A Thousand Days Waiting: Kalief Browder's Ordeal

When I heard the story of Kalief Browder, I was first shocked, then, angry, and finally saddened. My thoughts went instantly to my seventeen year old grandson, Mekhi, and then to my nephews Cameron and Christian, twenty-five and twenty-two respectively. I realized once again that this story could be their story and then I got on my knees and prayed.
 

Kalief Browder spent three years on Rikers Island without being convicted of a crime. He had been arrested in the spring of 2010, at age sixteen, for a robbery he insisted he had not committed. Then he spent more than one thousand days on Rikers waiting for a trial that never happened. During that time, he endured about two years in solitary confinement, where he attempted to end his life several times.

Jennifer Gonnerman, a reporter for The New Yorker magazine tells of  Kalief’s efforts to end his life in her article "Before The Law". Once, in February, 2012, he ripped his bedsheet into strips, tied them together to create a noose, and tried to hang himself from the light fixture in his cell.

 In November of 2013, six months after he left Rikers, Browder attempted suicide again. This time, he tried to hang himself at home, from a bannister, and he was taken to the psychiatric ward at St. Barnabas Hospital, not far from his home, in the Bronx. When I met him, in the spring of 2014, he appeared to be more stable.

Then, late last year, about two months after the story about him appeared, he stopped going to classes at Bronx Community College. During the week of Christmas, he was confined in the psych ward at Harlem Hospital. One day after his release, he was hospitalized again, this time back at St. Barnabas. When Gonnerman visited him there on January 9th, he did not seem like himself. He was gaunt, restless, and deeply paranoid. He had recently thrown out his brand-new television, he explained, “because it was watching me.”

 After two weeks at St. Barnabas, Browder was released and sent back home. The next day, his lawyer, Paul V. Prestia, got a call from an official at Bronx Community College. An anonymous donor (who had likely read the New Yorker story) had offered to pay his tuition for the semester. This happy news prompted Browder to reenroll. For the next few months he seemed to thrive. He rode his bicycle back and forth to school every day, he no longer got panic attacks sitting in a classroom, and he earned better grades than he had the prior semester.

 Kelief Browder told stories about having been abused by officers and inmates on Rikers. The stories were disturbing, but Gonnerman says she did not fully appreciate what he had experienced until this past April when she obtained surveillance footage of an officer assaulting him and of a large group of inmates pummeling and kicking him. Sitting next to Kalief she watched these videos for the first time with him. Afterward, they discussed whether they should be published on The New Yorker’s Web site. She told him that it was his decision. He said to put them online.

 He was driven by the same motive that led him to talk to Gonnerman for the first time, a year earlier. He wanted the public to know what he had gone through, so that nobody else would have to endure the same ordeals. His willingness to tell his story publicly—and his ability to recount it with great insight—ultimately helped persuade Mayor Bill de Blasio to try to reform the city’s court system and end the sort of excessive delays that kept him in jail for so long.

Browder’s story also caught the attention of Rand Paul, who began talking about him on the campaign trail. Jay Z met with Browder after watching the videos. Rosie O’Donnell invited him on “The View” last year and recently had him over for dinner. Browder could be a very private person, and he told almost nobody about meeting O’Donnell or Jay Z. However, in a picture taken of him with Jay Z, who draped an arm around his shoulders, Browder looked euphoric.

 Last Monday, Prestia, who had filed a lawsuit on Browder’s behalf against the city, noticed that Browder had put up a couple of odd posts on Facebook. When Prestia sent him a text message, asking what was going on, Browder insisted he was O.K. “Are you sure everything is cool?” Prestia wrote. Browder replied: “Yea I’m alright thanks man.” The two spoke on Wednesday, and Browder did seem fine. On Saturday afternoon, Prestia got a call from Browder’s mother: he had committed suicide.

I'm convinced that our dysfunctional U. S. Justice system killed Kalief Browder. There's more to his story. Read the Exclusive in the Daily News and learn about another recent suicide, an 18 year old Riker's Island inmate who hanged himself in his cell. 

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NYC Pays $100 Million in Firefighter Bias Suit

Awareness of the lack of diversity in police departments across the nation has captured the public’s attention. For example, although African Americans are 67% of the population in Ferguson, MO, only 6% of the police force is African American. In Cleveland, OH, Blacks are 53% of the population yet only 25% of the police force. In New York City, Blacks are 26% of the population and 18% of the police force.

Lack of diversity in Fire Departments in large urban cities is common. Statistics show under representation of minorities in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Baltimore.  In 2007, African Americans made up only 3% of New York’s Fire Department. The Vulcan Society has been fighting for almost 75 years to open the doors of the New York City Fire Department to black firefighters. The federal government sued the city (United States of America and Vulcan Society Inc. vs. City of New York) over fire department entrance exams they said discriminated against black and Latino applicants. A group of black firefighters alleged the city had intentionally discriminated against them, violating Title VII, the U.S. Constitution and state law.

The law suit stated: "According to the most recent census data, black residents make up 25.6% of New York City's population; when this case was filed in 2007, black firefighters accounted for only 3.4% of the Department's force. In other words, in a city of over eight million people, and out of a force with 8,998 firefighters, there were only 303 black firefighters.

"This pattern of under representation has remained essentially unchanged since at least the 1960s. While the city's other uniformed services have made rapid progress integrating black members into their ranks, the Fire Department has stagnated and at times retrogressed."

The lack of minorities in U.S. fire departments has been the focus of many lawsuits. The last available national figures, from the 2000 census, show 8.4% of the nation's firefighting forces to be black and 8.6% to be Latino. Blacks are 12.2% of the population; Latinos are roughly 16%. However, other big cities have made much faster progress at diversifying their ranks. More than half of the Philadelphia and Los Angeles fire departments members are black or Latino.

U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garufis ordered New York City to pay $128 million in to firefighters who allege the city used an entrance exam that deliberately sought to keep African-Americans and Latino Americans off the force. The judge also ordered the FDNY to hire 293 black and Latino applicants.

Lawyers for the firefighters who sued said the decision would mean payments to black and Latino applicants to the New York Fire Department who were never hired or hired late from the 1999 and 2002 eligibility lists that resulted from exams given those years. Paul Washington, past president of the Vulcan Society, said: “This is a great victory for those who have been excluded from serving our city because of their race. We hope the FDNY moves quickly to welcome the 293 Black and Latino applicants who are entitled to be hired, and we look forward to serving with them."

 

For a detailed chronicle of the century fight for diversity in FDNY read "Fire Fight" by Ginger Adams Otis.

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NY Times Summer Reading List: Alternatives

Jason Parham, writer for The Gawker, congratulates Janet Maslin’s annual summer reading list for the New York Times for, at long last, achieving 100% whiteness. “Maslin’s book selections for summer 2015 all have one glaring fact in common: each author is—wait for it... wait for it—white.”

Here’s the list’s diversity performance from past years:

2012: 90.4% 20/21 (Exception: Mindy Kaling)

2013: 93.7% 15/16 (Exception: Kevin Kwan with “Crazy Rich Asians”)

2014: 88% 15/17  (Alarmingly diverse! Exceptions: Mariano Rivera and Laline Paul)

2015: 100% 17/17 (Total Whiteout!)

 

Maslin’s list is pretty unforgivable because there are a number of great books being released this summer by writers of color. Here are a few books that Parham and The Gawker suggested:

In the Country: Stories by Mia Alvar (June 16)

The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson (June 30)

Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari (June 16)

Flood of Fire by Amitov Ghosh (August 4)

Loving Day by Mat Johnson (May 26, but it still counts)

And, for those lucky enough to get an advance copy of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book, Between the World and Me (September 8)

Parham closes his list of recommendations with a taunt to Ms. Maslin, “ See, that wasn’t so hard Janet”.

 

There are several books that I would like to recommend to add to both lists. Kick back, stretch out with a cool summer drink in hand, and read. I promise you’ll learn something.

 

 

 

Third and A Mile: The Trials and Triumphs of the Black Quarterback by William C. Rhoden

 

 

Family Properties: How the Struggle over Race and Real Estate Transformed Chicago and Urban America by Beryl Satter

 

 

 

 

Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap by Matt Taibbi

Firefight: The Century- Long Battle to Integrate New York’s Bravest by Ginger Adams Otis

 

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A Movement Grows: Black Lives Matter-Stop Killing Us

There is a national organized movement designed to foster the position that “Black Lives Matter”. The goal of the movement is simply stated “Stop Killing Us”. Many people believe that police violence against the Black Community is a figment of our imagination. But, a review of the significant data supports the position that a change is necessary and change must come now.

If you examine the facts, here are some significant indicators of the problem:

·         Last year 2014, 1149 people were killed by the police in the United States. At least 304 Black people (26%) are included in that number.

·         More than 100 unarmed Black people were killed by police in 2014. 40% of all unarmed victims of police were Black.

·         There is a 4 times higher chance of being killed by police for a Black person compared to a white person.

·         In March 2015, 36 Black people were killed by police (one every 21 hours). 47% were unarmed.
In April 2015, 31 Black people were killed by police (one every 23 hours). 42% were unarmed.

·         ZERO police officers were convicted of a crime for killing a Black person while on duty in 2014.

 

Unfortunately, some people, Black and white, seem to believe that “this is just the way it is”. Data also shows them to be wrong. People around the world are watching, calling for America to do the right thing. Even though there are more Black people in Missouri than in Canada, only one Black person nationwide was killed by police in 2014. It seems to matter where you live. Black people are 5 times more likely to be killed by police in St. Louis than in New York City and 10 times more likely to be killed by police in Oklahoma than Virginia.

Protestors across the country are demanding change including police accountability for use of deadly force, ending racial profiling, review of systemic abuse by some local police departments, and protection for the right to protest. In addition, protestors are calling for a representative police force and the appointment of a special prosecutor for all deadly force cases.

A better understanding of the problem of police violence in our communities helps everyone see the need for change. The data helps us realize that the situation must be addressed if progress is to be achieved. Again, the goals are simple: “Black Lives Matter”-“Stop Killing Us”. America-Do the right thing.

Sources:

wetheprotestors.org

mapping police violence

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The Economic Significance of Millennials on America

Millennials, the young Americans born between 1980 and the mid-2000s, are the largest generation in the U.S., representing one-third of the total U.S. population in 2013. With the first groupt of Millennials only in their early thirties, most members of this generation are at the beginning of their careers and so will be an important engine of the economy in the decades to come. 

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