Jack & Jill Politics

Almost 50 years ago, acclaimed jazz artist Billie Holiday collapsed in her apartment and was rushed to Metropolitan Hospital in New York, where she was diagnosed with cardiac failure and serious liver disease, both the result of a long history of drug and alcohol abuse. As she lay fighting for her life, police raided her hospital room and arrested her on her deathbed for possession of heroin. Billie Holiday died in police custody, another victim of the relentless “war on drugs”.

I couldn’t help thinking of that history Saturday morning as I watched the funeral service for Whitney Houston on MSNBC. I was happy that Whitney Houston’s funeral was befitting a star of her magnitude and influence, that she was honored and acknowledged by the people who truly loved her and knew her well. I was particularly moved by the expressions of Bebe Winans and Kevin Costner. Two men who had very different relationships with her, yet each offered a glimpse into the Whitney Houston they had known in a way that made her loss feel palpable.

As was true for Whitney Houston, thousands of people turned out to say good-bye to Lady Day at her funeral in 1959 including all the major luminaries of the jazz world. Billie Holiday was only 44 when she died, her body and distinctive voice damaged by her long term substance abuse. Yet like a true artist, even in her decline she retained that special quality that set her apart from others – the ability to pour all her emotion into a song such that you felt every bit of pain, sorrow, joy, triumph or defeat. One of my favorite Billie Holiday songs is one of her last recordings – of a song made famous by Louis Armstrong - When It’s Sleepy Time Down South. it’s still hard for me to listen – her voice has lost its youthful vigor and strength, yet her rendition of the song is made more powerful by it’s simplicity and pathos.

I look forward to the release of Whitney’s last film project – Sparkle. In many ways, that this was her last project is as fitting as Michael Jackson’s This Is It – one can say they are examples of art imitating life…….. She probably won’t sound like the Whitney Houston I heard on every street corner in Harlem in the mid-90s — but then I don’t want my stars to be ageless, I’m not…..

I’m happy that unlike Billie Holiday (who lost her cabaret license after her conviction for possessing heroin), Whitney Houston’s money and fame shielded her from many of the most harmful consequences of drug addiction. She acknowledged that she and Bobby Brown regularly smoked marijuana joints laced with crack cocaine – which means they had to buy and possess crack cocaine. Whitney Houston’s wealth meant she could buy drugs in relatively large amounts and yet be shielded from drug law enforcement that imposed a mandatory five year sentence for conviction of possessing 5 grams of crack cocaine. Many states enacted similar laws imposing long mandatory sentences for the sale or possession of drugs – especially crack cocaine. In an interview with Oprah, Whitney Houston said her greatest addiction was to her then husband, Bobby Brown, many women serving time in prison now are there because of their drug addiction or the drug activity of their partners.

I’m not suggesting that Whitney Houston should have been subject to arrest and prosecution for her drug involvement. I don’t think that would have helped her, I think it would have only made a bad situation worse. No, I believe Kevin Costner got it right when he obliquely acknowledged the deep well of insecurity that lived inside Whitney Houston – for which drugs can offer a brief respite. If anything, Whitney Houston represents one of those rare cases where the public is able to look beyond the ‘illicit’ behavior to the whole person and make the correct judgement that punishment would cause more harm than good. If only we would do the same for the thousands of women who’ve been caught in the net of our criminal justice system because of their drug abuse or the drug involvement of someone close to them.

The willingness to punish women for their drug use is particularly severe in Oklahoma – an equal opportunity incarcerator if I ever saw one -the following story is typical of what happens there:

Becky Pemberton, a nurse, is serving a 35-year sentence at the Mabel Bassett women’s prison here for grabbing money out of cash registers in stores in Oklahoma City while she was addicted to heroin.

She did not have a weapon. But the way Ms. Pemberton figures it, she was lucky in her sentence. The prosecutor originally offered her a plea agreement of 100 years.

Ms. Pemberton, 48, is representative of a nationwide trend that state officials, law enforcement authorities and criminologists are struggling to understand: a rapid growth in the number of women being arrested, convicted and sent to prison.

Nowhere has there been more attention focused on that trend than in Oklahoma, where the incarceration rate for women is more than double the national average.

The global economic crisis has increased the economic vulnerability of poor women with children in Latin America and the Caribbean. Drug traffickers seeking ever new methods to bring their lucrative products to northern markets, recruit women to act as couriers – aka drug mules. As noted in a New York Times article about the drug war in Mexico:

More women are working in every aspect of the economy, “including drug trafficking,” said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an assistant professor of government at the University of Texas, Brownsville. Yet, because Mexico’s justice system is so opaque, incompetent and corrupt, it is nearly impossible to know which prisoners deserve their punishment. Human rights lawyers say this is especially true for women, who are often unwittingly used by men they love. Several women at the prison, for example, said they only realized after their arrests that the cars they were caught driving had been packed full of drugs by boyfriends or brothers.

Eva Goes Foreign was produced to educate Jamaican woman about the potential pitfalls of drug trafficking:

Angelita Able a mother from Ohio tells her story and offers advice to policymakers seeking real solutions not soundbites:

I urge all who are present to the humanity and possibility in Whitney Houston’s life despite her struggles to look for the same in the thousands of women in our communities who may not have Whitney Houston’s talent but need our help to help save their lives. Maybe we can do for them what was not done for Whitney……..offer help without judgment.

TODAY IS THE NATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS HELD CAPTIVE IN OUR NATIONS PRISONS!!
OCCUPY4PRISONERS IS STAGING AN ACTION AT SAN QUENTIN PRISON IN CALIFORNIA
PLEASE SHOW YOUR SUPPORT AND PRAY FOR THE SAFETY OF THE PROTESTORS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE RAZORWIRE!!!

For those who made it to the end of the post, I offer a special treat – follow the link to hear Lady Day sing the song I referred to at the beginning, recorded in March 1959, a few short months before her death. The opening lines are truly haunting……….

When It's Sleepy Time Down South