Race, History, and Revolution in the Year's Best Films

(A version of this article originally appeared in the New Orleans Data News Newspaper)

We live in the era of Hollywood mega-budget sequels, where theaters are filled with stories based on comic books, children’s books, or a line of toys. Originality is rarely rewarded: this year, the top five grossing films, taking in about a billion dollar each in ticket sales, were all sequels. Even among award fare, there were major disappointments. Of these, the worst was The Wolf of Wall Street. Director Martin Scorsese delivered a film that was promoted as a critique of Wall Street excesses, but ended up celebrating and glamorizing some of the world's worst people, as star Leonardo DiCaprio seemed dedicated to making rape, misogyny, greed, and robbery seem charming and humorous. 

But a few filmmakers still dared to fight the trends. The most powerful films of the year were personal visions that explored themes of racism, imperialism, prisons, and revolution. Below are ten films (and a few more) released this year that you should see if you’re sick of watching the same stories again and again.

10. The We and the I – French director Michel Gondry creats fantastical worlds that feel handmade, from the near-future of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to the love song to the end of the VHS era Be Kind Rewind. But for The We and The I, Gondry goes for realism. Working with a diverse group of New York City high school students recruited from a community center in the Bronx, the filmmaker follows a day in the life of working class youth, filled with bullying, friendships, love, and most importantly a real portrait of lives rarely seen on screen.

9. An Oversimplification of Her Beauty – In this beautiful experimental film that blends animation with fiction and documentary, director Terence Nance tells a love story between two young Black bohemian artists. Nance plays himself (or a version of himself) in the film, while the object of his affection plays herself. The two of them shape the story of a budding romance from their perspectives. Brought to theaters with the help of a-list celebrities including Jay-Z and dream hampton, the film shows that it’s still possible to tell a love story in a new way.

8. The Punk Singer – In telling the story of musician Kathleen Hanna, a founder of the Riot Grrrl movement and an important figure in 90s alternative music, director Sini Anderson captures a moment of feminist uprising and consciousness-raising. Told through archive footage, present-day interviews, and lots of music, the film captures the energy of a moment that changed popular culture.

7. Free Angela and All Political Prisoners – With stunning archival footage, filmmaker Shola Lynch brilliantly recreates the 1972 trial of Angela Davis and its context within the early Black power movement. Any audience, whether they lived through the era or were born decades later, will be gripped by this thrilling documentary. Lynch, who also directed the 2005 film Chisholm ‘72: Unbought & Unbossed, finds rare footage and photos of key moments from Angela Davis’ early lectures to Jonathan Jackson’s ill-fated attempt to free his brother George Jackson.

6. Dirty Wars – Every American should know the stories of civilians killed in our name. Filmmakers Rick Rowley, David Riker and Jeremy Scahill take audiences into the US’ hidden wars, from drone attacks to special forces operations in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and beyond. Combining investigative reporting with thrilling filmmaking, this may be the most politically important film of the year.

5. 12 Years a Slave – British/West Indian filmmaker Steve McQueen made history with the powerful story of Solomon Northup, a free Black man kidnapped from the north and sold into slavery in Louisiana in 1841. McQueen never shies away from showing the torture and cruelty of American slavery, and has created a modern classic that makes clear the legacy of white supremacy in this nation. Appearing in nearly every minute of the film, Chiwetel Ejiofor is riveting.

4. Her – Director Spike Jonze is the most original filmmaker in the US. Through his films, he creates worlds that are at once totally different from our world, and also deeply connected. With Her, the director of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation brings us a world that seems five minutes in our future, and also deeply connected to fundamental human truths about love, jealousy, desire, polyamory, and trust.

3. Upstream Color – Multi-talented (and perhaps obsessive) filmmaker Shane Carruth wrote, directed, produced, cast the actors, filmed, acted, edited, composed the music, and distributed this film. While having a crew to collaborate with might help other filmmakers, Carruth seems to thrive on control. In his second film (after Primer, a 2004 low-budget science fiction mindbender), he creates a beautiful mystery about memory, love, madness, addiction and loss that demands to be seen multiple times to unravel its secrets.

2. Something in the Air  - 1968 was a time of global revolutionary uprising, and Olivier Assayas beautiful film captures the moment in the lives of a group of anarchic French youth living at the barricades, fighting authority while also deciding what direction their lives will take. Assayas, who also directed 2010’s Carlos, a recreation of the life of controversial armed fighter Carlos the Jackal, (a revolutionary-to-some and terrorist-to-others), has created a film that feels as fresh and alive as the protests still gripping the world, from Tunisia to Brazil.

1. Fruitvale Station –Henry Glover, James Brissette, Ronald Madison, Adolph Grimes III, Raymond Robair, Kim Groves, Justin Sipp, Wendell Allen…The names of the young Black men and women killed by police goes on and on. But Hollywood and our media rarely explore these lives cut short by violence. By telling the story of Oscar Grant, a young man killed by transit officers on New Year’s Day 2009, first-time filmmaker Ryan Coogler and rising star Michael B. Jordan give weight to a life that was brutally cut short.

Even in this new era of digital distribution, from Netflix to Amazon, it's still hard for truly independent voices to be heard. Two of the best films I saw this year haven’t yet gotten US distribution. When I Saw You is a brilliant film by director Annemarie Jacir about a young boy displaced along with his mother from Palestine in 1967. Capturing both the pain of refugees and the steadfastness of liberation fighters, the film is a stunning accomplishment and needs to be seen widely. It's the best film I saw in 2013. I'm hoping it will gain distribution in 2014, so I can add it to my official top ten list next year. 

Bayou Maharajah is filmmaker Lily Keber’s loving and thorough documentary about the man who has been called “the best Black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced.” The film is a gift for those that love New Orleans music, and a revelation for those less familiar. A brilliant film that I hope will be seen in theaters across the US in the coming year.

Some other great films that nearly made the list: David Riker (co-writer of Dirty Wars) also released The Girl, a film about the relationship that develops between a white girl in her 20s from south Texas and a young Mexican girl who’s mother died while attempting to cross the border. Stephen Vittoria’s film Long Distance Revolutionary, about imprisoned freedom fighter Mumia Abu-Jamal, explores the context of Abu-Jamal’s life through an all-star cast of interviews that includes Ruby Dee, Dick Gregory, Giancarlo Esposito, Cornel West, Alice Walker, Pam Africa, and many others. Blackfish is a moving expose of animal cruelty at Sea World amusement parks. Act of Killing is a devastating documentary about Indonesian torturers and killers who remain free from consequences for their actions. Side Effects is a smart and original conspiracy-thriller from director Steven Soderbergh. Gimme the Loot is a disarmingly sweet tale of two youths and a dream involving the best graffiti tag a New York kid could imagine. Park Chan-wook's film Oldboy was faithfully remade by Spike Lee this year, but the Korean director also made his English language debut with the disturbing Stoker, a dark thriller about murder and sex. Park's new film is better than Lee's remake. Fans of Danai Gurira (who plays Michonne in the show The Walking Dead) saw a more vulnerable side to the actor in her starring role in Andrew Dosunmu's Mother of George, a heartbreaking and visually powerful drama about Nigerian immigrants living in Brooklyn. Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity melds great storytelling with the latest in filmmaking technology.

There were too many excellent performances to mention here - many already mentioned above, such as Chiwetel Ejiofor's powerful lead performance. Among the big Hollywood award winners, American Hustle featured some of the best acting and design of the year, as it vividly recreated its late 70s/early 80s era in director David O. Russel's based-on-truth story of small time hustlers becoming entangled in a involving with the FBI, the mafia and several high-ranking politicians. Christian Bale (who costarred with Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams, and Bradley Cooper) once again proved he is one of the most versatile actors alive, bringing the scent of desperation and sleaze to his character. Bale also starred in Scott Cooper's Out of The Furnace, an under-recognized film about white working class despair in the Rust Belt. The film also features Casey Affleck, whose burning hopelessness gives the film its power. Affleck also brought this despair and sadness to another of the year's best performances, as a Clyde Barrow-type trying to reunite with a woman he loves in David Lowery's Ain't Them Bodies Saints. Director Denis Villeneuve, whose 2010 film Incendies was among my favorite films of the decade, brought to life a drama about violence and obsession n the film Prisoners. Hugh Jackman, Viola Davis, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano and Jake Gyllenhaal gave some of their best work in this brutal film.

Not enough international films see distribution in the US, but among those that did were several classics. Cristian Mungiu's Beyond The Hills is an immersive drama of two young women caught between desire and the lives forced on them by class, social pressure, and religion. Cannes award winner Blue Is the Warmest Color also explores a relationship between two young women, but in a graphic, intimate and intense form that divided critics and audiences. Angels’ Share is a working class Scottish comedy from socialist filmmaker Ken Loach. The Grandmaster, combines the stunningly beautiful imagery Honk Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai is known for with an epic action film. After years of exploring love and desire in his films, The Grandmaster in some ways is a more mature return to 1994's Ashes of Time, one of the director's first films.

Finally, this year saw two truly bizarre but unforgettable films see relatively wide release. Spring Breakers is a delirious and deranged exploitation film starring James Franco and former Disney starlets Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens and directed by experimental filmmaker Harmony Korine. Depending on your taste, it's either the year's strangest film or the worst. I choose strangest. Also deeply weird is cult filmmaker Don Coscarelli's John Dies At The End, a surreal supernatural horror comedy thriller that is never predictable and often hilarious.

The only way for these films to continue to get made and seen is for viewers to support them. For every Thor or Iron Man you see, make the time for films that challenge the status quo.

Occupying Corporations: How to Cut Corporate Power, By Bill Quigley

“Corporations are people, my friend.” - Mitt Romney at Iowa State Fair

Corporations are obviously not people. But Romney is accurate in the sense that corporations have hijacked most of the rights of people while evading the responsibilities. An important part of the social justice agenda is democratizing corporations. This means we must radically change the laws so people can be in charge of corporations. We must strip them of corporate personhood and cut them down to size so democracy can work. People are taking action so democracy can regulate the size, scope and actions of corporations.

One of the most basic roles of society is to protect the people from harm. The massive size of many international corporations makes democratic control over them nearly impossible.

Corporate crime is widespread. The New York Times, ProPublica and others have revealed Wall Street giants like JPMorgan, Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs have been charged with fraud many times only to get off by paying hundreds of millions. Professors at University of Virginia have documented hundreds of corporations which have been found guilty or pled guilty in federal courts.

Corporate abuse is even more widespread. For example, Corporate Accountability International named six to its Corporate Hall of Shame, including: Koch Industries for spending over $50 million to fund climate change denial; Monsanto for mass producing cancer causing chemicals; Chevron for dumping more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian Amazon; Exxon Mobil for being the worst polluter; Blackwater (now Xe) for killing unarmed Iraqi civilians and hiring paramilitaries; and Halliburton, the nation’s leading war profiteer.

Making corporations responsible to democracy of the people is challenging considering Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest corporation, does more business itself annually than all but two dozen of the two hundred plus countries in the world. Without dramatic changes, how can we expect people in small or even big countries to force corporations like Wal-Mart, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, BP, Toyota or Chevron to live by the same rules all the people have to?

Justice demands we make sure corporations do not harm people. Democracy must require that they operate for the common good.

In order to cut corporations down to size, the people must strip corporations of the special artificial legal protections they have created for themselves.

The story of how corporations took the full rights of legal persons in one of the great perverse tragedies in legal history. Corporations have worked the courts mercilessly since 1819 to take a wide variety of constitutional rights that were designed to cover only people. For example, the Fourteenth Amendment was passed in 1868 to make sure all citizens, particularly freed slaves and people of color, had full rights. There was no mention of protecting corporations. But corporations jumped on this opportunity resulting in a questionable Supreme Court decision that granted them legal personhood. At roughly the same time, the Supreme Court approved “separate but equal” racial segregation. Thus in thirty years, African Americans lost their legal personhood, while corporations acquired theirs.

Corporations now claim: 1st amendment free speech rights to advertise and influence elections; 4th amendment search and seizure rights to resist subpoenas and challenges to their criminal actions; 5th amendment rights to due process; 14th amendment rights to due process where corporations took the rights of former slaves and used them for corporate protection; plus rights under the Commerce and Contracts clauses of the constitution.

The most recent corporate judicial takeover of constitutional rights is the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United versus the Federal Election Commission. The court ruled that corporations are protected by the First Amendment so they can use their money to influence elections.

Because of the bad Supreme Court decisions, it takes a constitutional amendment by the people to change the laws back. An amendment requires two-thirds of both houses of Congress to agree then three-quarters of the states must vote to ratify. This will take real work. But despite the growing size and unrestricted power of corporations, people are fighting back.

Dozens of groups are working to reverse Citizens United and restore limits on corporate election advocacy. In January 2011, groups delivered petitions signed by over 750,000 people calling on Congress to amend the Constitution and reverse the decision. More than 350 local events were held in late January 2012 to challenge the Citizens United decision.

Groups challenging this injustice include Code Pink, Common Cause, Free Speech for People, Moveon.org, Move to Amend, National Lawyers Guild, POCLAD, Public Citizen, People for American Way, The Center for Media and Democracy, and Women’s League for Peace and Freedom.

Many groups are asking for a broad constitutional amendment that makes it clear that corporations are not people and should not be given any constitutional rights. Representatives Ted Deutsch of Florida, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont have sponsored bills in Congress to start the process for a constitutional amendment to make it clear that corporations are not people, are not entitled to the rights of people, and cannot contribute to political campaigns.

There are also many energetic actions at the state level. People for the American Way list organizational efforts in nearly all 50 states to end corporate influence in elections or amend the constitution.

Massive corporations now rule the earth. But they are recent arrivals which can and should be dispatched. It is time for people to again take control. The legal fiction of corporate personhood and the constitutional rights taken by corporations must cease. Join the efforts to cut them down to size and restore the right of the people to govern.

Bill is a human rights lawyer who teaches at Loyola University New Orleans and works with the Center for Constitutional Rights. A version of this article with full sources is available. You can reach Bill at quigley77@gmail.com.

Social Justice Quiz 2012: Thirteen Questions, By Bill Quigley and Sam Schmitt

Note: See below for quiz answers.
Question One. The combined pay of the 299 highest paid CEOs in the US is enough to support how many median salary jobs?

45,000? 83,000? 102,325?

Question Two. The median net worth of black households in the US is $2,200. What is the median net worth of white households in the US?

$4,400? $44,000? $97,000?

Question Three. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development issues a national survey every year listing fair market rents for every county in the US. HUD also suggests renters should pay no more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs. In how many of the USA’s 3068 counties can someone who works full-time and earns the federal minimum wage pay 30% of their income and find a one-bedroom apartment at the fair market rental amount?

19? 368? 1974?

Question Four. How much must the typical U.S. worker earn per hour to rent a two-bedroom apartment if that worker dedicates thirty percent of his income, as HUD suggests, to rent and utilities?

$9.39? $14.63? $18.46?

Question Five. The wealthiest 1 percent of the US has a net worth which is how many times greater than the median or typical household’s net worth?

50? 150? 225?

Question Six. Which of these countries puts the highest percentage of their people in jails and prisons?

China? Iran? Iraq? Germany? Russia? USA?

Question Seven. In 2012, the US will pay out about $620 million for old age Social Security benefits to 45 million families. How much is budgeted for military spending by the US in 2012?

$310 billion? $620 billion? $836 billion?

Question Eight. The US is number one in the world in military spending. How much more does the US spend compared to the top 15 countries in the world in military spending?

More than any 2 other countries combined? More than any 5 other countries combined? More than all the rest of the 15 top military spending countries combined?

Question Nine. How many people in the world live on less than $1.25 a day?

150 million? 500 million? Over 1 billion?

Question Ten. How many people in the world live without electricity?

500 million? One billion? One and half billion?

Question Eleven. The US government donates over $30 billion a year in official development assistance (foreign aid) to poor countries. Where does that rank the US government in percentage of giving among the richest 23 countries?

First? Tenth? Nineteenth?

Question Twelve. The US government donates over $30 billion a year to poor countries. How much do US consumers spend on pets and pet supplies each year?

$10 billion? $30 billion? $67 billion?

Question Thirteen. The poverty rate among children in the US is over 20 percent. How does US compare with the rest of the 30 nations surveyed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development?

First? Tenth? Twenty-sixth?


Answers to Social Justice Quiz 2012:

One: The combined pay of the top 299 CEOs is enough to support 102,325 average jobs. Source: Executive Paywatch.

Two: The median net worth of white households in the US is $97,900. Source: Economic Policy Institute.

Three: Except for eleven counties in Illinois and another eight in Puerto Rico, there is no county in the US where a one bedroom fair market rate apartment is available to a person working full-time at the minimum wage. Source: The National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Four: The typical worker must earn $18.46 an hour to rent a two bedroom apartment. Source: National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Five: In the last numbers reported, the top 1 percent had net worth 225 times greater than the median or typical household’s net worth, the highest ever recorded. Source: Economic Policy Institute.

Six: The rate of incarceration per 100,000 people is: USA 730, Russian 534, Iran 334, China 122, Iraq 101, and Germany 86. Source: International Centre for Prison Studies, University of Essex.

Seven: $836 billion. Over $713 billion on military programs and another $123 for veterans affairs. Source: US Office of Management and Budget, Fiscal Year 2012.

Eight: The US spends $100 billion more on our military than the next highest 15 countries combined. More than China, UK, France, Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, India, Italy, Brazil, South Korea, Australia, Canada and Turkey combined. Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2011 Yearbook.

Nine: 1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day. Source: United National Development Program, Human Development Report 2010.

Ten: One and half billion people, more than one of every five people in the world, live without electricity. Source: United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 2011.

Eleven: US government ranks 19th out of 23 countries in assistance to poor nations, giving about two-tenths of one percent of US gross national income to poor countries. Source: Global Issues: Foreign Aid for Development Assistance.

Twelve: US consumers spend $67 billion each year on pets, pet products and services. Source: US Census Bureau 2012 Statistical Abstract.

Thirteen: The US poverty rate among children ranks the US 26th among 30 nations in the rate of poverty among children. Source: Poverty among children. OECD.

Bill teaches law at Loyola University New Orleans and works with the Center for Constitutional Rights. Sam is a law student at University of Montana School of Law. You can reach Bill at quigley77@gmail.com.

Tom Joyner Doesn't Understand New Orleans Social Justice

2-Cent Entertainment is a remarkable New Orleans-based arts and activist collective who have built a national reputation for creating videos that are both informative and entertaining. They have received major national awards and rave reviews in the media. Their videos regularly get thousands of views, and the most popular have been seen millions of times.

Through all their success, their dedication to social justice has never wavered. They have a large local fan base who have been inspired by their commitment to building and supporting community. They have donated thousands of books to local students, and taught free classes to youth. Their videos address important issues and they lift up local voices.

So it was shocking and disappointing when Tom Joyner, host of one the most popular nationally syndicated urban radio programs in the US, used the platform of his show to launch an ill-informed attack on the group.

It started positive. "I'm always looking for creative ways to teach our children. Here's a guy in New Orleans who wants to take hip-hop music to teach kids to read," began Joyner. But the popular radio host soon turned negative. "He made a video parody of Lil' Wayne's Every Girl," said Joyner, dismissively (while also confusing the collective efforts of the group with one member, Brandan "B-Mike" Odums). After playing a clip of Every Girl, seemingly unaware that 2-Cent's video involved changing the words to the song, Tom Joyner mocked the efforts of 2-Cent, implying that his work was shallow for making use of Lil' Wayne. "Go back to DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince. Parents Just Don't Understand. Start with that one," he said, ending with a condescending, "Go back in the lab, keep working on it."

The unwarranted attack brought so many angry calls and emails from 2-Cent's fans from across the US, the Tom Joyner Morning Show was forced to invite Odums on to respond. In a conversation on the show with Joyner and co-hosts Roland Martin and Sybil Wilkes, Brandan eloquently defended his positions.

"You guys have stirred a little bit of controversy," began Martin, who asked most of the questions on the segment. "What is the motive of taking these popular songs and trying to focus on literacy?" Throughout the interview, Odums brought wisdom to the hosts, explaining the ways in which 2-Cent uses popular art forms to reach young people with positive messages. "Our elders instilled in us a responsibility to make things better," said Odums. "By taking that inheritance that they gave to us, we sort of had to do things differently. We can't use the same tactics as the past, we need to find new ways to reach kids."

As a final lesson to Tom Joyner not to mess with New Orleans, 2-Cent have premiered their new video, Tom Just Don't Understand. They are also pushing Joyner's popular show to financially support community projects in New Orleans, like 2-Cent's upcoming Literacy and Arts Festival, called LISTEN! scheduled for May 21 at Community Book Center, 2523 Bayou Road. If you want to add your voice to those writing to Joyner to ask him to make amends, you can write to him at tomjoyner@blackamericaweb.com.

A CALL TO ACTION: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE SUPERVISION OF NOPD REQUIRED NOW

When she was called for jury duty, Veda Manual’s reaction was no different from most citizens. “I knew it would be long,” she said. “No one wants to be there.” But because it was her civic duty, last week she sat at Criminal District Court and endured the process. Unfortunately, what she experienced will come as no surprise to most New Orleanians.

“Three times we could not seat a jury,” She says. The reason for this difficulty could not have been envisioned by the framers of our constitution. A majority of our residents – and an overwhelming majority of African-Americans – know this truth and live its fear. It was a case of drug possession with intent to distribute, where there was no physical evidence, just the testimony of the police officer(s). “In light of all of what we know about the police, I said I couldn’t convict anyone on their testimony alone. I was Juror No. 1. Sixteen of the other people in my group agreed. How can we trust the police?”

Ordinary citizens could not in good conscience affirm they could believe the truth of any testimony sworn under oath by officers of the New Orleans Police Department.

Harsh? Well, let’s consider some of the news headlines/reports and proven facts, just since Katrina:

 NOPD officers' account of beating disputed
Associated Press
Oct. 10, 2005, 10:12PM
A retired elementary school teacher was arrested and beaten by police officers who claim he was publicly intoxicated. The incident was caught on tape by Associated Press Television News, and one producer was allegedly grabbed and shoved by the arresting officers.

 NOPD baits, then arrests, the homeless
POSTED: 01:00 AM Friday, July 11, 2008
BY: Richard A. Webster, Staff Writer, New Orleans City Business
Police officers baited passersby by placing several small items worth less than 10 dollars in plain view on the dash of unlocked cars in an effort to entrap and arrest homeless people living under the Claiborne overpass.

 Cop booked in rape of 13-year-old was investigated twice for raping young girls, but remained on the job
By Brendan McCarthy, The Times-Picayune
October 23, 2008, 7:59AM
A veteran NOPD officer, twice accused of rape by young girls in 2001 and 2003, was booked after a third girl accused him of rape. Though he was twice investigated in the past, both investigations ended with prosecutors citing “failure of the victims or the victim’s parents to cooperate.” Neither of the investigations were noted on his civil service record.

 Cops involved in New Year's killing of Adolph Grimes III face other probes
By Brendan McCarthy, The Times-Picayune
February 05, 2009, 10:27PM
On the same evening nine officers shot and killed 22 year-old Adolph Grimes III another incident occurred where the same nine-man unit subdued Cleavon Crutchfield with a taser gun and drew guns on his family. Several of the officers involved in the separate incidents are under investigation for other incidents.

 Man 'impersonating' cop was an actual NOPD officer
By Ramon Antonio Vargas, The Times-Picayune
March 20, 2009, 11:35AM
Darrius Clipps, who allegedly forced his way into several area homes and victimized several Hispanic men and women, was not impersonating a police officer as early reports claimed but was in fact a member of the police force.

 NOPD cops lied about bar brawl, inquiry says
By Brendan McCarthy, The Times-Picayune
July 10, 2009, 9:23AM
An NOPD internal report concludes that police officers involved in a 2008 bar fight between off-duty officers and RTA workers lied to investigators, and at least one officer coerced false testimony from a witness.

 NOPD downgrading of rape reports raises questions
By Laura Maggi, The Times-Picayune
July 11, 2009, 9:02PM
Though the police boast a decline in the number of rapes, in examining complaints, there is a trend where in more than half of the complaints of rape or other sexual assault the matter is classified as a noncriminal complaint. The police attribute the disparity in complaints that are pursued and complaints that are “noncriminal” to the difficulty in coaxing rape victims to come forward. Some experts claim that many of the complaints that are reclassified as non criminal should be categorized as sex crimes.

 State audit blasts NOPD evidence room, notes police leaders may have broken state lawBy Brendan McCarthy, The Times-Picayune
July 13, 2009, 10:09PM
The NOPD property and evidence room lost track of more than $200,000, and officials failed to notify the Orleans Parish District Attorney and state auditors in writing of the missing money.

 NOPD cop who stole watch had been cited for two other crimes during time on forceBy Brendan McCarthy, The Times-Picayune
September 11, 2009, 7:00AM
An NOPD officer who was arrested amid allegations that he stole an expensive watch from a citizen while on a service call was twice cited for other crimes during his time on the force. In 2008 he was issued municipal summons in September for domestic battery, and in March for public intoxication, public intimidation, and resisting an officer.

 Police shootings after Katrina: Was a gun inside a bag a threat to 5 officers?
By The Times-Picayune
December 13, 2009, 10:00PM
This story was reported by A.C. Thompson of ProPublica, and Brendan McCarthy and Laura Maggi of The Times-Picayune
A Matthew McDonald was shot and killed by 5 police officers days after Hurricane Katrina after they claimed he reached into a white plastic bag in an attempt to remove a handgun. No crime scene photos were taken, no autopsy was performed, and officers were unable to locate witnesses to the incident. Family members say that when they contacted the police, NOPD informed them that McDonald was killed by a civilian.

 Police shootings after Katrina: How does a man waving down a police car die from a shotgun blast to his back?
By The Times-Picayune
December 14, 2009, 10:00PM
This story was reported by A.C. Thompson of ProPublica, and Brendan McCarthy and Laura Maggi of The Times-Picayune
Though a police investigation concluded that the shooting 45-year old Danny Brumfield Sr. by police officers outside of the Convention Center following Hurricane Katrina was justified by the threat Mr. Brumfield posed to the officers, further investigation suggests that the police investigation was half-hearted at best. Mr. Brumfield was shot in the back, not the shoulder as the police investigation claims. The police collected no evidence at the scene, and only one witness statement was taken, from Mr. Brumfield’s sister, despite the many onlookers who witnessed the incident.

 Police shootings after Katrina: SWAT team sees armed man, shoots him three times, but where's the gun?
By The Times-Picayune
December 15, 2009, 10:00PM
This story was reported by A.C. Thompson of ProPublica, and Brendan McCarthy and Laura Maggi of The Times-Picayune
In an incident where no civilian witness interviews were taken, 28 year-old Keenon McCann was shot several times by police officers who claimed he was brandishing a gun. No gun was recovered.

 Riley, Compass, New Orleans police officials summoned to federal grand jury
By Brendan McCarthy, The Times-Picayune
January 15, 2010, 4:03PM
Current Police Superintendent Riley and his predecessor Compass, with other police officials, were questioned by federal prosecutors concerning two separate inquiries into police conduct following Hurricane Katrina. The prosecutors are probing the Danziger bridge shooting and the mysterious death of a man found burned to death in a car in Algiers.

 Police supervisor encouraged cover-up, knew officer planted gun while still on Danziger Bridge
By Laura Maggi, The Times-Picayune
February 24, 2010, 2:16PM
Lt. Michael Lohman has been charged with one count of conspiring to obstruct justice after he and several other officers colluded to falsify reports and plant evidence at the scene of a police shooting.

 Mardi Gras Indians concerned about police antagonismBy Katy Reckdahl, The Times-Picayune
March 08, 2010, 4:18AM
With Super Sunday around the corner, Mardi Gras Indians from several tribes have expressed concern over police antagonism towards spectators and participants. Indians have reported several incidents in which police harassed maskers and participants who claim they were parading peacefully.

 Algiers police shooting report altered, sources say
By Times-Picayune Staff
March 14, 2010, 10:55AM
Inconsistencies lie between the official police report and the police report originally written by Officer David Warren whose name appears on the official document’s cover page. There are other inconsistencies in the report, which concerned the death of Henry Glover who died while in police custody and whose burned corpse was discovered in a car on the Algiers levee after Hurricane Katrina.

 Suit claims police harass journalists and bystandersPosted: Monday, 15 March 2010 1:20PM
Associated Press Reporting
A suit brought against NOPD alleges that police officers have engaged in a pattern of arresting and/or harassing journalists and bystanders who photograph them in public. The plaintiffs cite 11 incidents since 2005 where people were harassed or arrested for videotaping, photographing, or observing police officers.

 Danziger Bridge case suggests culture of corruption at NOPD
By Brendan McCarthy, The Times-Picayune
March 21, 2010, 9:45AM
Officers involved in a shooting on the Danziger Bridge following Hurricane Katrina are accused of conspiracy to cover up police misconduct. The coverup included officers of varying rank, who went so far as to meet in a gutted police station to ensure that their fictitious version of the story was uniform among the conspirators.

A CULTURE OF CORRUPTION AT NOPD

There is a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers of the New Orleans Police Department that deprives persons of rights, privileges, and immunities secured and protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States. We know this. It’s nothing new; the hurricane didn’t stop anything.

In Black Rage in New Orleans, Leonard N. Moore traces the disturbing history of police corruption in New Orleans since World War II, up to Hurricane Katrina. In New Orleans, crime, drug abuse, and murder have become an unfortunate fact of life. Unfortunately, an underpaid, inadequately staffed, and poorly trained police force frequently resorted to brutality against African Americans. “Endemic corruption among police officers increased as the city’s crime rate soared, generating anger and frustration among New Orleans’s black community,” According to Moore, The NOPD’s abuses read like a bad Hollywood script — police homicides, sexual violence against women, racial profiling, and complicity in drug deals, prostitution rings, burglaries, protection schemes, and gun smuggling. “Documenting the police harassment of civil rights workers in the 1950s and 1960s, Moore examines the aggressive policing techniques of the 1970s, and the attempts of Ernest “Dutch” Morial—the first black mayor of New Orleans—to reform the force in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Even when the department hired more African American officers as part of that reform effort, Moore reveals, the corruption and brutality continued unabated in the late 1980s and early 1990s.”

Dramatic changes in the NOPD cannot come by simply hiring a new police chief. We’ve done this before, yet the City of New Orleans has been beleaguered by the unrealized promise of sustainable reform. We recognize a new mayoral administration is coming, and no doubt Mitch Landrieu has his own ideas concerning needed innovations for NOPD. But one person can't fix this problem, and any assumption that the hiring of a new police chief is the solution simply placates the least vulnerable in our community, while adding salt to the wounds of those of us most likely to be victimized by brutal and/or corrupt police. We need a solution that addresses the systemic nature of the problem.

REMEDY THROUGH FEDERAL INTERVENTION

With an increasing awareness of police misconduct, Congress included a provision in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 that authorizes the Department of Justice to file civil lawsuits against law enforcement agencies that engage in a pattern of violating people's rights and obtain a court order to monitor and reform them.

To establish a claim, Section 14141 requires the Justice Department to demonstrate that a municipality, police department, or other Section 14141 defendant has engaged in "a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers . . . that deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States." The Supreme Court has suggested that the term "pattern or practice" has a "usual meaning"—a meaning denoting something more "than the mere occurrence of isolated or 'accidental' or sporadic [unlawful] acts." A "pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers" depriving persons of constitutional or statutory rights, denotes a course of conduct that is "standard operating procedure" within a police department—in the Court's words, a course of conduct that is "the regular rather than the unusual practice."

How is the process initiated? Usually with a “Dear City Attorney” letter. City officials and local law enforcement departments are never surprised when the federal government finally seeks redress but, generally, there is a formal letter that precedes the filing of litigation. Sometime thereafter, civil litigation, much like the sample Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief linked here is initiated.

A Call to Action – Citizens Acting Now to Create the Consent Decree

If a federal action is filed and resolved, it will be through an agreed Consent Decree, which will allow our federal courts to retain jurisdiction and enforcement powers over the matter. While we believe the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Civil Rights can, indeed, come to the rescue of New Orleans residents who have suffered for far too long the ravishes of a rogue police force, it is our responsibility to direct what is to become “Sustainable Reform.”

We can do this, but the work will require organizing and cooperation from the entire community in developing and agreeing upon the contents of a Consent Decree between the Department of Justice and the City of New Orleans. This document will be the compact that binds reform. We have drafted a model document – New Orleans Community Members’ Terms and Conditions for Consent Decree with the U.S. Department of Justice and the City of New Orleans/New Orleans Police Department – which can begin this conversation, and includes provisions detailing Management and Supervision of Police, Community Relations, Training, an Independent Police Monitor who reports directly to the U.S. District Court, and Complaint Protocol and Procedures.

The bottom line is if we as a community want the culture of our police department changed, and if we want sustainable reform, we must sit at the table and negotiate those terms and conditions that will make NOPD accountable to us!

FEDERAL INTERVENTION CAN BRING LASTING IMPROVEMENT IN LOCAL POLICING

Both the Clinton and Bush administrations used the civil lawsuit provisions of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, successfully, several times: in Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Detroit, the State of New Jersey, Steubenville, Ohio, and Prince Georges County, Maryland, among other jurisdictions.

In Pittsburgh—the first city to enter into a consent decree with the Justice Department— most provisions of the decree were lifted after the Bureau of Police was judged to be in substantial compliance. The key factors that enabled the city quickly to comply with the terms of the decree: the leadership of a talented police chief, guidance from the federal monitor, and an engaged community, which had an active, role in the process and access to police data that was given to the police monitor under the decree.


Veda Manual reported that in the end, a jury was seated in the possession with intent case. We understand not all – not even most - New Orleans Police Department officers are brutal or corrupt. But we can’t discern the good from the bad, and we are tired of suffering the consequences of trying. What we know for certain is that in the new rush to incorrectly proclaim crime as the #1 problem for the City of New Orleans, city officials have turned a blind-eye to civil liberties. Police cannot become the law unto themselves, and it is time for the U.S. government, through the Justice Department’s Office of Civil Rights, to step-in and step-up, be the good-guys, intervene, and help provide relief for New Orleans residents tired of and broken by our elected and appointed city officials who refuse to take responsibility for our chronically dysfunctional police department.

We deserve this. Justice has been delayed and denied for far too long.


LJI Organizer Saia M. Smith contributed to this article.

New Orleans' Grassroots Prepares for the 2010 US Social Forum

From June 22 - 26, 2010, tens of thousands of social justice activists from across the US will converge on Detroit, Michigan for the US Social Forum, a unique convening that is part of an international process aimed at increasing justice in our world. Grassroots organizers from New Orleans have been working to make sure that New Orleans is a central part of this historic event.

According to organizers, "People world-wide know that another world is needed. The Social Forum movement believes it is possible. At the US Social Forum people from all over the country gather to think about what kind of world is needed and how we can get there.

"The US Social Forum is a very special kind of gathering: one that has never taken place in this country up to now. It isn't a conference with an agenda and a program of events; it's a gathering whose participants produce our own agenda and our own programs. The mere process of planning, thinking, talking and preliminary organizing will move you, the people you're working with and the rest of us forward. The moment you think of an idea, you are already participating in the Social Forum."

The Social Forum process began in Brazil nine years ago with the first World Social Forum. It happened at the same time that the World Economic Forum (WEF) gathered in Davos, Switzerland. While the WEF consisted of a small group of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world gathering to make decisions that affected those without money or power, the World Social Forum was seen as an opportunity for the grassroots - the poorest and least powerful - to make their voice heard in these decisions.

More than 20,000 people from across the country came to the first US Social Forum in Atlanta, Georgia in 2007. New Orleans organizers raised over $70,000 through grants and grassroots fundraising to make sure that no one was prevented by financial reasons from attending. Several hundred people from New Orleans arrived in a convoy of several buses.

The Social Forum highlighted Gulf Coast concerns. Panels, workshops and a large plenary featured a wide range of voices from New Orleans. Activists from across the US came together to say that a great injustice had been done to the people of the Gulf Coast, and pledged to support our struggle for a just rebuilding.

New Orleans organizers have been planning for the 2010 US Social Forum for several months. There is already a youth contingent organizing to make sure young voices are represented, and fundraising has already begun. Local organizations like The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond; Advocates for Environmental Human Rights; Black Men United for Change and Equality; VOTE-NOLA; and Safe Streets Strong Communities are already working on making sure the people of New Orleans are represented. To get involved, contact one of these organizations.

There is much that people from around the US can learn from New Orleans and our post-Katrina experience. On any issue - criminal justice, education, health care, privatization, housing, and the workplace - we have faced both crisis and massive changes. This process represents a chance to move our local struggles forward, and to make sure the lessons we have learned educate and inspire others.