“The court will sign this order dismissing
this case against Richard Dan Phillips.
I would rather die in prison than to
admit to something that i didn’t do.
The state cut off his welfare benefits.
I feel like I’m just being taken advantage of
by the state. they convict me of a crime and
now you won’t even help me out?
So he is turning to the thing that helped
him survive in prison to survive now.”
Richard Phillips is the longest-serving inmate in
the United States to win exoneration.
He spent 45 years in prison.
He was exonerated, yet since his release
has been forced to turn to food stamps,
and sell the watercolor paintings he made in prison,
just to get by.
Alright now bear with me, I know many of you
messaged me and were expecting my hot take on this weekend’s
MAGA kids vs Native Elder showdown.
So let me just sum it up real quick
and allow me to take a word from our right-wing
friends who will do backflips to excuse
bad behavior from a white kid but blame
a 12-year-old black child for his own killing by police,
and say that these kids were no angels.
But my attention was drawn to another story.
One of which is all too familiar,
but all too underreported.
The type of story that should be on
every front page, but is buried amidst this
back and forth diatribe that has become our media climate.
And frankly I’m choosing not to play that game,
it’s not why I do this.
People like Richard Phillips are.
Richard Phillips was freed from prison
a year ago after serving 45 years for a
crime he did not commit.
45 years of his life.
Just...process that for a second.
A system that allows that to happen
is not a system that’s broken,
it’s one that needs to be dismantled
and rebuilt from the ground up.
Phillips was wrongfully convicted of homicide in 1971
and then exonerated following an investigation by
University of Michigan law students
and the Wayne County prosecutor’s office.
But since his exoneration, Phillips has been
forced to sell the art he made to
keep himself sane while incarcerated,
just to live.
So let me get this straight you incarcerate
the man unjustly for nearly half of a century,
and then leave him to live off food stamps?
Why? Well, the state of Michigan is
reportedly resisting paying Phillips the $2 million
he was supposed to receive as
compensation for his wrongful conviction.
Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy supports
Phillips’ effort to be compensated for his years in prison,
but the case is said to be complicated because Phillips
has a separate disputed conviction in Oakland County
that’s still on the books.
And while that may be the case, what isn’t complicated
is the grave injustice of leaving a man who
served 45 years for a crime he didn’t do, to fend
for himself without assistance.
Forcing him to turn to desperate means to
survive after being robbed of 45 years of his life.
“Watching my own children grow up.
I missed that.
That was first.”
And this is why it’s so important we pay attention.
Last week I did a video speaking about
the Groveland four, who were just
pardoned 70 years after being wrongfully accused of a raping a
white woman in 1949.
And while that may seem like a long time
ago, here we are, in 2019, and a man is forced to struggle for
survival after just being exonerated by the same justice system.
A justice system that wrongfully
convicts minorities at staggering rates.
While black people make up 13% of the US population,
they represent a whopping 47% of
the 1,900 exonerations in the registry.
But nobody wants to talk about that do they?
They just scream out,
‘What about black on black crime?’
and move on.
But these stories need our attention.
Sure, it’s a turbulent time at the moment where the media is
clawing and scraping at each other.
Everything is shouted down as fake news.
I can even admit that for a while I lost
focus and was dragged into this impulsive back and forth.
But that’s not why I did this.
That’s not why I wanted to do this work in the first place.
I want to give a voice to the voiceless,
and help bring cases like Richard Phillips’ to light.
He shouldn’t be forced into selling his art in order to get by.
That’s not a society I want to live in,
and no matter what side of the political
sphere you are on, it shouldn’t be one
you want to live in either.
There has been a positive grassroots
movement sparked in order help Richard Phillips, some people
like Franklin Leonard want to raise money in order to give him
materials for his art, and others have set up a gofundme,
and you can support Richard right here.
For more on this come over to my instagram @francismmaxwell
i’d love to hear your thoughts on this
and as always you can become a
member at tyt.com/join