Tagged: second class citizen

“In the American judicial system, few more serious threats to individual liberty can be imagined than a corrupt judge. Clothed with the power of the state and authorized to pass judgment on the most basic aspects of everyday life, a judge can deprive citizens of liberty and property in complete disregard of the Constitution. The injuries inflicted may be severe and enduring. Yet the recent expansion of a judge-made exception to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1871, chief vehicle for redress of civil rights violations, has rendered state judges immune from suit even for the most bizarre, corrupt, or abusive of judicial acts. In the last decade this ‘doctrine of judicial immunity’ has led to a disturbing series of legal precedents that effectively deny citizens any redress for injuries, embarrassment, and unjust imprisonment caused by errant judges.”

Source: Robert Craig Waters. Judicial Immunity v. Due Process: When Should A Judge Be Subject To Suit? Cato Journal, Vol. 7, No. 2 pg. 461 (Fall 1987).

“Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten. A society is always eager to cover misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can fully repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present. America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness — justice.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Source: Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? pg. 109. 1967.

TIME puts the slogan “BLACK LIVES MATTER” on its cover following the recent murder of ANOTHER UNARMED BLACK MAN by police in AmeriKKKa, but if WE really matter so much to TIME, how many BLACK people are employed throughout their organization?

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If TIME truly gave a damn about black lives, it wouldn’t have take this long for them to show their support considering the high number of unarmed BLACK men, women and CHILDREN who have died at the hands of cops within the last few years alone…

“Thomas Jefferson was fully aware of what the long-term impact of enslavement would be on white people and black people and everyone in between that were confused. He talked about the horror associated with what slave masters did and that their children imitated the behavior among their friends and younger children that were enslaved. And that that built into a sickness on the part of Europeans and hatred and antipathy on the part of Africans. [Jefferson’s] greatest fear is that it would end in [the] extermination of one or the other race. He says because God cannot side with us — meaning Europeans — in this contest. He cannot side with us, which means God will side with them. He says, ‘I tremble for my country when I consider that God is just and that His justice cannot sleep forever.’ So Thomas Jefferson not only knew at the time, the wrongness associated [with slavery] and recognized the long-term impact that it would it would have. These are his words — I’m not making this up. But somehow, it gets absent of the curriculum. Somehow, it gets removed and we talk about all the other things that he was able to expound upon. And I think that if we’re talking about healing, if we’re talking about a response, we have to look and understand historically, how the injury transmitted itself [and] what it looks like then [and] now and then contrast that with Africa.” — Dr. Joy De Gruy

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination. As members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantee of equal protection, we ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society. It is this view that works harm, by perpetuating the facile notion that what makes race matter is acknowledging the simple truth that race does matter.” — Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Justice Sotomayor stated this in her dissent to the case Bill Schuette v. Coalition To Defend Affirmative Action. Of course, the majority conservative and Republican appoinetd Justices concluded that it was constitutional for the state of Michigan to ban affirmative action in college admissions. It pisses me off that over the last 38 years, it is mostly the Justice of color who has been willing to acknowledge the realities of racism in the 21st century and write a judicial opinion with statements like this. But what good is it if her views on race will always be part of the minority?

Source: Adam Serwer. “Sonia Sotomayor: Court’s Right Wing ‘Out Of Touch With Reality.'” msnbc. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/sonia-sotomayor-slams-supreme-court-right-wing-race-matters.

if an appeal is basically a summary of the legal arguments raised in the lower court, is it possible for the appellate court to conclude that a party’s appeal “lacks an arguable basis either in law or in fact,” if it took the district court judge 26 pages to issue an Order that purposefully ignored the facts of the case and manifestly disregarded the prevailing law?

“I’m the descendant of enslaved black people in this country. You could’ve been born in 1820, if you were black and looked back to your ancestors and saw nothing but slaves all the way back to 1619. Look forward another 50 or 60 years and saw nothing but slaves. There was no reason at that point in time to believe that emancipation was 40 or 50 years off. And yet folks resisted and folks fought on. So fatalism isn’t really an option. Even if you think you’re not going to necessarily win the fight today in your lifetime, in your child’s lifetime, you still have to fight. It’s kind of selfish to say that you’re only going to fight for a victory that you will live to see. As an African-American, we stand on the shoulders of people who fought despite not seeing victories in their lifetime or even in their children’s lifetime or even in their grandchildren’s lifetime. So fatalism isn’t really an option.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates

This is exactly the reason why I have fought this case in the unrelentless way that I have. This case is soooo much bigger than me! I was so disgusted after finding out that my inability to be hired and/or promoted to Agent was not an “isolated” incident and that William Morris has been engaging in a pattern and practice of excluding qualified African Americans from positions like Agent for more than a CENTURY with “malice and/or reckless indifference” to our federally protected rights. I’m not only fighting for my human & civil rights, but I’m fighting for the human rights of all people of African descent (and ultimately everyone) — so that we may no longer have to live in a society governed under an unjust, white/”Jewish” supremacist system that explicitly and/or implicitly reminds black people every day, in every aspect of our lives (e.g.  in the classroom, in the workplace, in the media, in our judicial system, etc.), that our lives don’t mean shit, that we are inferior, less than, second class citizens, three-fifths a person, that we don’t have rights that the white man is bound to respect, etc. They need to deal with their issues and they — not us — need to get rid of their backwards and racist thinking. Their entire existence is based on a lie (the myth of white racial superiority) and this oppressive culture has the AUDACITY to say that WE are the problem! Smdh. Lauryn Hill said it perfectly:  “Unlearn, and let your mind be retaught.” It’s the only way transformative change throughout our country and the world can occur!

“It doesn’t take 100 days to decide if murder is a crime. It takes 100 days to figure out how to tell people it isn’t…” — Chris Rock

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So many celebrities have reacted to the grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson. Jesse William’s (who I consider to be our modern day Harry Belafonte) reaction definitely resonated with me:

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