Miami Killing Fields
by BAR contributing editor Paul A. Moore
"What does slavery do to a people?"
The signal aspect of slavery in the American colonies and then in the United States of America is this: only African men and women were ever subject to it! In its searing flames. The people we now call African-Americans were tempered. What the people of any other racial background may have become had they been placed in bondage for generations is a matter of conjecture, speculation, wild guess. It never happened to any other people.
Our present day social reality cannot be understood looking at a snapshot. What is now is a product of what was before. So it is impossible to understand Black America without an examination of their past. What does slavery do to a people? Certainly it brutalizes them. Physically, there were the whippings and beatings, the castrations, the maimings, the executions. Mentally, there was the forced disconnect from African cultures and history, the rendering of family, the prohibition against learning even to read.
There was no magical transformation from the state of affairs on Jan. 1, 1863 when Lincoln made the mid-Civil War strategic decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation or in 1865 when the anti-slavery amendments were added to the U.S. Constitution. What did follow were violent struggles against peonage and sharecropping, the migration to the cities and a forced entry into the industrial workforce, the civil rights and Black liberation movements. One idiot has written a book called The End of Racism but scores of youth of color lying dead in the streets of Philadelphia, Chicago, New Orleans and Miami are today's proof of the lie.
Here is a snapshot of the nightmare today from Miami:
Monday June 18, 2007. The Miami Herald. On page 1B, readers were taken to a celebration. There's the teacher from inner-city Booker T. Washington High School reaching out proudly to a new young graduate. There's the same woman, a mother straining to tell her daughter how precious and important she is. There are the other young people sharing the joy and sense of accomplishment.
"Scores of youth of color lying dead in the streets of Philadelphia, Chicago, New Orleans and Miami are today's proof of the lie."
Enter four uninvited guests, all hope long ago extinguished in their hearts. Four of shattered self-esteem slathered with the balm of the gang. They are four completely impotent souls. But powerful men have given them easy access to assault weapons. The four draw their matching white bandannas over their faces in unison. The four draw their gifts from the NRA, President Bush and Congress from concealed places and begin to fire.
The unlucky were six. Two are now gone forever. Samuel Brown was Trina Kancey's "tall, handsome" 16-year-old son. Michael Bradshaw was Jermaine Lafon's "quiet, well-mannered" 20-year-old next-door neighbor. Apparently, Samuel Brown was a good enough football player to dream of playing in college and beyond. In relation to Michael Bradshaw's death, The Miami Herald reported that someone by that name was arrested on drug dealing charges in May.
To put this snapshot in some context, readers could turn to page 6B. The article was titled Funding for Upward Bound cut. To quote, "The U.S. government cut funding at three major Florida universities for Upward Bound, a program that encourages disadvantaged students to go to college." Deeper into it, "President Bush proposed cutting the program in his 2007 budget."
The stories of Samuel Brown and Michael Bradshaw will take their place alongside four other young men.
They all lived longer lives than Rod K. Williams. Rod's body was found in a dumpster eight days after he died. The boy's family and friends say he wanted to play football someday. But he was only 14-years-old when he was wrapped in plastic bags and thrown in the garbage. While his body decomposed in the shadow of Dolphins Stadium they played Super Bowl XLI there. The game is described with Roman numerals due to its gravitas. An estimated one billion people watched the game on CBS, part of Viacom's media empire. Tony Dungy beat Lovie Smith to the Lombardi Trophy and was lauded as the first African-American coach to win a Super Bowl. While Peyton Manning was named the game's Most Valuable Player many Black athletes on the field made spectacular plays that drew loud cheers from the crowd. The Bears Devin Hester ran back the opening kick-off back 92 yards for a touchdown.
"Rod's body was found in a dumpster eight days after he died."
It's likely that all four of our subjects were watching Super Bowl XLI. They all played football well and had the power to dream. They could let their minds go to that kind of fame and adulation and money and respect for themselves someday. They focused on the praise of the young African-American men like themselves. Where else had they ever seen that?
Darnarius Green
It was around the time of Super Bowl XLI that Darnarius Green met football coach Damon Cogdell. Darnarius lived in the north end of Miami-Dade County. He wanted to play across the county line at Miramar High. He participated in their spring football drills. When he left his home the other night Darnarius asked his little brother to pray for him. He got into a van with his friends. Although he was only 16-years-old Darnarius had been arrested four times since 2004 on gun related charges. At teenage parties Darnarius would do like the other young men and break out weapons and pose for pictures. It's part of the routine nowadays. President Bush and the Congress allowed the ban on the sale of assault weapons to lapse in September 2004, so they're everywhere. The National Rifle Association has boasted they have an office in the White House. Scores of children and youth of color have died violently in the past three years in South Florida. Twenty-eight school age children have been murdered this year in Chicago. A shooter at Virginia Tech University killed 32 on the campus then himself.
"Scores of children and youth of color have died violently in the past three years in South Florida."
As Dr. Martin Luther King looked out over the multitudes starring up at him and Abraham Lincoln on August 28, 1963, besides telling his dream, he noted, "for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is inextricably tied up with our destiny." Most of the dead at Virginia Tech were white.
Ironically, Coach Cogdell was driving by Opa-Locka's Bunche Park moments after the body of Darnarius Green was found. The Miami Herald reported that, "It was unclear if that is where he had been shot or where his body was dumped."
Genarlow Wilson
If the inmates at Georgia's Burruss Correctional Training Institute had television privileges then prisoner #1187055 likely watched Super Bowl XLI. He had played football with some distinction at Douglas County High School. He was the school's Homecoming King. Then 17-year-old senior Genarlow Wilson was charged with sexual crimes. He was offered a plea bargain by the state: register as a sex offender for life and a move away from your eight-year-old sister. Genarlow refused the deal and went to trial. At trial the judge and jury dismissed the most serious charges. The jury forewoman wept as she read the guilty verdict for aggravated child abuse. His "child" victim was a 15-years-old classmate. Of the 455 men ever executed for the crime of rape in this country's history, 405 were Black men.
Draconian sentencing guidelines since changed condemned Genarlow Wilson to ten years behind bars in 2005. The prison sentence dashed the hopes Ivy League football programs at Columbia and Brown had for Genarlow Wilson. In this year's session the Georgia State Legislature again refused to address the issue. Echoes of the Florida Legislatures refusal to address the issue of compensation for Alan Crotzer, falsely imprisoned for rape for 24-years in this state.
"Of the 455 men ever executed for the crime of rape in this country's history, 405 were Black men."
A judge has thrown out the sentence and opined that 27-months in jail has been sufficient punishment. The judge's order was stayed immediately based on an appeal filed by Georgia Attorney General Thurber E. Baker. Genarlow Wilson is now 21-years old.
Myron Rolle
As he watched Super Bowl XLI, Myron Rolle was basking in the glow of a successful season at Florida State University. It is rare for a first year player to start for Bobby Bowden's football powerhouse. Myron Rolle had done it. So advanced academically he enrolled at FSU as a sophmore. His success came as no surprise to the people back home in Princeton, New Jersey. They had watched the teenager excel in every facet of life from school and community leadership to the arts and from the classroom to the playing fields. His two-sport athletic exploits earned him "#1 Athlete in the Nation" designation from Rivals.com and his football prowess saw him named "#1 Overall Prospect in the Nation" by Scout.com and The Sporting News.
The recruiting battle over Myron Rolle was intense. Football programs from Miami to Michigan to Oklahoma to USC pulled out all the stops. Tens of thousands of dollars was spent around the country to curry favor with him. After all young men like Myron Rolle could mean TV time and a BCS Bowl birth and millions of dollars for the university. Institutions of higher learning are under tremendous pressure to fund their educational mission. The University of Florida alone must find $7 million each year now just to pay Urban Meyer and Billy Donovan, two of their more renowned professors of sports technology.
"Jeb Bush fashioned a standardized test into a weapon."
One day when Myron Rolle was a senior in high school he got a cell phone text message. Florida Governor Jeb Bush wondered if he could hangout with the young man on his next visit to Tallahassee. The text message might seem contradictory until the importance of FSU football to the former governor is taken into account. After all, Jeb Bush engineered the demise of all affirmative action programs in Florida's colleges and universities and drove minority enrollment to modern record lows. Jeb Bush fashioned a standardized test into a weapon. He dropped the FCAT like a cluster bomb on tens of thousands of 9 and 10-year-old Black children, nipping their self-confidence in the bud. He lobbed it like a grenade into inner-city high schools and smashed the hopes of a thousand Myron Rolles. They got a piece of toilet paper called a certificate of completion rather than a text message. Then again, none of them was 6'2" and ran the 40-yard-dash in 4.53 seconds like the governor's young friend.
Antwain Easterling
Miami Northwestern High School's won their state championship in the same stadium the Indianapolis Colts won Super Bowl XLI. Three days before the game was played, Northwestern's star running back, Antwain Easterling was arrested. It seems the night the team returned from the second game of the season he had sex with a 14-year-old classmate in the school. For several days intense debates raged over whether he and Lakeland High's star running back Chris Rainey should play in their respective teams' big games. Chris Rainey had received money and gifts from Lakeland's boosters. Both players had influential supporters. Both players played. Both teams won championships and finished the season undefeated and top five in the nation.
Northwestern's championship performance drew a record crowd of 24,368. Nothing about Miami Northwestern gets near the attention of the football program. The program has sent 20 players to the NFL. Showtime aired a documentary, The Year of the Bull, devoted exclusively to their 2001 season and star player Taurean Charles. USAToday lists the Bulls somewhere in their national rankings from week to week. The Antwain Easterling lead team finished at No. 5. ESPN will nationally televise one of the Bulls games next season. The Miami Herald recently honored Coach Roland Smith as Miami-Dade Coach of the Year. The Herald wrote extensively on Northwestern's spring game victory over Belle Glades Central High.
"The grand jury gave Jeb Bush a pass for text messaging one African-American youth and destroying thousands of others."
A Miami-Dade grand jury has just issued a report with a pithy title. It's called Justice Intercepted: The All Consuming Power of Football. The first sentence of the report reads, "Society has a way of demonstrating its true priorities when confronted with a crisis." But the grand jury says only one man's priorities were criminally skewed in this society. Former Northwestern first-year principal Dwight Bernard is the only one indicted. He is going to be the fall guy. He's the perfect scapegoat - African-American, male, and not on anyone's football team.
The grand jury cleared the White House and Congress for their servile relationship with the NRA in the middle of an orgy of gun violence and death across the country. The grand jury gave Jeb Bush a pass for text messaging one African-American youth and destroying thousands of others. The grand jury was silent on whether Rod K. Williams' seat for Super Bowl XLI was an indictment of our society's true priorities.
Paul A. Moore is a Miami-Dade Public School Teacher, at Miami Carol City High School. He can be contacted at [email protected].