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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (June 14, 2017)
Page 2 The Skanner June 14, 2017 Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Christen McCurdy News Editor Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Melanie Sevcenko Reporter Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2016 MERIT AWARD WINNER The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com Opinion Criminal Justice Disparities Present Barriers to Re-entry A ustin, Ill., the commu- nity where I live, in the heart of the congressio- nal district I represent, includes the zip code with the largest number of releases from the Illinois Department of Corrections; 90 percent of the individuals released are African American males. When these (mostly) young men are released from pris- on, they find all of the social and economic barriers they faced before incarceration, plus additional barriers to jobs, housing, education, and almost every aspect of daily life. One in every 40 adults is unable to vote because of a current or prior felony con- viction. For African Ameri- cans, the rate is one in 13. Over the past 50 years, our penal system has become an increasingly urgent issue that has reached crisis pro- portions, especially in the African American communi- ty. There were about 338,000 individuals in prison in 1970. Today, that number is over 2,000,000. That number has grown every decade over the last half century without regard for the falling crime rate. The Federal Bureau of Prisons appropriations in- creased more than $7.1 billion from FY1980 ($330 million) to FY2016 ($7.479 billion) Every year in the United States, 641,000 people walk Rep. Danny K. Davis Senator (D-Ill) out of prison gates, and, ev- ery year, people will go to jail over 11 million times. This is called jail churn. It happens because most of the people who are jailed have not been convicted. Some will make bail with- in a short time; some are too “ I have fought to reduce disparities in our criminal justice system poor and will stay in jail until their trial. Some will be con- victed of misdemeanors and will receive sentences of un- der a year. African Americans are in- carcerated at nearly six times the rate of Whites and while they make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, they are 40 percent of the prison pop- ulation. In some states that rate was 10 times or more. Research from numerous scholars and organizations has been instrumental in de- veloping a growing biparti- san consensus on the forces driving this great disparity and the additional costs this disparity places on the Af- rican American community and society in general. A recent report by The Sen- tencing Project notes: Proposed explanations for disparities range from vari- ations in offending based on race to biased decision-making in the criminal justice system, and also include a range of in- dividual level factors such as poverty, education outcomes, unemployment history, and criminal history. During my years in the Con- gress, I have fought to reduce disparities in our criminal justice system. I believe my “Second Chance Act” and other initiatives, coupled with the fiscal real- ities that these disparities have imposed on the states and federal government, have helped to create a space for bi- partisan debate and consen- sus about how best to reduce these disparities. I believe that debate and consensus laid the ground- work for some gains we saw during the Obama presiden- cy. The Sentencing Project notes: While states and the federal government have modestly re- duced their prison populations in recent years, incarceration trends continue to vary sig- nificantly across jurisdictions. Overall, the number of people held in state and federal pris- ons has declined by 4.9% since reaching its peak in 2009. Sixteen states have achieved double-digit rates of decline and the federal system has downsized at almost twice the national rate. Twelve states have continued to expand their prison populations even though most have shared in the nationwide crime drop. States with the most substantial pris- on population reductions have often outpaced the nationwide crime drop. These incremental steps toward equal justice are now being reversed by our new administration. Friday’s policy change ef- fectively rescinds Obama-era guidelines for federal prose- cutors that were designed to curtail the harshest sentences for defendants charged with low-level drug offenses. The previous memo, first promulgated by then-Attor- ney General Eric Holder in 2013, reserved the most se- vere options in the federal sentencing guidelines for “se- rious, high-level, or violent drug traffickers” instead of defendants charged with low- er-level offenses. Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2017 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. Local News Pacific NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar RSS feeds SAVE THE DATE The Skanner Foundation MLK Breakfast January 15 2018 NEW LOCATION! Bill Maher Betrayed Black Intellectuals W hen considering the implications of Bill Maher’s latest an- tics, it is important to level set. Maher has, over the years, become the trust- ed media host for Black left- wing intellectuals. His roster of guests includes a Who’s Who of the Black intelligen- tsia; luminaries from old stal- wart Cornel West to MSNBC host Joy Reid and others have been regular guests over the years. So, given this history it would seem surprising that Maher would so readily toss his friends under the bus by his casual on-air use of the n-word. But if one really considers Bill Maher and his history, a more complicated story emerges. Maher is a liberal prognosti- cator who exhibits a pretense of tolerance and open-mind- edness — thereby giving him comedic license to offend. Maher’s latest missive — responding to Senator Ben Sasses’ exhortation to engage in grass roots ‘field’ politi- cal organizing in Nebraska with the dismissive remark, ‘Senator, I’m a house n***er,’ — is not surprising. But the remark was so out of context that it could not have been anything other than a strate- gically-timed joke — one that unfortunately missed the Armstrong Williams NNPA Columnist mark. Read in the context of Ma- her’s irreverent stance on many issues — it seems that the use of the n-word was meant to remind Black liberal “ slave on the media plantation. That Maher chose to use the n-word on his ‘scripted’ talk show (deceptively named ‘Real Time’) was undoubtedly a calculated act. This was probably not the first time Maher has used the ‘n-word’ in the presence of Af- rican Americans — he prob- ably believes that since he allows many of them to come on to his show and debate, and that he sticks up for them against the various conserva- That Maher chose to use the n-word on his ‘scripted’ talk show (deceptively named ‘Real Time’) was undoubtedly a calculated act intellectuals that they are the wholly-owned property of the liberal elite. It was an open admission of something conservatives have noted all along: Black intellectuals do not have an actual ownership stake of the liberal establishment, but in fact serve at the pleasure and whim of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Whether Maher, a 61 year- old White guy who has been employed by HBO for the past 14 years, actually considers himself a ‘house negro’ is not what’s significant here. He, in fact, may identify his job with that of a well-kept tive ‘straw boogeymen’ whom he constructs for dramatic ef- fect, he therefore has earned license to use the term. Maher didn’t ask any Black person for such license of course, yet he assumed it, in the storied tradition of liber- al arrogance and privilege of which he is a proud descen- dant. It goes without saying that the n-word is a vulgar, disgusting term, with a his- tory fraught with pain. As someone who grew up in the deep South at a time when many parents and relatives were openly and custom- arily called the ‘n-word’ by Whites, they know first-hand how hurtful it is. The word is an obscene smear created for the specific purpose of putting Black people in their place — relegating them to second-class citizenship, and alerting the intended victim that he is less than human. I have personally never used the term (nor any form of ob- scenity), and regard it as one of the most abhorrent terms in the English language. I don’t like it when Black enter- tainers use it, and I certainly don’t like it when Whites use it either — no matter what their so-called liberal bona fides. I believe the word has no place in public discourse, much less in the enlightened sphere of intellectual debate. Curiously, the reaction among Black intellectuals to Bill Maher’s verbal attack has been typically passive. They seem to have taken it on the chin and let him off the hook. No one has seriously demand- ed Maher’s resignation from HBO, and there has been no organized boycott of his spon- sors at the network. Can you imagine the reaction if a con- servative host on Fox News or any conservative media channel was caught using the n-word? Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com