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NEWS & LETTERS, July 2004Torture in ChicagoChicago--This country's people try to act outraged about torture and abuse in Iraq. But just about every Black man who has been arrested has been subjected to this type of abuse. The only difference is the taking of pictures in Iraq. If those hadn't come out, there would not have been any proof. We have always said it was white racist Americans in the armed forces who are training in torture techniques. When they come home, they sign up as police officers or prison guards where they can get away with this type of injustice to their fellow Americans. For the past 25 years, we have been trying to educate people about the torture and abuse in this very city. Police Commander Jon Burge led a systematic torture ring that practiced suffocation, electroshock, burning, beating, and even murder, in order to get suspects to make false confessions. He came back from the army as a lieutenant and targeted the poorest streets on the South Side of Chicago. Then-States Attorney Richard M. Daley used the confessions of 100 Black men on his resume to become mayor. Sometimes I wish, "If only we had some of our Black politicians standing beside us." But they won't because they have all been endorsed by Mayor Daley. But it is their Black sisters and brothers who elected them to office. For what? So they can forget all about those who put them there in the first place? There should not be one-sided justice. There should not be racism. Nor should there be any torture or police brutality. And yet all this exists in our great land of opportunity and democracy. My son, and so many others, weren't considered innocent until proven guilty. They were all marked just by being Black, poor and uneducated. Yet you say the system works? For whom? I say, for the white and rich. We hear men like Daley and States Attorney Dick Devine manipulate the press, the police, the legislature, and the rest of our government; they are men who think they are above the law. As the mother of a wrongfully convicted person, I say that no man should stand that tall! Let's bring them down--Mayor Daley, Burge and his detectives, and Devine--and hold them accountable. --Mildred Henry For more information contact Enough Is Enough! Campaign, P.O. Box 377535, Chicago, IL 60637; enoughisenoughcampaign@yahoo.com. |
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