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Racist Suspect Watch


free your mind!

Cress Welsing: The Definition of Racism White Supremacy

Dr. Blynd: The Definition of Racism

Anon: What is Racism/White Supremacy?

Dr. Bobby Wright: The Psychopathic Racial Personality

The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation and Racism (White Supremacy)

What is the First Step in Counter Racism?

Genocide: a system of white survival

The Creation of the Negro

The Mysteries of Melanin

'Racism is a behavioral system for survival'

Fear of annihilation drives white racism

Dr. Blynd: The Definition of Caucasian

Where are all the Black Jurors? 

The War Against Black Males: Black on Black Violence Caused by White Supremacy/Racism

Brazen Police Officers and the Forfeiture of Freedom

White Domination, Black Criminality

Fear of a Colored Planet Fuels Racism: Global White Population Shrinking, Less than 10%

Race is Not Real but Racism is

The True Size of Africa

What is a Nigger? 

MLK and Imaginary Freedom: Chains, Plantations, Segregation, No Longer Necessary ['Our Condition is Getting Worse']

Chomsky on "Reserving the Right to Bomb Niggers." 

A Goal of the Media is to Make White Dominance and Control Over Everything Seem Natural

"TV is reversing the evolution of the human brain." Propaganda: How You Are Being Mind Controlled And Don't Know It.

Spike Lee's Mike Tyson and Don King

"Zapsters" - Keeping what real? "Non-white People are Actors. The Most Unrealistic People on the Planet"

Black Power in a White Supremacy System

Neely Fuller Jr.: "If you don't understand racism/white supremacy, everything else that you think you understand will only confuse you"

The Image and the Christian Concept of God as a White Man

'In order for this system to work, We have to feel most free and independent when we are most enslaved, in fact we have to take our enslavement as the ultimate sign of freedom'

Why do White Americans need to criminalize significant segments of the African American population?

Who Told You that you were Black or Latino or Hispanic or Asian? White People Did

Malcolm X: "We Have a Common Enemy"

Links

Deeper than Atlantis
« Plame was ‘covert’ agent at time of name leak -Newly released unclassified document details CIA employment | Main | Like Many Cities, Minneapolis Engaging in Negro Removal of Downtown Areas »
Wednesday
May302007

NAACP Says Michigan Courts Discriminate Against Minorities and Poor People

Cindy Rodríguez / The Detroit News [HERE]

NAACP to unveil campaign to address system they say discriminates against poor, disabled, minorities.

DETROIT -- The state's court system is dysfunctional, disparately funded and discriminatory toward the poor, the disabled and people of color, according to the Detroit branch of the NAACP, which will unveil a reform campaign today.
The civil rights organization, with the help of the Michigan ACLU, found six areas in the courts that it said were either unconstitutional or needed desperate change. The NAACP's legal counsel, Melvin Butch Hollowell, says the problems go back years.
"The system has gotten so dysfunctional we felt we couldn't wait any longer," Hollowell said. "We have an emergency situation in our courts."
The NAACP said it hopes that its campaign, called "And Justice for All," will drive the Michigan Supreme Court and Michigan Legislature to heed its call.
Civil rights leaders say the state doesn't offer poor people adequate defense, has a state judicial oversight commission that is all white and doesn't reflect the state's diversity and is not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. For example, some court rooms do not have wheelchair ramps.
In Wayne County, they say problems are worse: defendants do not appear before a jury of their peers, juveniles are not getting consistent legal care, and residents have been stripped of their habeas corpus right to be released by a circuit judge.
Race and income, and the way the two intersect in Metro Detroit, play a big role in a state prison population that is predominantly poor and black, civil rights leaders say.
"The justice system is working for a privileged few," Hollowell said. "But it's not working for the average person."
A long-standing problem is the way juries are selected in Wayne County, which results in a pool that is 12 percent black even though the county is 40 percent black, according to a 2006 report by the National Center for State Courts commissioned by Wayne County Circuit Court.
"The court is very supportive of the proposals of the NAACP initiative as it concerns jury composition issues," said Wayne County Circuit Chief Judge Mary Beth Kelly.
The NAACP is also troubled that the state has left it up to counties to decide how to counsel indigent defendants. Without guidelines or adequate funding, civil rights leaders say it has resulted in poor people not getting representation that meets "even the minimal constitutional requirements for effective assistance."
Mark Fancher of the ACLU said the state needs to fund counties properly so that defendants don't wind up, on the day of their trial, meeting their attorneys who are ill-prepared to defend them.
Still another problem is the makeup of the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission, which investigates allegations of misconduct among state judges. There are no people of color among the nine-member commission or the attorneys who help them research cases, according to the NAACP. "It's an all-white club and this is 2007," Hollowell said.
But the NAACP isn't just pointing fingers; it is offering solutions. A team of attorneys has worked on proposals that it is offering to the Legislature.

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