“The black prophetic tradition no longer has a legitimacy or significant foothold in the minds of the black masses. With corporate media and the narrowing of the imagination of all Americans, including black people, there is an erasure of memory. This is the near-death of the black prophetic tradition.”
- Cornel West, American philosopher and activist.
This week President Barack Obama will visit El Reno prison in Oklahoma, becoming the first president to visit a federal prison. He plans to use his visit to draw attention to America’s overly populated prison and release dozens of inmates from federal crimes. But will he also use the same executive powers to help restore America’s prophetic traditions? In other words, if freeing those from federal prison serving what is considered as nonviolent crimes, like drug trafficking, stolen property, conspiracy to defraud by making false statements, and false claims against the United States, how much more important is it to pardon nonviolent political prisoners, or tax awareness activists, conscientious objectors, and thousands of black political prisoners?
While visiting El Reno prison in Oklahoma, for example, will he meet with and commute one prophetic, political prisoner’s sentence: Reno Gonzalez? Gonzalez was brutally beaten and arrested by authorities due to his tax awareness campaign, meaning he decided to challenge an abusive system over enforced taxation. To be certain, and as a veteran observing the horrors and war crimes of U.S. militarism, he believed citizens should be free to decide which federal programs should actually receive a portion of his hard earned income. Therefore, he withheld a certain percentage of his taxed income that would have otherwise went towards war and militarism, demanding this portion fund only the arts, education, and social programs of uplift.
Other nonviolent prophetically inclined political prisoners, like the thousands of conscientious objectors from the Global Wars On Terror, have resisted and challenged an absolute and totalitarian-like global U.S. Empire too. Not only has their conscientious resistance condemned and exposed needless war crimes against peace and humanity, but their prophetic stances have now affirmed the genocide which occurred against millions of innocent Iraqis. With Canada poised to begin returning those nonviolent humanitarians and radicals, will Obama use his executive powers to pardon their eventual arrest, court martial’s, and ongoing isolation from their families? Will he also offer an apology and atonement on behalf of what appears to be a militant and hostile nation?
There is also the effort to silence Abu-Jamal. Along with being a part of the cultural drive to crush the remnants of the black prophetic tradition (1), it is “the war at home.”(2) This lengthy tradition of prophetic resistance and revival, stretching back to Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, all of whom condemned and challenged the cruelty of imperialism, militarism, poverty, and white supremacy, has been one among may astute critiques of the American Empire. It is also symbolic of a collective “black rebel cage,” or those whose identities and histories are of black descent and who have the “warrior spirit” have been incarcerated by the thousands.(3)
Abu-Jamal’s crimes consisted of being a young black activist and belonging to the Black Panthers. In 1982, he was arrested and eventually sentenced to death for the supposed killing of a police officer. From the outset, though, it was evident that the misconduct of the judge, contradictory witnesses and false testimonies, flagrant irregularities in his trial, and the circumstantial and tainted evidence pointed towards an unfair and unjust system which criminalized and incarcerated black revolutionaries and prophets. Indeed, his life sentence and repeated bouts of torture and isolation cages have been heavily criticized by Amnesty International and other human rights organization. (4) Why, then, hasn’t Obama reviewed Abu-Jamal’s prison sentence, let alone consider commutation?
In addition, Abu-Jamal’s arrest and incarceration still reflects the thousands of other black political prisoners who are incarcerate today. Those who either prophetically rebel against or challenge various types of economic segregation and institutionalized racism are still being caged. In fact, the mass incarceration of many of America’s black youth is a type of social control and engineering to thwart black radicalism and culture. (5) It is also a sophisticated form of a Jim Crow system which is intent on destroying the black prophetic tradition while destroying black diversity and freedom. Along with feeding a money generating prison system, reminders of the chain gang system, it also impacts millions of black family members who have loved ones incarcerated.
Up until now, Obama has unfortunately been fearful of prophetic traditions, including his own historical-identity tradition expressed by his blackness and black radicals, like pastor Jeremiah Wright who he not only disowned by damned. His is a tradition which supports black accommodationists, submitting to white superiority and the corporate rape of a nation and its peoples, including the rape of diverse histories and cultures. (6) But again, and by granting clemency to conscientious objectors, tax awareness initiators, and thousands of black prisoners, he can begin to reverse the elimination of the prophetic traditions. By using his executive powers to free those nonviolent prophets, he can even begin to help morally and spiritually revive and transform the U.S.
There are, to be sure, other benefits of transforming the American Empire‘s de-prophetic imprisonment system. Not only would acts of prophetic commutation resurrect the ideals that “all men are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights,” but it would send a clear message to the political, corporate and military elites, including their oppressive and ruthless institutions. It would also reverse the new social and racial Darwinism, clothed in the disproportionate incarceration of minorities, while redefining the value of human worth and restoring King’s vision of “thing-oriented society” needing to shift to a “person-oriented society.” Finally, clemency would help amplify the diverse voices and cultures of America’s many prophetic traditions, helping to eliminate racism.
Regarding those just commuted, Obama said, “These men and women were not hardened criminals.” He also wrote “the basic belief in our democracy is that people deserve a second chance.” Tax awareness activists, war resisters seeking a more peaceful world, and many of the black prophets, all still confined to their dehumanizing cages, are the very opposite of hardened criminals. And since they never did commit a crime in the first place, the authorities and bystanders who criminalized them are the ones needing a second chance. In fact, they are the ones in need of criminal justice reform. They are the ones in need of a prophetic tradition.
To make men free, truly free to be human and explore their dignified cultures, is a power granted by few individuals. But President Obama has this very ability. He also has the power to commute their sentences and revive prophetic traditions.
Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John‘s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.worldnews.com.
(1) Hedges, Chris. Wages Of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative Of Revolt. New York, New York: Nation Books, 2015., p. 113.
(2) Ibid., p. 118.
(3) Ibid., p. 107.
(4) Ibid., p. 104.
(5) Ibid., p. 118.
(6) Ibid., p. 116.
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