Sept 2007
A lot of Black Americans were angry that a Black lady was kidnapped in Virginia for days, rapped, and stabbed, and the prosecutor was treating it with kid’s gloves. Again, they may be a law from the 1800s that says that when a Black person is in your house for more that a day for whatever reason, the Whites have the right to do whatever with the Black, but if the actual White owner complains, then damaged may be paid to the White owner. In this case, there is no White owner to get compensation for damages. The questions then become: Was the Black lady in the White people house for more than a day? Did she walk in by herself? Did the White people have the right to do whatever to this Black being on their property? If yes, then under the law, the White family has a very good case especially if there are no modern laws to counteract these specific slave laws. Even if the law favors the Black lady in court, the punishment will not be as sever because there are already established laws that give Whites an advantage even before a hate crime is conceived and committed. We wonder why Blacks get most of the police brutalities, many of the job and housing discriminations, little of the business loans, and most unjust legal decisions compared to other minorities. It is because they have a better change to utilize the American law to win cases on American soil than Black Americans. This is because the American law did not say Jew, Arab, Korean, or Hispanic, it says “Black”, “Slave”, or “Negro” has no right or can be mistreated. The police have no real power under the law over other minorities on the streets, schools, or business places, but they have over Blacks according to the way the law was written. The other minorities have a fair chance to fight under American law if messed with, but Blacks really do not. The truth is that we are under the mercy of the judge and may God help us if we meet a conservative judge whose main job is to “converse” their historical traditions and heritage of White empowerment based specifically on Black powerlessness.
Thanks to Civil Rights lawyer and Judge, Thughood Marshall for fighting on our behave in the court rooms to give us laws to reference in the future for our defense and reversing some of the slave laws. While Martin Luther King was matching and Malcolm X was giving speeches to draw attention to the plight of Black America, Thurgood Marshall was in the courtrooms making it legal and permanent. How I wished he never accepted the position of the Supreme Court Judge, but instead continued as a Civil Rights lawyer. I know very well, he would have taken the civil rights to a higher level of counteracting the slave laws, preventing them from being referenced, or would have gotten the White House, the Congress, the Supreme Courts, and all American peoples to accept the fact that we can not go to other lands declaring their freedom until all Americans are genuinely free under the American law. He gave us Pearson vs. Murray in 1935 that banned segregation in University of Maryland Law School, Smith vs. Allwright (1944) that allowed Blacks to vote in Southern states, Shelley vs. Kraemer (1948) that prevent Blacks from losing their purchased property under “restrictive covenant” that forbids Blacks from ownership. He also gave us Brown vs. Boards of Education of Topeka (1954) that reversed Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) to allow equal education for all by banning school segregation, Browder vs. Gayle (1956) that ended bus segregation, and Garner vs. Louisiana (1961) that defended the rights civil rights demonstration without police or legal interference.
The American nation and the Civil Rights movement must rise up and live up to its creed and image of freedom, fairness, and justice for all. You can not have or leave laws that disregard or undermine the lives and rights of another. The American law must be reviewed and if possible be re-constructed and cleaned out. We can not have a group of Americans, despite Civil Rights laws, feeling superior under the law because of the knowledge that they have an upper hand over another in the court rooms. I strongly recommend that the American nation from the White House, the Congress, the Supreme Courts, and all peace and fair loving Americans to take a stand to purify and updates all American laws in our cities, counties, states, and nation that truly reflects the true meaning of what it is to be an American. The next step for the Civil Rights Movement after Jena 6 is to set up a fund from donations of all Americans who believe in this mission of America to finance lobbyist and lawyers that will fight to make this mission a reality. If we failed to accomplish this in our generation, we will not only have failed our ancestors and America, but also our children.