoners potentially lengthier jail sentences.
7. Plea bargains also require the arrested to waive three rights guaranteed by the 5^thand 6^th (right against self-incrimination, right to confront hostile witnesses, and the right to a jury trial).  They also enable the waiving of the right to appeal a conviction.  By extension, plea bargains do not guarantee that the “convicted” are in fact guilty.
8. Latinos represent the largest percentage of the 400,000 migrants detained annually in centers across the United States (97%).  There are huge profits to be netted in the private management of these facilities. It is one of the most successful jobs program, expanded if not created, by the Obama Administration.
9. Migrants who are arrested or detained for “unlawful” entry into the United States are at the mercy of the whims of USCIS officers. They are not entitled to lawyers. Nor to judicial review. That means they have no access to judges to review their cases and the accuracy of the charges against them—or of any other facts.
10. The CIA has decided to offer some transparency by announcing the names of 55 out of 84 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay Detention facilities who have been cleared for released by the United States (court system?). Why not the other 19 men, too?
11. Adnan Latif, a Yemeni who had been imprisoned without charges in Guantanamo since October 2002, had been cleared for release multiple times over the first 8 years of his unlawful imprisonment; his release was challenged by the Obama Administration and ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court 3 months ago because of “security concerns.”
12. U.S. citizens Fahad Hashmi and Tarek Mehanna represent only 2 of many Muslim men who were arrested on suspicion of terrorism, confined without charges, and after many years, convicted of material support to terrorism. There is no public documentation of these charges. Public evidence of their “criminal tendencies,” point to their vocal religious and political dissent against U.S. foreign policies and empathies for states that were subject to the war on terror (both are technically protected under the U.S. Constitution’s 1^st amendment).
13. SAM’s—Special Administrative Measures–can be issued by an Attorney General against prisoners for any sort of minute infraction, and not be subject to judicial review after someone is “convicted.”  SAM’s can include solitary confinement for years at a time, revoking visiting privileges with one’s mother, refusing to allow a prisoner out of his solitary confinement for even his daily 1 hour allotment for exercise.  They can be issued for infractions that don’t need to be known to prisoners or their lawyers. If they are promulgated publicly, the reason for the SAM is because the prisoner is acting in a way that is deemed to incite riots or violence. I mean how else would one view the act of praying, or god-forbid, shadowboxing in solitary confinement?
14. The NDAA 2011 gave the POTUS the unlimited authority to detain suspected terrorists anytime, anywhere—until a lawsuit against Section 1021 launched by journalist Chris Hedges and other journalists was won in May, and its enforcement stopped with a temporary injunction. A permanent injunction was instituted last week.
15. The permanent injunction has been challenged by the Obama Administration as of last week.
16. “Homeland,” a cable show (Showtime) that features a CIA agent who tracks a CIA agent/white U.S. citizen/former prisoner of Al-Qaeda as a potential enemy of the United States, won a 2012 Emmy last night for Best Drama.  Isn’t Clare Danes gorgeous as a CIA agent?  Just saying.

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