On Friday, 30
March 2007, NPR announced that the 15 year-old, Shaquanda Cotton,
was to be released from
the prison system called the Texas Youth Authority. The
facts surrounding Ms. Cotton’s case demonstrate the ways in which
White supremacy and class oppression crush people in the vice
of the American police-state. That she will be released
also speaks to the power of elite, White media, and shows that
a certain level of political activism, personal connection, and
an appeal to human decency offer us a way to resist. Chapters in the Life of a Black Girl
A year ago, at age 14, a Texas Judge sentenced
Ms. Cotton to seven years of incarceration, in a prison for
children (consider
the meaning of that phrase). Her crime? Technically
she pushed a White lady … for all practical purposes the punishment
was for her audacity. This Black girl, who happened to
be taking pharmaceutical drugs – another sign of our ever-increasing
toxic/corporate controlled society, but that has been discussed
elsewhere – supposedly Shaquanda has ADD/ADHD, (a/k/a that syndrome
seen usually in boys, but especially in non-White girls, whereby
Jose, Jamal, Lakeisha and others, are defined as ill, for they
fail to show due respect to White female teachers), attempted
to enter school early. (How is that for being lazy and
shiftless?) The problem ensued when the White scorekeeper
got in Shaquanda’s way, and the girl with the melanin dared to
push a White lady who blocked Shaquanda’s path from visiting
the nurse to take the drugs.
For being another uppity Nigger, in fact
the daughter of the most Uppity Negress in the town of Paris,
Texas, Shaquanda Cotton
was not given a mere verbal reprimand, detention, or even suspended
from school. Suspension would have been most fitting. Recall,
prohibiting African slaves from learning how to read and calculate
was always seen as a most necessary tool to maintain the slavocracy. Instead
of these common, school-centered penalties, Ms. Cotton was arrested
and charged with a felony!
Here is where the local prosecutor showed
his moxie. Knowing
that if would be hard to convict Ms. Bitch as an adult, after
all, Shaquanda had a defense – mental defect, she is on the meds. Further,
Ms. Cotton would be a sympathetic defendant, for she was attempting
to obey directives of her White overseers who demanded that she
ingest poison. So instead of adult court, Shaquanda faced
a juvenile court judge, who sentenced this young lady, who had
no criminal record, to seven years, in a prison nearly 300 miles
from home! Did I add that the judge was White (damn, that
is a coincidence). This same judge had previously released
a White girl who burned down her house. And why not? Little
Miss Arson was made of White sugar and spice (probably vanilla).
A Change of Heart?
What resulted was a strong PR campaign for
juvenile justice, whereby various forces came together, including
elite media (the
Chicago Tribune, NPR and others) blew the cover off the corrupt
and beastly system in Texas where young boys and girls are tortured
and sexually assaulted by their captors. After a letter-writing
campaign and sufficient appeals to mercy, even Texas Governor
Perry stepped up – replacing the head of the Texas Youth Commission. The
new director, Jay Kimbrough, made the release of Ms. Cotton job
one. Was it out of a sense of justice, partisan moves to
show Blacks in Texas that all is not wrong with the plantation,
an act of common sense, or a combination? In some sense,
it does not matter, but because Shaquanda Cotton is neither the
first nor the last child to be abused by the expanding police
state, we need to learn how to protect others … and there are
others.
Florida is Dixie
As people start to breath easier in Texas,
what occurs in Florida, and in particular Avon Park is horrifying. There, children,
Black children, are regularly arrested. Let me clarify,
the arrestees are not simply under 18, they are, in the classic
legal sense, infants.
On 28 March 2007, six year-old Desre’e Watson was arrested at
school – can you guess, she is BLACK! Because professionals
could not control this legal infant, after all she is on the
meds, they called the cops. How did the finest members
of the Avon Park community respond?
“Eeny meany miney mo
Catch a nigger by her throat
If she hollers, slap her so
Eeny meeny miney mo”
The young Ms. Watson was not just detained
until her mother or some other, non-brutalizing adult arrived
on the scene. No,
Ms. Watson was arrested and charged with three serious offenses,
one that can be charged as a felony. They were:
- disruption of a school function §877.13
(a second degree misdemeanor)
- battery school employee §784.081
(which can be charged as either a first degree misdemeanor
or a third degree felony)
- resisting w/o violence §843.02 (a
first degree misdemeanor)
Upon arrest, the cops took her to the county
jail, and booked her, taking mug shots and finger prints. I wonder if these
Police Academy cops bothered to read Ms. Watson her rights and
have her sign a knowing waiver?
What’s Wrong with This Picture?
Most people will be scratching their head
to read that a six year-old was charged with offenses that
call for prison time. In
a moral sense, we find it outrageous. In a practical sense
we know that the traumatic episode is most often ounterproductive. But
what is worse is that arresting children under seven is ILLEGAL
in Florida.
In Florida, under her legal code, all statutes
on crime are listed under Title XLVI (44 for those of us who
left behind the
Roman empire and adopted the more advanced Arabic system … the
one with the zero). The very first section of the Florida
criminal code, 775.01, states:
“The common law of England in relation to crimes, except so
far as the same relates to the modes and degrees of punishment,
shall be of full force in this state where there is no existing
provision by statute on the subject…”
What does §775.01 mean as it governs all other sections
of Florida law on crime? Well, until yesterday, when I
spoke to Avon Park police chief, Frank Mercurio, he did not even
know that section of the criminal code, much less what it means. Under
English Common Law, no child under age seven can EVER be charged
with a crime. Generally, in the English Common Law system,
children under 14 were immune from punishment – the presumption
is that people under age 14 do not know the meaning of their
actions. But specifically, infants (ages 0-6) could never
be charged with a crime because judges recognized that infants
did and do not have the mental wherewithal to form criminal intent.
(The American version of this English Common
Law axiom is in the Model Penal Code. Section 3.1.6 holds
that it is impossible for a child under the age of seven to
commit a crime, reasoning
that children cannot possess the requisite mental state, i.e.
have criminal intent).
Everyone, or most of us outside Avon Park,
Florida, understands that children do not think like adults. Children, and even
many teenagers, do not have the same appreciation about cause
and effect, cannot project or empathize. To answer the
rhetorical question of Avon Park Police Chief Frank Mercurio, “Doesn’t
a six year-old know the difference between right and wrong?” No,
sir, generally six year-olds do NOT know the difference. And
the LAWS of Florida, you know, the stuff that you are supposed
to uphold, declare, right at the start, that children are NEVER
criminally liable. Try reading … or is such beneath you?
Standard Operating Procedures
When I spoke with the man who does not know
the very laws he is sworn to enforce, it sounds like Alberto
Gonzalez, explaining
the nuances of torture. Chief Mercurio insisted that the arrest
of six year-old Desre’e Watson was not newsworthy. From
his perspective, I agree. He informed me that his officers
arrest children and legal infants regularly. He recalled
at least 12 children ages five, six and seven, arrested by his
officers over the last 10 years. Just another day at school.
Life in Avon Park must seem a lot like life
on the plantation. The
overseers spend their days patrolling the schools and streets
for runaways and unruly children. Chief Mercurio waxed
about a child they arrested at age five! In the subsequent
three years, this same child, apparently demon spawn, has been
arrested 12 times; in the last 18 months a variety of offenses
including exposing himself and throwing a glass bottle (must
have been beer) at an administrator. Arresting children
as young as age six for burglary and vandalism is not unknown
in Avon Park.
Though charges are sometimes dropped on
the grounds that the child is incompetent, the initial process
of dehumanizing children
is not seen as aggressive, inappropriate or the result of incompetent
adults not understanding how to interact with children. As
the Chief said, “We respond to a crisis; we have to restore some
semblance of order."
Yes, we do need to restore order. But not so that we can
fortify the control of modern-day slavers and the prison-industrial
complex. When these White people (teachers, school administrators,
psychiatrists, and cops) look at children, especially the kids
with kinky hair, chocolate skin and wide noses, as animals, and
criminals in training, we must recognize the source of the crisis. It
is the drive to control and dominate, the drive to crush the
independence and individuality of our babies. Over 300
years ago, Jonathan Swift made A Modest Proposal to deal with
the crisis of Irish children in the English empire. Is
the current criminal justice approach, coated with a heavy layer
of SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors), artificial
sugars, and hormone-laden food, any better? Swift saw the
reality and crassly suggested that we eat these children. The
criminal justice/social control system is eating our children. We
must sabotage this machine of violence and domination.
BC Columnist Dr John Calvin Jones, PhD,
JD has a law degree and a PhD in Political Science. His Website
is virtualcitizens.com. Click
here to contact Dr. Jones. |