Sean Bell Remembered

On the sixth anniversary of his death

On graves all across the globe we spot the familiar "RIP." This is a death wish. We wish that the souls of dead persons can rest. If such a wish were ever true, it would be highly unlikely that Sean Bell could be so blessed. Six years ago Justice Arthur Cooperman found credible the versions of police officers who killed an unarmed Sean Bell while he was attempting to escape their deadly gun fire. The New York City Police Department found otherwise. The undercover police detective who fired the first bullets in the 50-shot barrage that killed an unarmed Sean Bell as he left his bachelor party was fired. Three other officers involved in the slaying resigned.The officers fired 50 bullets at three unarmed men who sat defenceless in a car. The defence painted the victims as dangerous drunken thugs. Drunk they may have been, but they were unarmed. No drugs were found in their possession. No opened containers of alcohol. No outstanding court summonses. Three young persons of color were at a rowdy bar celebrating the marriage of Sean. He was to be married later that day. Judge Cooperman believed the officers, just as the jurors believed the officers in the shooting of Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant who was also gunned down in a hail of 41 bullets by police officers who mistook his wallet for a gun.

How can the soul of Sean Bell "rest in peace?" He can't. We can't either. The officers who fired their deadly bullets at Bell did not receive a pass on this one. Justice Cooperman's verdict will be debated as to whether it was just. 

GEORGE McGOVERN - THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE I VOTED FOR

In 1972 I was a student at Concordia Teachers College (Now Concordia University - Nebraska) when George McGovern's bus pulled up to the Seward County Court House. It was the first, and only time I heard a presidential candidate speak at an open rally. I don't remember the speech he gave that day. Perhaps I was caught up in the excitement of being so close to a person who might have been president. Through the years, I have been drawn to McGovern's stand on immigration. Unless you are a native American, and I would add, African American, you are in America due to immigration. That's what made America. McGovern knew that, and he championed the cause of immigration. I voted for McGovern in 1972. It was the first time I voted for anybody. McGovern lost by a landslide. Many of us who heard McGovern that day were energized. We would vote again. We would look for politicians who represented our values. And we would be successful in getting a few elected. I am proud of my vote for McGovern. It was not wasted.

Christian leaders who questioned US aid to Israel

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) reacted to a letter sent last week to congress by several American Christian leaders that called on lawmakers to "make U.S. military aid to Israel contingent upon its government's compliance with applicable US laws and policies" with "thinly-veiled charges" of anti-Semitism. These charges are being used as a club to stifle legitimate critique of Israel. This is short sighted. Anti-Semitism is alive. But the church leaders who signed that letter are not engaged in anti-Semitism. They are on an errand. This is a conversation about, and a call for justice. Given the history of maltreatment, disenfranchisement, displacement, and death, and given the shared experience of genocide itself, where is the grief, the hurt, the repulsion at what is being done to Palestinians by the State of Israel? When will there be recognition of the violence being done by Israel?