Torture: An American Tradition

I'll take you back about three years. I'm away on a trip, and when I come back I find my father cracked. I don't mean nuts or anything, but he's terrified. That kind of fright that makes you tremble uncontrolably. Arrested on a trumped up charge (the detectives who arrested him didn't even show up to the preliminary trial, and even his legal aid said "Sir, I don't even understand this!"), he was released after 5 hours of sheer terror. The kind that many of you only had a taste of on 9/11, if ever. Why? Because he's poor and black.

"Son, you don't understand. The last time I was in a precient they had thrown me down a flight of stairs. Then picked me up and tossed me down again. Over and over till my mom came and got me. He was about 19 at the time. Younger than me.

"I know folks who's gone in a cop house and come out in body bags. All black, all dead, and no questions asked. No news at eleven, no special report."

Think its an exaggeration? Think again.

According to special prosecutors in Chicago, nearly 150 black suspects during the 1970's and 80s were tortured.

“It is our judgment that the evidence in those cases would be sufficient to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” [Prosecutors]Robert D. Boyle and Edward J. Egan wrote."

Of course the statute of limitations has lapsed, and so those accused of his horrendous crimes are beyond prosecution. Our bad, sorry about beating you, using electric shocks, and playing mock russian roulette with you...but you know, it's all in a day's work.

Looking back at me, with tears in his eyes and rage in his voice, my dad said, "People say that there's just a few bad apples, but can't they see that the whole fucking tree is rotten?"

I'm sorry dad. You see--it's not that they can't see it, they just won't.