The Queen Versus the State

by Leroy Moore/illin n chillin

Although it is the 40th anniversary of the Black Panther Party and our community is celebrating Black History Month, I’m very worried about my Black Panthers who are reaching their golden years.

I recently wrote about Malcolm Samuel, a local Black Panther with a disability who, in 2005, was rounded up by Berkeley police for no reason and died in prison. Now, one of our queens has been dethroned by the state and left homeless. Queen Mama Khandi of Ohio is one of our living treasures.

The state has always tried to weaken our leaders, and although Malcolm and Queen Mama Khandi were thousands of miles apart, they shared many things in common. Both were Panthers, both disabled yet turned away from social service agencies and both were victims of police abuse.

Malcolm is with our ancestors, but we still have time to help Queen Mama Khandi regain her queendom. She is physically disabled, a diabetic and wears a full back brace. I was contacted by her friends, who reached out to me on her behalf, to help tell her story – one of oppression, discrimination and downright prejudice, committed by of the state of Ohio against a disabled Black Panther, activist, artist and entrepreneur.

Mama Khandi is a musician who joined the Black Panther Party early in her youth. This was the same time Mumia Abu Jamal joined. They attended the same broadcasting school. While disabled and homeless, she graduated magna cum laud from Central State as the first Black woman.

A supporter of the MOVE family Afrika, she played a key role in organizing the members after MOVE was bombed. At that time, her house was raided by police on horseback. They trampled three of her daughters and beat her until she lost the child she was carrying.

Queen Mama Khandi has delivered Black babies at her home for Black women for over 32 years. And she co-founded several independent Afriikan schools in Philly and two in Ohio. She is also co-founder of the Afrikan-Amerikan Cultural Center in Millville, New Jersey, the Church of the Afrikan Sons and Daughters of Sampson and COASADOS, which has given monetary, resource and material support to various freedom fighters, POWs and political prisoners.

So why has the state of Ohio completely destroyed her Afrikan queendom? Mama Khandi, who spent her days working with children, was accused of child abuse by two white ladies in her neighborhood.

On Jan. 13, 2002, Mama Khandi was asleep in bed when the police barged into her home with no search warrant and told her to get dressed. They threatened her, saying that they would pull her out of bed and take her to jail naked if she didn’t comply.

The cops would not wait till Mama Khandi got on her brace. She was not told what she being charged with and was taken to jail in her wheelchair. The arresting detective tried to trick her in signing her rights away.

Her bond was $850,000. While imprisoned, she was contacted by the housing authority, who told her that her housing voucher was being taken from her because “the head of household is not in the home� and that “being in jail constitutes (her) having somewhere else to live.�

It was very hard for me to read Khandi’s letters. She wrote about how she was consistently taunted and abused by guards and staff. She also went into details of the physical abuse she’s had to endure while in prison.

She came very close to following in Malcolm Samuels’ shoes – almost dying at the hands of prison guards and a lack of accurate medical care and access to a specialized diet. Being locked in solitary confinement – where she didn’t receive the physical therapy or medicine that would help to ease her pain – her disability worsened.

She was even denied her back brace, wheelchair and even warm clothes. Mama Khandi lost half her weight in the six months she was there.

Her health case manager explained to the judge that if something didn’t change soon, then they will have a dead prisoner on their hands.

In November 2002, Mama Khandi was released from jail on $40,000 bond and placed on house arrest. For almost three years, she has been trying to get her Section 8 and disability income back. She was staying with friends until she was forced to leave. These same “friends� decided to keep her personal belongings on March 10, 2003.

In November of that same year, the house arrest anklet was finally removed and her criminal trail began. The jury found Mama Khandi not guilty of kidnapping, not guilty of abduction, and they split 10-2 in favor of not guilty on the charge of child endangerment. However, she still is not allowed to see her son.

Mama Khandi is in the middle of representing herself in civil court, small claims court, juvenile court and criminal court and struggling with medical disability and financial crises. The pre-trial civil court case that she filed against the “heffas� who had her arrested was scheduled for Feb. 13. She also found out that she has to file another lawsuit, on her own behalf, against Section 8 because many disability law offices in Ohio can’t help litigate.

Mama Khandi called the local Red Cross about housing, but they had nothing. She received the same response from the Salvation Army. Despite her history of advocacy for African Americans, Mama Khandi wrote that no local African American agencies or organizations have come forward to assist her in any way! Not even those organizations of which she is a member.

It was sad, but not surprising, that the only agencies that have come to her aid, including the organizations that advocate for people with disabilities, are all-white or white-run.

As we celebrate Black History Month and the Black Panther Party’s 40th anniversary, let’s practice what we preach. Help restore Queen Mama Khandi to her throne. She needs your assistance, donations and love now.

To read her full story, view prison letters and her art and to listen to Mama Khandi’s music, go to her website at www.geocities.com/khandipages. Send donations to Rev. Khandi I.N. Paasewe, P.O. Box 6965, Columbus, Ohio 43205 or her PayPal.com account at khandipages@yahoo.com.

Leroy F. Moore Jr. is vice president of the National Minorities with Disabilities Coalition. He is a poet and activist and a race and disability consultant. Email him at sfdamo@yahoo.com and visit his website at www.leroymoore.com.

There is no summer in jail

by Queen Mama Khandi

There is no warmth behind cinderblock walls; leaks from the ceiling constantly falls; flooding solitary confinement jail cells; to make a change, deputies are not compelled.

Iron metal beds, upon which we sleep; concrete floors, inmates pace and creep. Metal ceilings, tables, benches and stools; deputies insult intelligence and condescend as if we are fools.

There is no distinction between innocent or guilt; upon corruption and oppression, this genocidal system is built. Inmates and deputies, to each other they cuss; fights, arguments, unjust treatment and fuss.

A paradigm most imperialistic and strange, this place is enough to make someone deranged. It’s cold in treatment and temperament alike. Lights on at all times, robs melanin battery at night.

Ceretonin/Melanin imbalance is thusly enforced; acid over alkaline, giving inmates no choice. Poor – nutrition, medical, rehab – a joke. All – so sickening, robbing body and spirit – to choke.

Nothing allowed that’s living can be, in anyone’s cell; considered contraband – not even a shrine with me.

I trust the Almighty, in spite of all, will prevail. ‘Cause truth be told, there is no summer in jail!