Emmett Till photographs, Abu Ghraib photographs

Fifty years ago, the United States had a mirror held up to itself. It could not believe what it was seeing or want to believe what it was seeing. A fourteen-year-old black youngster, Emmett Till, was brutally tortured and murdered in Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a white woman. His tongue was choked out, one eye removed, the other eye was left hanging to the middle of his cheek. His nose bridge appeared to be chopped and ground. His teeth were knocked out --only two teeth remaining from his once beautiful smile. His ears were removed and a bullet hole went through his head. Finally, an ax split the cranium, separating the face from the back of his head.

Mamie Till Mobley, Emmett's mother, made the conscious decision to have an open casket showing the atrocities inflicted on her bloated, brutalized son.

Recently deceased, African-American publisher and entrepreneur, John H. Johnson published these horrific funeral photographs in his Jet Magazine. The public was so shocked and sicken at the level of violence related to racism in the United States.

It was these photographs that became the evidence proving the racist institution in the United States and subsequently becoming the catalyst for the Civil Rights movement. It was these pictures that forced the United States to look hard and deep at its flaws and mistakes. It forced the United States to correct such inequalities.

Currently, the United States is looking in the mirror again. This time the topic is sanctioned torture.

Last May, the first photographs of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal were published. Many Americans were shocked and some did not want to believe that this could be official policy; but instead the actions of a few rogue soldiers. Although the pictures disturbed the
American public, the story was eventually rationalized and minimized through a series of "so-called" accountability investigations and a few low ranking military soldiers receiving disciplinary action. Higher military officials often times received promotions.

The Pentagon has blocked the release to make public four videos and 87 more photographs under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) . Supposedly, this material is more graphic and disturbing than the original photo set.

The global public needs, and deserves, to see just how heinous these torturous acts can be. If the blocked media is that nightmarishly horrific, the United States has to own up to its moral compass that it flippantly tosses around the world stage, and admit its mistakes. It will have to apologize for forgiveness and need to carry out retribution to those that were harmed. If not, the United States' human rights credibility on the world stage will be non-existent until it comes clean and honest with itself. Its actions will be forever questioned and tarnished in its complicity to use torture under its guise of "spreading democracy and freedom" around the world.

And hopefully, building from Emmett Till's atrocity, humankind will try to work and strive towards a more humane, less violent world.