Count Ferguson, Missouri, as
one of countless places in which the letter of the law trumps justice. That is,
unless you believe the letter of the law IS "just us". I don’t and here’s why.
As most know, Ferguson is
ground zero to an ongoing saga plaguing our nation. There, a lawman gunned down
an unarmed citizen. In this case, 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed
by 28-year-old police officer Darren Wilson. The result has been weeks of
protests (locally and nationally) and civil unrest.
Those who thought “letter of
the law” was the single most important factor in the grand jury clearing Wilson
of wrongdoing are also likely to downplay the fact that the dead victim was
African American and that the shooter was white. Such thinking is shortsighted.
What was missing in the grand
jury outcome is also by and large discarded in most other legal arguments: the
current and historical context race plays.
On this point, attorneys,
scholars and armchair law experts will point out that race in such matters has
no place in courtrooms. Rather, it’s what happened in the moment that is
paramount. The rationale of this head-in-the-sand thinking is that race rarely has
a bearing cases like this. But it does. The scientific evidence associated with
unconscious bias in all people bears that out.
The current and historical
context of race is not just missing in Ferguson. It’s absent from other important
mainstream conversations surrounding large swaths of inequity. Like access to
quality food, housing, education, jobs and healthcare.
Why is context deemed
irrelevant by so many, despite our country’s beginnings rooted in oppression
and racism? Yes, there was the wonderful founding dream that we all are created
equal. But there also was the founding reality.
It started with the
systematic extermination and heinous relocation of native peoples and morally
criminal import of Africans as chattel slaves. Illicit acquisitions of land and
labor, and both were government sanctioned and rigorously enforced by law.
The persecution continued
with the infamous Black Codes and extended into the 1890s post-slavery era with
racially motivated Jim Crow laws and practices. This morphed into
separate-but-equal government policy, the result of an 1896 U.S. Supreme Court
ruling, and continued through the early- and mid-1900s, with more and more laws
that propped up housing, education, job, health and other institutional
segregation and discrimination into the 1960s.
Then came the crack era of
the 1980s. Law enforcement wielding its power with seeming impunity; crushing,
suppressing and occupying entire neighborhoods – as if they believed the
billionaire drug lords responsible for starting that insidious drug epidemic
were themselves living in South Central Los Angeles.
Mass incarceration as a
policy followed in the ’90s and it continues today, with the Land of the Free
and Home of the Brave holding the dubious distinction of having the highest
rate of imprisonment in the world. Not China, not Russia, the U.S.
Just think, the United States
represents about five percent of the world's population, yet houses close to 25
percent of the world's prisoner population.
And through it all, guess
who’s been saddled with the historic burden of enforcing these lawless
government laws? Police. What’s worse, who were/are the victims? People of
Color.
Government policies aside
(and that’s a huge aside), the police has a job to do. I get that. People of
all hues get that, not just middle class white folks. The fly in the ointment is
the current and historical context in which police operate in
communities of color. For many, especially those with few social, financial and
legal options, we have been conditioned to distrust police. Others outright
fear them. Yes, that fear and mistrust cuts both ways.
Fortunately in our community
there is hope. Battle Creek Police Department Chief Jim Blocker is out there
walking the talk. When it comes to addressing issues (including race), he’s walking
with residents, close up and personal. Marshall Police Chief Jim Schwartz is
doing the same.
Both are turning toward,
rather than running from the realities race plays in policing and our
community’s response to it. That said, they’d agree more (on all sides) must be
done.
Amnesty International USA’s
executive director, Steven W. Hawkins may have said it best: “The U.S. cannot
continue to allow those obligated and duty-bound to protect to become those who
their community fears most.”
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