MOVIE REVIEW: Waiting for 'Superman'

Finally saw the acclaimed documentary Waiting for 'Superman'. It was showing at my favorite second-run theater, the Regency Academy 6 in Pasadena ($2 for a matinee, $3 other times). As an educator myself and someone interested in reforming mathematics education (especially 8th grade algebra) I had heard that this was a must-see film, and I was not disappointed.

Waiting for 'Superman' is the film which provoked the greatest emotional impact on me this year. It made me cry with despair and it made me gasp and groan with shock and disappointment. In the year of films with $100 million visual effects budgets, the most suspenseful moment I experienced in a movie theater in 2010 was waiting for a lottery ball to drop and reveal whether a student had been selected by random drawing for a slot in a public charter school!

The movie follows the educational hopes of five multicultural children, Daisy (a Latina 5th grader in East Los Angeles), Francisco (a Latino 1st grader in The Bronx), Anthony (a Black 5th grader in Washington, DC), Bianca (a Black kindergartener in New York City, NY) and Emily (a white 8th grader in Redwood City, CA). Each of these kids has engaged parents(or caregiver)  who have inculcated a love of education in their charges. However, the school uses an array of facts and figures to demonstrate that in order to improve their chances in life they will need to get a superior education, and in order to do that they will need to change what  schools they are going to. However, the decision of what school a child gets to attend in America depends on a number of things, and the primary thesis of the film is that the most important factor in the decision is luck. Either luck in being born to parents who have the resources to send you to private school, or the resources to buy a house in  a school district with good public schools. If you are not lucky to have been born to rich parents then you need the luck of the draw to win the lottery for admission to a public charter school that is committed to insuring that all their students have a good education and a better future.

The director, David Guggenheim, is already an Oscar winner for An Inconvenient Truth, and decided to tackle the issues of education reform when he realized that he was driving by numerous public schools on the way to dropping his kids off at at their private school.

Some would question the director's motives and are upset by the depiction of teachers' unions (American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association) as the primary impediment to meaningful education reform and the lionization of controversial Washington, D.C. superintendent Michelle Rhee and charter schools KIPP and Harlem Children's Zone. But I think people who dismiss the film for these reasons are missing the point; what Guggenheim's movie is trying to point out is that the American education system is  "about the adults" instead of being "for the children." And until that prioritization is corrected (and hopefully reversed) education is not just "other people's problem" it is all of our concern.

Title: Waiting for 'Superman'
Running Time: 1 hour, 42 minutes.
MPAA Rating: PG for some thematic material, mild language and incidental smoking.
Release Date: Friday, September 24, 2010.
Seen: Tuesday, December 28, 2010.

Plot: A+.
Acting: N/A.
Visuals: A-.
Impact: A+.

Overall Grade: A/A+ (4.11/4.00).

NO JUSTICE! Oscar Grant Killer Cop Gets 2-Year Sentence

Wow! Johannes Mehserle, the Oakland public transit officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant III on January 1st, 2009 has been sentenced to two measly years for the unarmed fatal shooting of a Black man by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. Mehserle had previously been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter this summer but could have received a maximum of 14 years with a gun enhancement.

Judge Robert Perry threw out the sentence enhancement due to the commission of  a crime using a gun by calling the incident "an accidental shooting" AND gave Mehserle credit for time served so far, so that the killer cop could be released in 219 days.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

After the sentencing was announced, Grant's mother, Wanda Johnson, emerged from the courtroom muttering, "Nothing, he got nothing!" The family declined to talk to reporters.

About 50 Grant supporters lined up in front of the courthouse chanting, "Mehserle is guilty, guilty. The whole damn system is guilty, guilty."

In downtown Oakland, where a memorial was being set up for his grandson, Oscar Grant Sr., 65, said, “It’s a bad decision. No time can bring [Oscar] back. But [Mehserle] should have served some time. Otherwise, they’re telling the public, though he went to trial, a policeman can shoot someone and go free. These guys have a license to kill.”

But the elder Grant discouraged violent protests.

We'll see! This is really a sickening situation, especially since the original incident where Mehserle shot and killed Grant in the back while he was lying face down on the ground was captured on video!

DOJ Appeals Rulings Against DOMA To 1st U.S.Circuit

As expected, the Department of Justice announced yesterday that it would appeal two federal district court rulings striking down the so-called Defense of Marriage Act to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The two cases are Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Massachusetts v. Department of Health and Human Services where federal judge Joseph L. Tauro declared Section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional this summer.

As Chris Geidner of PoliGlot reports:

In a move expected by most legal observers, the U.S. Department of Justice this afternoon filed notices of appeal in two cases striking down the federal definition of marriage, contained in the Defense of Marriage Act, as unconstitutional.

[...]

The White House issued no comment on the filing and directed questions to DOJ.

The filing of the notice means that the record of the trial court case will be sent to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Once the record is complete, DOJ will have 40 days to file its brief. GLAD or Massachusetts, depending on the case, will then have 30 days to file its brief. The government then has 14 days to file a reply brief.

The full statement by Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) is:

Today, the Department of Justice filed a notice of appeal in the case of Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, the challenge brought by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) to Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  Representing seven married same-sex couples and three widowers, GLAD filed Gill in March 2009.  The case was heard in May 2010 by U.S. District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro, who issued a decision finding DOMA Section 3 unconstitutional on July 8, 2010.

“We fully expected an appeal and are more than ready to meet it head on,” said Mary L. Bonauto, GLAD’s Civil Rights Project Director.  “DOMA brings harm to families like our plaintiffs every day, denying married couples and their children basic protections like health insurance, pensions, and Social Security benefits.  We are confident in the strength of our case.”

The case is now before the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The next step will be for the government to file its brief to that court arguing that Judge Tauro’s ruling was wrong.  GLAD will then file its brief in opposition to the government, and finally the government will file a reply brief.  At that point, the appeal will be scheduled for oral argument.  Briefing could be concluded by the spring of 2011 with oral argument to follow by the fall of 2011.

The government also today filed its notice of appeal in the related case Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. Department of Health and Human Services.

Co-counsel in the Gill case are attorneys from the firms Foley Hoag LLP, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Jenner & Block LLP, and Kator, Parks & Weiser, PLLC.

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders is New England’s leading legal organization dedicated to ending discrimination based on sexual orientation, HIV status, and gender identity and expression.

MadProfessah supports the appeal by the Administration and fully expects GLAD to be successful at the 1st Circuit appellate level and U.S. Supreme Court.

POLL: Support for AZ Immigration Law Hits 57%

A new CBS national poll indicates that support for the arguably racist Arizona immigration law has hit 57%.

Support for the measure increased five points since May. Since then, the Justice Department has filed suit against the law, claiming that it usurps federal authority to enforce immigration laws.

The measure in question, signed into law in April and slated to go into effect later this month, makes it a state crime for a person to be in the country illegally. It also requires local law enforcement to question a person about his or her immigration status during all "lawful stops" if there is "reasonable suspicion" that person may be in the country illegally.

Twenty-three percent of Americans think the law goes too far, according to the poll, conducted July 9 - 12. That's down five points from the 28 percent who said in May that the measure goes too far. Another 17 percent said it doesn't go far enough.

About half of Americans - 52 percent -- say states should be able to enact laws regarding illegal immigrants, while 42 percent think only the federal government should able to do so.

There is a sharp partisan divide on this question: most Democrats (58 percent) say laws covering illegal immigration should be the responsibility of the federal government only, while Republicans (64 percent) and independents (58 percent) think the states should be allowed to pass such laws.

Half of Americans think illegal immigrants take jobs that Americans don't want, while fewer - 42 percent -- say they take jobs away from Americans.

The CBS poll also indicates that public support for the health care reform legislation has dropped seven points since May 20th.

Interestingly, a poll of LGBT respondents show that they overwhelmingly oppose the Arizona law.

Oscar Grant Trial At Jury Deliberation Stage

A Los Angeles area jury with no African American members will decide the fate of a white former BART police officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant on January 1, 2009.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry rejected a defense argument that jurors should be allowed to consider only second-degree murder in the case against Johannes Mehserle. But Perry also ruled that prosecutors could not argue for a first-degree murder conviction.

Mehserle, 28, shot in the back and killed Oscar J. Grant III as the victim lay on a Bay Area Rapid Transit station platform on New Year’s Day 2009. Prosecutors have argued that the shooting was intentional. The officer told jurors that he mistakenly drew his firearm instead of his electric Taser weapon as he struggled to handcuff Grant, 22.

While second-degree murder carries a maximum sentence of 15 years to life in prison, voluntary manslaughter carries up to 11 years and involuntary manslaughter up to four years in prison. If convicted, Mehserle could receive considerably more years behind bars under an enhancement that alleges he used a firearm.

Oscar Grant Killer Mehserle Testifies In His Own Defense

The murder trial of Johannes Mehserle, the white BART police officer who shot Oscar Grant to death in the back while the black man was laying on his stomach, continued last week with Mehserle testifying in his own defense.

Sobbing as he testified, a former Bay Area transit officer for the first time offered his account of how he shot and killed a 22-year-old passenger, saying he mistakenly pulled out his handgun instead of an electronic stun gun and fired a single shot before realizing his mistake.

Johannes Mehserle, 28, testified that he was having trouble handcuffing Oscar Grant III and only intended to use the stun gun to make the man comply with his orders.

"I didn't think I had my gun," he testified. "I remember the pop. It wasn't very loud, it wasn't like a gunshot, and I remember wondering what went wrong with the Taser.

"I remember looking to my right side and seeing my gun in my right hand," he said of his .40-caliber pistol. "I didn't know what to think. I just thought it shouldn't have been there."

Mehserle said he looked down at Grant, who was lying on the floor of the Bay Area Rapid Transit station platform. "Mr. Grant said, 'You shot me,' " Mehserle testified.

One member of the audience was not impressed by Mehserle's tears. Timothy Killings, 24, shouted "You should save those [...] tears, dude" and Grant family members applauded.

The jury does not have a single African-American on it, despite Los Angeles County being 10% Black and the person killed was African-American. The trial was moved from Alameda County to Los Angeles County due to concerns about pre-trial publicity influencing the Northern California jury pool.

War On Drugs: Now 82% Less Racist?

The Los Angeles Times editorializes about a compromise in the U.S. Senate to modify the patently racist policy of treating possession of crack cocaine 100 times more aggressively than powder cocaine. Unfortunately, the Senate voted to make the new ratio 18-to-1, so it is now just 82% less racist:

Panic over a crack epidemic in the nation's cities in the 1980s led to draconian laws that ultimately would be as devastating to entire communities as the drug itself. According to a 2006 report by the American Civil Liberties Union, 1 in 14 black children has a parent in prison because of felony drug convictions. That's why a bipartisan bill to reduce the 100-1 sentencing disparity, approved unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee, is at once welcome and disheartening. The committee voted to reduce the disparity to 18 to 1, but the ratio should be 1 to 1, as proposed by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.). Under the bill, possession of 28 grams of crack, instead of 5 grams, would trigger the five-year mandatory minimum sentence. The bill also would stiffen penalties for bribing a peace officer and violence attendant to a crack-related offense.

It has taken more than a decade of determined advocacy to reach this point, and although it's not perfect, the Senate's reform measure, which is not retroactive, would mitigate the sentences of an estimated 3,000 people a year. So we reluctantly urge the House to forgo its rational, reasonable and more just approach -- because insisting on a 1-1 ratio, as approved by the House Judiciary Committee in the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act of 2009, would by most accounts destroy any chance of passage. This is one issue on which there is cross-aisle cowardice: Few members of either party are willing to appear "soft on crime."

So 18 to 1 appears to be the best we can get. Republicans are insisting that bipartisanship is over and that there will be little, if any, cooperation for the rest of this year. But this agreement has already been struck. Before year's end, we hope to see the biased sentencing disparity on its way out.

The War on Drugs. Now 82% less racist. Sheeesh.

Oscar Grant's Killer's Trial Moved To Los Angeles

Big news in the case of the former BART police officer who was videotaped fatally shooting an unarmed 22-year-old Black man named Oscar Grant on January 1, 2009. The judge has moved the trial of 27-year-old Johannes Mehserle to Los Angeles County from Alameda County:

The trial of a white former San Francisco Bay Area transit officer charged in the killing of an unarmed black man will be moved to Los Angeles County because of extensive media coverage and other possible distractions to trial participants, a judge in Oakland ruled Thursday.

The decision by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson comes a month after he decided the murder trial of Johannes Mehserle would be moved out of that area.

State court officials recommended Los Angeles and San Diego counties to the judge as possible sites for a trial.

[...]

According to 2008 Census figures, 14% of Alameda County’s 1.5 million residents are African American, compared with 9% of the 9.9 million residents in Los Angeles County and 5% of 3 million residents in San Diego County.

MadProfessah helped organize a vigil and rally earlier this year in Leimert Park calling attention to the senseless murder of Oscar Grant.

New Executive Director of NBJC: Sharon Lettman

Sharon Lettman, formerly of People for the American Way, has been named Executive Director of the National Black Justice Coalition, the country's largest (and only) national Black LGBT advocacy organization.

On the occasion of her appointment she said:

"We must bring our families together," Lettman said. "Gay and transgender people are our children, our brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, parents, co-workers and friends. They are a vital part of the black community, and it is time for everyone to recognize the real issues we all face when our brothers and sisters are denied full participation in the life of our community.

"What has always drawn me to this work, and to the people I've been proud to stand alongside, is the knowledge that we must work together to create the better future we seek," Lettman continued. "In my new role at NBJC, that means lifting the voices of our community, building bridges so that all who experience discrimination can understand the common ground we share, and walking across those bridges together in greater and greater numbers toward equal rights for all."

Congratulations to NBJC for selecting a dynamic leader. I look forward to continuing to work with NBJC here in LA to advance the mission of empowering the Black LGBT community.

Hat/tip to Pam's House Blend.

15-Year-Old Killer of Lawrence King To Be Tried As Adult

Brandon McInerney, the person who (allegedly) shot 15-year old Lawrence King in their 8th grade class in February 2008 is going to be tried for the crime as an adult, a judge ruled on Wednesday at a preliminary hearing. The court proceedings were delayed from earlier this year when McInerney's father was found dead the day before the trial was supposed to start.

According to prosecutor Maeve Fox, McInerney faces up to 53 years in prison, if convicted.

The prosecutor has offered McInerney a plea of a reduced sentence of 25 years if he pleads guilty. McInerney's defense attorneys have said they will appeal the judge's ruling that the now-15-year-old should be tried as an adult for a crime he allegedly committed days after he turned 14.

The defense has also been criticized by LGBT organizations for attempting to use a form of the "gay panic" defense for McInerney's actions:

In the preliminary hearing, the defense suggested that McInerney had been sexually abused as a child. They said he felt threatened by King, who returned taunts from him and other boys with sexual overtures and declarations of love.

At Wednesday's hearing, McInerney attorney Robyn Bramson summed up the defense strategy. In exasperation, she asked an investigator: "What if you talked to Brandon and he said, 'I did it because this kid was sexually harassing me and I felt panicked, freaked out and uncomfortable'?"

The judge ruled the question improper, and the investigator did not have to answer.

If that's not an attempt to get "gay panic defense" admitted, then what is it?

The judge also ruled that the special circumstance of "lying in wait" be added to the charges because the crime occurred 15 to 20 minutes in to a computer class on the morning of February 12, 2008. He also agreed that the crime should be classified as a hate crime.

GOOD NEWS: Jena 6 Case Finally Ends

The infamous Jena 6 case is over. MadProfessah has followed this case for years, which was another example of what many viewed as a racially influenced prosecution.

Carwin Jones, Jesse Ray Beard, Robert Bailey Jr., Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw pleaded no contest to misdemeanor simple battery and were sentenced to seven days probation and fined $500 plus court costs. The 6th member, Mychal Bell, was previously sentenced to 18 months in jail on a separate second-degree battery charge.

The main organization that publicized the case was ColorofChange.org, who released this statement on Friday:

ColorOfChange.org said Friday that the plea deal marked in acknowledgement by officials that the Louisiana justice system initially treated the then-teenage boys too harshly, privileging white students’ accounts of a schoolyard fight over those of black students in the largely segregated town of Jena.

“Today’s plea deal shows that the original charges in the case were unfair and vastly overblown,” said James Rucker, ColorOfChange.org’s executive director. “The story of the Jena 6 was an extreme example of what can happen when a justice system biased against black boys operates unchecked. But it’s also an example of what can happen when hundreds of thousands of people across the country stand up to challenge unequal justice. Together, we drew the country’s attention to this case and raised the money necessary to fund a strong legal defense.”

ColorOfChange.org, the first national organization involved in supporting the Jena 6, was instrumental in drawing national attention to the case, working alongside local activists in Jena and black bloggers across the country to spread word of the excessive charges and the story behind them.

More than 300,000 ColorOfChange.org members signed petitions to elected officials, urging that the charges be dropped and that then-Governor Kathleen Blanco intervene. The group organized more than 10,000 of its members to march in Jena on September 20, 2007. The same day, thousands of members in over 150 cities across the country held rallies and vigils and distributed flyers about the case; they also made more than 6,000 phone calls to public officials in Louisiana.

ColorOfChange members also contributed more than $275,000 toward high-quality legal teams, which succeeded in getting a biased judge removed from the cases and ultimately achieved today’s victory.

Courtesy Jack and Jill Politics, some pictures of the freed guys:

Police Officer Who Killed Oscar Grant To Be Tried For Murder

Oscar Grant was an African American, 22-year-old father of two who was shot to death by a BART police officer named Johannes Mehserle in the wee hours of January 1, 2009. The killing was caught on video and was a cause celebre earlier this year. The Barbara Jordan/Bayard Rustin Coalition (a Black LGBT organization that MadProfessah is the board president of) organized a candlelight vigil in Liemert Park in support of justice being done for the man who shot a Black man at point blank range in full view of hundreds of other people for no apparent reason.

Today comes word that Mehserle will be tried for murder in the Oscar Grant case and the defense's motion for a change of venue was denied:

After listening to seven days of testimony, Judge C. Don Clay concluded that Mehserle hadn't gotten his stun gun and his service pistol mixed up when he shot Oscar Grant in the back at the Fruitvale Station in Oakland early New Year's Day.

"There's no doubt in my mind," Clay said at the close of the former officer's preliminary hearing in Oakland, "that Mr. Mehserle intended to shoot Oscar Grant with a gun and not a Taser."

The decision set up the first murder trial of a California peace officer for a line-of-duty killing in nearly 15 years. It prompted sobs of relief from Grant's family members, who spoke of having a sense of justice restored.

"This is going to be huge for people of color," Cephus Johnson, Grant's uncle, said outside court. "The community lacks faith in the judicial system when it comes to police officers.

Go and read the entire coverage of the preliminary trial in the San Francisco Chronicle. It looks like there will be many, many people following this case very carefully.

Eric Holder Becomes First African American U.S. Attorney General

Eric Holder was confirmed as the first African American Attorney General of the United States on Monday after a vote of 75-21 in the United States Senate.

The Human Rights Campaign sent out an announcement about the landmark event:

Eric Holder has long been a voice for fairness and equality for all Americans, including LGBT citizens. The Department of Justice will now be led by an Attorney General dedicated to civil rights, protecting communities from hate violence and the fair and equal application of our laws. We were proud to join our allies in the civil rights community to support his confirmation

As did the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People:

“Our nation, and especially our racial and ethnic minority citizens, are clearly facing a crisis in confidence that the U.S. Department of Justice has become dysfunctional and is not a true defender of our rights,” said NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous. “Eric Holder is the right person at this time to rebuild not only the department, but also our country’s reputation as a defender of the rights of all Americans. He is the best qualified candidate to help the U.S. Department of Justice reinvigorate itself and regain its rightful place as our country’s enforcer of our civil rights, voting rights, employment rights and housing rights laws. There is no doubt in my mind that he will lead the U.S. Department of Justice, and the United States, with an integrity and strength that is sorely needed at this time.”

The NAACP is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The picture at the top of this post was taken by my friend Jasper Hendricks from the National Black Justice Coalition who attended a meeting with the new Attorney General on his very first day in office.

Some Mathematicians Earned Billions In 2007

The Top 10 Hedge Fund managers for 2007 have been released by Alpha Magazine. On last year's list the highest earner was James Simons, a former mathematics professor with $1.7 billion. This year John Paulson, another mathematician, is atop the list with more than double that obscene amount: $3.7 billion. Also in the top 3 was George Soros, who has been active in progressive causes through his Open Society Institute. The rich get richer, indeed!

Rank Name       Firm Name 2007 Earnings*
1  John Paulson Paulson & Co. $3.7 billion
2  George Soros Soros Fund Management 2.9 billion
3  James Simons Renaissance Technologies Corp. 2.8 billion
4  Philip Falcone Harbinger Capital Partners 1.7 billion
5  Kenneth Griffin Citadel Investment Group 1.5 billion
6  Steven Cohen SAC Capital Advisors 900 million
7  Timothy Barakett Atticus Capital 750 million
8  Stephen Mandel Jr. Lone Pine Capital 710 million
9  John Griffin Blue Ridge Capital 625 million
10 O. Andreas Halvorsen Viking Global Investors 520 million

MOVIE REVIEW: Michael Clayton

George Clooney's Michael Clayton was one of the last movies we saw at the end of the year before going off to Northern Italy for two weeks.

Clooney plays a lawyer who has been at a big New York City corporate law firm for years but instead of being a partner he has turned into something more valuable: a fixer of embarassing problems. When his friend Arthur, who happens to be the smartest lawyer at the firm and their lead attorney in a $3 billion dollar product liability lawsuit, stops taking his anti-psychotic medication and has a spectacular mental breakdown in camera during a deposition, Clooney is called in to fix the mess.


Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson and Sydney Pollack have important supporting roles and are all excellent, with Wilkinson (as usual) the standout as Clooney's friend Arthur. Both he and Swinton have both been rewarded with Oscar nominations (along with Clooney).

The plot is a bit involved, but the film is more about the choices people will make: career versus family, good versus evil and personal loyalty versus professional duty. This movie attacks head on the notion the idea that when a superior says "Just get it done" what that may entail for the poor schmucks who have to carry out the marching orders. And it exposes to what depths those underlings will go to achieve their bosses' wishes, in a number of different settings: but primarily in corporate law. Writer-director Tony Gilroy (who was nominated in both capacities) enacts a taut script in an understated but very effective way which doesn't leave an immediately overwhelmingly positive impression, but is deep enough to cause one to assess upwards the impact the film has had, days and weeks later.

GRADE: A-.

Race, Drugs and Sentencing Laws

The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times and other major newspapers are editorializing in favor of the United States Sentencing Commission appplying retroactively a newly issued policy change that eliminates the 100-to-1 sentencing discrepancy between crack and powder cocaine enacted in the Reagan-era. From Los Angeles Times' "Crack sentencing needs another fix":

Regardless of the intention, those guidelines proved not only discriminatory but ineffective -- as well as unjustified by scientific research. More than 80% of those serving time in federal prison on crack charges are African American. This has justifiably fueled distrust and disrespect for the law in black communities. Why should a black crack addict get more time than a white cocaine addict? Especially when research has shown that the two drugs are pharmacologically identical? Moreover, 20 years of harsh crack sentences have done nothing to stem the drug trade.

As of Nov. 1, the sentencing disparity has been eased, and Congress did the right thing by allowing the changes to take effect. Today, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, a panel created by Congress in 1984 to ensure fair terms for those convicted on federal charges, will discuss whether to make the reduction in sentences retroactive -- a move that would shave an average of at least two years off the terms of nearly 20,000 inmates.

The Justice Department argues that returning all those convicts to the streets represents a potential danger to the community. Perhaps, but then the release of any inmate represents a potential danger; anyone eligible for release has already served ample time for his or her crime. Because the Sentencing Commission has already ruled that the crack guidelines were unfair, it would be inconsistent to keep inmates in prison simply because they were sentenced before the rules were changed. What is unfair now was unfair then.

Mad Professah agrees with the calls for retroactivity, and notes that when drug sentences for marijuana and LSD were changed in the early 90s, those changes were applied retroactively. Of course, those changes primarily affected white people, while the current sentences for crack cocaine primarily affect black and brown people. I'm jus' sayin...

Georgia Teen Imprisoned For Consensual Sex Act Freed

Genarlow Wilson, a now 21-year old African American man who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for aggravated child molestation for having oral sex at age 17 with a 15-year old girl at a 2003 New Year's Eve party has been freed by the Georgia Supreme Court which ruled in a 4-3 decision released Friday October 26th his sentence violated the U.S. Constitution's 8th Amendment prohibition of Cruel and Unusual Punishments.

Wilson, who was a star athlete (homecoming king) and college-bound senior with a GPA of 3.2 at the time of the videotaped incident had served nearly 3 years (32 months!) of his 10-year sentence and recently refused plea deals by the district attorney because they would have forced him to register as sex offender and prevented him from living at home with his 9-year old sister.


According to Georgia Law at the time of the 2005 jury trial and conviction, a 15-year old was below the age of consent of 16 and thus could not legally have consented to sexual relations with anyone. In response to the hue and cry over the Genarlow Wilson case, the Georgia Legislature in 2006 had included a "Romeo and Juliet" provision in the law which would prevent teenagers from being charged for having consensual sex with each other and changed the statute he was convicted under to a misdemeanor. However that new law could not be applied retroactively to Wilson so he would have to wait for either the courts or the District Attorney or Attorney General to act. Both legal officials acted to prolong Wilson's time in jail. The Attorney General of Georgia is Thurbert Baker, the highest African American elected official in the State.


Wilson said he felt no "negative energy" towards Douglas County District Attorney David McDade but instead is looking forward to going to college in majoring in sociology because he feels like he has been "living his major."

Mychal Bell of the Jena 6 Released On Bail

Mychal Bell was released today on $45,000 bail and the prosecutor said that he has decided NOT to try the 17-year old as an adult aggravated second-degree battery charges. Last Thursday was a Day Of Action in support of the Jena 6, six African American teenagers from the town of Jena, Louisiana who have been undergoing a nightmare of selective prosecution and disparate treatment in a racially charged beating of a white boy in December 2006 following many other racially charged incidents in the small town.

The Jena 6 case has become a cause celebre among progressive and LGBT activists, and surprisingly the moderate to conservative national LGBT organizationHuman Rights Campaign has joined the fray on the side of the progressive LGBT folk. However, recently there has begun to be some vociferous dismay about HRC straying from the "straight and narrow" gays-only agenda.

NY TIMES Columnist Assails Republicans On Race Issues

There are a lot of great columnists at the New York Times but until recently Mad Professah and other bloggers have not been able to really comment on their work since we were unable to link to the columns since they were behind a pay-service firewall called TimesSelect. Well, TimesSelect was abandoned by the New York Times on September 19th, 2007. Today, in "The Ugly Side of the G.O.P.," Bob Herbert, an African American twice-weekly op-ed columnist at the Times explains "the Southern Strategy" that Republicans have been using to win the White House and it's significant racial overtones. The money quote is in the last paragraph:

In one of the vilest moves in modern presidential politics, Ronald Reagan, the ultimate hero of this latter-day Republican Party, went out of his way to kick off his general election campaign in 1980 in that very same Philadelphia, Miss. He was not there to send the message that he stood solidly for the values of Andrew Goodman. He was there to assure the bigots that he was with them.

“I believe in states’ rights,” said Mr. Reagan. The crowd roared.

In 1981, during the first year of Mr. Reagan’s presidency, the late Lee Atwater gave an interview to a political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, explaining the evolution of the Southern strategy:

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger,’ ” said Atwater. “By 1968, you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”

The column is generally to talk about the Jena 6 protests of last week and to condemn the Republican presidential hopefuls for not attending Tavis Smiley's presidential forum on issues of interest to the African American community which Herbert links to the fact that Senate Republicans last week also prevented a bill to give Washington, D.C. (a predominantly Black major American city) from getting voting representation in Congress refusing to end debate even though there was a solid majority of 57 votes to approve the bill (D.C. would have received one voting Representative in the House, along with Utah receiving one, bringing the total up to 437 voting members in the lower House of Congress).

Anyone else recall the ridiculous project announced by ("Bush's brain") Karl Rove and former Republican Party head (and closeted gay man avowed heterosexual) Ken Mehlman to court Black republican votes? Mad Professah does, and I am glad that Bob Herbert is educating potential voters for Republican candidates what the Republican party really stands for with regards to race.

The Algebra Project on PBS Tonight

The public television show Now will be airing a segment tonight on The Algebra Project, a non-profit group who is trying to improve the teaching of elementary and high school algebra in low-income and minority schools throughout America. Mad Professah met the founder of the group, Bob Moses, at a Math and Social Justice conference in Brooklyn, NY this past April.