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Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: 'A More Perfect Union'
Philadelphia, PA | March 18, 2008
http://www.barackobama.com/2008/03/18/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_53.php
Includes a link to a streaming video of the speech.
"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
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RIGHTS-US: U.N. Panel Finds Two-Tier Society (full article below)
link to article (http://www.galdu.org/web/calahus.php?odas=2621&giella1=eng)
UNITED NATIONS -- The United States government is drawing fire from international legal experts for its treatment of American Indians, Blacks, Latinos and other racial minorities.
By Haider Rizvi, IPS
The U.S. is failing to meet international standards on racial equality, according to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) based in Geneva, Switzerland.
Last Friday, after considering the U.S. government´s written and oral testimony, the 18-member committee said it has found "stark racial disparities" in the U.S. institutions, including its criminal justice system.
The CERD is responsible for monitoring global compliance with the 1969 Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, an international treaty that has been ratified by the United States.
In concluding the CERD report on U.S. record, the panel of experts called for the George W. Bush administration to take effective actions to end racist practices against minorities in the areas of criminal justice, housing, healthcare and education.
This is the second time in less than two years that the U.S. government has been found to be falling short of its treaty obligations. In March 2006, The CERD had harshly criticised the U.S. for violating Native Americans´ land rights.
Taking note of racial discrimination against indigenous communities, the Committee said it wants the U.S. to provide information about what it has done to promote the culture and traditions of American Indian, Alaska Native and indigenous Hawaiian peoples. It also urged the U.S. to apply the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The CERD also voiced strong concerns regarding environmental racism and the environmental degradation of indigenous areas of spiritual and cultural significance, without regard to whether they are on "recognised" reservation lands.
The Committee recommended to the U.S. that it consult with indigenous representatives, "chosen in accordance with their own procedures -- to ensure that activities carried out in areas of spiritual and cultural significance do not have a negative impact on the enjoyment of their rights under the Convention".
In its 13-page ruling, the U.N. body also raised serious questions about the death penalty and in the sentencing of minors to life without parole, which it linked to racial disparities between whites and blacks.
In their testimony, Bush administration officials held that the treaty obligations do not apply to laws or practices that are race-neutral on their face but discriminatory in effect. The Committee outright rejected that claim, noting that the treaty prohibits racial discrimination in all forms, including practices and legislation that may not be discriminatory in purpose, but in effect.
The CERD panel also objected to the indefinite detention of non-citizens at Guantanamo prison and urged the U.S. to guarantee "enemy combatants" judicial review.
The panel said the U.S. needs to implement training programmes for law enforcement officials, teachers and social workers in order to raise their awareness about the treaty and the obligations the U.S. is required to uphold as a signatory.
Human rights defenders who watched the CERD proceeding closely said they were pleased with its observations and recommendations.
"The U.N. is telling the U.S. that it needs to deal with an ugly aspect of its criminal justice system," said Alison Parker of Human Rights Watch, which has been monitoring discriminatory practices in the United States for years.
In a statement, Parker hailed the U.N. panel for rejecting the U.S. government´s claim that more black children get life without parole because they commit more crimes and held that the U.N. criticism of the justice system was fair.
"Once again, the Bush administration has been told by a major human rights body that it is not above the law," said Parker in of the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo prison.
Other rights activists also held similar views about the outcome of the CERD hearings in Geneva.
"[It has] exposed to the world the extent to which racial discrimination has been normalised and effectively made permissible in many areas of American life," said Ajamu Baraka of the Human Rights Network, an umbrella group representing more than 250 rights advocacy organisations.
As part of its recommendations, the Committee has asked the U.S. government to consider the establishment of an independent human rights body that could help eliminate widespread racial disparities.
Lenny Foster, Diné (Navajo) and representative of the Native America Prisoners Rights Coalition, was a member of the indigenous delegation to the CERD. He observed during the examination that the United States was "in denial".
"Spiritual wellness and spiritual healing is paramount to the very survival of the indigenous nations," he said. "There are efforts to prohibit and impede the spiritual access. Corporations cannot be allowed to prohibit access and to destroy and pollute and desecrate the sacred lands."
Bill Larsen of the Western Shoshone Defence Project delegation also testified before the Committee, making a strong case concerning environmental racism and the deadly pollution caused by mining on their ancestral lands.
In March 2006, the Western Shoshone leaders had received a favourable response from the Committee to its complaint about the U.S. exploitation of their sacred lands. The U.S. is obligated "to freeze, desist and stop further harmful activities on their lands", but failed to take any action.
Indigenous leaders said they welcomed the Committee´s decision to ask the U.S. to submit its report on compliance within one.year.
"It is important that all Native Peoples within the U.S. know that they have rights that are recognized by international law even if the United States refuses to recognise them or act upon them," said Alberto Saldamando, one of the indigenous delegates attending the Geneva meeting.
"Now it is not just us," he continued, "but the international community that has recognised that indigenous peoples within the United States are subject to racism on many levels and has called for effective steps by the U.S. to remedy this situation."
Published: 11.03.2008
Published by: Magne Ove Varsi
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Statement of Ted Pearson, Co-Chairperson National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression-Chicago April 30, 2008
House Committee on Prison Reform click here to download a PDF version of the article below
Statement of Ted Pearson, Co-Chairperson
National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression-Chicago
April 30, 2008
House Committee on Prison Reform
I would first like to thank this Committee for the opportunity for our organization to present its views in
capsule form for consideration during these initial hearings about Sentence Adjustment for Elderly
prisoners. I would also like to identify with the sprit and the letter of the statement by Bill Ryan,
Chairperson of Citizens for Earned Release, before this committee today. I do not want to repeat the
many fine points made by Bill.
We support passage of HB 4154. It is a first step in correcting what is wrong with the Illinois criminal
justice system. There are many things that need to be changed. Highest on the list of priorities must be
the abolition of the death penalty. Capital punishment and prison sentences in excess of 25 years are
not the norm among democratic countries. Abolishing capital punishment and reforming sentencing
laws are not in contradiction; they are two parts of a whole, in our opinion. When all the tires on a
vehicle are flat, fixing one is not a step forward. The car won’t go forward without fixing them all. Of
course, we may be able to fix only one wheel at a time, but fixing one wheel and promising not to fix the
others means that we remain stuck with a vehicle that’s fundamentally broken.
How many people in Illinois prisons would be affected by HB 4154? A survey of those in Illinois
Department of Corrections prisons1 on April 5, 2008 shows that 4,709 will be over 50 years of age by
January 1, 2009. Of those, 658 have custody dates prior to January 1, 1984. Of these 177 are sentenced
to natural life without possibility of parole. This also includes 216 “C numbers” who have been eligible
for parole in some cases for many years.
Thus the total number of people who would be eligible for consideration and sentence adjustment
under HB 4154 in 2009, if it were enacted into law, would be 658, of whom 177 are sentenced to natural
life. More will become eligible as time goes on.
All people have a right to have their views heard in this legislative process. It is incumbent upon the
Legislature to provide ample and timely notice of hearings such as this one through mass
communication media. In addition, people who have studied criminal justice issues and restorative
justice programs need to be involved in the process. Most important, the families of those imprisoned
and the families of those they have offended against need to be included in the deliberations of the
Legislature on this measure. To that end we suggest that the Legislature should request that the IDOC
take the following steps:
1. Notify all prisoners of future hearings on this bill. Encouraged them to communicate the
schedule to their families. This is especially important for the 658 prisoners mentioned above.
2. The State’s Attorneys of the counties in which these 658 people were convicted should be
provided the funds required to notify witnesses and families in these cases of these hearings,
inviting them to make their views heard. A special fund for that purpose should be made part of
the Department budget.
There is an aspect of HB 4154 about which we in the NAARPR are not sure. The bill, as it is presently
drafted, refers the cases of prisoners back to the original sentencing court for sentence review after 25
years. While the sentencing court is arguably the most familiar with the original case, we see many
potential problems with this approach.
1. The original sentencing judge on cases that were tried more than 25 years ago are most likely to
have retired or moved on to other positions.
2. While most familiar with the original case, such courts may not be most familiar with the
progress a prisoner has made toward rehabilitation, restoration, remorse, and other factors, nor
will they have the experience or training to evaluate such issues.
3. With all due respect it can be said that judges are the least qualified to review decisions that
they, themselves, have made. It is difficult for a judge to admit errors of judgment in the
original sentencing. This is why an appeal of a sentence is heard by a superior court, not the
original sentencing court. Furthermore, if there were errors they are likely to be repeated.
4. In those cases where a prisoner continues to insist on his or her innocence, the sentencing court
which heard the original case is the least objective in conducting a review. Since protestations
of innocence are de facto refusal to express remorse, in such cases the original sentencing court
is the least qualified to review the sentence.
For all these reasons we question the approach. The current system of parole hearings is cumbersome
and can be painful for the families of victims of crime, and we do not believe that such families should
be subjected to a repeated traumatic reliving of their suffering and the suffering of their loved ones. At
the same time, however, we believe that it is possible that, when combined with a policy and practice
of implementing a genuine program of restorative justice, including restitution, reconciliation and
restoration of victims and offenders, the current system of recommendations of parole by the duly
constituted Prisoner Review Board may be fairer to all concerned.
It should not be necessary to say this, but it is: the present system is not working. It is not protecting our
families and our communities from crime. Recent reports from the FBI2 show that in spite of the steady
increase in the number of people in prison and the rate of incarceration, violent crimes continue to
increase in number.
Arguably, the causes of increasing incarceration and increasing g violent crime are related. Both tend to
grow together. An increase in the number of people incarcerated does not correlate with a reduction in
crime. Prison is not a deterrent to crime.
Furthermore, prison does nothing to restore the victims of crime or heal their families.
Prison also does nothing to generate socially acceptable behavior among offenders, as indicated by the
very high recidivism rate among those who are released.
Lastly, crime wreaks havoc among the families of its victims. The pain of losing a loved one to senseless
murder is impossible to ever completely heal. But neither is the pain and suffering caused by the
offender to his or her own family. Family life is destroyed and resources exhausted for the families of
offenders. While the emotional trauma of crime never ends for families victimized by violent crime, the
emotional and financial trauma never ends for the families of offenders, whose resources are
devastated by legal fees, outrageous charges for prison telephone calls, many hours and many dollars
spent travelling often many hundreds of miles to visit loved ones, and the loss of the offender’s income
to his or her family while they are in prison. In addition, after their release, prisoners are almost
unemployable.
The current system is based on a punitive model. It is beyond the scope of this presentation to give a list
of citations, but many studies indicate that punishment alone does not deter crime. Yet punishment is
what the current system emphasizes. Sports and educational opportunities are severely restricted or
denied altogether. Segregation (solitary confinement), restricted visits and phone calls are handed out
to prisoners for infractions of the rules of all types. At their extreme, brutal and inhuman conditions -
constituting torture under international law – are imposed upon some without any due process, often
for many years, such as those documented at Tamms Correctional Center.
From centuries of human history and experience we can say there are some fairly well established
sociological concepts3 and foundation principles of human rights. They include:
• The purpose of penalties for criminal acts, to be effective must include “the objective of
returning the offenders to useful citizenship,” as stated by the Illinois Constitution.
• There are very few people who are incapable of learning and altering their behavior if they
understand that there is benefit to them in doing so.
• There are very few people who are incapable of understanding and empathizing with the
suffering of their fellow human beings and other creatures with which we share our planet.
• At the same time, there are very few people who are not capable of rationalizing and excusing
the most depraved and anti-social behavior towards other people if those others are
dehumanized, objectified as inferior or undeserving of respect, or viewed as a threat to the their
existence and security.
HB 4154 is consistent with these principles. It allows for
• the possibility that people can change
• The possibility for offenders to understand the damage they have done through a process of
restorative justice, reconciliation, and restitution.
As already mentioned by Bill Ryan, the United States leads the world in both the absolute number of
people in prisons and jails as well as the proportion of our population imprisoned. This raises questions
about our democracy.
Some argue that any proposal suggesting a modification of a sentence of natural life, i.e., life in prison
without possibility of parole, undermines the struggle to end capital punishment. We believe this is a
false argument. Sentence review stands on its own merit as a matter of fairness, human rights,
restorative justice, and allowing Illinois to join the civilized nations of the world that do not allow for
lifetime prison sentences. The same thing is true of capital punishment, which every other industrially
advanced democracy, and some not so democratic, have abolished. Sentence reform and abolition of
the death penalty are part of the same struggle, for a system based on restorative justice, on
rehabilitation, restitution, reconciliation and respect for the value of every human life. We support
both, separately or together.
Some representatives of police organizations and families of victims of violent crime oppose these
proposals. They have a right to be heard, and to be listened to. The legislature should not, however, fall
victim to corporate interests who have a huge stake in the multi-million dollar prison industrial complex,
and who cynically encourage such groups to vent their anger and pain against reform. The contractors,
suppliers, and construction companies that profit from the perpetuation of the current system are doing
fine in the current system, at least in the short run. Our communities are not.
1
This compilation was made by downloading all the data sheets from the IDOC web site for prisoners in that
database on April 9, 2008. On that date there were 41,998 people in IDOC adult prisons. Of them 4,709 have
dates of birth prior to January 1, 1954. Of this 4709, 658 have custody dates prior to January 1, 1984. 177 of these
658 are serving sentences of natural life without possibility of parole.
2
U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, “2006 Crime in the United States – Preliminary Semi-
annual Uniform Crime Report” cited by Talvi, Silva J. A. in The Nation, January 22, 2007.
3
Documenting experimental and theoretical work on these points is beyond the scope of this statement. It is
available, however, for those interested in the details of these issues.
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Dialoging about Race
National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression – Chicago Branch
click here to download a PDF version of the article below
Certainly it was no accident that slavery was the major moral issue the signers of the Declaration [of
Independence] failed to address when they proclaimed liberty, equality, and justice for all, and went
home to oversee their slaves. Just as it is no accident that our public dialogue on race today is more a
monologue of frustration and rage.
--Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 1996, in “Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American
Achievement”
I will, in the name of humanity, which is outraged, in the name of liberty, which is fettered, in the name
of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call into question
and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery –
the great sin and shame of America!”
--Frederick Douglass, 1852, Speech in Rochester, NY., “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
Slavery, or slave labor, the main cause of degradation of white labor, is no more. It is the proud boast of
my life that the slave himself had a large share in the striking off of the one end of the fetters that bound
him by the ankle, and the other that bound you by the neck.
--Isaac Myers, 1869, in a speech at a National Labor Union Convention , representing the Colored
Caulkers Union
Most of us came here in chains and most of you came here to escape your chains. Your freedom was our
slavery, and therein lies the bitter difference in the way we look at life.
--John Oliver Killens, 1964, “Explanation of the Black Psyche.”
African-Americans have answered the country’s every call from its infancy.... Yet, the fame and fortune
that were their just due never came. For their blood spent, lives lost, and battles won, they received
nothing. They went back to slavery, real or economic, consigned there by hate, prejudice, bigotry and
intolerance.
--Colin Powell, 1995, “My American Journey.”
One of the things that has happened in the current election for President of the United States is that
there has been opened a national dialog about race.
If there is to truly be a dialogue, however, there is one thing that cannot be avoided, and that is the
history of the United States.
In Germany, on January 29, 2008, at a commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the putsch that
brought Adolph Hitler to power, Avi Primor, the former Israeli ambassador to Germany asked
rhetorically, “Where in the world has one ever seen a nation that erects memorials to immortalize its
own shame? Only the Germans had the bravery and the humility.”1
Such bravery and humility is absent from our own country, but it is needed. Yet those who demand it
are often branded troublemakers and radicals, if they are white. If they are Black they are called
unpatriotic, divisive, anti-white, and even “racist.” However recent experience has shown that until our
country as a whole comes to grips with its terrible past the “dialogue about race” will either be a white-
wash, or will simply be a venting of “frustration and rage.”
White supremacy is the elephant in the room. We can walk around it, but we can’t ignore it and expect
to clean our house.
Facts are persistent things. To mention just a few:
- Between 1620 and 1830 estimates range from 10 million to 60 million the number of Africans
who died in the African slave trade. This is one of the greatest holocausts and acts of genocide
in the history of the world.2
- In 1860 there were 4 million Black slaves in the U.S., all of whom were descendents of Africans
brought here in chains.3
- The descendants of African slaves in the United States make up 12 per cent of the population,
but are over 50 per cent of the more than 2 million people held in prisons and jails. They and
their ancestors have been in the United States longer than almost every European ethnic group,
but the median net wealth of African American families lags far, far behind.4
- The entire American continent, including all of what is now the United States, was conquered by
force of arms and stolen from its original inhabitants. Most of them were killed outright. The
few survivors were herded onto “reservations” that persist to this very day. Native American
Indians are the poorest, most illiterate, and have the shortest life expectancies of any
population group within the United States.5
Is there such a thing as “white privilege” in the United States? This may be the wrong question. What
does it mean to a worker whose family has just lost their home to foreclosure and their job to the export
of jobs?
In the 19th century, Issac Meyers described slavery as the “main cause of the degradation of white
labor.” Today, in the words of economist Michael Reich, “the economic consequences of racism are not
only lower incomes for Blacks but also higher incomes for the capitalist class and lower incomes for
white workers.” 6
But that there is continuing anti-Black discrimination beyond the exploitation faced by “ordinary” white
people is without doubt. Descendants of Europeans in the United States have the privilege of not being
Black, or colored. For in the United States the dominant European culture is what is “normal,” and what
is “abnormal” is Black and colored.
To white people white supremacy is invisible. It is taken for granted. As Tim Wise once said, asking a
white person about white supremacy is like asking a fish what is water. He won’t know what you’re
talking about. But African Americans and other people of color can drown in it, and it’s a constant battle
to stay afloat.
So the first step toward dialogue about race is for those of us who are of European descent to recognize
that maybe we don’t see the issue, and prepare to listen. It’s not that our ancestors didn’t struggle, and
it’s not that they, and we, are not exploited by the powers that be. It’s that the basic assumptions for
white people, the basic starting point, are different. If one is white, one does not have to concern him
or herself with one’s race. Only people of color must be aware of their status as such for every waking
moment of life, and be on guard against insult and injury.
The next step is to understand that it is not personal. White people are not being asked personally to
give back something to make things right. The ones who have made out like bandits in this country are
those who have inherited the fortunes built through the conquest of the continent and the enslavement
of Africans. The terrible burdens of genocide, slavery and Jim Crow are social burdens borne by our
whole society. The “builders of America,” who have been so idolized in our culture, engineered the
destruction of this continent’s indigenous people, the conquest and theft of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona
and California, the enslavement of Africans, and the ongoing theft of the labor and lives of Black people
through lower wages and lower public services. The only way to address the terrible legacy of these
crimes against humanity is for our whole country to pull together to overcome their lingering effects.
The means to do this can be drawn from the collective wealth of our country as gathered by the
government through taxation.
The United States government recently gave a half billion dollar tax break to the richest 1 per cent of the
people in the country. This is affirmative action to enrich the already rich. Surely, a country that can
afford this, and can find $3 trillion in 5 years to invade and occupy a sovereign nation that did nothing to
provoke such an attack, can find an amount equal to pay for social reparations to the descendents of the
peoples whose ancestors the were killed, enslaved, or conquered on this soil. And there will be enough
to ensure that everyone can be guaranteed the right to health care, education, and adequate housing.
The goal of dialogue is unity in struggle
The goal in this dialogue, as we see it, is not to score points or to prove who’s right and who’s wrong.
Let’s accept the historical facts that the system is what allowed all this to happen, and the system is
what has to be straightened out. The only way that can happen is when millions of people of all races
and ethnic groups are united to make our voices heard.
A cornerstone of the unity is the strength of unity among the oppressed – African Americans in the first
place. Arguments over strategy need to have as their goal unity.
Recently, differences in strategy have emerged. When they lead to splits and demoralization, they hand
victory to those who would exploit and oppress us all. The differences are not about the facts of history,
but about how to discuss those facts strategically, about how to conduct the dialogue.
An activist asks, “How many times have Blacks been asked to keep quiet to keep the peace (remember
Letters From a Birmingham Jail)? The question that Black people have to deal with (and this ain't the
first time) is knowing that whites who can’t get ready for supporting real equality are looking for
something to justify their position. They find it when Black people speak out. This is the ‘don't confuse
me with the facts’ problem.
“For Blacks, the question is where do you draw the line between what you need to do to get by with
whites, and who you really are. “
Another young activist responds, “I resent the sentiment that Black people must choose between
exemplifying who we really are versus doing what we need to do to bypass the ignorance and darkness
of individuals who are not ready to receive reality. ... Black people are not required to explain ourselves,
to reveal ourselves, or exemplify ourselves or every feeling or thought on racism before we do anything!
Mainly, because first of all, we owe no one an explanation but God. “
We would like to suggest that the ideas expressed in this divergent view will come together, because it
will be through unity that the progressive movement as a whole will be built, and that unity starts with
the unity of the oppressed. But it will be able to come together to the degree that people of the United
States who are of European descent are able to face their own history and take steps to heal the deep
wounds it has left, to get “ready to receive reality.”
1
Kulish, Nicholas, “Germany Confronts Holocaust Legacy Anew,” New York Times, January 29, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/world/europe/29nazi.html?pagewanted=1&ref=europe
2
See Matthew White, “Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century, Selected Death Tolls for Wars, Massacres and
Atrocities Before the 20th Century - African American Slavery,” http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatv.htm
3
James G. Randall revised by David Donald, “Civil War and Reconstruction,” cites the 1860 United States Census
http://www.civilwarhome.com/population1860.htm
4
“[W]hile African-Americans do earn less than whites, asset gaps remain large even when we compare black and
white families at the same income levels. For instance, at the lower end of the economic spectrum (incomes less
than $15,000 per year), the median African-American family has a net worth of zero, while the equivalent white
family's net worth is $10,000. Likewise, among the often-heralded new black middle class, the typical white family
earning $40,000 per year enjoys a nest egg of around $80,000; its African-American counterpart has less than half
that amount.” Dalton Conley, “The Black-White Wealth Gap,” The Nation, March 26, 2001,
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010326/conley
5
See for example, Rodney L. Brod and John M. McQuiston, “American Indian Adult Education and Literacy: the
First National Survey,” Journal of American Indian Education, Vol. 22, No. 2, Januarey, 1983.
6
Quoted in Victor Perlo, Economics of Racism II (New York: International Publishers, 1996), p. 159.
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Human Rights and Public Health - Health Care in Illinois Prisons
Prepared by Ted Pearson, Co-chair (summary)
Click here to download full report
National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression-Chicago (the “Alliance”)
Presented to the Prison Health Subcommittee of the Joint Legislative Committee on Long
Term Prisoners of the Illinois State Legislature, October 15, 2007
On behalf of my organization and the many people incarcerated in Illinois prisons with
whom we are working, I would like to again thank the Committee and all the members of
the Illinois Legislature for this opportunity to present preliminary results of our work on
problems of health and medical services in Illinois prisons. It is very important that the
work of this Committee continues and that it be fully funded. The expose only this past
weekend in the Chicago Reader, of an MRSA epidemic in the Cook County Jail, shows
how important is correct and adequate medical care in prisons and jails for public health.
Executive Summary
This is a preliminary report on a study spanning years of direct communications with
prisoners in the Illinois Department of Corrections regarding medical care. It examines a
self-selected sample of the prisoners. Patterns regarding health care within the system are
being documented. Some solutions can be projected.
The study summarizes patient medical charts maintained by the Illinois Department of
Corrections with prisoner narratives regarding their medical care. In 23 per cent of cases
the medical records provide prima facia evidence that medical care in the IDOC does not
meet generally accepted standards of care.
Certain categories of problems are most often inadequately treated. Hepatitis C and
problems of substance abuse are inadequately managed in 64 and 56 per cent of cases
reviewed, respectively. A third of cases of high cholesterol are inadequately managed.
Other problems are documented in the areas of congestive heart failure, multiple
sclerosis, coronary artery disease, and tinea.
There is often a wide discrepancy between the patient’s account of medical care received
and the patient medical chart. One must start from the assumption that unless proven
false, the accounts of prisoners and medical workers are both true. This contradiction can
only be resolved by independent examination by medical professionals. There may be
objective reasons for the disparity relating to failures of communication between patient
and medical staff, lack of trust between patients and staff, and problems specific to the
prison environment that are not documented in the medical record.
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