December 19, 2014
In light of the fact that Blacks here in Amerikkka are continually faced with racism, discrimination and a Jim Crow-style so-called justice system, I am truly invigorated when I read articles like Michelle Alexander’s “You Are True Heroes For Our Time” (December 2013 Bay View).
I myself feel like, as a people, we do not respond to the call from our own who are being tortured behind enemy lines at the hands of the enemy. Wrong after wrong after wrong has been and still is being committed systematically against Blacks and other people of color in this country. We fight alone and in small groups to no great effect. Our disunity kills us slowly each and every day.
Take my own case for instance. I was involved in an uprising on April 11, 1993, at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio. I was sentenced across the street from the prison by an all-White jury who made such racist statements as “We shouldn’t be wasting our time” and “They are just a bunch of niggers.”