Being Black isn't easy!

Two headlines shouted at me this week!

I thought I had written my last piece in observance of Black History Month for 2025. Then, just the other day, MLive newspapers carried this headline: 

Black babies in Michigan face triple the mortality rate of white infants before first birthday 

Today, while reading some reports on-line, another headline smacked me: 

Ruby Bridges was the first Black child to enter an all-white school in the South. She’s just 70 years of age! 

OK, I’m prodded into one more piece. 

I remain focused incarceration, prisoners and the justice system on this HFP website. I must tell you that our team encounters racism on a regular basis! 

There's a two-tier justice system. And anyone who denies it is either naive or in denial. This is what the reality of America is. If you have certain privileges, if you're from a certain socioeconomic status, you have a certain skin color, the odds are in your favor. ---Ana Kasparian 

Senator Bernie Sanders describes our justice system with its racial disparities as “…a system that callously devalues the lives of Black people. Our struggle is and always has been about justice—not justice on paper, but real justice in the real lives of real people." 

There’s no avoiding it. Black people are treated shamefully in our justice system. This is true not only in Chicago, or Detroit, or New York, or other big cities. It’s true right here in our counties and towns. 

Yes, right here in Michigan, the state in which we live, the state that we love--- 

-Black people make up less than 15% of our state population, yet the incarceration population is nearly 50%!

-Black people in Michigan are more likely to receive longer sentences than white people…up to 19% longer!

-Black people are more likely to be stopped by police.

--Black people are disproportionately represented in police warrant requests. (When law enforcement agencies recommend that the prosecutor’s office charge someone with a crime, they “request a warrant” for that individual.)

-Black people are more likely to be charged with crimes.

-Black people are more likely to be confined awaiting trial and to receive incarceration rather than community sentences. And,

- Black children are seven times more likely to have had a parent behind bars! 

Before this month ends, please join me in resolving to get involved. We can and must do better than this! 

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."

— Desmond Tutu

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gregory John McCormick: 1964-2008

Itchy is dead. The lifeless body of this talented rock musician, whose band Shock Therapy was a popular group especially in Europe, was found in a field in Detroit last Wednesday, November 5. The Wayne County Coroner's office informed father Glenn McCormick that the body of his son Gregory, better known to all of us as Itchy, bore no signs of trauma. Glenn said that Itchy, who had been living at his father's dental lab in Detroit, had been drinking to excess for some time. While the toxicology report has not been released yet, the general consensus seems to be that he drank himself to death. Our agency, while still named INNOCENT, first got involved with Itchy in 2005. The Detroit native, who called Germany his home, got involved in some unfortunate activity that placed him in the Michigan State prison system on a charge of arson of a dwelling. It was really just a bonfire in an alley, but an alleged parole violation placed him in prison for 1-20 years. I personally sat w...
Read more

Half-a-race!

The HFP Drag-Racing Fund-Raiser had the potential of being extremely successful, and could have raised several thousand dollars. Let's just say it was partly successful. For background purposes I'll explain that I was racing a 1963 supercharged Studebaker Lark that has a reputation of being one of the fastest stock Studebakers in drag racing today. The engine was built by one of the finest Studebaker engine mechanics in the country, and the car many times has achieved quarter-mile runs in less than 14 seconds! We promised to make at least ten passes in the Pure Stock Muscle Car Drags at Mid-Michigan Motorplex in Stanton, Michigan, this past weekend, and we asked for pledges ONLY ON THOSE RUNS REACHED IN LESS THAN 14 SECONDS. On Friday, here's how we fared: Run #1 13.936 @ 101.24 mph Run #2 14.027 @ 101.30 mph Run #3 14.091 @ 100.88 mph Run #4 13.805 @ 102.84 mph Run #5 14.058 @ 101.26 mph By the 5th run we discovered that ...
Read more

What's in the brown paper bag?

I’d like to share a beautiful story...a story not written by me.   I feel certain that Luis Ramirez would be honored to have us pass along what he has written, but I can't ask him.   He's dead.   This message came to me from Texas Death Row in the early days of HFP. I was so touched by the experience that I vowed to keep the story alive. We generally re-publish it during the holiday season. May it remind us, again, that the names on death row represent real people. And, that the death penalty is dead wrong! Anyway, here’s my gift to you today...a story from the late Luiz Ramirez: (In all caps, just the way he sent it)   I CAME HERE IN MAY OF 1999...A TSUNAMI OF EMOTIONS AND THOUGHTS WERE GOING THROUGH MY MIND.   I REMEMBER THE ONLY THINGS IN THE CELL WERE A MATTRESS, PILLOW, A COUPLE SHEETS, A PILLOW CASE, A ROLL OF TOILET PAPER AND A BLANKET.   I REMEMBER SITTING THERE, UTTERLY LOST.   THE FIRST PERSON I MET THERE WAS NAPOLEON BEASLEY.   ...
Read more