The US’ Dual System of Justice
10th September 2020 · 0 Comments
By C. C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Columnist
When white ranchers in Nevada launched a standoff with the Bureau of Land Management in 2014, the images on television were shocking and appalling. The ranchers, who refused to pay $1 million in grazing fees on federal lands for their cattle, were armed and dangerous. They pointed their weapons at federal agents after the bureau had rounded up their cattle. But the standoff ended when the feds folded like a cheap suit and released the cattle. Moreover, all charges against Cliven Bundy, his two sons, and a co-defendant were dismissed with prejudice.
Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old Trump supporter, and armed vigilante recently killed two and seriously wounded another citizen at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Once again, white supremacists in the government are taking the white person’s side. The fact that Rittenhouse has committed murder against unarmed people, hasn’t stopped Donald Trump from supporting Rittenhouse’s action, saying Rittenhouse killed in self-defense.
Rittenhouse’s attorney, John Pierce, has ties to Trump. Pierce, who represented Rudy Giuliani and former campaign adviser Carter Page, plans to argue that Rittenhouse, at 17, could be part of the “well-regulated militia” of the Second Amendment. And although Rittenhouse has been charged with homicide, he is still being held in a juvenile facility in Illinois and is scheduled for an extradition hearing on September 25.
Kenosha police’s failure to arrest Rittenhouse in the city allowed him to escape back to Illinois. If Rittenhouse were Black and armed walking down the street after killing someone, what do you think would have happened?
We have only to remember that Black Panther Party (BBP) members in the late 1960s were killed by cops and the feds for exercising their Second Amendment rights to bear arms to form a “well-regulated militia.”
The BPP demanded an immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people. In its 10-Point Program, the group called for armed self-defense. “We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States gives us the right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self-defense.”
Meanwhile, Jacob Blake Jr., who was shot seven times in the back by a cop and is now paralyzed, is being cast by Attorney General Bill Barr as someone who was in the “commission of a crime and armed with a weapon,” to justify the attempted murder of the 29-year-old in front of his three sons.
So, clearly, authorities believe that if and/or when Blacks are armed, they are immediately thought of as a threat but whites who are armed are not. Witness the Trump Truck brigade that rolled through the streets of Portland shooting paint balls and mace at Black Lives Matter protesters. They also had automatic weapons. But, obviously, it’s ok for white supremacists to assault unarmed protesters.
Cops have used the mere fact that Blacks may be armed as an excuse for killing them, as in the case of Jacob Blake Jr., who allegedly had a knife on the floor of his car.
However, in the case of white supremacist Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black people at a Bible study with an assault rifle, the cops bought him Burger King before they took him to jail, because he hungry.
In Los Angeles last week, cops came up with the same, “He had a weapon,” excuse to justify killing a 29-year-old Black bicyclist. Deputies shot and killed Dijon Kizzee, after he ran from deputies and a gun was later found on the scene,” according to news reports.
So, which was it? He “ran” from deputies or he produced a gun? This flimsy lie is consistent with the age-old practice of cops throwing down a gun to justify killing a person. Dead people can’t tell their side of the story, so saying the victim had a gun (when the person is Black) is a tried and true excuse for killing innocent unarmed Black people. But even if he did have a gun, what about Kizzee’s Second Amendment rights?
In the case of Breonna Taylor, the District Attorney offered a plea deal to her boyfriend, which involved implicating Taylor in her boyfriend’s alleged drug trafficking scheme. If he named Taylor as a co-conspirator, they would give him probation instead of a 10-year sentence. He refused the deal, which clearly was offered to justify the killing of Taylor while she slept in her bed.
What we have here, is what we’ve always had, a twisted system of justice for whites, that protects them even when they commit crimes, whether law enforcement or not, and a system of injustice for Blacks, when they are the victims of brutality and unjustifiable killings.
What this really comes down to is a system of structural and systemic racism. It is the 500-pound gorilla in the “living” rooms of people of color and in the so-called halls of justice, and now, as we saw in Kenosha, the systemic racism being sanctioned and supported by Trump is spreading and affecting white people, who have joined the Black Lives Matter movement.
There is no doubt that police departments, district attorneys’ offices and police unions must be reformed but white supremacists must also be purged from the federal government and other elected offices if we are ever to achieve real justice.
In a last ditch effort to promote systemic racism and to re-instill American apartheid, President Donald Trump is pulling out all the stops to Make America White Again. He must be voted out along with his supporters, Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham and the rest of the neo-KKK members holding elected offices locally, statewide and at the federal level.
We can’t let them force us back to the 1950. This is 2020.
If we are to live in an America where all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights, we must, as we always have, take to the battlefield with the only weapons we have, our ballots. Otherwise, as the aphorism goes, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
We remember the past because it has become our present. Let’s not drag it into our future.
This article originally published in the September 7, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
