on february 1st, as part of black history month at mtsu in murfreesboro, tn, a panel on race and the death penalty presented to 53 students … we had 55 minutes total and i think it was an excellent blend of viewpoints and foci – perhaps there is something to be learned about setting up effective panels…

first, everyone out there in the blogosphere who has been put “dead” to sleep by a boring plenary (or panel) please raise your hand – alex can you count those hands please sir???

1, 2, 3, …5000, 5001, … 1,000,000, 1,ooo,001 … i think the point is made – a boring panel presentation that is well attended can do more harm to your organizing work than calling a sitting attorney general a blood sucking vampire ever will – believe it!

so here was the awesome mix…

professor margaret vandiver from the university of memphis presented on the history of the death penalty, it’s relationship to lynching, and its racist application, using newspaper headlines for example, to display the correlation between race and executions, particularly in former confederate states

barrister brad maclean, who is co-counsel for abu-ali abdur-rahman, explained the very important case of mccleskey v kemp…he did a nice job of relating it to the 2 1970’s cases that temporarily halted and later resumed executions in the united states and he closed with the poignant observation that executions (extrajudicial or otherwise) served the purpose in the u.s. of the social control of an enslaved, literally, population of people – very compelling

reverend henry blaze spoke from a faith perspective and intimately about community and then linking terror, a buzzword in the post 9/11 u.s., in the form of lynchings as well as racially biased use of the judicial system, inflicted upon the community of slaves and later people of color under jim crow to current dialogues and conversations regarding terror, terrorism, and injustice … tre cool…

finally, the tennessee dude did his organizer’s thing using the case of greg thompson to make his points and his case – very different stylistically from the other panelists …

in the end it was the variety of perspectives and the very specific niche, or path, laid out for each presenter that kept the audience’s interest and made for a compelling “read” as if 4 linked short stories were matched in a nicely bound and published volume …

so if you’re going to do a panel, make it strategic (in this case tied into black history month) and make it interesting like a 4 course dinner so that when the dessert comes out it doesn’t simply mimic the appetizer…

now go unpack your metaphors and get busy organizing!

peace out – <3

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