Sunday, April 05, 2015

Ex-Prosecutor Apologizes to Wrongfully Convicted Glenn Ford After 30 Years on Death Row — The Atlantic

Ex-Prosecutor Apologizes to Wrongfully Convicted Glenn Ford After 30 Years on Death Row — The Atlantic: Glenn Ford spent 30 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. Sentenced to die in the electric chair, he was sent to a Louisiana penitentiary in 1985. "My sons, when I left, was babies,” he said. “Now they’re grown men with babies.” Earlier this month, he was released at age 64, but his story doesn't end happily. He has stage-four lung cancer. He is expected to die within months. And the state of Louisiana doesn't want to pay the $330,000 it owes for destroying his life, as The Shreveport Times noted in an editorial denouncing the state's behavior.

Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Rhodes protester repeats faults he reviles | Opinion & Analysis | BDlive

Rhodes protester repeats faults he reviles | Opinion & Analysis | BDlive: There is a lesson in this. Maxwele is a student of politics at arguably SA’s leading university. Interviewed by Chris Barron of the Sunday Times, he struggled to offer an argument. Alleging racism, he fell into racist stereotyping himself. Barron was repeatedly told he could/would not understand because he’s "a white male and privileged and so on".

Repeating the racism he allegedly opposes, Maxwele grew incoherent: "We as black people don’t have to justify anything. If you ignore our history because you are a white male, then that is not my problem," he told Barron. Maxwele shows a collapse of the critical engagement with reality a university hopes to encourage.