Does Life Without Parole Violate the 8th Amendment?

I think that life without parole for crimes committed when a juvenile is a violation of the 8th amendment and is cruel and unusual punishment. Take the case of Joe Sullivan. He was thirteen when he was convicted of the rape of the elderly woman in her home in West Pensacola, Florida. He’s now 33, been the victim of several sexual assaults, and has multiple sclerosis but he was 13 when he did it. He’s had 20 years to reflect on what he’s done. According to a 1989 survey by the Department of Justice, the median sentence in state prisons for those convicted of rape was 72 months, but the average time served was 29 months. (http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/02/weekinreview/the-nation-jail-sentences-for-sex-crimes-are-rarely-very-harsh.html?pagewanted=1)

If most prisoners who were convicted for rape were given a sentence of six years doesn’t it seem unusual that Joe got a life sentence for something he did when he was thirteen? If he crossed the line and had to be treated like an adult why wasn’t he given an adult sentence? He has been denied a life. Six years and he would have been 18 and could have started/finished high school, done rehabilitation classes, gone to college and moved on past this part of his life. Now he is still in jail and has been sexually assaulted himself. Isn’t that enough punishment? I think that letting him rot in prison for the rest of his life for something he did when teens are all but irresponsible is cruel and unusual punishment and violates the 8th amendment.

International Woman's Day Appreciation

Blog it! It's International Woman's Day. Write about the woman you appreciate today and why.

The woman I appreciate is my mom. She’s one person who I can talk to when I can’t talk to anybody else. She always packs my lunch. She lets me buy books on my kindle. She makes me breakfast. She does all these things for me that I can’t say enough about. She raised me. Helps me with my homework when she can. She takes me places. She is always supporting me. I don’t thank her enough for what she does for me. That’s why I try to appreciate all the stuff she does for me. I do appreciate it. She’s a trooper taking care of me, my sis, my dad, and my cat without ever stopping for herself and still working. My mom is an amazing woman.

Is the U.S. Still a White Supremacist Country?

It is hard to deny that the U.S. was a white supremacist nation when the enslavement of black people was legal. But what about now? Is the U.S. still a white supremacist country? What evidence do you have to support your point of view?

Remember the definition of “white supremacy:”

The belief that white people are superior to (better than) black people and other people of color.

A system in which white people have social and political dominance over black people and other people of color.

I think that the U.S is still pretty much a white supremacist nation. White people, I think, don’t impose themselves on other races but the fact is that there is many more white people than blacks and other races. This table shows it. White people far outnumber every other category of race.

Race and Ethnicity Chart Published by the U.S. Census

The only reason we have social and political dominance is because of sheer numbers. The population ratio just moves up into the government. People I think are also more comfortable with their own race because they can identify on that level with somebody like how students sit in race groups during lunch. There is some intermingling but not much. There are also perceived stereotypes about races of all colors but I think a predominant one is that all men but predominantly black and latino men are dangerous depending on the way they dress or time of day. White people’s opinions have also built up barriers against other races so they trust white folk much more in just about everything like workplaces, giving white people social dominance. I don’t think that white supremacy has gone away at all. It’s still alive and very much kicking in the U.S. You always hear first latino woman to enter office or first black president and doesn’t that tell you how long we’ve had a step up on other races? But nowadays it’s all about minorities. While we may still have white supremacy in some aspects the minorities have the attention. White people are the subject of forced guilt and reverse racism. People playing the race card “It’s because I’m black isn’t it?” and no, most of the time it’s not. We get racism shoved down our throats because sometimes if we don’t care then we are guilty of a crime against humanity and are made to care. Otherwise we are “racist” and no one wants to be called a racist. So while white supremacy might rule, minorities have us whipped and wrapped around their pinkie fingers pretty good and we may never placate them. I use my own experience and observations to back up my claims. They are my own opinions and I get freedom of thought right?

My Job Talk

As a full time high school student I had never worked a day in my life. When internships rolled around I didn’t really know what to expect. Internships ran differently from last year so I couldn’t really ask the seniors how their internships had gone. They had just gone twice a week for an afternoon, but I was just about to be thrown headfirst into a three week full immersion.

Even on the first day I was struck by the easy work pace. Even though my internship site was a non-profit museum I had imagined a sprint. With fast paced America being what it is. Instead, it was not a sprint but a saunter. There was a destination, but not that much of a rush to get there. On the first day my mentor gave us the rundown on the computers we would be using and went to his office. I sat down to work and expected to feel a predatory gaze on my back but it never came. I had expected my mentor to be constantly hovering to make sure that we did nothing wrong, but he didn’t. When lunchtime rolled around all we had to do was tell him we were going to lunch. He didn’t ask where and we didn’t need a permission slip or a note. I could go to the bathroom without having to ask. I could walk around without anybody having to know where I’d be going, where I would be later or why I was there. Nobody was asking me to justify where I was going or what I was doing.

This sense of freedom at my internship was a joyous break from everything else. School regulations evaporated like the morning mist in the sun. I realized that the workplace was nothing like school. I had thought it would be like school - straight laced, a set lunch time, breaks in between structured periods...Everything inside me said that it was going to be just like school. They were going to be teachers and not mentors - assigning homework, maybe making us put up our chairs at the end of the day or when we left...These things seem perfectly normal in a school environment but they don’t really apply to a workplace. I realized that almost the first day. Going through my first day in a sort of haze of bewilderment, it took me awhile to get used to this change. There is a gate in front of the museum that doesn’t open till 9am. I didn’t know that volunteers, that’s what I was, could go freely through the gate. I would wait outside until someone working for the museum walked up and opened the gate for me because I thought that I was not authorized to enter the gate by myself. It was not until the last week that I finally started letting myself in and breaking away from the “I’m going to get in trouble” thoughts. In school you can’t do that. You have to ask permission, otherwise there are consequences. At internships, mentors leave you on your own for the most part and you have to find your own way. The workplace has a very different atmosphere.

The sense of freedom was something that I had never really gotten before. Most of my life, as like other teens, I’ve been in school. It’s Monday through Friday, no breaks except for the occasional staff day. Teachers are always watching you because they’re responsible for you. With my internship I could go somewhere and no one would send me back to the library. This freedom just felt good. There was a spontaneity. It was nice to just leave for lunch and not have to stay on campus. It was nice for people to look at me as a co-worker instead of a student. It was nice to be on my own.

The rules and more rules at school and at home didn’t apply to me at internship. I was seen as a responsible adult and not as an impulsive young person. I understand that the school has to take care of us, but sometimes the rules upon rules and homework and schoolwork just pile up on you until you feel like you can’t move. Internship was a chance to relax. This newfound freedom really allowed me to enjoy my internship and showed me that the world is much bigger than I think it is.

Wounded Knee and the Medals of "Dis"Honor

The once proud Sioux find their free-roaming life destroyed with the buffalo gone and their people confined to reservations dependent on Indian Agents for their existence. In a desperate attempt to return to their days of glory, many sought salvation in a new mysticism preached by a Paiute shaman named Wovoka called the Ghost Dance religion. Sioux emissaries from South Dakota traveled all the way to Nevada to hear him speak. He called himself the Messiah and prophesied that the dead would soon join the living in a world in which the Indians could live in the old way with plentiful game. A tidal wave of new soil would cover the earth, bury the whites, and restore the prairie. “During the fall of 1890, the Ghost Dance spread through the Sioux villages of the Dakota reservations, revitalizing the Indians and bringing fear to the whites. A desperate Indian Agent at Pine Ridge wired his superiors in Washington, ‘Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy....We need protection and we need it now. The leaders should be arrested and confined at some military post until the matter is quieted, and this should be done now.’”¹Sitting Bull, the Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux medicine man was considered responsible for the uprising because of his position of leadership in the tribe. Tribal Police were dispatched to arrest him and he was killed in the crossfire when several tribe members fought to protect him. Two weeks after his death the government sought to relocate and disarm the Sioux people.²

On December 29, 1890, 365 troops of the U.S. 7th Calvary had orders to escort an encampment of Miniconjou and Hunkpapa Sioux to the railroad for transport to Omaha, Nebraska. One day earlier the Sioux had been cornered and agreed to turn themselves in at the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota. When the 7th Calvary was in the process of disarming the Sioux a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote could not hear the order to give up his gun and was reluctant to do so. “According to Commanding General Nelson A. Miles, a ‘scuffle occurred between one warrior who had [a] rifle in his hand and two soldiers. The rifle was discharged and a massacre occurred, not only the warriors but the sick Chief Spotted Elk, and a large number of women and children who tried to escape by running and scattering over the prairie were hunted down and killed.’”³By the time it had ended more than 150 Lakota men, women, and children had been killed. There were more than 20 Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers who participated in the Wounded Knee Massacre. Many Native Americans are insulted and angered by these medals of “dis”honor because it was a massacre of Indian people and not a battle.

The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government. It’s given to a service member who has distinguished themselves "conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States"⁴ but, according to Lakota tribesman William Thunder Hawk, "The Medal of Honor is meant to reward soldiers who act heroically. [But] At Wounded Knee, they didn't show heroism; they showed cruelty." In 2001 the National Congress of American Indians passed two resolutions. These resolutions condemned the Medals of Honor awards and called on the U.S. government to rescind them.

Modern-day Indians say that Wounded Knee is a wound that will not heal as long as the medals honor the massacre. In November 1997, the National Congress of American Indians passed two resolutions : #SFE-97-121C and #SFE-97-123C, calling for the permanent removal of an offensive "Battle Streamer" and that the names of those who participated and received Medals of Honor for that action be stricken from the Medal of Honor Roll and to call the action what it was: a massacre. At the EPA Administrator's Annual Award Ceremony held on April 12, 1999 in Washington, D.C., the Army color guard was invited to participate as part of the all services military color guard. The U.S. Army flag with all its battle streamers was paraded, along with many other service flags. This included a streamer which is inscribed "Pine Ridge 1890-1891". This streamer honors the only significant military action during that period. That happens to be the Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek on December 29, 1890, Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. “American Indians were insulted and offended by the Army's display of this streamer, particularly Indian veterans, due to federal government's lack of cultural awareness and sensitivity.”⁵ As you can see the “Battle Streamer” was not removed.

“Why rescind "the Congressional Medal of Honor for the slaughter of defenseless Indians at Wounded Knee" when condoning genocide works so well?” says a user called Winter Rabbit on the Native American Netroots forum for Native American issues. Many similar comments have been made by signers of the petition who disagree with the medals;

To have such an honor bestowed on these murderers for killing women and children causes Indian people to doubt the sincerity of every thing the government does. The alienation felt by Native peoples of this country can never be alleviated until these medals are rescinded. At some point we must begin the healing process. (http://www.dickshovel.com/medcom.html)

To white Americans who are aware of the situation these medals represent what is worst in our society. As a veteran of our fiasco in South-East Asia in the 1960’s I knew a great many men who were much more deserving of honor than the twenty at Wounded Knee. The lucky ones escaped with their lives, and not much more. To me and these men the Congressional Medals of Honor awarded for Wounded Knee represent a slap in the face. Our country dis-honors itself with these awards. (http://www.dickshovel.com/medcom.html)

It seems like a sick joke to award medals based on "gallantry" and "extraordinary merit" to those involved in the shameful Massacre at Wounded Knee. (http://www.dickshovel.com/medcom.html)

To at least try and correct past wrongs done by our Government is the very least that we as American people can do. This would be an important step in showing the Native Americans that we are willing to acknowledge the sins of our forefathers and do our best to correct them. Show the world that we are not as cruel and uncivilized as our history suggests. (http://www.dickshovel.com/medcom.html)

John McCain, who at the time was the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, got these comments and more along with a letter from Jordan S. Dill who was the organizer of the petition. His response was “I appreciate why you view with dismay the award of the nation's highest decoration for valor to soldiers...[for their] efforts in an action that resulted in the death or wounding of as many as 370 Indian men, women and children. I also appreciate the concern that these awards can be viewed as diminishing the value of Medals of Honor awarded for conduct in other conflicts. The policies and decisions...[of the U.S. government] that led to the Army's being at Wounded Knee in 1890 doubtless can be characterized as unjust, unwise, or worse. Nevertheless, a retrospective judgment that the Government's policies and actions were dishonorable does not warrant rescinding the medals awarded to individual soldiers for bravery in a brief, fierce fight in which 25 soldiers were killed and 45 others wounded. Neither today's standards for awarding the medal nor policies of the United States with regard to Indian tribes are what they were in 1890...I support these efforts [to find a consensus on a Wounded Knee memorial] in the belief that establishing a well-conceived memorial to the victims of Wounded Knee is much preferable to attempting to strip long-dead soldiers of a medal which they might not merit under today's standards.”⁶

Today it seems unlikely that the medals will truly ever be rescinded. Not many of the newer generations know. Wounded Knee has been glazed over and the fact that Medals of Honor were awarded for Wounded Knee is not a well known fact. There are still strong feelings out there and people still feel a strong connection to Wounded Knee but the Medals of Honor will probably fade away. Battle Streamers will still be flown and the one that says Pine Ridge will probably get lost as more are added. It’s most likely a matter of time from here on out.

“I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream . . . . The nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.” - Black Elk

¹ "Massacre At Wounded Knee, 1890." Eyewitness to History - history through the eyes of those who lived it. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .

² Toledo, Robert A. "WOVOKA: The Paiute Messiah." Viewzone Magazine: A look at life and human culture from different angles. Web. 08 Dec. 2009. .

³ "Doctor Sally Wagner Testifies At Wounded Knee Hearings." First Nations: Issues of Consequence. Web. 08 Dec. 2009. .

⁴ "Code of Federal Regulations: Title 32: National Defense." Web. 08 Dec. 2009. .

⁵ "Army Continues to Parade Wounded Knee "Battle" Streamer." National Congress of American Indians: Home. Web. 09 Dec. 2009. .

⁶ "McCain replies..." First Nations | Issues of Consequence. Web. 09 Dec. 2009. <http://www.dickshovel.com/mccain.html>.

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I am most proud of this composition because I feel that I haven't really changed it since the beginning. It was one of my original ideas and ended up being my most interesting essay I think. I think that I did well explaining what happened and what Medals of "Dis"Honor were and why people were mad. I also think that I did well with evidence. I have lots of evidence. Almost too much evidence. What I could improve on is my paraphrasing. If I have a quote that is 10 pages long and include it all it'll add +10 pages to my essay. I think that I could also improve on some of my grammar. I'm still learning new grammar every time I write something. I don't want to stick a comma in the wrong place. Well, back to writing more essays...

Sioux Nation

Dakota, Lakota, Nakota,
Sioux,
Under a sky,
Roaming freely and happily,
Chasing the cloud shadows on the Dakota plains.

Throngs of palefaces,
Glassy blue eyes,
Tossed about in the air,
Wooden puppets,
Little animals driven by the herder.

Needlessly binding,
Made a plaything,
Tears left to dry in streaks,
I was not as happy as I thought I should be.

The young braves,
Bronzed children,
My mother tongue,
Among the great warriors,
The many stories.

We Told You it was Dangerous

Today in this day and age there seems to be a flood of illegal immigrants coming into the U.S. Why? Because its supposed to be a better place. However, since the U.S. has cracked down on immigration, and improved border security, more and more people are trying to cross the border in a very dangerous way. Crossing the Sonoran Desert. Because of this, the U.S. and Mexico have had signs and commercials made to try to dissuade people who want to cross. Unfortunately it still doesn’t work. More than one person died per day in the last year for this reason. Sixty-seven people died in one summer month alone. These people are taking it upon themselves to cross the border illegally. In doing so they assume responsibility for themselves while taking the risk of crossing the Sonoran desert. They are responsible for their actions.

Illegal immigrants have full control as individuals and could choose to cross the border legally but instead choose the dangerous option because it provides a faster solution versus the long way around. Crossing the border illegally certainly is faster and provides a solution but in doing so people crossing the desert can experience severe dehydration, heatstroke, personal injury and death in such conditions. “In 2005 more than 400 migrants died, mostly from heat-related causes. More than half of the bodies were found in the deserts of southern Arizona.”1 They could also become victims of fraud through coyotes. Those that are apprehended by the Border Patrol are sent back to Mexico. Others who do not prepare well are left stranded with no water and no shelter. Its these conditions that can kill and they could have been prevented by the migrant workers themselves. “The crossing here (the desert south of Tuscan), over a simple barbed-wire fence, is followed by a walk of two or three days, up to 50 miles on ancient trails through a desert wilderness, to reach the nearest road...Most people start off with no more than two gallons of water, weighing almost 17 pounds, in plastic jugs. In recent days, with daytime temperatures over 100 degrees in the desert, a person needed a gallon of water just to survive walking five miles.”2 Those who survive the intense heat often find themselves in the hands of Border Patrol. Nearly 300,000 people were caught trying to enter the United States through the desert border in about a seven month period (October 1, 2003 to May 23, 2004).3 In an article written by Timothy Egan in 2004, a Border Patrol agent named Leon Stroud said this. “It's like catch-and-release fishing,''...''One week, I arrested the same guy three times. If I dwell on it, it can be frustrating.''4 These people try to enter the country again and again and the U.S. can only try to keep them out.

People are ultimately responsible for their actions and just because you happen to be an illegal immigrant people are supposed to be sympathetic? Other people have problems in our own country. Illegal immigrants make the decision to come over and they should consider this very carefully. There may be factors leading up to trying to cross but in the end, when it all boils down no one is really at fault except for the illegal immigrant who chose that path and made that decision.

¹ Zhang, Sheldon. Smuggling and Trafficking in Human Beings: All Roads Lead to America. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2007. Print.

² Egan, Timothy. "Border Desert Proves Deadly For Mexicans." PBS. Web. 26 Oct. 2009. <http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/mexico/border.html>.

³ Egan, Timothy. "Border Desert Proves Deadly For Mexicans." PBS. Web. 26 Oct. 2009. <http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/mexico/border.html>.

⁴ Egan, Timothy. "Border Desert Proves Deadly For Mexicans." PBS. Web. 26 Oct. 2009. <http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/mexico/border.html>.