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BEWARE OF POLICE EXCESSIVE FORCE NARRATIVES

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2023   A recent news article in The Guardian newspaper about the January 18, 2023, killing of 26 year-old Forest Defender Manuel Esteban Paez Teran (nicknamed “Tortuguita”) by Georgia State Troopers several weeks ago ( https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/14/cop-city-georgia-activist-autopsy-results-manuel-paez-teran ) touched one of my most painful memories as a retired judge. The article reports that Georgia police agencies have yet to release the official autopsy report of the slain environmental activist. However, an independent autopsy has concluded that the activist had been shot at least a dozen times. During my 24-year experience as a state court judge – 13 years on the Arkansas Court of Appeals and 11 years as an Arkansas circuit judge hearing civil and criminal cases – I read numerous police reports. The police reports that I found least reliable, and which I approached with the greatest caution and skepticism, involved encounters bet
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FACING THE THREAT TO PUBLIC EDUCATION

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2023 March 9, 2023 Pastors for Florida Children Sheraton Four Points (316 W. Tennessee Street) Tallahassee, Florida   REVEREND RACHEL SHAPARD REVEREND JAMES GOLDEN REVEREND CLERGY PUBLIC OFFICIALS EDUCATORS PARENTS AND CHILDREN           Thank you for inviting me to join Diane Ravitch in addressing you today during this Prayer Breakfast based on the theme of Uniting in Spirit for Public Education in Florida. I was pleasantly surprised when Rev. Shapard and Rev. Golden approached me in January with the invitation and am grateful to them and to you for making my participation possible today. I have titled my keynote address Facing the Threat to Public Education. I am a product of public education. I was born September 23, 1952 – making me 70 years old – when Jim Crow public segregation was required by law in Arkansas, as in Florida. Although my family lived less than three miles from Delight High School, I didn’t know where it was until
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THE CURRENT FACES OF FASCISM AND WHITE SUPREMACY

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2023   Their names are Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Gregg Abbott, Tate Reeves, Ron DeSantis, Brian Kemp, and Glenn Youngkin. They are governors, respectively, of Arkansas (Sanders), Texas (Abbott), Mississippi (Reeves), Florida (DeSantis), Georgia (Kemp), and Virginia (Youngkin). They are the current faces of fascism and white supremacy in their states, and are competing to become the Fascist and White Supremacist in Chief, figuratively if not literally, because they each aspire to seek higher offices, perhaps the US presidency. Do not believe them when they deny such aspirations. They will continue to do so even while building political campaign, policy, and media relations networks geared towards elevating their national profiles. Despite their self-professed commitment to justice and inclusion, none of these politicians has a public record for supporting social justice. Abbott and DeSantis have been openly xenophobic towards immigrants. Youngkin, DeSantis, a
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DESCRIBING THE STATE OF THE UNION RESPONSE FROM GOVERNOR SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS BY ANOTHER WORD

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2023   The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “defining moment” as the time that shows very clearly what something is really about. If that definition is taken seriously, the response by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Republican, Arkansas) to the State of the Union Address by US President Joe Biden was a defining moment. Governor Sanders appears to think so, at least, judging by the words she spoke that night and the things she spoke about. Governor Sanders correctly spoke of herself as the youngest governor in the United States, and contrasted her youth with President Biden, who at eighty is the oldest president in US history. In doing so, Sanders spoke of herself as part of a new generation of Republican leaders. But Sanders showed Americans and the rest of the world that her “new generation” perspective is not new. There is nothing “new” about political censorship of public education. There is nothing “new” about maligning public health initiatives that
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AN OPEN LETTER TO SENATOR DAN SULLIVAN AND OTHER POLITICIANS WHO WANT TO END AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2023   TO:     Senator Dan Sullivan (Republican, Jonesboro, AR) CC:    All other politicians who want to end affirmative action Dear Senator Sullivan, You and I are not personally acquainted. However, I have a professional and personal interest in Senate Bill 71, which you are sponsoring in the Arkansas legislature. Your proposed legislation purports “to end discrimination or preferential treatment by the State of Arkansas and other public entities” such as school districts, counties, municipalities, public colleges and universities, and other public entities. If enacted, SB 71 will produce the following results: 1.     Section 1 will prohibit the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division from considering “lack of diversity in ownership and financial interest in the geographic area at issue” in permit applications; 2.     Section 2 will a.     amend current law (Ark. Code. Ann. § 6-10-111) renaming the Equity Assistance Center in the Division of Elementa
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DO NOT BE FOOLED ABOUT POLICE “REFORM”

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2023           Again, police officers have killed an unarmed civilian in the United States. Again, the slain unarmed civilian was a person of color. On January 7, 2023, Tyre Nichols, an unarmed civilian Black man, died in Memphis, Tennessee because police officers detained him, harassed him, terrorized him, cursed him, beat him, tried to electrocute him, poisoned him, kicked him, threw him to the ground like he was trash, and then propped him beside an unmarked police vehicle without providing any first aid or other assistance for more than twenty minutes. Tyre Nichols died because emergency medical technicians did not rush to aid him, but let him suffer. Tyre Nichols is dead because policing in the United States is deadly to people of color, all the time, anywhere, on purpose.             After video footage was publicized by Memphis officials of the brutal, cruel, deliberate, vicious, and unprovoked attack and beating Tyre Nichols suffered from members o
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