A C C O U N T A B L E A L L Y S H I P
Quick Note and Trigger Warning
Hello Allies. We have a different format this week. Our challenge of the week is the priority and focus. We will not be reviewing any new definitions, we will be taking action. Please note there are themes of sex-trafficking, sexual assault, and abuse in this week's newsletter. As always, thank you for being here.
Weekly Challenge
Advocate for Cyntoia Brown
Cyntoia Brown was sold to as a sex-slave to a 43-year-old Nashville realtor, Johnny Mitchell Allan, when she was 16 years old.
During her time as a sex-trafficking victim she was hit, choked, and dragged. She had a gun pointed at her multiple times during her captivity and she feared for her life. Due to her experiences she was scared Johnny Mitchell Allan was going to kill her, and in turn, fatally shot him.
Tennessee tried her as an adult and found her guilty of murder. She has served 14 years, and the recent ruling mandated another 51 years until parole.
Governor Bill Haslam of Tennesee has the power to grant Cyntoia Brown clemency before he leaves office on January 19th. Haslam has been considering granting clemency and is receiving pressure to do so from the Black Lives Matter movement.
It is our duty to add our voices and demand justice for Cyntoia and all the black and brown bodies that suffer disproportionately at the hands of violence and incarceration.
Governor Bill Haslam's phone number is 615-741-2001.
Your only challenge this week: call Haslam and demand that he grants Cyntoia Brown clemency.
If her name were Emily and she resided in a white body with blonde hair she would have been appropriately tried as a 16-year-old girl and found not guilty.
Make no mistake - our current judicial system is steeped in white supremacy. Cyntoia Brown's sentence is racist and unjust.
As outlined in this article, "Haslam presides over a prison system that incarcerates more women per capita than almost every state. While black people are only 17 percent of the overall population there, 44 percent of the people behind bars in Tennessee are black. One third of people imprisoned in Tennessee live in prisons ran by notorious private prison company Core Civic/Corrections Corporation of America. And the private prison industry is one of Haslam’s top campaign contributors."
I called yesterday and it took less than a full minute. The line will likely be busy so press 1 to leave a message for Governor Haslam. My message was simple,"My name is Emily Fascilla, I am an active voter, a white woman, and an advocate for sex-trafficking survivors. I believe Cyntoia Brown's ruling was racist and unjust, she was a minor and should have been tried as a minor. I am asking you to grant her clemency in the next 6 weeks."
On The Urgency of This Work
I realize it can be intimidating to take action before you feel completely comfortable, knowledgeable and well-versed. As we have discussed many times before, it is our job as white people to work through the discomfort. It is also our job to continually learn and as such, we may never feel "ready", we may always feel nervous.
But we cannot hesitate.
This work is already overdue. Black and brown bodies are being murdered and incarcerated at disproportionate rates because of their skin color daily. Racism is not a theory or a history lesson, it is life or death. Still. Today. Right now.
As white people who strive to be allies to people of color it is our duty to take action and add our privileged voices.
Weekly Reading
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Below are words from Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963. May they give you the confidence to take action in this week's challenge.
"First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
"Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” — then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait."
Weekly Reflection:
Are you hesitant to make the call to Governor Haslam?
When you are asked to take action on behalf of someone who does not look like you or does not share similar experiences, do you feel its urgency?
Do you feel as though it is optional to add your voice on her behalf? If so, what are some of the unconscious biases you may be experiencing?
Read more on the current state of criminalization of sex-trafficking victims here.