Dortell Williams' Radio Broadcasts
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Dortell Williams is an inmate at the Los Angeles County California State Prison in Lancaster, California. Dortell has been published in a number of community newspapers, including the San Francisco Bay View, The Final Call and The Los Angeles Sentinel. He mentors at-risk kids through San Francisco's The Beat Within and is an inside correspondent for Families to Amend Three Strikes. You can email Dortell at: dortellwilliams@yahoo.com. For more information about the Honor Yard Program, visit: www.prisonhonorprogram.org
Unintended Consequences
Commentary by Dortell Williams, recorded 1/03/08
1) 3:17 MP3 Radio Essay Radio Stations: Not Broadcast Quality
(Please be advised...given the conditions at the prison this recording may not be broadcast quality. You may want to broadcast it with an explanation, or broadcast a limited portions of it. We are in the process of re-recording this segment and will post it as soon as we can.)
Unintended Consequences
Copyright 2008/ Dortell Williams
It’s been two years since the execution of Stanley Tookie Willaims. December 13, 2005 is considered Black Redemption Day. For he was considered the most redeemed prisoner in America, at least in some circles.
Of course he maintained his innocence for the four murders he was convicted of. Supporters say it was a racially-tainted, circumstantial trial. Others presented post-conviction evidence extending credibility to his innocence. For instance, the shotgun used was proven not to have been found under his bed, as police initially claimed, but was retrieved from a common area.
In 1969, Raymond Washington and Williams formed a local fraternity called the Avenue Cribs. The intent was neighborhood self-protection from others in their rough ‘hood.
The group of youths eventually morphed into the Crips, one of the most notorious gangs in America. Their notoriety became the template for a new breed of inner-city gangsterism.
During a six-year stint in solitary confinement, Williams began to reassess his life; he read books: philosophy, religion, history, to name a few. “I had to seriously question if I was a human or a beast,” he told Mother Jones Magazine in 2001.
The Crips was the manifestation of unintended consequences. It is here Willaims is not alone.
Senator Joe Biden recently expressed regret for his support of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986: the law that created the gaping racial disparity in sentences for crack cocaine and powder. Five grams of crack, or about 5 sugar packets worth, was enough to trigger a five year sentence. Yet it took 500 grams of powder to get the same penalty.
Whites, who statistics show are more inclined toward powder, virtually skated in the courtroom, while hundreds of thousands of blacks were encased in cells for decades.
The Policy devastated the black community; destroying family relationships, contributing to a decline in procreation and obliterating the future of countless balck men and women across the country. Latino communities were likewise impacted.
Many blacks served more time for minute amounts of crack than the seventeen years the Panamanian General and distributor Manuel Noriega did, including charges of laundering. After 20 years of struggle, the U. S. Sentencing Commission finally managed to equalize the sentences last November.
Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, was another. I newspaper mistakenly printed Nobel’s obituary, instead of his deceased brother’s. The headline attributed Nobel’s great wealth to his invention; which had been used to kill and maim countless others. The misprint caused some reflection on Nobel’s part. As a result, we honor others with Nobel’s self-named prize.
Ironically, Williams was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize six times; in recognition for his gang truces, anti-gang books and peace-promoting website.
I suppose there are countless ways to ruin a mass of lives, and though these men were borne of very different backgrounds, in the end they had one great commonality: Each were all repentant subjects of unintended consequences.
Sources:
KABC-7 Eyewitness News, December 7, 2005 (shotgun was not found under Williams’ bed)
Los Angeles Sentinel, “Gang Leader Supports Clemency,” December 5, 2005: A19
Gordon Tokumatsu, KNBC-4 News, December 2, 2005 (A biased presentation of the evidence)
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, November 30, 2005
Los Anglels Sentinel, November 24, 2005: Al (Quote of Williams)
Stanley Williams, “Redemption of a Black Man,” The Final Call, March 6, 2001
Christian Science Monitor, “Next Step, Close the Cocaine Gap,” November 14, 2007: pg. 8
Sara Miller Llana, “Noriega’s Future Captivates Panama,” Christian Science Monitor, September 12, 2007: p.9
Danial Lazare, “Stars and Bars,” The Nation, August/September 2007
Dortell Williams is an inmate at the Los Angeles County California State Prison in Lancaster, California. Dortell has been published in a number of community newspapers, including the San Francisco Bay View, The Final Call and The Los Angeles Sentinel. He mentors at-risk kids through San Francisco's The Beat Within and is an inside correspondent for Families to Amend Three Strikes. You can email Dortell at: dortellwilliams@yahoo.com. For more information about the Honor Yard Program, visit: www.prisonhonorprogram.org
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