Justice and terror
20th April 2015 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
cash loan and security rensselaer indiana Editor
Is it just me or do we need an Anti-Lynching Crusade similar to the one Black leaders waged during the dark days when Black were being castrated and hung from trees like they were going out of style? Some of the names and methods of exterminating Black people have changed, but the results and effects are the same.
What some have described as racial progress others simply say is the evolution of domestic terror.
Violence, intimidation, strong-arm tactics and deadly force are still being used to control, humiliate, degrade and oppress Black people living in the South.
And now we finally get it and understand what the late Black nationalist leader Malcolm X meant when he said that everything south of the Canadian border line is the South.
Curtis Mayfield also tried to school us when he sang, “The hunt is on, and brothers, you’re the prey.”
Some of us have clearly forgotten or never really understood that the police were not created or trained to protect and/or serve Black, Brown, Red or Yellow people. As noted psychiatrist Dr. Frances Cress Welsing has pointed out, police are the system of white supremacy’s first line of defense.
It’s been that way since the architects of the U.S. Constitution decided that Black people were three-fifths human for inventory and tax purposes.
Just to be clear, living in a majority-Black city with a Black mayor, Black police chief or majority-Black city council cannot and does not guarantee that law-abiding, Black taxpayers will not become victims of unconstitutional policing.
All you have to do to run the risk of being targeted, harassed or exterminated by the police is be Jogging While Black, Walking While Black, Shopping While Black, Driving While Black, Smiling While Black, Dreaming While Black, Reading While Black, Texting While Black, Eating Skittles While Black, Breathing While Black, Traveling While Black, Living While Black, Enjoying Life While Black or Simply Being Black.
It’s important to note that if you are Black and live in America, your chances of getting killed by a cop are off the charts. They’re even worse if you’re Black and male, because the male of the species is the designated protector of the family and Black men and boys carry the threat of white genetic annihilation for Europeans.
What can we do?
We can use our cell phones and social media to highlight unconstitutional policing and racial injustice. We need to continue to document everything that is methodically done to marginalize, exploit, dominate, control and exterminate us so that we can make a strong case for genocide in the global community.
We also need to build and support Black businesses with the goal of generating Black economic power in mind. We need to train and educate budding entrepreneurs who understand that the goals associated with starting a business must extend far beyond personal wealth and comfort. We need conscious, dynamic business owners who understand how Black people’s lack of harnessed and organized economic power makes us an easy target for our oppressors.
We need to make those who cross us pay for their transgressions and make it known to them what the cost will be before the transgression is committed.
We need to love ourselves. We need to gain a deeper knowledge and understanding of ourselves and our history and take the time to fall in love with ourselves. We are descendants of the first people on the planet and should not allow anyone to disrespect, degrade, oppress us or question our right to be. We must ask ourselves daily if we love ourselves more than we fear being arrested, criminalized, brutalized or belittled by the larger society. We’re worth standing up and fighting for.
We need to stop using our faith in a higher power as an excuse to stand up for justice, democracy and equal protection under the law. The Creator gave us a brain and a backbone and the will to speak out whenever injustices and atrocities are committed. The Most High helps those who help themselves.
We need to communicate with one another and share information about the plight of Black people with all of the Black people we know. We need to be able to talk about the struggle with the same ease and comfort that we demonstrate in casual conversations about the weather.
Let’s talk about it and be about it. In the spirit of talking about it, let’s talk about some of the stuff on the minds of people of color as we find ourselves in the midst of another crest in police attacks on unarmed Black people. Here we go:
• Whose fault is it that federal prosecutors poorly handled the Henry Glover murder trial and that the justice system took nearly 10 years to seriously pursue criminal charges against NOPD Officer David Warren for Henry Glover’s death?
• When you consider the fatal NOPD shootings of Wendell Allen and Justin Sipp two years ago and a NOPD officer’s shooting of a suspect in the head after turning off a body camera last year, how much different is the NOPD in 2015 than it was in 2005 when it killed an unarmed Henry Glover, James Brissette, and Ronald Madison and wounded four others on the Danziger Bridge?
• Why are the federal courts and the U.S. Department of Justice letting the NOPD get away with only implementing cosmetic reforms rather than the 492-point federally mandated consent decree prescribed by the DOJ?
• Who thinks that recruiting undereducated white males from the mostly white suburbs surrounding majority-Black New Orleans to police the city is a good idea?
• How many Black or Latino law enforcement officers have ever gotten away with fatally shooting an unarmed white civilian?
• Why are so many Black and Brown state and federal lawmakers so silent about “Blue-on-Black” violence on America’s streets?
• In what civilized society does a law enforcement officer laugh after murdering an unarmed man with eight gunshots in the back?
• When are New Orleans residents going to demand justice from its criminal justice system?
• Why should any Black voter support a Black, Brown, White, Red or Yellow political candidate that has failed to demonstrate a commitment to promoting justice, equity and democracy?
• Is anybody out there surprised to learn that members of the Landrieu administration were caught writing scripts for the NOPD superintendent to read before the Civil Service Commission?
• Was anyone surprised that the man tapped by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to lead the NOPD credited the mayor’s NOLA For Life initiative with making possible a 43-year low murder rate and not the NOPD’s crime-fighting efforts?
• How many members of the mayor’s six figure-earning team have ever said anything publicly to contradict their boss?
• How much should the City of New Orleans pay the family of Wendell Allen after an NOPD officer fatally shot the unarmed 20-year-old on the staircase of his Gentilly home?
• If we were considered three-fifths human during slavery and a Supreme Court Justice decided in 1857 that Black people had no rights what whites were bound by law to respect, how much better are Black civilians being treated in 2015 by law enforcement officers of all races?
• How does anyone who condones or defends the way police officers, prosecutors and the entire criminal justice system do their jobs and fix his or her much to call anyone else violent or uncivilized?
• How does lowering standards for NOPD recruits do anything to contribute to a more enlightened or progressive police force?
• When are we going to get tired of there being no justice, just us suffering unjust treatment from the criminal justice system?
This article originally published in the April 20, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
