DeliaBlack's Open Salon Blog

Haley Barbour is no hero: Remembering victims he forgot

Fri, 7 Jan 2011 20:01:52 -0500

Adrienne Klasky, from The Sun Herald

Adrienne Klasky. Chances are you know the name of Haley Barbour, but have never heard of her. Who is she?

Adrienne was shot in Pascagoula, MS, in 1989 by her husband, Michael David Graham.

"Witnesses said Graham stalked Klasky for three years before pulling up next to her at a Pascagoula intersection and shooting her in the head as she waited for a light to change.

Graham surrendered to authorities 15 minutes after pulling the trigger of the 12-gauge shotgun. " (from cbsnews.com)

And in 2008, Michael David Graham, who murdered the mother of his own children, was released from prison by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour.

That is not all. Barbour is fond of releasing criminals. The release of the Scott sisters may mark the first seemingly just release of convicted felons by the governor.

Consider this from the New York Times:

"The Mississippi Department of Corrections confirmed Governor Barbour’s role in the five cases, noting that the specific orders were signed July 16, 2008:

• Bobby Hays Clark was pardoned by the governor. He was serving a long sentence for manslaughter and aggravated assault, having shot and killed a former girlfriend and badly beaten her boyfriend.

• Michael David Graham had his life sentence for murder suspended by Governor Barbour. Graham had stalked his ex-wife, Adrienne Klasky, for years before shooting her to death as she waited for a traffic light in downtown Pascagoula.

• Clarence Jones was pardoned by the governor. He had murdered his former girlfriend in 1992, stabbing her 22 times. He had already had his life sentence suspended by a previous governor, Ronnie Musgrove.

• Paul Joseph Warnock was pardoned by Governor Barbour. He was serving life for the murder of his girlfriend in 1989. According to Slate, Warnock shot his girlfriend in the back of the head while she was sleeping.

• William James Kimble was pardoned by Governor Barbour. He was serving life for the murder and robbery of an elderly man in 1991.

Radley Balko, in an article for Slate, noted that none of the five men were given relief because of concerns that they had been unfairly treated by the criminal justice system. There were no questions about their guilt or the fairness of the proceedings against them. But they did have one thing in common. All, as Mr. Balko pointed out, had been enrolled in a special prison program 'that had them doing odd jobs around the Mississippi governor’s mansion.'”

Political scuttlebutt has Haley Barbour running for president in 2012. My skin crawls at the notion. How can a man who released violent criminals to walk among the general public be fit for office?

The simple answer is, he isn't. My only hope is that the American public will remember not only the Scott sisters, but the crime victims that Barbour forgot.

from slate.com

______________

Sources

Raw Emotions Greet a Murderer's Release, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/02/national/main4316708.shtml

The Mississippi Pardons

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/16/opinion/16herbert.html

My mom, a MS teacher on the day Kennedy died

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 18:11:35 -0500

(My mother has severe heart trouble, among other things. She speaks slowly and not very strongly.)

Me: Where were you the day Kennedy died?

Mama: At Pass Christian High School.

Me: What were you doing?

Mama: Teaching, uh, English. (Sighing.)

Me: What were your students like?

(She thinks, shifts in seat, says nothing) Me: Smart, well-behaved, not well-behaved, in between?

Mama: In between.

Me: When and how were you told about his death?

Mama: Over the intercom.

Me: What was said and who said it?

Mama: Our principal, Mr. Lizana, um, said our president had been shot.

Me: Did he say more?

Mama: No.

Me: What did the kids do?

Mama: They clapped.

Me: All of them? Most of them?

Mama: Most of them.

Me: Do you remember any looking sad?

Mama: No.

Me: Did any seem angry or just sit there?

Mama: They just sat there.

Me: Was there cheering?

Mama: No.

Me: But you said most of them clapped?

Mama: Um-hmm.

Me: Why did they clap?

Mama: I don't know.

Me: Do you think other rooms had kids that clapped?

Mama: Probably so.

Me: What did the teachers say?

Mama: I don't know.

Me: What did your family say?

Mama: I don't know, Sissy.

Me: When did you hear he had died?

Mama: I think it was November 23.

Me: What time of day did you hear it?

Mama: Probably about noon.

Me: Did the kids know he had died when they clapped?

Mama: Yes.

A Lil Help from My Friends: Vote to Help the Homeless

Tue, 3 Aug 2010 15:08:23 -0400

I am on the board of an emerging nonprofit. We applied for a Pepsi grant, as did many other Gulf Coast Projects. (Pepsi set aside special money to help the Coast after the oil spill devastation.) Voting started August 2 and goes through August 31. The grant proposals with the most votes win the money.
Here we are:
http://gulf.refresheverything.com/helpjacksoncountyhomeless

Please share this. You can vote every day. I know that this isn't a funny piece, and I'm sorry to just outright ask.

The page details how we will operate. Homeless families who must have children under 18 are able to stay in churches overnight while receiving social services during the day. The idea is to put existing buildings to use as shelters, staffed mostly by volunteers. There are over 150 models of this program nationwide. The first one opened in 1986. Families are never required to attend religious services, but using existing buildings saves money.

This program that we are affiliated with--Family Promise--has the highest rating at Charity Navigator, which is 4 stars. They are very efficient.

I can't tell you how the writers of OpenSalon have helped me with everything that has gone on in my life in recent years. I have written before about becoming a volunteer leader of a homeless ministry, when just a few years ago I never thought I'd lead anything.

http://open.salon.com/blog/deliablack/2009/08/08/ive_come_to_a_clearing

Thanks for any support you can give.

Grateful

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:07:23 -0400

Yesterday at a store, I saw an old acquaintance. I was in a hurry to get ready for the once-monthly meal I help organize and I needed filling for our sandwiches, which were to feature BBQ 'pulled pork.' I went to the deli to ask if they carried it, my eyes scanning for an available worker to query. That's when I saw her. I knew she worked there sometimes, but still I didn't expect to be face-to-face. As soon as I recognized her, I started, then turned as if to flee, before making myself turn back and ask someone else what I wanted. 'Act normal,' I told myself. She managed to. She just kept talking to a coworker, though I know she must have seen me.

She is the mother of my father's murderer.

Once I left the deli, I tried to walk with purpose as long as I would have been within her line of sight, but when I turned a corner, I lost it a bit. Just a bit. I cried a little, walked aimlessly, thinking how tired I was of this. The murderer pled guilty and was sentenced to life without parole. His sister also works at that same store. I ran into her four years ago right after the murder. She started, then turned as if to flee, before making herself turn back. It must be an automatic reaction. We are cousins. Those years ago, when I was dazed and raw with pain, I went over to her and kissed her on the cheek. She was crying, but I wanted her to know I wouldn't hold her responsible. How could I?

Some months back her father committed suicide. I wonder how they told the murderer, who is in a prison hours away. The wife--the one I saw at the deli--must have found her dead husband. Having been at the clean up of the crime scene of a loved one, I wondered who cleaned up their crime scene. I didn't know what to do, so I went to the funeral. The daughter sent a cousin back to tell me to leave.

One of my aunts, well-meaning, later asked me what I had done. If we had had words. It made me so angry. That is the problem. We have no words.

Now the murderer's accomplice, who is not a family member, is due to be released. The LATEST she will stay in is until the end of this month. Her parents are in town. She will probably return. Her three children do not live in a good situation. I worry for them. I can pray, but I can do nothing else.

I wonder when I will see her, the accomplice. I remember her parents weeping as she pled guilty. She has been in jail just over two years. I begged the prosecutor not to offer her a deal. I begged the advocate in his office to have him meet with the family about this. He would not.

Days before the accomplice pled guilty, she had a quickie court appearance. I attended alone. Suddenly, the 'victims' rights advocate' taps me on the shoulder in the courtroom and tells me that the prosecutor is waiting across the hall between hearings and has a second to meet with me.

Little did I suspect the ambush.

I walked into a room filled with several attorneys. (Is that why it smelled of shit?) The DA was already worked up, and he pounced. I won't pretend to remember all he said, but it went something like this.

"She has three charges. Three charges. Normally people walk for any one of those charges. There's only one charge that concerns you. Normally accessory after the fact doesn't get ANY time. If you don't believe me, you can walk down the hall, and see two people plead guilty to accessory after the fact for TWO murders and they're going home today. You should be grateful that she's getting any time at all." He was getting louder toward the end, not screaming, but yelling. He pointed down the hall as he spoke of the two pleas.

I can't remember saying anything. I was shocked, and I think I just shuffled away. Where was my rage when I needed it? Where was the endless bitterness that kept me up at nights? I feel so angry at so many things, so ugly sometimes, but that is better than despair. It gives me energy. "My chains and I grew friends." I told a counselor some months back that I had not yet felt angry at the actual murderer. I had seen too much of his awful life as he grew up next door.

"We'll have to work on finding that, your anger toward him," she said. I thought she was eyeing me with theories on what I did with the anger he deserved. I feel more now than before that she is right, but I never went back.

When I think about how the girl, the accomplice, should have gotten many more charges for leaving my father to bleed to death from wounds during a robbery that she helped plan, when I think how she told the murderer to go back into the house to rob again across from his body on the next night, when I think of my father becoming their human atm and how he was left with no face, when I tell myself that if he were something more 'important' than a shipyard worker, she would have gotten more time...When I tell myself this, I have to tell myself that if my father were different, a different race or poorer or someone who had run-ins with the law or maybe a gay person or someone who has to beg for rights, then she probably would have gotten even less time. I remember telling God early on that I could not live, that I would not live if she got no time at all. That I refused to stay in this world. He must have known I was serious. But how many other people have told him the same thing?

At the beach last year I saw him walking. The DA moved swiftly in shiny shorts with his wife. Our eyes met, he started, and jerked his head down, then stared straight ahead, tightening his jaw but moving faster, as if to flee.

I held my gaze, relishing his discomfort. Fuck you, I thought back then. Unchristian, I know. I try to tell myself I would not want his job. He once told my family that sometimes you have to make deals with the devil. But I think of his anger at me. For what? For advocating for my murdered father? He should save his rage for the criminals.

She may be out today. Under this same sky. I will get a letter eventually announcing what I have already called to find out. Will she rush into her children's arms? Will she see this as a second chance at life? Will she treat them much better than before? Should she be set free when I am still trying?

I had 28 years with my father. He was not perfect. At times we barely spoke. We had recently gotten into a better relationship than ever before, but still he would not let himself be known. He had too many scars, I guess. Virtually everything I know of his life came from someone else. He was the least accessible person I have ever known. But I loved him. And I told him. And I know he loved me. That is more than many people get, I tell myself. You should be grateful.

We Meet Again-- 101 Words

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 23:04:56 -0400

We meet again. I come bearing letters--like last year--to your chosen place. The Waffle House turned Denny's. Murder does not go well with morning chatter, the slightly sulphurous smell of eggs. Clinking silverware. The slide of sugar into coffee.

Mourning is no beginning. It is endless. I come to beg. Keep her in. Give me one more year. Do not assault me with surprise. I may see her at Walmart. Anywhere. When she pled, I wept, "Where is my parole?"

The bloody pillow, I have, but I fear I am losing his voice.

Hear, Governor's lapdog. The only, hardest word.

"Daddy."