The color of justice

24th March 2014   ·   0 Comments

By Edmund W. Lewis
The Louisiana Weekly, Editor

Apparently, some things are more important than partisan politics. Nothing brings political adversaries together like a common cause.

I’m not talking about affordable health care, improving public education or flood insurance rates.

The common cause I’m referring to is white domination of U.S. politics and economics. As the late Black sage Gil Scott-Heron taught us decades ago, home is where the hatred is. This time, that hatred was aimed directly at a champion of civil and human rights.

Dems and GOP members in the U.S. Senate sent that message home recently with their efforts to block the confirmation of President Barack Obama DOJ nominee Debo Adegbile, former head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Seven Democrats joined all of the GOP senators in blocking Adegbile from advancing. The civil rights attorney needed 51 votes to advance — the final vote count was 47-52.

Their reason for blocking his confirmation: Adegbile used his legal skills to provide counsel to former Black Panther and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, perhaps the nation and the world’s most famous political prisoner. Essentially, Adegbile had the audacity to believe that the U.S. Constitution’s provision that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty applied to his client and all defendants in the United States. He also believed that Mumia Abu-Jamal had the right to be represented by the best legal counsel available to him and not just an attorney who would not put up much of a fight for him.

Three decades after the murder of a white Philadelphia cop and the conviction of Abu-Jamal, the majority of the United States Senate finds Adegbile’s legal representation of Mumia Abu-Jama reprehensible and unforgivable.

Even before the recent Senate vote, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Va.) compared Adegbile’s treatment in the Senate to the hostile environment then U.S. Supreme Court nominee Thurgood Marshall faced five decades ago.

Clearly, Leahy’s point fell on a lot of deaf donkey and pachyderm ears.

Essentially, representing a defendant who challenges the system makes Debo Adegbile a monster, or worse, an uncontrollable, indefatigable legal eagle.

What does that say about freedom, justice and equal protection under the law in America? Why would a bipartisan coalition of some of the nation’s most powerful elected officials want to block the confirmation of someone who has a long, documented track record of defending the U.S. Constitu­tion and has been unrelenting in his commitment to doing everything in his power to ensure that justice prevails in the nation’s justice system?

Why indeed.

At the time of Abu-Jamal’s arrest and conviction, the political climate in the City of Brotherly Love and the Philadelphia Police Department seemed to be almost as repressive and corrupt as their counterparts in New Orleans. You could see the same disregard for constitutional policing and equal protection under the law and the same penchant for prosecutorial misconduct as a ploy to win convictions at any cost to individuals or civil and human rights.

Mind you, this is the same Philadelphia where a Black mayor sanctioned the bombing of the homes of members of the revolutionary group MOVE, the same Philly where cops, prosecutors and judges often tag-teamed Black and poor defendants to dole out their own brand of heavy-handed justice

Despite very little evidence linking him to the murder, Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted and sentenced to die for the murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner.

Although he was recently taken off death row after nearly three decades, Abu-Jamal remains behind bars on a life sentence, still fighting for his freedom and that of the nation’s most underserved citizens.

More can be learned about the struggle, strength, sacrifice and courage of Mumia Abu-Jamal by checking out his recent documentary, “Mumia Abu-Jamal: Long-Distance Revolutionary.”

When Debo Adegbile was successful in getting Abu-Jamal’s death sentence overturned, he should have known that there would be hell to pay.

How dare Debo Adegbile provide legal representation to such a courageous opponent of white supremacy, capitalism and imperialism?

One has to question why attorneys who agree to take on the cases and causes of Black freedom fighters and even Black defendants accused of any crime against a white person are branded with a capital E that designates them as an official “Enemy of the State.” Attorneys who represent the likes of Michael Dunn, who gunned down 17-year-old Jordan Davis, or those who defended George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin’s killer, will face no such scrutiny, scorn or fame.

Similarly, attorneys who defend cops who gunned down unarmed Black people in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina face no such professional damnation or blackballing. They continue to get work representing other cops who allegedly shoot unarmed Black people and someones even go on to become judges, as did one such gentleman who made it very easy for Merritt Landry to get out of jail quickly after shooting an unarmed Black teenager in the head after finding the boy in his yard early one morning.

What are these Senators from both major political parties telling us about the way things are run in “Post-Racial America” and how little things have changed since the days of Plessy v. Ferguson and the Dred Scott decision?

How are these seven Democrats who blocked the confirmation of Adegbile any different than the so-called “Dixie­crats” that gave Black people the blues for decades and those who continue to cite worries about currying favor with conservative voters as their primary motive for voting against the interests of their Black constituents?

When are we going to get aggressive in the political arena and give elected officials who cross or slight us reason to fear us when it’s time for re-election?

In such a hostile racial climate, where would we be without courageous men and women like Debo Adegbile who gets up every day and fight for justice, fairness and equal protection under the law?

What better place for Debo Adegbile to work than the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice?

President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are no doubt frustrated and angry about the Senate’s defiant refusal to confirm Adegbile. No surprise there.

“The Senate’s failure to confirm Debo Adegbile to lead the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice is a travesty based on wildly unfair character attacks against a good and qualified public servant,” Obama said in a statement. “As a lawyer, Mr. Adegbile has played by the rules. And now, Washington politics have used the rules against him. The fact that his nomination was defeated solely based on his legal representation of a defendant runs contrary to a fundamental principle of our system of justice — and those who voted against his nomination denied the American people an outstanding public servant.”

What the president doesn’t get is that many local residents were similarly angry and frustrated about his decision to endorse a mayoral candidate in this city who has relentlessly undermined the DOJ’s efforts to completely overhaul the NOPD and bring constitutional policing to New Orleans.

What needs to be conveyed to Obama and Holder is that every day in parts of America, people’s rights are being blatantly violated by law enforcement agencies, judges and other local, state and federal elected officials. Whether it’s politically expedient or not, we need those in positions of authority and power to stand up and defend not only the U.S. Constitution but also the rights of the people.

Mr. Debo Adegbile is apparently such a legal warrior, which explains why the U.S. Senate moved heaven and earth to block his confirmation.

An empowered people can harness their political will and fight for the betterment of the entire nation, giving elected officials who listen to the will of the people the political capital they need to effect long-lasting, positive change.

President Obama needs to tap into the will and resolve of the people and let his conscience and sense of purpose be his guide as he marches toward the end of his second term.

The president’s struggle is our struggle and our fight to be recognized as free human beings in this society deserving of all the rights and protections of the U.S. Constitution should be President Obama’s fight 24/7.

We all could have benefited from the legal expertise and commitment to justice of Mr. Debo Adegbile, and we can benefit from being represented by elected officials who never forget what it feels like to depend on someone we elected to office to fight for our rights at City Hall, in the State Legislature and yes, even in the nation’s capitol.

None of us can afford to go through our lives pretending that we don’t see the corruption, bigotry and political chicanery that take place in government every day until it impacts us personally, professionally or politically. As our Black South African brothers and sisters have been trying to tell us for at least the past half-century, an injury to one is an injury to all. More succinctly put, if they come in the morning for you, they’ll be back for me when the sun goes down.

That’s just real talk.

This article originally published in the March 17, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.