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June 4, 2009 Black Commentator
Represent Our Resistance
By Dr. Lenore J. Daniels, PhD
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board
As the social order continues, it devises other ideals of social danger, among them women.
In the United States today, there are more than ninety thousand women in prisons. Of that number, over 80 percent are mothers, who have left more than 167,000 children behind, living in a tenuous freedom.
-Mumia Abu Jamal, Jailhouse Lawyers
In Chicago, James “Hawk” Rasco decides its time to return home, to his native soil - Mississippi. Now, he was returning to Scott County with his family. Rasco’s nephew ran a nightclub - in dry Scott County. The nephew, along with other Black nightclub owners, paid the sheriff in order to sell alcohol. The sheriff was Glenn Warren, otherwise known as the “High White Sheriff.”
Some things do change but only slightly. Years later, an FBI investigation landed Sheriff Warren in a courtroom and ultimately in prison. Rasco’s nephew ends up turning state’s evidence against “High White Sheriff.” James Rasco buys the nightclub after the nephew enters the witness protection program.
And sometimes things tragically remain the same. Enters Deputy Sheriff Marvin Williams - “Black!” Sheriff Williams is angry. He believes Rasco, the new owner of the nightclub, should continue business as usual. Show Me The Money! James Rasco refuses.
And Williams tells Rasco that he will get him! I will get you one way or the other, even through your daughters!
We have to remember that Frantz Fanon tells us there’s the violence of the perpetrators and there’s the violence of resisters. The violence of the former disrupts human potential while the later disrupts tyranny motivated by hate. Who was Marvin Williams really? In this narrative, what does he represent?
Time passes.
The Scott sisters, stop by a local store. It is December 23, 1993. Jamie (22) and Gladys (19) Scott, two young mothers, have run out of heating fuel. They drive to the local store in town. But when they exit the store, the car will not start up!
The women decide to leave the car and begin walking home when they hear voices. There are two Black men, cousins, in their 20s, known as the Duckworth men. Gladys recognizes one of them from the chicken plant where she and Jamie work. The Duckworth cousins offer to take the women home. Jamie, however, pays the men $10 dollars.
But the ride home was far from pleasant. According to Jamie, one of the men began touching her. The women exit the car and started walking home. Again, Jamie and Gladys here a commotion from behind them, but they don’t stop.
Jamie and Gladys finally arrive home. Soon, three young men, 2 brothers and a cousin, known as the Patrick Men, knock at their door. The Patrick Men, 14, 16, and 18 years old, tell the sisters that the two Duckworth men started a fight with them. That’s it.
It’s Christmas Eve. Morning.
