Category: Justice
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Man Interrupted: Accountability as Apology
*Satire. Written with our deepest apologies to Sheriff R. Glenn Smith, Brian Encinia, Daniel Willis, Dante Servin and all the many law enforcement officials who have suffered due to the death of black women. You have suffered so many small inconveniences, and temporary life interruptions, yet all we have done is think of the bereaved families of the…
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The American Reformation
PART 1: The American Reformation Begins Not all Revolutions begin with a Declaration, and not all Reformations begin with a list of Theses. The Reformation of the Methodist church in the United States began with prayer. In 1787, ten years after Thomas Jefferson penned the words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all…
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Yvette Smith Verdict: No Comment Necessary
*Photo is of a building about 15 minutes from where Yvette Smith died, off the side of the road near the Bastrop County Line. It is the first significant building drivers see welcoming them to the County. Today Judge Albert M. McCaig, a Waller County Judge visiting for one case in Bastrop County, rendered verdict in the murder…
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Yvette Smith: Why All Our Rights Are Lies
“Yvette hated guns. She never let her sons play with guns,” Yvette Smith’s mother said to me after Judge McCaig called a 20 minute break, part way through the afternoon of the second day of the defense arguments for ex-officer Daniel Willis murder trial for killing her daughter. I knew what it was like to…
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White Fear & the Hate Next Door
Recently a Facebook Group was brought to my attention by a friend. Before I could read the title, I was struck by the images of my face photoshopped. The photo of me reading scripture at the celebration service of Bishop Sandra Steiner Ball, her Bishop’s crook carefully photoshopped out and my nose elongated as a reference…
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‘The Next Generation of Waller County’
Tomorrow marks the first day of a new month, and it could be the first day of a new chapter in Waller County’s history. That will only come to pass, however, if the people of Waller County want it. Primary elections for both the Democratic and Republican parties will be held on March 1st, and…
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Sandra Bland: Justice Delayed, Not Denied
Sitting in Judge Hitner’s Courtroom in the Bob E. Casey Federal Courthouse in Houston, Texas on February 18th, you would quickly realize that the level of transparency and honesty that each lawyer was willing to offer could be measured by the size of their smile. For those of you who have read about the past…
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An Open Letter to Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson
Dear DA Devon Anderson, I am writing to you because I remain in possession of one of the many lives you put at risk when you and Sheriff Hickman blamed the shooting of Deputy Goforth on #BlackLivesMatter, resulting in threats being directed towards those holding vigil for Sandra Bland at the Waller County Jail. Now, today, the Houston NAACP…
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“Dear Fellow White People”: An Appeal For Sustained Discomfort
*First posted on UMCLead.com on Feb. 10, 2015. Revised and updated… still unapologetic. #BlackLivesMatter makes a lot of white people uncomfortable. The impulse of many is to soothe us. Please don’t. We need sustained discomfort. There are a lot of people in this nation who have been very uncomfortable for a very long time. Those of…
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The Postmortem Prosecution of Sandra Bland
On February 2, 2016, the world finally got to hear some of the “investigation” interviews concerning the death of Sandra Bland. In audio obtained from the state of Texas and released by the Bland family and their attorneys, an investigator asks inmates who had been in cells close to Sandra nothing of substance beyond repeated…
Hannah Adair Bonner 