Also available in a dark viewing room at The XOLAGRAFIK Theater, and (at 10 am MST this week) at La Frontera Times. Videos are usually uploaded to YouTube, too. NOTA: Mid Deciembre, La Frontera Times will have a two day exclusive window on News With Nezua videos, but I’ll post on that separately, soon.

Finally, if the message makes sense to you, please consider dropping a link to this post throughout your day, or at least encouraging others to sign the petition. Peace.

(There is a factual correction updated in the text below.)

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

Juvenile Life Without Parole | The Potential for Progress

By Nezua

The coming Supreme Court term may see the United States move closer to its ideals of justice, or remain stubbornly locked in last place in at least one area—how we treat the smallest and weakest among us. Of all nations in the world, the United States of America is the last to ban sentences that require children to die in prison for crimes committed while young. Additionally, aside from Somalia, the USA stands alone in refusing to ratify Article 37 of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Were we to do so, the possibility of parole would have to be given to children.

On the 2008 campaign trail, when asked about the CRC, then-candidate Obama said, “It is embarrassing to find ourselves in the company of Somalia, a lawless land.” He went on to promise that “I will review this and other treaties and ensure that the United States resumes its global leadership in human rights.”

Two cases are currently before the Supreme Court that afford our nation the opportunity to right this wrong and join the modern world. Sullivan vs. Florida and Graham vs. Florida will require the Supreme Court to rule on whether life sentences for juveniles that preclude the possibility of parole (JLWOP) are, in fact, constitutional.

As a nation, we move forward bit by bit. At times we take large strides to correct a slow pace.(update +/-» ) The issue of Juvenile Life Without Parole is an area that now demands a second look. One day soon, the idea of sentencing children to die in prison without even the possibility to redeem themselves will seem as bizarre as those laws that barred women from voting.

In fact, it was only in 2005, in Roper vs. Simmons, that the Supreme Court finally ruled the juvenile death penalty was unconstitutional. In arguing, the text describes a paradigm that informs legal reasoning in US law and specifically the Eighth Amendment’s barring of cruel and unusual punishment. It does this by consulting “objective indicia of consensus,” or signs in society or practicing of law that certain punishments or rulings or situations are no longer deemed accepted by the social body. The court need not see a definite declaration of as much, it infers this from many indicators.

A simpler way to illustrate this dynamic would be to say given time, the human being grows and evolves. A society is nothing more than a collection of human beings, and as such, evolves. A wise law accounts for the progress a society is making by embodying its current morality or lean toward new mores.

We need only look to our recent past to see examples. What is reasonable at one time to a person, or a nation of people (e.g., child labor, women as property, right to own slaves) can later be understood to be (and have always been) unreasonable or unjust. In general, we forgive a society for being imperfect (as people are imperfect) though we demand it improve at all times.

All apparent indicators in our society today imply that people change over time.  That the human condition is not sealed in childhood, but of a developing and transient state. We speak to the young often, reminding them they most likely will look back and see things very differently, such is the change that a human mind and heart travel on the path to adulthood. It makes sense that this understanding would be codified in the sentencing of minors.

Today, parole exists for adults. It is a given that a grown person can see the error of their ways and have changed over time, or simply grow to be something better than they were. Or at least merit a second chance. But aren’t children even more likely to change over time than an adult who has already grown through his or her most malleable and fluid phases of mental and emotional development? And who is more deserving of a second chance than a child? None of this is to say every child sentenced to life in prison would or should walk free. The possibility of parole is just that: possibility. The allowance that a person is not a static thing. A hope for a human being to hold on to while in the hell that prisons are. A reason for them to live, and live well.

To hold that juvenile life without parole sentences are just, one would also have to exclude children from this possibility of potential to change over time. To hold that juvenile life without parole sentences are fair, we also must consider those people—specifically young people—who break a law to be of a type of human unlike the perpetually law-abiding and thus subject to a separate morality. These  types of notions on criminal nature was once prevalent in the US in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when doctors and scientists of the era went to great lengths to attempt a codification of forehead measurements or family histories to make a case for criminality being something that marked one apart from the rest of the species. It was a gross and unenlightened view that aided the concurrent eugenics practices of the day. Clearly we have moved beyond the thinking of those times.

Another troubling aspect of the lack of any possibility to redress a life sentence is how people of color are disproportionately affected by so many aspects of law, from who gets stopped more, searched more, and shot more, to sentencing. In the US, African American children are actually ten times more likely than white children to receive a life without parole sentence. In California, the ratio is even more striking, at an egregious 20 to 1. When it comes to Latinos, half of the inmates incarcerated in federal prison have no previous criminal record, are least likely to be both violent and nonviolent recidivists. At the same time, Latinos are less likely overall to be given parole or probation than non-Latinos! These facts all add up to a powerful and destructive form of institutionalized racism. Given we understand those iniquities in our justice system exist and have been documented, are we comfortable with a life sentence in prison for minors, without even the possibility of parole one day? Doesn’t this mechanism resemble a giant tax-payer-funded killing machine aimed at one part of the population?

Finally, what of those who are innocent of the crimes for which they have been accused, and wrongly convicted? A terrible nexus of race and law and injustice frame the case of Efrén Paredes, Jr, a Latino honor student wrongfully convicted at 15 years old of a murder and armed robbery that others have already plead guilty to being involved in. Paredes was convicted and given two life sentences on entirely circumstantial evidence in an one of the US’ top 25 most segregated towns by a nearly all-white police department, court, and jury. Parades’ innocence is maintained worldwide and an effort to free him has been enjoined by activists, authors and experts like world renowned wrongful convictions expert Paul Ciolino, as well as the National Lawyer’s Guild (NLG). Can we truly look at the horror that receiving such a sentence would be to an innocent person and yet insist it makes sense in 2009 to make the possibility of parole something one needs to grow into, like the right to drink? To offer it to adults, but to withhold it from children?

You can help push back against injustices like this. Please take a moment and sign the petition to show your support not only for Efrén’s release, but for the over 2,500 prisoners sentenced to life without parole when they were juveniles. In addition to the myriad holes in the case against Efrén, in September of this year the Berrien County prosecuter who defended the county’s case against Paredes claiming police do not commit misconduct has had to retract those words. Corruption has been exposed in the Berrien county police department’s Narcotics unit, and according to David Robinson, a former Detroit police officer turned attorney, “Someone was asleep at the switch in terms of administrative responsibility to operate the police department.” In his estimate, police misbehavior has gone on “over a significant period of time.”

Surely any reasonable mind understands when humans come together and interact in systems guided by even the most noble intent, injustices will occur. As a principle in general, this is inarguable. To drag out a rather stale cliché and apologize for waking it, “that’s why they put erasers on pencils.” And sometimes this means leaving room not only for the mistakes of the convicted, but for the mistakes that the system—being but system of imperfect persons working together—will inevitably make.

Giving children convicted of life sentences the possibility of parole is simply what a modern society provides itself so that it may maintain the belief that it would never purposefully and unjustly put a child to death in a big, locked box.

May the Supreme Court rule the same way.

NOTE TO THOSE IN NEED OF ONE: Imagining that being bi-racial or multi-racial, a blend, un mestizo, a mullato, etc is a bad, wrong, painful, or “hard” thing in and of itself is a racist frame. It is the very same lens that looks down on the brown, on the gold, on the black.

To the judge who recently recused himself from the sane modern day by casting his hate-turned-inside-out-pity upon the interracial children that might one day be, and refusing to marry two people in love; to those who mock President Obama as a “Halfrican”, to those who think it is not fair to put kids in a position of being multiracial, or that we can never be “authentic” in any of our “separate” parts:

Understand something. It is not being blended of even more ingredients, of being built of triple the history, of being layered with double the possibility than the next person that hurts! It is the way this nation, no, it is the way some people in this nation look at one or more of those “races;” how they treat them when they meet them. That is the grain of harm.

Not us. You.

Outgoing? Dynamic? Committed?

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MARCELO LUCERO’s is one of those stories that haunts you. Stories that become iconic because of how terribly well they illustrate great wrongs that our human society has yet to escape. Marcelo’s story is very plain, the truth very ugly, the loss permanent.

I shudder to think of what it means to die in such a way. It should happen to nobody. That’s one of the parts that haunt me. I know what it’s like to be set upon by many hands. But to never make it home? To die there, bleeding to death in the dark. Because someone decided that you are a spic.

Because you were on the way to meet up with a friend and some crazy human or humans projected demons from their own soul onto you. And for sport they band up and go “beaner jumping” to scratch their sadistic itch. Mexican, Guatemalan, Cuban…they don’t care what kind of spic you are. “Beaner” is good enough.

Those bad seeds in Patchogue, the hate-pundits on the radio, the hate groups calling themselves “immigration restrictionists” while broadcasting the evil of that monster in their soul against the very same targets? They are all part of a fungal faction of our society that must be seared clean from the conversation so that sanity and a modern-day sense of humanity can prevail.

We must remember and act upon the better parts of the human spirit. We must not tolerate hate aimed so carelessly, into energy so fatal. We must band up to remember the truth and to remain moving forward. And to fight on in the name of Marcelo. And Luis. And all the others. And hope there are not too many others too soon. At the same time, we have to have each other’s backs.

We can all change this. If we want.

Salúd, Marcelo.

———————–
There will be a vigil in Patchogue

AND OFFERS FULL AMNESTY TO ALL ILLEGAL US IMMIGRANTS! As well as to undocumented immigrants from all nations!

Juan Ignacio Pedroza, Migratory Regulations Official for México says that the government of México wants to have “an open arms policy;” all foreigners who want to contribute should be allowed to and are welcome. México simply wants them documented. No prosecutions, no jail, no problem. This move will offer them a path to citizenship.

According to the video, México has “changed its approach toward immigrants” to simplify the process of becoming a citizen: they are now viewing immigrants through an economic lens. And more people wanting to contribute is good for the economy. This officially makes the government of México in at least one way, ten times smarter than so many pundits and politicians right here in the US.

And it’s so warm! And sunny. Look at those relaxed expats on the benches. Makes you wonder. Will México be the next Florida for those seeking retirement?

This move on México’s part offers an attractive option to some, and also destroys the argument so often slurred out in comment threads by those tiresome racist trolls who implore you DO YOU KNOW WHAT MEXICO DOES TO THEIR ILLEGAL IMMIGRINTZ??? then proceeding to unleash a stream of visions of Victorian era blood tinged barbarism as if the demons in their minds actually live in México.

Ah…México sun…I need me some…

video found here

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger [Non-UMX Title: Immigration Impacts Everything]

While many pundits and political analysts are musing about what Tuesday’s mixed bag election results mean for Obama administration, New America Media reports that “there’s another trend to watch; the surprising prominence of immigration politics.”

Even in states where other concerns “like small farms and forestry management” are far more immediate, “immigration has become a litmus test issue for the conservative movement,” and the expectation is, oddly, a “lockstep” goal toward opposing legalization. One has to wonder how the self-destructive choice to oppose immigration at any cost came about.

ColorLines‘ Leticia Miranda asks “What’s next?” now that the infamous Hutto immigration detention center, notorious for myriad human rights violations such as keeping children in prison-like conditions, is closing. Detainees are simply being moved to another detention center in Pennsylvania. So how will we know that substandard conditions and alleged sexual abuse will not be repeated? The problem is not location. The problem is that a class of people have been isolated and assigned lesser worth. making it easy to exploit them. Still, the closing of Hutto is an accomplishment for the ACLU and other activists that worked so hard to make it happen. It’s also a sign that our nation will not tolerate such conditions.

Another positive sign of progress is the reversal of what the Washington Monthly dubbed “a senseless ban” that prohibited HIV-positive individuals from migrating or traveling to the US. Author Steve Benen notes that progress in overturning the ban, which was imposed by the Reagan administration 22 years ago, began with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and then-Sen. Gordon H. Smith (R-OR) in 2008.

In negative news, the anti-immigration group Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) have released a bizarrely antagonistic press release calling Rep. Gutierrez (D-IL) a “traitor,” as The Washington Independent reports. The full press release is here. In it, William Gheen, President of ALIPAC, happily warns that ALIPAC is “ready to organize and channel the backlash wave of anger that is coming into peaceful civic action” and for no apparent reason, employing a Dirty Harry quote beseeching an unnamed person to “Make my day, punk!” People like Gheen and Lou Dobbs are forever talking about a culture war and are obviously not interested in human beings.

It is far too easy to get the same impression about the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Reporting on an Associated Press analysis of previously undisclosed documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Wiretap declares ICE to be “critically flawed, replete with agents who have badly bungled ongoing cases.” This includes “covering up crimes and even interfering in a police investigation into whether one informant killed another.” The list of ICE’s violations of the public trust include “soliciting sex from witnesses, letting informants smuggle undocumented folks, sexual relationships with informants” and using their position improperly to accrue “personal gain.”

As author M. Junaid Levesque-Alam makes clear, any agency will develop some degree of corruption that must be rooted out. But the dangers increase when you empower an agency “specifically created to target the vulnerable” with federal authority and weapons, all the while calling this population “illegal aliens.”

Also in Wiretap, Jamila King reports on San Francisco’s ongoing battle with Mayor Gavin Newsom regarding when deportation proceedings should be initiated against youth that have bee arrested but not tried for a crime. The city recently voted that juveniles accused of crimes must actually be convicted before they are deported.

Oddly, even in the face of “crowds of people gathered at city hall to celebrate the board’s decision to overturn” the “draconian mandate,” Newsom vetoed the change last Wednesday. Supervisor David Campos responded to the veto by saying it was a “sad day for San Francisco” and that Newsom had “chosen to be on the wrong side of history on this issue.” King reminds us, however, that Newsom’s move is toothless. The Board of Supervisors had enough votes to override his veto.

Deportation is a serious issue. Last week the Diaspora featured “Torn Apart” ColorLines‘ web-only series on deportation’s effects on families of color. Free Speech TV has posted an alert to protect families from deportation. It includes a link with actions you can take to help.

Finally, as The Real News reports, Mexico is offering amnesty to all undocumented immigrants within its borders, be they from the US or other nations (video below). Juan Ignacio Pedroza, Migratory Regulations Official for Mexico, makes clear why the country is making such a move. The government of Mexico sees immigrants as an economic boon, and wants to offer them a path to citizenship so that they can contribute and be part of the social fabric. [video here]

Mexico is an older nation and surely imperfect. But this decision demonstrates wisdom about how a people can come together that we might learn from here in the US.

———————————————————————————
Also featured at Huffington Post, America’s Voice, FDL, Talking Points Memo, Open Salon, DailyKos, Sanctuary, Open Left, Rabble, In These Times Blog, Racewire, NAM Ethnoblog

AS WITH ALL News With Nezua vids, you can catch this one in a dark viewing room at The XOLAGRAFIK Theater, or at La Frontera Times.

APPARENTLY, the hot glare of modern day law casts some disturbing shadows when turned upon dinosaurs like Sheriff Joe Arpaio of the Arizona Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department. An FBI investigation (for his using law to intimidate critics) that began under the George W. Bush regime has been slowly closing in on Joe, and the cameraphile has become a cameraphobe, refusing interviews now on major news networks like CBS.

Men like this don’t actually believe in law, as his antics make clear again and again. They believe in their own right to enforce their own ideas, and they think taxpayers oughtta pay for the guns. This attitude is quite evident in his office’s actions. First, in the way he carries out his sweeps for “illegals,” in the way he profiles to determine who is “illegal,” and now in the way he wields his entire office and power.

Watch this video above, and marvel at how the rogue cop could scoff off two major concurrent investigations by both the USDOJ and the FBI! Methinks hethinks he is his own lil country. And maybe he is. For now.

Then again, I bet there was a day the T-Rex thought it would walk the planet forever.

And then, it turns around and it’s Dia de los Muertos. Which is…sort of the flip side. Not jokey or scary or silly, but rather a beautiful way to revisit and welcome and cherish the spirits who are and have long been a part of your journey. The family that has passed on from this plane, and yet moves through your heart, moves through your hands, moves still, with your familia.

My altar is up, and though it’s not as well decorated as it’s been before (I’ve been so busy with work that I’ve not even had time to properly shop for it), the important part is the path is open, the candles are burning, the home is welcoming to those who were once, and will always be, a part of my family.

Happy dia de los Muertos to you!