I-Search Paper: Mumia Abu-Jamal

"Homeland and hip-hop. To think about the origins of hip-hop in this culture, and also about homeland security, is to see that there are, at the very least, two worlds in America; one of the well-to-do, and another of the struggling. For if ever there was the absence of homeland security, it is seen in the gritty roots of hip-hop. For the music arises from a generation that feels, with some justice, that they have been betrayed by those who came before them; that they are, at best, tolerated in schools, feared on the streets, and almost inevitably destined for the hell-holes of prison. They grew up hungry, hated, and un-loved. And this is the psychic fuel that generates the anger that seems in-gimmick in much of the music and poetry. One senses very little hope above the personal goals of well; to climb above the pit of poverty. In the broader society, the opposite is true. For here, more than any other place on Earth, wealth is so widespread, and so bountiful, that what passes for the middle class in America could pass for the upper class in most of the rest of the world. They're very opulent, and their relative wealth makes them insecure. And "homeland security" is a governmental phrase that is as oxymoronic, as crazy, as saying "military intelligence" or "the U.S. Department of Justice." They're just words that have very little relationship to reality. Now, do you feel safer now? Do you think you will anytime soon? Do you think that duct-tape and Kleenex and color-codes will make you safer? From Death Row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal."

I thought, "From Death Row? I wonder if that means they've killed him already." I figured he was just one of those guys who got caught up in the wrong crowd when they were young and went to jail for doing something stupid, and then while he was in jail he changed his life for the better. My impression changed when I was at a chess tournament in Philadelphia. I saw a few Jamaican guys wearing shirts that said "Mumia Must Not Die," accompanied by his picture. This made me think. I began to wonder if, maybe he had been accused of a crime he did not commit. I assumed the crime was murder, considering the fact that the government had put him on Death Row (ah, the sweet irony of hypocrisy).

I had always meant to learn more about him, but never really got around to it. This changed when I was at the Borders on Barryroad with my parents about a month ago. As I was browsing, something made me think of Mumia. "Hey, maybe there's a book about him," I said to myself. I journeyed, through all the fire and brimstone, over to the title sleuth, where I began my search for books related to Mumia Abu-Jamal. A few came up, but one caught my eye. It was called Death Blossoms, written by the man himself. I went over to where the book was located and skimmed through it. The foreword was by Cornel West of The Nation magazine. This propelled my interest even further, because I like The Nation and respect its writers. I finished the book about a week after I purchased it. While the book was very insightful, only around 25% of the book was about his legal issues, so I didn't really learn a lot about the crime he's been accused of, or why he's on Death Row. Most of the legal aspects of the book were in the very back, which had an interview with Mumia. In it, he discussed publicly available documents in which the FBI admits to having attempted to frame him for two murders in other countries, and armed robbery while he was in college in Vermont.

I learned that he's been on Death Row since 1982, accused of killing a police officer. And, as I'll later learn, while there are many facts strongly pointing towards his innocence, his innocence was not even the big issue. Most of the controversy that's been caused is because of the extreme unfairness Mumia and his trial received. His judge was called "the hanging judge." He'd sentenced more people to death than any other judge in the United States, 11% of who where white. He was also a known racist. Mumia was poor and could not afford a lawyer, so the court appointed him a poorly trained one. When he decided he would rather himself be in charge of his own fate, the court denied him his Constitutional right to represent himself. 10 of the 14 well-qualified African Americans on the jury were replaced with Caucasians who were less qualified. His first book, Live from Death Row, had him describing a day in the life of a Death Row inmate. According to Mumia, it had to be extremely toned down before any publisher would publish it. He claimed that if he'd actually described everything he's seen on Death Row, that any reader would pass it off as fiction. He was thrown in "the hole" for 90 days as punishment for writing the book. At this, I said to myself, "is this the American idea of justice? Who exactly do I trust with my life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness...these people? I sure hope not."

I Google'd Mumia's name and clicked the first link that had facts surrounding the actual circumstances of his arrest, www.freemumia.org. Some of the facts it contained were appalling. The gun which killed Officer Faulkner was a .44 caliber. Mumia's gun was a .38. Police never ran a ballistics check on the gun or checked to see if it had recently been fired, nor did they check his hands or clothes for gun residue. No one claimed to have heard Mumia's "confession" until almost 2 months after it allegedly occurred, and this was after he filed police brutality charges. The doctor who treated Mumia reports that he was unconcious, and thus would have been unable to say anything in order to confess. He also reported that a nurse found police with loaded guns pointed at Mumia while he was hospitalized. William Singletary, a witness of the shooting, testified that Mumia was not the shooter. Police later forced him to change his story and intimidated him into leaving Philadelphia. Other key witnesses were harassed into giving false testimony (one of these witnesses is Veronica Jones, who now testifies in support of Mumia). Two prosecution witnesses were given special favors, including exemption from criminal prosecution, for their testimony. And finally, perhaps the most shocking, a man named Arnold Beverly has admitted to killing Officer Faulkner.