:: freeman noun
1. a person not in slavery or serfdom
2. one who possesses the rights or privileges of a citizen
:: Drumbeat
February 3, 2010 - Coelho-Freeman Family Re-unification Petition
Bring Gary Freeman Home!
Download & sign the petition to the House of Commons!
To the Minister of Immigration and the House of Commons; the undersigned Canadian citizens desire to draw your attention to the following extraordinary situation:
Douglas Gary Freeman (the former Joseph Pannell), an African American, is married to a Canadian, and they have four Canadian-born children. He has been a well-loved and respected member of the community since his arrival in Canada in 1974.
The Canadian government is trying to prevent Mr. Freeman, who has lived the majority of his life in Canada, from returning home.
In 2004, Mr. Freeman was sought for extradition to the US to face decades-old charges stemming from an incident involving a white police officer in the racially and politically charged Chicago of 1969.
Court documents proved that Mr. Freeman's presence and location in Canada was known to authorities since 1974, yet U.S. authorities waited 30 years to seek his return.
After 3 years and 7 months of pre-extradition custody in Canada, Mr. Freeman voluntarily returned to Chicago in February, 2008, where he accepted a prosecution proffered plea bargain agreement of a guilty plea to a single count of Aggravated Battery for a sentence of 30 days in the Cook County Jail, 2 years of probation, and a major contribution to a Chicago police charity.
Mr. Freeman was released from custody in March 2008 and successfully completed his probation without incident in February 2010.
Mr. Freeman began the process of applying to return to Canada while on probation during which Mr. Freeman's family was struck by the death of his father-in-law in Montreal on October 31, 2009.
Mr. Freeman sought and received permission from U.S. authorities to attend the funeral but the Canadian government refused him entry for reasons of "serious criminality".
Further, the Canadian government has deemed Mr. Freeman "inadmissible" to Canada on "national security grounds" due to the false, unsubstantiated allegation that Mr. Freeman had been a member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) which the government of Canada alleges, again without supporting evidence, "is an organization which has engaged in terrorism".
The Black Panther Party is not listed anywhere in the world as a terrorist entity, either by the U.S., Canada, or the United Nations, and former high-profile members and associates of the group continue to travel freely to Canada for speaking engagements.
Court documents corroborate Mr. Freeman's assertion that he was not a BPP member, and former Conservative Minister of Justice Vic Toews wrote in 2006 that the US would have to prove the BPP allegation essentially conceding that the government of Canada had no proof.
Before Superior Court of Ontario Justice Ian Nordheimer in 2004 Canadian government prosecutors essentially conceded that Mr. Freeman was NOT a threat to society.
Mr. Freeman holds a U.S. passport and has already flown twice since his 2008 release so he is definitely NOT on a no-fly list.
We therefore request of this House:
To direct the Immigration Minister to exercise ministerial discretion under Section 25 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in granting a temporary resident permit on humanitarian and compassionate grounds so that Mr. Freeman can be re-united with his family.
Help Re-unite The Freeman Family!
What you can do:
Download the petition, get your family & friends to sign, and return it to:
Family & Friends of Gary Freeman
H - 110 Frederick Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5A 4A9
Write to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. Ask them to exercise their discretion and allow Gary Freeman to come home to Canada.
Mail may be sent postage-free to any Member of Parliament at the following address:
[Member's Name]
House of Commons,
Parliament Buildings,
Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada, K1A 0A6
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's email: kennej@parl.gc.ca
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews' email: toews.v@parl.gc.ca
Arrange a meeting with your local Member of Parliament to discuss this issue.
Make a donation. Write cheques to "Toronto Action for Social Change" (add "Freeman" in memo section) and send to:
TASC
PO Box 73620
509 St Clair Ave West
Toronto, ON
M6C 1C0
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February 22, 2008 - Plea Agreement & March 7th Release
Following a plea agreement approved by all parties in a Chicago courtroom on Friday, February 22, Gary Freeman will serve an additional 30 days in custody at Cook County Jail, followed by two years' probation, and will donate $250,000 to the Hundred Club of Cook County, which helps provide for the surviving spouses and dependents of law enforcement officers, firefighters and paramedics who lose their lives in the line of duty.
Gary is scheduled to be released from Cook County Jail on Friday, March 7th. Arrangements are being made to have him serve the probation period in Washington, DC, where he has family, relatives, and friends.
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January 21, 2008 - Returning to Chicago
The day Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated was easily the worse day of my life. After attending my classes at Howard University, I was in the home of a classmate and close friend listening to some of her mother's jazz albums when the news burst from the television.
We both sat shocked, speechless, semi-paralyzed, and unable to do anything except watch the TV. Major cities quickly became engulfed in the flames of despair and Washington joined them. It was something I never could have imagined happening. But then, someone killing the world's foremost prophet and disciple of non-violence was also something I would never have imagined.
Later that year, when I came through Chicago, one of the first things I heard about was Dr. King's march through the area a few years earlier. He had come to focus attention on the plight of African Americans who were ravaged by poverty and inequality in housing opportunity.
The magnitude and ferocity of the hate directed at Dr. King and his fellow marchers was shocking. It moved Dr. King to remark that he had never been to such a hate-filled place.
When Dr. King was assassinated and parts of black Chicago joined in the flames of despair, the Mayor of Chicago issued instructions that suspected looters and arsonists should be shot on sight. He later rescinded the order but the mere fact the Mayor possessed the idea of suspending due process and engaging in summary executions on the streets of an American city spoke volumes about an ugly reality.
But a lot has happened in the world and America since then to move humanity in the direction of fulfilling Dr. King's dream.
Apartheid in South Africa ended not with a military victory but with the victory of the democratic process and the commitment of both sides to engage in a process of peace, truth and reconciliation.
The Troubles in Northern Ireland have ended, not with military victory but with the victory of non-violent conflict resolution and the engagement of the democratic process.
The US Congress apologized in Senate Resolution 39 for not doing anything to stop the terrible crime against humanity known as lynching. And last year, a bi-racial, bi-partisan group of American legislators put forward the End Racial Profiling Act of 2007 to put a stop to that crime against humanity.
Meanwhile, the current Mayor of Chicago and the Democratic Party establishment have endorsed an African American man to be the next president of the United States of America. Underpinning that endorsement rests a city that deeply desires to make a clean break with the past and to create the kind of society Dr. King dreamed of.
I cannot ignore what is taking place. Nor do I want to. I desire to be part of what must be acknowledged as a defining moment in history. Ultimately, I know I have a responsibility to help create one nation out of a fractured past.
My extradition fight has been first and foremost directed towards having some truth revealed about many things, perhaps most importantly an extradition process that remains a rubber stamp that denies fundamental human rights. To that extent, it has succeeded. A continuation of a legal battle in Canada would aim to get the courts to acknowledge the truth and then to act accordingly. But our efforts thus far, and those of others in a similar situation, tell us that this isn't likely to happen.
Instead, I have decided to abandon my Supreme Court challenge of the Ontario Court of Appeals decision. I will be returning to Chicago and will be incarcerated at the Cook County Jail until such time as we reach a final determination through the judicial process.
In the meantime, I look forward to what I hope will be a dialogue to achieve a resolution in my 39 year old case, one that is grounded in the spirit of peaceful conflict resolution.
Clearly it is time to make the much needed clean break with the past and look to the future with eyes on the prize while clasping the hands of those who have formerly been adversaries. If it can be done in South Africa and Northern Ireland, if Israel and the Palestinians can sit down and talk, certainly the opposing sides in this 39 year old case can engage in a dialogue of resolution if for no other reason than to allow for the healing of two families.
I have learned how much I and my family are loved and respected. Your support has been an immeasurable gift. The past four years have interrupted one of the most important parts of my family's life: community involvement. After this episode is over, I certainly intend to return to the community and engage in public works for the public good for the rest of my life.
Above all, we must remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "Everybody can be great because everybody can serve".
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December 28 - Obama and the Disappearance of Race
Black?!
If you're black, get back.
If you're brown, stick around.
If you're white, you're alright.
At least, so goes a familiar ditty.
Sadly, we are still talking about "race" in the 21st century. Oddly, there are those who would say that the only black presidential hopeful for 2008 who certainly looks black, isn't. Which raises the interesting question regarding what advice he would receive from the he-ain't-black-enough crowd? Well, he's not alright 'cause he ain't white. If he ain't black, he can't get back. And not being brown, he can't stick around. Perhaps they'd like for him to get out of town; town being the presidential race for 2008.
Do they suppose he's not black enough to run for the presidency? Or is it that he's not black enough to be the first black president? History has taught us that one cannot be too white to run for the presidency. Nor has a white candidate ever been deemed not white enough to be a white president. Yet, perversely, a recent white president has been widely and approvingly lauded as being the first black president.
Isn't this all so silly? Of course it is. But race in America is silly. If only racial matters in America were simply harmless manifestations of silliness. But race in America is dangerous. Race has murdered. Race has oppressed. Race has been what is defective in American democracy from the Declaration of Independence to the present. It's been like a deadly viral infection that has always been curable if properly treated. But no one in a position of executive power or authority has had the desire, the guts or the wherewithal to treat the American socio-political body and cure it of the scourge.
That could well be changing. And no one of sound mind and heart would deny that it must change. The agent of change will be the skinny black kid of multiethnic parentage who grew up to be a wise and experienced junior Senator from Illinois. History will record that he is only the third black American elected to the Senate since reconstruction. However, he has been described by Salon.com's Debra Dickerson as not black "in our political and social reality". Is she referring to America?
With all due respects to Ms. Dickerson, she's confused. Probably many are. She wants us to define "black" as those "descended from West African slaves". Such criteria are not social nor political, but legal; and strictly speaking, legal in the context of determining the monetary value and possible recipients of dispensations due to a successful reparations suit. Ultimately, that may require resolving by modern DNA tests; something that would make the Founding Fathers go cross-eyed and drive the originators of the one-drop rule into insane asylums once they realized that everybody, all of us, came out of - oops - Africa.
The one-drop rule was America's social and political reality. It was divining rod "scientific". It used only the observation and conjecture aspects of the scientific method to arrive at conclusions that proved the sum total of hate plus ignorance equals destruction.
Black, in our social and political reality means anyone who would have been declared black by the one-drop rule. By that measure, the Queen of England is black. There are those (excluding the Queen's Ethiopian ancestor) who would find that notion ridiculous, even offensive. But "race" is ridiculous and offensive. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the idea that the longest reigning monarch is a strong black woman. (Please chuckle here!)
There is certainly nothing wrong with the idea that the next president of the United States could well be a black man.
What this really means is that America is finally ready to cast off its shackles of ignorance and hate, and to step firmly into the future where the only race that matters is the human race. President Obama will take you there.
The dream of America and the reality of America have always been in conflict.
The first time the dream challenged the reality was during reconstruction. The promise of reconstruction was that race would not matter in the economic political and legal reality of America. That promise was not allowed to develop because the reality of hate and ignorance produced the destructiveness of the KKK and other repulsive features of American Apartheid.
The Civil Rights Movement represented the second great attempt to supplant the racial vulgarity of the American reality with the humanity of the American promise. It almost worked. President Lyndon B Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. He also signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act. As a result, Richard Hatcher became the first black mayor of a significant American city - Gary Indiana - since Reconstruction. And since then African Americans have enjoyed unprecedented opportunities and achievements in some important spheres of American life.
But still African Americans are not equal partners in the construction of the American dream. Race is the culprit.
President Obama will end America's racial suffering and bridge the gap between the reality of America and the dream of America. America senses this. America is right.
President Obama reminds me of Sidney Poitier's character confronting his father in that classic scene from Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. "You think of yourself", he said to his father, "as a coloured man. I think of myself as a man". By virtue of his innate desire to be a man, President Obama will compel everyone to consider his and their humanness. He does this effortlessly.
If he has not pronounced on some of the issues the African American community is expecting of a black candidate for the presidency, perhaps it is well to remember that the ultimate aim of any freedom struggle is to deliver the oppressed into the bosom of the human family. No other candidate can do that.
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