The full title of this article is “Shaka Shakur vs. the State of Indiana: Talking Points: Mental Health and So-Called Black Criminality.” You can find several ways to help Shaka Shakur bring his case to light here.
Historically, the united states was founded on slavery and genocide, which gave rise to a white-supremacist ideology in order to justify and rationalize its crimes against humanity. This was as capitalism went through its early stages of development.
As the country continued to develop and its laws went into effect and were structured in a way to maintain the oppression of Afrikan and indigenous people—to legitimize it under the color of law—as time progressed this practice also infected and contaminated the development of all institutions within this society. This includes its academic disciplines, social sciences, and humanities. You cannot separate such.
You cannot talk about implicit bias, institutionalized racism , prejudice, etc., and attempt to separate them from the superstructure of society and its institutions with all of their inherent contradictions.
If the origin of something is corrupt and it is used to establish the very foundation of what you are using to facilitate and maintain the status quo, then anything that stems from that process or is the-product of such, is tainted.
Moving forward to today.
When it comes to so-called Black Criminality and the historical and false narratives that have been generated around them, We never get the benefit of doubt. If We enter a Temporary Insanity Plea or bring up issues of personal trauma, family trauma, or even community trauma, We are already at a disadvantage in having to overcome certain hurdles of preconceived notions, cultural and political biases inherent and built in mechanisms that don’t allow Us to receive a non-biased evaluation or assessment within the overall process.
You cannot separate the historical context and foundation of this society and the very creation of its institutions from the culture and dominant ideology in which it evolved.
The first impulse is to criminalize Us and Our behavior and not see Our humanity. The trauma on whatever level it may exist is minimized, if not outright trivialized and/or dismissed. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy to some extent when looking through a biased lens at what might go on in certain aspects of Our community, etc.
In my case, for example, after the tragic loss/murder of a child, my pain, my trauma were dismissed because for one, he was just another young Black male and, for two, i was just another ex-con who wasn’t entitled to feel such empathy or have my trauma acknowledged or recognized.
The fact that i had been sent to prison as a 16-year-old kid was dismissed. Throughout my trial there was evidence and testimony presented that i had been subjected to physical and mental torture/abuse at the hands of prison guards and as a result of administrative policies; evidence that i had been subjected to multiple tours within supermax prisons and solitary confinement, evidence that i had also been the Plaintiff in several law suits that were either won or settled in my favor in dealing with these abuses and Human Rights Violations; evidence that i had been featured in a Human Rights Watch Report and documentary about the conditions of confinement within Indiana’s first Supermax Prison [1]. They were all dismissed.
The fact that i had expert witnesses testify on my behalf validating and establishing the psychosocial impact of the above, it was dismissed and not looked upon as any form of mitigating circumstances. Why? Because We aren’t looked upon as human and aren’t supposed to feel what “normal” people are supposed to feel. Again We must go the extra mile and jump over higher hurdles to substantiate what should be obvious to the objective mind.
Again, this is part of the record. The expert witnesses for the State or Court appointed doctors who were supposed to be impartial only to become witnesses for the prosecution. In fact, they testified that i was too smart and too intelligent to be suffering from various issues of trauma and insanity. In fact, they stated that i took over the psychological exam and was using words like “trauma,” “closure,” “healing,” and “suicidal ideation,” with the inference being suggested or implied to the jury that this “nigga” can’t be going through what he says and could appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions because he is using such terminology.
What did the prosecutor tell the jury? “You heard the experts tell you how smart he is, that he took over the interview and evaluation.” “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is how he gets out. He is trying to trick you!” He then went on to misquote and erroneously quote the law on insanity.
Then the expert testimony went into the fact that I was attending Purdue University full-time and that i had either created or had the knowledge of how to create a 501(c)3 non-profit—again raising the bars and hurdles that We must climb. What does either have to do with the heat of the moment and the alleged crime or incident itself? It’s almost like a mental health poll tax that We must pay.
So again, this is all because of national oppression and racism, because of perception and stereotypes, because of inherent bias and structural racist oppression that affects and contaminates every aspect of u.s. society, including its so-called academic disciplines, We do not