By: Juan Cole

1. White terrorists are called “gunmen.” What does that even mean? A person with a gun? Wouldn’t that be, like, everyone in the US? Other terrorists are called, like, “terrorists.”

2. White terrorists are “troubled loners.” Other terrorists are always suspected of being part of a global plot, even when they are obviously troubled loners.

3. Doing a study on the danger of white terrorists at the Department of Homeland Security will get you sidelined by angry white Congressmen. Doing studies on other kinds of terrorists is a guaranteed promotion.

4. The family of a white terrorist is interviewed, weeping as they wonder where he went wrong. The families of other terrorists are almost never interviewed.

5. White terrorists are part of a “fringe.” Other terrorists are apparently mainstream.

6. White terrorists are random events, like tornadoes. Other terrorists are long-running conspiracies.

7. White terrorists are never called “white.” But other terrorists are given ethnic affiliations.

8. Nobody thinks white terrorists are typical of white people. But other terrorists are considered paragons of their societies.

9. White terrorists are alcoholics, addicts or mentally ill. Other terrorists are apparently clean-living and perfectly sane.

10. There is nothing you can do about white terrorists. Gun control won’t stop them. No policy you could make, no government program, could possibly have an impact on them. But hundreds of billions of dollars must be spent on police and on the Department of Defense, and on TSA, which must virtually strip search 60 million people a year, to deal with other terrorists.

This is on that “Never Forgive, Never Forget” tip. Similar to when Roy Jones Jr. was robbed in 1998 by South Korea in a shameful scandal.

Blood money is money or some sort of compensation paid by an offender (usually a murderer) or his family group to the family or kin group of the victim.

Blood money is, colloquially, the reward for bringing a criminal to justice. A common meaning in other contexts is the money-penalty paid by a murderer to the kinsfolk of the victim. These fines completely protect the offender (or the kinsfolk thereof) from the vengeance of the injured family. The system was common among the Scandinavian and Teutonic peoples before the introduction of Christianity, and a scale of payments, graduated according to the heinousness of the crime, was fixed by laws, which further settled who could exact the blood-money, and who were entitled to share it. Homicide was not the only crime thus expiable: blood-money could be exacted for all crimes of violence. Some acts, such as killing someone in a church or while asleep, or within the precincts of the royal palace, were “bot-less”; and the death penalty was inflicted. Such a criminal was outlawed, and could be killed on sight.

• In Islamic terms, Qisas can in some cases result in blood money being paid out to the family of victims. The amount varies from country to country and from case to case.
• In Japanese culture it is common to give blood money or mimaikin to a victim’s family. Such was the case with Lucie Blackman’s father who accepted £450,000 as blood money for the murder of his daughter.
• Under the Korean legal system, it is common for those accused of serious crimes such as rape to offer blood money (hapuigeum, 합의금) to the victim, and if accepted then the perpetrator is usually excused further punishment. It is often brokered by the police. Despite being common practice, its use in high-profile cases does sometimes result in protests.
• In the Somali people’s customary law, which they call Xeer (a polycentric legal system developed indigenously), blood money is issued in the event of libel, theft, physical harm, rape and death, as well as to supply assistance to relatives of the injured party.
• In the Christian Bible, the term is used to refer to the thirty pieces of silver Judas Iscariot receives in exchange for revealing the identity of Jesus Christ to the forces sent by the Pharisees and/or the Sanhedrin. After the crucifixion of Christ, Judas returns the payment to the chief priests, who “took the silver pieces and said, ‘It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.’”
• “Shanghaiing” was the practice of the forced conscription of sailors. Boarding masters, whose job it was to find crews for ships, were paid “by the body,” and thus had a strong incentive to place as many seamen on ships as possible. This pay was called blood money.

“There are no words in any language, no gesture in any culture that can explain or describe what I have been through,” said Banks. “I hope my story brings light to a major flaw in the judicial system.”

Banks was once a football star with dreams of playing in the NFL.  He was only 16 when a woman accused him of kidnapping and raping her at school.   The woman, Wanetta Gibson, added him as a friend on Facebook and in a message said she wanted to “let bygones be bygones.” 

Banks’ attorney, Justin Brooks, said that Gibson and Banks met and she was caught on video admitting that no rape every took place, and that she would help him to clear his record.  She was then brought before prosecutors and is now obligated to repay the $1.5 million that her mother was paid by the school for what allegedly happened.

Banks went to jail in 2002 for the crime, when he was just 16 years old.  At the time, he was being heavily recruited by USC and other colleges. He was on his way to fill out college applications when he met up with Gibson and went to a stairwell to make out. He apparently said something she didn’t like, which led to the allegations of kidnapping and rape.

Investigators found no physical evidence of rape. Due to the pressure from his attorney and prosecutors, Banks pleaded no contest to the kidnap and rape charge, after being told that he would get 41 years in prison if he fought the charge and was convicted.

Banks thought he would get just 18 months based on his attorney’s advice, and instead ended up in prison for six years. While in prison, his case was taken on by the California Innocence Project.

“Brian’s story is so compelling, and his case for innocence so clear, we knew we had to take this on,” said Justin Brooks of the Innocence Project. “Brian lost a huge part of his life when he was unjustly sent to prison.”

Banks has had to remain on probation under electronic monitoring and could not get a job after being registered as a sex offender.

“This is a kid who was a superstar,” Brooks added. “He would be playing the NFL now if this hadn’t happened.”

Photographs by Andy McMillan / Text by Maya Dusenbery, Mother Jones May. 9, 2012

Between 1929 and 1974, North Carolina sterilized more than 7,500 residents for being “feebleminded” and unfit to reproduce.

Between 1929 and 1974, North Carolina sterilized more than 7,500 of its residents. Most were operated on without their consent, having been deemed “feebleminded” and unfit to reproduce by the state Eugenics Board. Eighty-five percent were women; about 40 percent were black or Native American. As many as 2,000 victims are thought to still be alive.

Nationwide, 32 other states had eugenics programs during the 20th century, resulting in the sterilization of more than 60,000 Americans. While several states have formally apologized for this ugly chapter in their histories, North Carolina is the only one that has attempted to compensate its victims. In January, a state task force recommended that each living, verified victim be paid $50,000. Last month, Gov. Bev Perdue requested $10.3 million to cover the cost.

Elaine Riddick (above) has been one of the most outspoken advocates for the victims of North Carolina’s eugenics project. In 1968, when she was 14, she was raped and impregnated by an older neighbor. The Eugenics Board declared her “feebleminded” and “promiscuous.” Immediately after she gave birth to her son by cesarean section, she was sterilized. Her illiterate grandmother signed the consent form with an X. “I’ve never been feebleminded,” Riddick said during a hearing last summer (PDF). “They slandered me. They ridiculed and harassed me. They cut me open like I was a hog.”

Riddick’s son, Tony also spoke at the hearing. “If you want to know why I’m so passionate about this,” he explained, “[it] is because I saw what was done to my mother. I saw the rape that was done to my mother through the state.”

The majority of North Carolina’s sterilizations took place between 1946 and 1968; only 48 people were sterilized after 1971. Janice Black (above) was one of the final victims. When she was a teenager, Black’s family decided she shouldn’t have children and social workers labeled her “feebleminded.” Her name was the only thing the 18-year-old Black knew how to write when she agreed to be operated on in 1971. Today, she cleans medical equipment at the same hospital in Charlotte where her stepmother brought her to be sterilized more than 40 years ago. Black told the Charlotte Observer, “Sometimes I—what I feel like—that I wasn’t treated fairly. Like I was a human being. I was treated like I’m not no human being.”