Political theater and social justice don’t always go hand in hand.
The future of Larry Hoover, the former leader of the Gangster Disciples whose residence has been a supermax federal prison in Colorado, lies at the intersection.
President Donald Trump granted clemency to Hoover’s federal life prison sentence last month. But Hoover isn’t free; he still has a 1973 Illinois state murder conviction in which a judge sentenced him to 150-200 years. A cynical interpretation is that Republican Trump could be using clemency as a flex to put his outspoken foe Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker on the spot. Hoover’s family and supporters are asking for a state commutation.
Hoover’s case is an aperture into U.S. prison policy. Mass incarceration is a cycle of trauma with taxpayers footing the bill. Cages are not generally places of rehabilitation but certainly are ones of retribution. At what point is a debt to society paid? When is a person deemed redeemable? Hoover, 74, denounced his past and has been locked up for more than 50 years. How many years is enough?
But Trump is hardly the harbinger of criminal justice reforms. In his first term, important changes included restoring Pell Grants for incarcerated students and bipartisan agreement aimed at reducing harsh prison sentences and relieving overcrowded conditions. White House rhetoric today screeches law and order. Trump is rescinding various policies and bludgeoned crime prevention budgets. Just before the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s death, the administration announced backpedaling on oversight of police departments accused of civil rights violations.
Another piece to Trump’s playbook in both presidential terms is pardons and executive clemencies — often to loyalists and donors. But also rappers, from NBA YoungBoy to Lil Wayne. Hoover’s family thanked Kanye West for bending Trump’s ear. In 2021, West and Drake even performed at a benefit concert for Hoover.
Long before his formal foray in electoral politics, Trump endeared himself to hip hop. As an ultimate symbol of gilded hypermasculinity, rappers name dropped Trump in lyrics. His name is shorthand for wads of cash and aspirational capitalism. It’s hard not to think some of these pardons are a gold-plated bone thrown to Black men. To be clear, most Black men didn’t vote for Trump, but like most other demographics, he saw an uptick in support last election. Trump’s strategy toward Black men is riddled with contradictions. Last year he floated bringing back “stop and frisk,” which disproportionately targets Black men. He also claimed Black people like him and his mug shot, because they face discrimination. And he’s never apologized for his cruel campaign against the innocent Central Park Five.
Trump welcomed his proximity to hip-hop. Now the president is plopped in a rap beef plumper than a Vienna sausage.
Sean “Diddy” Combs, the hip-hop mogul, is currently on trial in federal court for racketeering and sex trafficking. Like Trump, Combs spent the 1990s cultivating an ostentatious New York image. In his 2006 rap “We Gon’ Make It,” a line yet again hoisted Trump’s currency: “I spend absurd money, private bird money/That Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Bloomberg money.”
Speculation is already swirling before a verdict is reached. Trump said he would “look at the facts” of Combs’ case when asked whether he’d issue a pardon. Plot twist! Rival rapper 50 Cent said he would reach out to Trump to prevent one. His motives are not altruistic toward the women who took the stand to recount alleged abuse. Nope; 50 Cent wants the president to know “bad things” Combs has said about Trump in the past.
Back to Hoover. The governor hasn’t signaled a clemency is afoot. Hoover’s 1998 federal conviction was connected to running a criminal enterprise behind bars. That threat is in the past because the Gangster Disciples he and the late David Barksdale founded in the 1960s do not register in the streets anymore. When the feds took down large Chicago street gangs in the 1990s, the organized structure collapsed. Today’s street activity is a hodgepodge of fragmented street crews, or block by block. Black male youth listening to an elder boss whose imprisonment pre-dates social media is, well, preposterous.
Let’s see where the political theater leads us next and if social justice plays a role in the drama.
Natalie Y. Moore is a senior lecturer at Northwestern University and co-author of “The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of an American Gang.”
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