The Sixteenth Epistle
To Overcome Injustice.
DATELINE: Sunday, February 18, 2001.
By Rev. James R. Bingham
Special to corndancer.com
Posted from Memphis, Tennessee
Overcome Injustice
And God Will Save Our Souls.
I just happen to be a member of Tennessee's Disproportionate Minority Confinement Task Force (DMC). In obedience, I traveled to Nashville on Monday, February 12, to attend the quarterly meeting.
I was in a sort of flippant mood; sarcastic, if you will, and rather ho-hum about the meeting's purpose. This attitude was not unfounded; it was a defensive disposition to the guidelines imposed upon DMC by the sponsoring group, The Tennessee Commission On Children and Youth (TCCY). At a previous meeting, TCCY representatives intimated to the DMC that our decisions would be used merely to qualify the attempts of TCCY to respond to Mr. Clinton's expose of unbalanced imprisonment of African-Americans. TCCY's responsibility is to produce data and solution-oriented suggestions about how to wake-up the general population to the absurd confinement percentage of African American youth. It was made clear that we were a task force, an ad hoc committee, a supportive arm, a necessary evil — with no teeth. We were only to make suggestions, that's it; no action, just suggestions. Finally, even our suggestions were to be approved by TCCY.
I rebelled at that meeting and earned the image of a troublemaker. Believe me, I was only being true to the scriptural principles I had been taught in church. You see, I believe once you seek the truth, one should take up that cross. That is to say, go into action.
We Can Take Action and Claim
The Land of Milk and Honey.
Think about the spy incident in the Bible (Numbers 13:26-33). Moses sent twelve men, a task force, to check out the land of Canaan. All but two of the men came back and said that conquering Canaan was a desirable pursuit, because "surely it floweth with milk and honey," but that the strongholds were too firm and the people too big. The passage said "And there we saw the giants, ... and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." The other two guys, Joshua and Caleb, said, 'We can take 'em.' Well, the DMC is the task force. The situation is social injustice; to be specific, the percentage of African American youth who are incarcerated is wantonly disproportionate to the percentage of non-African Americans when comparisons are drawn from the general population. My position for the DMC is that we can report to the TCCY as the ten timid spies reported to Moses, or act with boldness like the two bold scouts, who said, 'We can take 'em.' So, I moved to change the mission statement from 'make suggestions' to 'take action'. The DMC approved the change; the Minorities Issues Committee, protocol to TCCY, approved it; and, finally, TCCY approved it. To my surprise, when I sat at the table for Monday's meeting, we had an agenda for action.
The agenda represented a concession to the idea that we ought to appear to take action, while actually not taking any. Though we were given an action agenda, we were yet held at bay. TCCY had already set the parameters for what DMC could and could not do. Fine! Fine! I welcome and applaud that concession. At least the agenda was a start in a new and promising direction. They gave and we got us som' by-laws. We were given the authority to request proposals, and to approve an organizational structure to administer a $72,000 grant for the purpose of impacting the reduction of the percentage gap of minority confinement. Of course TCCY must approve our recommendation. Fine! Fine!
We were asked to facilitate the establishment of local initiatives in six areas of Tennessee that reflect a high percentage of incarceration of African Americans. The initiative is to form a DMC task force in communities of the areas we selected. Those task forces would, in turn, act to bring attention to the disproportionate confinement issue. That's what caught my attention. Each local initiative would have a budget. (Small print intended).
My attention was focused on fueling the vehicle for action. Encouraged, I headed back to Memphis.
Exemplary Men and Women
In Service at Nashville.
Oh yes, I did some hobnobbing before leaving Nashville, Tennessee's seat of government. You know, I fellowshipped; I mean, mixed and exchanged with some of the political heavyweights while in Nashville. I was proud to see the legislators in their offices and to see them display genuine concern for the status of the state. Representatives John DeBerry, Lois DeBerry, Henri Brooks, Barbara Cooper, Kathryn Bowers, Larry Miller, Larry Turner, and State Senators Roscoe Dixon, and John Ford are exemplary men and women, who did my heart good when I greeted them. They never failed to make me feel like I was 'somebody.' Thanks, guys.
I also greeted Memphis Mayor Dr. W.W. Herenton. I want to go on record as saying that this man is tall in every respect. He is tall in stature as well as personality and intellect. Together that makes him about 8-feet tall.
Just why are so many African American youth, males in particular, locked up, I mean incarcerated, anyway? Is there some fear that the now generation, descendants of the slave generation in the USA, will somehow complete the puzzle and realize that something is wrong with the present picture in the "Land of the Free"?
The Listening Tour
Heard a Horror Story.
According to a report generated from the Tennessee Black Caucus Listening Tour, "The juvenile system acts as an instrument of institutionalized ostracism in which it incarcerates a disproportionate number of African Americans, who find themselves caught in a revolving door of injustice that is built into the infrastructure of this system. Greater surveillance in African American communities, racial profiling, economic disadvantages such as lack of opportunity, poor education and higher unemployment rates, lack of adequate legal counsel and the inequitable application of the law help to further isolate the African American caught in this cycle of hopelessness. Moreover, privatization of prisons is suspiciously illuminating because it adds a lucrative monetary incentive (greed) to further perpetuate the criminalization of African American youth. Clearly, such disparities pose a serious threat to African American youth and a genocidal implication for the community at large."
The report went on to reflect the findings of the TCCY as reported to it from the DMC, which states, "Minorities are over represented in the Juvenile Justice System." In 1996, seventy-two percent (72%) of juveniles in the State's secured detentions facilities were African American. Eighty percent (80%) of the juveniles transferred to adult court in Tennessee in 1995 were African American. Yet, in Tennessee twenty percent (20%) of the 12-17 years old population is African American. Based on those findings and other supportive data from the media, The Tennessee Black Caucus launched its 'Listening Tour'.
Listening Tour members visited and interviewed the administrators of the detention facilities in Tennessee. Their findings were staggering. I applaud their investigation of the situation, which was about as probing as it could be considering the barriers and pretenses set in place to welcome their pre-arranged and highly orchestrated visits. Even so, the truth could not be concealed because it is such a plain, bare-naked truth: There are just too many African Americans locked up, I mean, incarcerated.
Based on the Listening Tour's findings, the real criminals in this country, the dope addicts, the rapists, murderers, schemers, and defilers, are African Americans. No wonder the well-to-do and fear-ridden American woman, driving 75 mph on the interstate, suddenly remembers to lock her car doors when she looks to the left and discovers she has driven up alongside a young African-American male. Why, he's automatically a criminal! He might just jump out of his vehicle, fly through the air, force an entry into her car, snatch her purse, and get back into his car before reaching the next exit — even if he is handicapped. Would I be fair in saying that even if this handicapped man, at 75 mph performs this fantastic feat, he could only be mimicking the fictional "James Bond?"
Reviewing the statistics caused me to seek reprieve and consolation. Prayer, again, is the key. The British poet, William Ernest Henley, echoes my defiance of the harsh realities of life, and I resound his declaration here.
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Invictus |
The Creator Has a Master Plan.
Of course I'm not stuck on "whatever GODS may be," but I am stuck on what happens to my — and your — soul. I know that thanks belongs to The Creator, who reigns with Love Supreme. So I draw strength from the insightful melodies of Pharaoh Sanders, who said, "The Creator has a master plan." That plan has set the parameters for inclusion as opposed to exclusion. Such parameters establish the prerequisite of repentance for redemption. Those who perpetuate the unfair practices of the ruling social and civic systems must ask forgiveness and seek salvation in the spirit. As Albert Gore so succinctly told a gathering at Howard University in Washington, "We have a rendezvous with redemption." So true, so true America. The way to redemption must be paved with repentance. But it must come from the heart.
The national figures reported about disproportionate minority confinement are even more towering. To quote Arianna Huffington, nationally syndicated columnist:
"So while racially targeted obstacles to voting — such as literacy and property tests, poll taxes and grandfather clauses — have been eliminated, our nation's 'tough-on-crime' drug laws have produced remarkably similar results. While blacks make up 13 percent of drug users, they account for 37 percent of those arrested on drug charges, 55 percent of those convicted and 74 percent of all drug offenders sentenced to prison.
" 'It's a vicious cycle,' Rep. John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan, told me. 'Our drug policies, combined with law enforcement's focus on low-level users and dealers, have led to incarceration rates among blacks 8.5 times higher than the general population — and that in turn leads to dramatically higher disenfranchisement rates.' "
We Are Different,
We Are One.
In the Paradox Is Redemption.
God has said we can overcome the imbalances in our society. We can! We should forget about the 'we all bleed red blood' as a point of reasoning to prove that we are one. We are different. Even when our complexion mirrors one another's, we are different in texture and melanin content. We are different. We are different physically. We are just as different from race to race as we are different from human to human. But, we, each of us — all of us in faith — have a heart for God. Spiritually, in our soul of souls, there is neither bond nor free, Jew nor gentile. We are one in Christ Jesus. Which is more important?
This was a trying epistle to write. I ask your indulgence in my folly. Nevertheless, I exhort you to stand fast in your profession of faith, that we might stand together and, through Christ, overcome the obstacles to social justice. We shall overcome.
Give God Some Praise!!!
EDITOR'S NOTE: Rev. Bingham
can be reached by E-mail at
jamesrbingham@juno.com.
His phone number in Memphis is
901.785.5691.