Rebels of the Week: An Anti-Authoritarian Trifecta
March 21st, 2012
Yesterday I accidentally threw myself into a depression with the Tinfoil Tuesday coverage about how fast the tyrannical laws were rolling out. But as they say, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Today it seems I have the opposite problem. There are just too many Rebel stories to pick just one. So, this week instead of focusing on a single Rebel we’re going to have to do a quick round-up of all the Rebels who have hit the headlines that we haven’t had time to cover.
1 – Susan Burton
An article graced the pages of the New York Times titled “Go to Trial: Crash the Justice System.” You know the culture is changing when a mainstream publication openly talks about crashing the system. Susan Burton is a mother from Los Angeles whose 5-year-old son was run over and killed by a police cruiser. In her grief she became addicted to drugs and spent years in and out of jail. Fifteen years later she sought the treatment she needed, cleaned up, found productive work and has dedicated her life to changing the system that ensnared her for so long.
Her organization, A New Way of Life, runs five safe homes for formerly incarcerated women in Los Angeles, but it’s also starting a movement. She famously asked civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander, “What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people charged with crimes to refuse to play the game, to refuse to plea out? What if they all insisted on their Sixth Amendment right to trial? Couldn’t we bring the whole system to a halt just like that?”
The answer is yes. In the era of mass incarceration demanding an impartial, fair and speedy jury trial is probably the most effective way to stress the limits of the system and show it for the kangaroo court it is. Right now more than 90% of criminal cases never see trial. The system as it stands is deliberately rigged to expedite suspects through the system so that jury trials seldom occur. Court-appointed lawyers advise suspects to plead guilty in exchange of a reduced sentence, even if they maintain their innocence. And if suspects won’t take the plea-deal they’re often threatened with exaggerated sentences.
The fact is, like all systems of domination, the “Justice” System depends on the cooperation of those it dominates. If there was even a 10% drop in the people who take the plea-deal that would double the amount of stress on the already backlogged court system. If more people demanded their constitutional rights there would simply not be enough judges or lawyers to deal with the litigation.
2 – Jada Williams
Jada is an 8th grader in Rochester, New York who wrote an essay so offensive to the school’s teachers and administrators that they began a campaign of harassment against her. They kicked her out of class, tried to suspend her and ultimately forced her parents to withdraw her from school. Her crime? She succinctly described government school to modern-day slavery.
compares Frederick Douglass’s observation that slave masters forbid teaching slaves to read because it would make them difficult to control with our modern education system so overcrowded and poorly managed that it actually prevents learning. Jada wrote that teachers are in a “position of power to dictate what I can, cannot, and will learn.” She writes that most teachers simply “pass out pamphlets and packets” which fails because “most of my peers cannot read and or comprehend the material that has been provided.”
I think Jada misses the mark when she concludes that the systemic dumbing down of the population is racially motivated. But her thesis is 100% spot on! Masters don’t want educated slaves because educated slaves are difficult to control. If education is a “right” I’d like to sue the government for 14 years of rights violations. Good for her for having the bravery to point out the obvious, and to stick to her message when the authoritarians retaliated.
The Frederick Douglass Foundation gave Williams a special award for her essay, which she clearly deserves.
3 – Adrian Schoolcraft
Last but not least, Schoolcraft was a police officer with the NYPD who was troubled by the department’s practice of fudging crime statistics and imposing an illegal quota policy. So, he refused to follow these unlawful orders. His brothers in blue responded with a campaign of intimidation and retaliation that culminated in them illegally raiding his house, dragging him out in handcuffs, destroying evidence he’d collected against the department, and forcibly admitting him in a mental health facility under the false pretense that he was “emotionally disturbed.”
Well, thankfully Schoolcraft had backed up his files. For more than a year Officer Schoolcraft was surreptitiously recording corruption within the 81st Precinct in Brooklyn including unlawful orders from supervisors to lock people up without cause and deliberately misclassifying cases to manipulate the crime statistics.
Before the raid Schoolcraft had turned his findings over to the FBI, which has vindicated him, and now Schoolcraft is suing the city for the harassment and forced hospitalization. But this isn’t about one precinct in one city. What Schoolcraft has done is given us a rare peek into the scumbaggery that doubtless goes on in countless precincts and departments around the country. And now he’s provided a platform to allow other officers to share similar stories on his website: SchoolcraftJustice.com
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