LeBron’s Big Lie

LeBron James
Originally uploaded by Mickey B. Photography

LeBron’s Big Lie
Black Clevelanders fail to heed The King’s Proclamation


By Carl C. Chancellor


In my city, where a 10-story tall LeBron, his arms outstretched proclaims: We All Are Witnesses–how is it that no one saw what was going on inside a duplex house on Imperial Avenue?

For years convicted rapist Anthony Sowell went about unnoticed as he allegedly beat, raped and then strangled women in his Imperial Avenue home on Cleveland’s near eastside. To date authorities have removed the remains of 11 women from the home.

All that murder and mayhem in the middle of a residential neighborhood and no one witnessed a thing?

Apparently, none of Sowell’s neighbors noticed the dozen or more black women, who walked into that three-story duplex but failed to come out.

Did it register with the families of these women that mom, sis, auntie, baby girl, hadn’t been around for quite sometime?

Perhaps the families had just grown accustomed to these women’s absences. Maybe, they had become used to them showing-up for awhile and then disappearing again, and believed there was no cause for concern.

Are the police to be blamed for not seeing the terror in Gladys Wade’s eyes, when nearly a year ago she ran to them bleeding and babbling about escaping from a man, who was trying to kill her?

Police, after all, hear hundreds if not thousands of similar stories from women just like Gladys–crackheads and strawberries–homeless black women, who wander the tough, unforgiving streets of inner city neighborhoods just like the streets around Imperial Avenue.

Still, the two officers, who were waved down by Gladys, listened to her story, albeit half-heartedly. Sowell would be taken in custody but he would released without charge, after telling police that it was Gladys who had tried to rob and assault him. Just another night in the hood.

Five more women would meet their end in the Imperial Avenue house after Gladys alerted police to her attack.

There has been a great deal of finger pointing since the bodies were first discovered earlier this month in Sowell’s home, with everyone trying to downplay their own culpability by noting the shortcomings of others. Even the women, the 11 known alleged victims of Sowell, have been blamed for being complicit in their own murders.

Some have attempted to ease guilty consciences by claiming these street-wandering women were focused only on getting high, and by giving no thought to their own safety, placed themselves in harm’s way .


But to buy that argument is to be blind to the dangers homeless women face everyday.

Homeless women are in constant danger of sexual assault. According to the National Coalition of the Homeless, eight percent of reported crime against the homeless in 2008 were rapes and sexual assaults, with women being the victims in all of those cases. Keep in mind that rapes and sexually attacks against homeless women tend to go unreported.

Another study by the National Institute of Mental Health reported that 27 percent of homeless women receive medical treatment because of physical violence.

Sure some of the women were lured into that house on Imperial Avenue by the promise of drugs and malt liquor. But I would wager that many of Sowell’s alleged victims were looking to get off the mean streets for just a little while. Looking for a place they thought offered a bit more security and comfort than an abandoned car, or a bus shelter, or a boarded-up house.

Unfortunately, these women didn’t see the evil in the man they foolishly followed into that duplex on Imperial Avenue.

Eleven women, their bodies found decomposing in Sowell’s house and yard, and nobody witnessed a thing.

Predictably, directly across the street from the duplex on Imperial is one of those ubiquitous makeshift memorials, strewed with stuffed animals, bouquets of flowers, colorful ribbons and hastily written notes and cards bemoaning the tragic deaths. We in the black community are quick to erect our little inner city monuments to call attention to lives lost to the violence of our neighborhoods. But it is a recognition that always comes too late.

It’s easier, and honestly, probably safer, to turn a blind eye to the ugliness in our neighborhoods. That is why when the furor of these serial killings dies down we will return to not seeing these homeless women as they stumble along inner city streets, stand on corners, and hunch in doorways.

Oh, they might cross our field of vision as we make our way to work, to school, or to church, but we won’t see them-- won’t see these throwaway women because we don’t want to see them.

It's clear from the No Snitch campaign, to the horror on Imperial Avenue, that no one in the black community is willing to be a witness. And that is just what the Anthony Sowells of the world count on.

American Muslim Under A Hateful Eye, Again

american muslim
Originally uploaded by Art Peace

By Carl C. Chancellor

As soon as the name of the alleged Ft. Hood shooter was broadcast, I am sure the communications director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations couldn’t hit the send button quick enough on the group’s press release condemning the horrific attack.

Just like hundreds of other American-Muslim groups and individuals, CAIR, America’s largest Muslim civil liberties organization, knew that the backlash, with its ugly recriminations, the questioning of their loyalty, the hateful rhetoric, the suspicious stares, was coming just as it had come before. They knew the drill and did the only thing they could do–denounce the heinous act, point out that Islam doesn’t condone such acts of violence and stress that “American Muslims stand with our fellow citizens in offering both prayers for the victims and sincere condolences to the families of those killed or injured.”

But is America listening? Does it even want to hear?

Any message of shared pain, of condemnation coming from the American Muslim community is being drowned out by the hyperbolic, demonizing rhetoric spewing from flame-fanning conservative talk show hosts and broadcasters. Maybe that is the point–divide our country and foment fear and hatred.

One American-Muslim leader confessed to listening to the news as it came in Thursday and praying that a fellow Muslim wasn’t involved.

I know the feeling, because I was saying a similar prayer when it was reported that the shooter was a convert to Islam. I didn’t want the gunman to be an African-American brother.
It’s a reflex action of those who know the sting of having to answer for the actions of another simply because you happen to share the same pigmentation or worship the same God.

We now know the alleged shooter was Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a medical doctor and licensed psychiatrist, who was born in Virginia to Palestinian immigrant parents and is a Muslim.

What we don’t know is why he did it.

Of course to some that doesn’t matter. He is a Muslim, a follower of the Islamic faith. Enough said. Case closed.

Because of that attitude, which has manifested in anonymous phone threats and bigoted rants filling the blogosphere, Muslim communities across the country are fearful and on alert.

Media personality Michelle Malkin called Maj. Hasan just another “MSA–Muslim Soldier with an Attitude.” Her counterpart, columnist Debbie Schlussel, told her readers to think of Hasan “whenever you hear about how Muslims serve their country in the U.S. military.”
It will serve us better to think of the estimated 15,000 Muslims serving with honor in the U.S. military, according to figures compiled by the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council in Washington, D.C.

It will serve us better to heed the advice of U.S. Rep. Andre Carson, D-Indiana, one of two Muslims serving in Congress, who said the focus should be on the alleged shooter’s mental state rather than on his religion.

“This is no way a reflection of Islam any more than Timothy McVeigh’s actions are a reflection of Christianity,” said Carson, who was in charge of an anti-terrorism unit in Indiana’s Department of Homeland Security.

And, it will serve us better to remember Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, who was awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star for his service in Iraq and who now rests in Arlington National Cemetery.

Do Some Kids Deserve To Die Behind Bars?

Kids Locked Down For Life
Originally uploaded by Ryan_Brady


By Carl C. Chancellor

At what age is it appropriate to determine a child irredeemable and therefore prudent to lock them up and throw away the key?

That is the question the U.S. Supreme Court will take up on Monday, Nov.9, when it hears two Florida cases involving teenagers given life sentences with no chance of parole despite that fact they didn’t kill anyone.

Joe Sullivan was sent away for life for raping an elderly woman when he was only 13 years old.

A Florida judge told Terrance Graham he had “thrown away his life” before sentencing him to life. Graham had been convicted of armed robbery committed when he was 17 and on parole for another felony.

It will up to the Court to decide if the life without parole sentences handed out to Sullivan, now 33, and Graham, 22, are cruel and unusual and therefore, unconstitutional. Both men are currently in Florida prisons.

The United States is one of only a few countries that allows juveniles to receive life sentences and the only country that currently has teens serving life sentences. According to figures compiled by human rights agencies, there are about 2,500 juveniles doing life behind bars.

Lawyers for Sullivan and Graham note that draconian sentences for juveniles fail to take into account that children’s brains and bodies are not fully formed and that the possibility for reform and rehabilitation exists. They also point out that every state in the nation restricts young adolescents from certain activities seen as requiring mature judgment, including voting, buying alcohol, driving, entering into contracts, and consenting to sexual activity.

However, the attorneys for the state of Florida argue that it and other states need flexibility in sentencing to address the “particularly heinous” nature of certain series crimes. Offenders they say, even children, need to be held accountable for their actions.

In 2005, when the Supreme last took up the issue of how to punish young criminals, it ruled that the death penalty couldn’t be applied to anyone younger that 18. In that case –Roper v. Simmons–the justices decreed that the juvenile death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The court noted that “it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor’s character deficiencies will be reformed.”

It is past time that the United States fall in line with the rest of the world and admit that passing final judgment on a child is morally repugnant and legally indefensible.

But, unless the Supreme Court sees it that way, Sullivan and Graham are likely to die in prison.