Free Shaquanda Cotton...

photos by Antonio Perez

All she did was “push” a hall monitor/teacher assistant…All Emmett Till did some 52 years ago was “whistled” at a White lady and allegedly said “Hey baby”...And both became vicitims of a brutal White supremist judicial lynch system...

I first learned about the Shaquonda Cotton case courtesy of Mr. Fredric Mitchell of the YBP Guide...There's too many stories like this…Too many bad memories for Black folks too ponder...Like Emmett Till , Shaquonda Cotton got caught up in a place with an infamous history of some of the worst racial violence in the history of the nation…Mississippi the state where Emmett Till got killed lead the nation in lynching since the end of Reconstruction…Mississippi was so proficient and efficient in killing and disposing of Black men that many people both Black and White who lived in or near Money, Mississippi (where Emmett was slain) said that the Tallahatchie River (where a horribly disfigured Emmett Till was found with an eighty pound cotton gin engine wrapped around his neck) contained the bodies and remains of thousands of lynched Black men…

Paris, Texas has been known for taking lynching to an even greater art form of ghoulish exhibition and entertainment…The Paris Fairground (which should be known as the Killing Field) borne witness to some of the biggest lynchings on record…Tens of thousands of White folk would catch special trains, car pooled, ride horses and buggeys to see yet another Black man have his human and civil rights violated without a fair hearing before a jury of his peers or a chance to appeal…

The Black man would be beaten near an inch of his life and put on a platform several feet high above the crowd…Skinned alive, doused all over with kerosene, parts of the bodies such as fingers, toes, genitals cut off (some experts have argued that lynching is a form of sexual aggression and voyeurism gone wild by the perpetrators and spectators) while the eyes are put out by red hot pokers…The helpless victim is then set ablaze while still alive…The body parts that were cut off and other bits and pieces that were not totally decimated by the human bonfire were then collected by audience members and perpetrators and kept as souvenirs...Sometimes the body parts would be put in jars and photos of the lynch victim would be taken and turned into postcards…Both of these items would be sold at stores throughout the country...

What type of White folks you think would commit these crimes and attend these events you may ask??? Well professional people like doctors, lawyers, teachers and business men would attend these events…Law enforcement officers, politicians and judges would attend these events…Clergymen and school aged children would attend these events…Rich and poor folks would attend these events…Young and old would attend these events…

In other words White America attended these events…In her land mark book about the horrors of lynching, The Red Record, the great journalist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells-Barnett wrote in horrific detail some of the lynching incidents that took place in Paris,Texas…

Lynchings of the souls of Black Folk are now done through the prison industry complex…Since prison has now become a privatized big business many Black youths are now being warehoused and enslaved for big profits…The United States has 25% of the world’s prison population and leads the world in crime, illegal drug use and consumption as well as violence…45% of folks in prison are Black yet Black folks only account for 12% of the United States’ general population…There are more young Black college aged men in jail than in college…These stats are troubling considering that more White folks use more illegal drugs than Black people and yet a large number of Black folks in jail are for drug offenses or petty offenses…

Shaquonda Cotton was sentenced to prison until she is 21 years old…The same judge, “Honorable” M.C. (Chuck) Superville, Jr., gave a White girl (the same age as Shaquonda at the time of her incident, 14) probation for burning down her family home and he also gave a White male aged 19 probation and required him to send an annual Christmas card to the victims’ family after killing a 54 year old Black woman and her three year old grandson with a truck!!! Where’s the justice??? Meanwhile Shaquonda Cotton, who never had a prior law incident before her shove of the teacher assistant was sent to a facility, Brownwood Prison, reserved for some of the worst repeat juvenile criminal offenders in the state of Texas…Currently a former prison guard at the facility is under investigation for sexually assaulting and molesting inmates…She has tried to commit suicide three times already and is very fearful of being harmed by some of the already hardened criminal juveniles in the facility…Is it right for a first time juvenile offender to get this sentence???
Shaquonda and her mom, Creola Cotton.
Cotton has always maintained that she did indeed pushed the teacher assistant, but she also insisted that this was only after being pushed several times by said teacher assistant…Teacher assistant claimed that she was keeping Cotton out of the school because it wasn’t opened that time during the morning to students…However, Shaquonda’s mom, Creola Cotton, and Shaquonda Cotton said that she was on her way to receive medication from the school nurse for her attention deficit hyperactivity disorder which was a routine daily task...It also been noted that said teacher assistant was not seriously injured by Shaquonda and that she “faked” her injuries in order to send Shaquonda to jail…Like Lemar Burton of Reading Rainbow say don’t just take my word for it please read for yourselves (links are included at bottom of this story)…

In conclusion history does not have to repeat itself…Shaquonda Cotton doesn’t have to be another George Stinney Jr. (on June 16, 1944 in South Carolina he became the youngest person killed in the electric chair during the 20th Century---14 and never had the chance to appeal his conviction), the Scottsboro Nine, Willie Bosket, or a Emmett Till among the countless others gross acts of injustices perpetrated against Black Youth throughout the generations…It is going to take a village, but we all can do our part…

What You Can Do???
1.) Write a letter to Texas Gov. Rick Perry:
http://www.governor.state.tx.us/contact


2.) Write a letter and/or make a call to the “Honorable” Chuck Superville, Jr.
119 North Main
Paris, TX 75460
Phone # 903-737-2410
Fax # 903-785-3858

3.) Spread the word about this case through e-mail, blog, phone, radio, print media and anything else that can reach the people because the power has always been and will always be through the people.

4.) Pray.

More Shaquonda Cotton coverage:
The Chicago Tribune Story by Howard Witt Which Became The Shame of a Nation and the Pride of Bush Country
Paris,Texas' side of the story
http://www.ybpguide.com/2007/03/13/paris-texas-in-plain-view/http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=shaquanda+cotton