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Blinder
Justice
How Columbus Georgia Can
Lead the Way for America in the Matter of Racial Profiling
with Officers of the
Law and Their Tricky Trigger Fingers
By
S Renee Greene
December 2003. Yet another unarmed black man
is shot by a sheriff’s deputy with a ‘tricky trigger
finger’ excuse and the debate rages on about whether or not
the gun would have been in the officer’s hand at all “had it
been a car full of young white men.”
Ever since the incident of that pre-Christmas
night, the supporters of Officer David Glisson have been calling
for “healing” and “peace” in the small west Georgia
community. Healing and peace in times like these can be trying,
even after all the information and facts are released. What
happened before the facts were released is a matter for America
to take a long hard look at and ask what is the binding lesson
that the entire nation can learn about racial profiling and how
it affects the greater common good.
Several conclusions were foregone before all
the facts of this one unnecessary killing were in place:
1) Racial
profiling is a sad fact in the United States of America.
2) There are
far too many incidences of this nature that seem to be peculiar
to minorities, particularly young Black men.
3) Police
officers and deputies are consistently viewed as the
“victims” in these circumstances and are allowed to walk
away as if the life of the beaten and/or deceased victim was of
non-significance.
4) It is the
open-ended opinion of many whites that “black males are the
root cause of the vast majority of crimes in America,”
therefore, the other three foregone conclusions are
nationalistically justified.
Living as a spiritually believing Afrimerican
leaves room for even deeper questions, such as “How do I as a
citizen, and as a believer in the righteousness of God react or
respond when things like this happen?” and “How can this
kind of killing by officers sworn to uphold the law and who
consistently break it help shine a light on a clouded road
toward healing and reconciliation in an
already-racially-polarized America?”
The answer lies in the life, times, and death
of Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus had committed no crime worthy of
death, yet He was killed, murdered like a common criminal on a
cross, for being who He was simply because his accusers didn’t
believe it when He told them who He was and why He was there.
Enraged for what they believed to be crimes against the king and
the sensibilities of reigning leadership, He was labeled a
“suspect” and given a bogus trial date and time at off-hours
because “the crowd,” (the public) for the most part, had
already decided what was to become of Him.
Maybe the Lord Jehovah God is finally sick
and tired of the events and the complacency of the American
justice system in these matters, and has set forth the exemplary
life of one Kenneth B Walker – indicted, tried, convicted, and
sentenced to death by the fell shot of one police officer – to
lead the way to justice across the nation. Kenneth B Walker’s
voice cries to us from the dust of the ground to which he
returned after living one socially responsible life and having
it taken away from him in a moment of conclusion-jumping that
should never have happened. His murderer remains ‘at-large’
with the legal permission of the county of Muscogee in the west
center of the state of Georgia. The work cannot be left undone.
Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel,
your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my
brother’s keeper?” And He said, “What have you done? The
voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the
ground” (Genesis 4:9-10). In an encouragement of faith and a
call to action, it can be noted that the deepening chasm of
racial polarization in America can be resolved only one way:
Through true justice, God’s way; especially once it becomes
clear that the “law of the land,” man’s way, does not
always work as it should.
posted 29 December 2005 S Renee Greene, a native of Denver
Colorado, now makes her home in Atlanta Georgia, where
she is the editor-in-chief of the new media e-zine, The
Conqueror & Review and owner/consultant of SouthState
LLC Intellectual Properties. She is a former content editor
for AngelFish News & Review and the Freedom Riders
Express. She is also a current contributor for The
Student-Operated Press, The American and The California
Chronicle, and is a former columnist with The College Press.
A former staff writer/news clerk with the Columbus (GA)
Ledger-Enquirer, Ms Greene is also a member of the National
Writers Union-DC Local No. 1981 and the Writers Guild of
America-East. * * *
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Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All
By Russell Simmons
Russell Simmons knows firsthand that
wealth is rooted in much more than the
stock
market. True wealth has more to do with
what's in your heart than what's in your
wallet. Using this knowledge, Simmons
became one of America's shrewdest
entrepreneurs, achieving a level of
success that most investors only dream
about. No matter how much material gain
he accumulated, he never stopped lending
a hand to those less fortunate. In
Super Rich, Simmons uses his rare
blend of spiritual savvy and
street-smart wisdom to offer a new
definition of wealth-and share timeless
principles for developing an unshakable
sense of self that can weather any
financial storm. As Simmons says, "Happy
can make you money, but money can't make
you happy." |
* * * * *
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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