Thursday, August 22, 2013

Victims Behaving Badly

Victim’s Rights is “popularity politics.” Designed to make our society appear more cultured and caring, it has achieved the opposite effect. We come across as coddled – and utterly cruel and vindictive:
“I want you to rot in hell!” is common invective thrown by victims at convicted men on their way to the gallows. “I hope they rape you in prison, and beat you…and that you die a miserable death.” I’ve heard those cries, as well.

The courtroom is as hallowed a place as there is in a democratic society. It is reserved for laws, reason, and facts.  Victims bring pure emotionalism, which clouds everything else. Yet, the politicians have erected a stage for “victims only”, where they parade their emotions. (That is what memorials are for, not courtrooms.) The only place victims deserve in the judicial process is on the witness stand, just like everyone else. And there, it must be “just the facts.”

We are all victims of life. How many times have you had someone tell you, “Life owes you nothing”? Yet, we have erected this victim’s stage at the expense of prisoners as though we owe victims a special place in the adjudicating of punishment – even the power to tip the scales of justice. We do not. The judge owes not the victim; he owes society. His job is not to please the victim. His job is justice. 

Most defendants on trial were driven there by their raging emotions – anger, greed, lust, etc. We must not try him, sentence him, and decide his parole based upon more unbridled passions. The judicial process must be governed, as much as humanly possible, by the purest reason. Emotions are the antithesis of that. Basing any part of the judicial continuum upon a victim’s vengeance is like trying to clean a greasy skillet with greasy rag. 

Besides, putting a state for victim’s right beneath the auspices of the most powerful person in the courtroom is a mandate for mean-spiritedness. It is like the judge, himself, saying: “You want to kick him? Here, I’ll hold him for you.” Stop it.

We are a Christian society. Should we, as a nation, empower people to lash out against shackled men and women? If God were listening as one more victim stepped forward and said, “Let me kick him!”, I imagine God would say, “Cool your heels. Your courts have punished him. I, too, will hold him to account. That is enough.”

What message do we send when we allow people to stand up in our most honorable setting – the courtroom – and hurl invectives at defenseless men? It sends this message: Under certain circumstances, it is okay to say mean things.

No. It is not okay to say “mean things” under any circumstances, especially when it is State-sponsored. It is bad for the soul of the victim; bad for the soul of the nation. It will always be undignified, and wrong.
The platform that has been erected by Victim’s Rights must be dismantled and stricken from the courtroom and subsequent parole proceedings. It may have been well-intentioned at the start. But, as we have all heard, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

We can do better. We can pave a more just and dignified road for prisoners, and for the victims of their crimes.

Monday, August 12, 2013

If I Don't Make it Out of this Hunger Strike (They'll just have to bury me skinny)


It’s 17 days and counting
Days left, there many not be many
If I don’t make it out of this hunger strike
They’ll just have to bury me skinny
They’ll just have to bury me skinny

It’s been 20 days since the pleasure
Of smoking my last honey bun
My pancreas is eyeing my liver
My kidneys are after my lungs
Soon, it’ll be all-out warfare
They’re looking for food to survive
Since I put the kibosh on all eating
They’d just as soon eat me alive
They’d just as soon eat me alive

It’s 25 days and counting
Days left, there may not be many
If I don’t make out of this hunger strike
They’ll just have to bury me skinny
They’ll just have to bury me skinny

It’s like a countdown to doomsday
With very little left on my bones
I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m finished
Before I’ve written all the words to this song

It’s 30 days and counting
Days left, there may not be many
If I don’t make it out of this hunger strike
They’ll just have to bury me skinny
They’ll just have to bury me skinny

My boys, I hear them, they’re at it again
“We want fat! We want fat!
If I lay down and sleep, they might end me for keeps
But then, what would they do after that?
Tell me, what would they do after that?

It’s 35 days and counting
Days left, there may not be many
If I don’t make it out of this hunger strike
They’ll just have to bury me skinny
They’ll just have to bury me skinny

You poor, brave souls at the end of your rope
Thinking bread will save you from dying
If only you knew, It’s not lack of food
We die with people stop trying

And it’s 40 days and counting
Days left, there many not be many
If I don’t make it out of this hunger strike
They’ll just have to bury me skinny
They’ll just have to bury me skinny...

Monday, August 5, 2013

Open Letter: To Those Precious Few Who Follow My Website, "Bangin' it Out"

On May 18th, I began a hunger strike to protest the treatment of prisoners in the State of Michigan. Today, August 5, is the 80th day of my hunger strike. During this span of time, I have been offered 240 meals (three meals a day).  I have refused every one of them. I have lost a lot of weight; I am physically weakened. Spiritually, I feel stronger than ever.

Hunger strikes have been recognized as a legitimate form of peaceful protest throughout history, and worldwide. My hunger strike is as legitimate as Gandhi’s. He, too, put his life on the line in hopes of effecting positive change for a disenfranchised people. He, too, was warned of the destructive effect his hunger strike could have on his body. He stuck to it anyway. 

PRISONERS ARE AMERICANS, TOO. We have rights. Americans respect, and fight for, African-American rights, women’s rights, gay rights. They even fight for animal rights. All the while – for the past 25 years – prisoners’ rights have been sliding down the toilet. My aim is not only to improve the lost of prisoners in Michigan, I want to improve the lot of prisoners’ families – to give their babies hope – and by that, improve the lot of all Americans. 

Some people think I launched my hunger strike because my parole was denied. That denial (on April 24, 2013), was only the tip of the iceberg – the catalyst – a perfect example of how arrogant and unresponsive the Michigan Department of Corrections has become. This hunger strike is about thousands of men and women in Michigan who have served their time and are now being kept behind bars simply because the MDOC “feels like” keeping them there. 

There is a man who was recently released from prison here in Jackson. His sentence was the same as mine – second degree life.  After serving his court-ordered 17 years, (as I have done), the MDOC made him serve another 15 years – that’s three more 5-year flops! – before letting him go home. That is the measure of their callous indifference to the concept of mercy. 

People say to me: “You will be going home one day.” They assume that without understanding the nature of this prison system. Maybe I will be going home one day. But “one day” is not good enough. (America’s slaves used to talk about “One day…” They would say, “One day we will be free.” They kept saying that for 250 years.)  “One day” is not justice. “One day” is what you say when there is no justice.

Men and women in prison want justice now, not “one day.” I’m trying to help prisoners get that justice. I’m trying to help babies get their granddaddies home.