Lynching in the Age of Color Blindness-A Crime Against
Humanity
	Police killings in Chicago at 1400 per cent of the
	rate of lynching during Jim Crow times.
	Police killings nation-wide at 140 per cent of that
	rate

by Ted Pearson [i]

Published by Portside

Chicago, March 14, 2012

Between 1882 and 1968, a period of 86 years 3,446 African
Americans and 1,297 whites were lynched in the United
States.[ii]  These were people who were killed, usually by
hanging, often by hysterical mobs of people acting outside
the law.  The perpetrators of these crimes were self-
appointed judges, juries, and executioners.  73 per cent of
the victims were African Americans.  The average rate of
lynching was 55 people per year.  The average rate of
lynching throughout that period was .046 per 100,000 people.
[iii]

In Chicago, in the 33 months from January, 2009 to November,
2011 there were 51 people killed by Chicago Police
Department officers, according to official CPD
statistics.[iv]  The police acted as officers of the law,
but they acted as judge, jury and executioner in these
cases.  Police shot 160 men and 1 woman in those months.
African Americans were 74 per cent of the victims; 20 per
cent were other people of color.  The average rate of police
killings was 18.5 per year in this period. The average rate
of police killings in Chicago was 0.64 per 100,000 people.
[v]

In the United States as a whole in the last decade of the
20th Century, from 1990 to 2000, there were 2,054 people
killed by police.[vi]  The average rate of such killings was
205 per year.  The average annual rate of killings by police
in the country as a whole was .066 per 100,000. [vii]

The rate of killings by police in Chicago is ten times the
national average rate (0.64 / .066 = 9.7).  The rate of
police killing in Chicago is almost 14 times higher than the
rate of lynching in the United States was during the worst
period of Jim Crow segregation and white supremacy in the
United States (0.64 / 0.046 = 13.9).  The rate of police
killings in the country as a whole is over 1.4 times the
rate of lynching in the United States during that period
(0.066 / .046 = 1.4).  This should be cause for an
international outcry.  It rivals the excesses of brutal
repressive governments so roundly condemned by the
"international community."

These statistics don't include the uncounted number of
people who die in police custody or in county jails across
the country while awaiting trial, including many who
allegedly "commit suicide" by hanging themselves with their
own clothing, those who meet with mysterious accidents like
falling down elevator shafts.  It doesn't include the
prisoners in state and federal penitentiaries who suffer and
die from a lack of medical treatment.

An international outrage against human rights.

The case of Howard Morgan in Chicago is a symbol of this
crisis.  Morgan was shot 28 times by police after a traffic
stop on the city's West Side.  Since he didn't die, the
State had to charge him with attempted murder of the police
in order to cover up their crime.  As observed by Angela
Davis in a recent statement on the case, Morgan "took 21
shots in his back [from police] as he lay supine on the
street, but miraculously, he did not die.  It is hard to
believe that after enduring this attack, he was charged with
attempted murder of the police officers who tried to kill
him."  Davis urged "all who value democracy and human rights
to join with me and his Chicago supporters in demanding [Mr.
Morgan's] freedom."[viii]

For more information about this crime go to
http://www.naarpr.org, and to sign a petition demanding
freedom for Howard Morgan go to
http://www.FreeHowardMorgan.com. .

In her seminal work, "The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration
in the Age of Colorblindness," Michelle Alexander, Professor
of Law at Ohio State University, calls for a new civil
rights movement bringing together people of all races and
classes to fight against mass incarceration on the basis of
human rights and justice.  The fight against extra-judicial
police killings is at the heart of the effort to build such
a movement.

In Chicago the demand for freedom for Howard Morgan is
germinating such a movement.  In Mr. Morgan, "Justice now
has a voice!"  Expect this movement to sweep the country to
demand an end to police killing and an end to mass
incarceration.  It can win the release of Howard Morgan,
Mumia Abu Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Bradley Manning, and all
political prisoners and prisoners of racism.

===

[i] Ted Pearson is Co-chairperson of the Chicago Alliance
Against Racist and Political Repression and a member of the
National Executive Committee of the Committees of
Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

Notes on sources:

[ii] Lynchings: By State and Race, 1882 - 1968". University
of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. Retrieved
2010-07-26." Statistics provided by the Archives at Tuskegee
Institute.  These figures do not include the scores of
people, mainly Black and Latino, gunned down by police
throughout our history, for which there seem to be no
statistics prior to 1990.

[iii] Average rate of lynching 4743 / 86 = 55.15.  Average
U. S. population 1880  -  1970 = 118,606,527 (U. S. Census
Bureau Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals By
Race, 1790 to 1990, and By Hispanic Origin, 1970 to 1990,
For The United States, Regions, Divisions, and States,
http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0056/twps0056.html.  The average rate of lynching was (55.15 /
118,606,527) * 100,000 = .046 lynchings per 100,000.

[iv] Independent Police Review Authority, City of Chicago,
compiled reports January, 2009  -  October, 2011.

[v] (51 / 33) * 12 = 18.54545454545455. Population of
Chicago 2,884,382.  ( 18.54 / 2,884,382) * 100,000 =
0.6429611107493581

[vi] Table, "Fatal Shootings by Police 1990-2000,"
Washington Post,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/specials/pgshoot/shootstats.htm

[vii] U. S. population = 311,591,917 (U. S. Census Bureau).
(205.4 / 311,591,917) * 100,000 = 0.0659195533624834

[viii] Angela Y. Davis, "Angela Davis urges freedom for
Howard Morgan," statement released to the Chicago Alliance
Against Racist and Political Repression, March 2, 2012
http://www.naarpr.org.

==========

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