The Long Road to Social Justice
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."...
The long road to social justice is not one straight road that you can see what is ahead…but
a narrow, winding road, with mountains to hike, bridges to cross, and sharp
turns to maneuver to find the right path to either reach your destination or
meet with the dead end. For black people in America, the road to social justice
has been long, treacherous, and fatal. Black American has been facing social
injustice as opposed to social justice for over 400 years and its impact on
their lives economically, socially, mentally, and emotionally will be a long
and again a difficult journey to overcome. The destruction, the acts of
injustices, and the racism the Black people have been subjected to have left
many ills in their lives.
Disclaimer: To express my anguish as a mother raising
my two black teenagers in America, I will refer to George Floyd’s murderer as
“the devil policeman” to distinguish him from the other good white/black
policemen.
In the wake of George Floyd’s gruesome murder that occurred on May 25,
2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota during an arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill the
devil policeman once again exhibited the unrestrained cruelty of the police in
daylight by kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd and the
eyewitnesses begged him to stop, but all in vain. His death sends people from
all walks of life worldwide into the streets outraged and protesting police
racial brutality and violence which in many cases ends up with murder.
What the devil police
murderer did to George Floyd was inconceivable in the minds of many people. For
the nearly nine minutes of cruelty, of violent acts, of unhinged the
mind of Derek Chauvin, the devil policeman who was taking someone’s life with
pride and pleasure as he pressed his knee on the human neck while his hands on
his pocket and ignore the plea from Floyd to stop and the begging from the
people on the scene to let it go, but those noises did not stop him from
accomplishing his mission of killing George.
The devil policeman
defied them all and displayed the worst of humanity as people listened and
watch helplessly begging for his life, and when it was all difficult to raise
his voice any longer, “he called his late mother-“Mama, mama, mama” three
times…But the devil policeman has to rest on his neck for another two minutes
after George’s silence to make sure that he cemented his death, and he could
now let go of him because it was over! He has done his day job! What
an unimaginable scene and unbelievable way of taking someone’s life…a combative
way of failing to appreciate the humanity of others.
Make no mistake, it was
not the counterfeit $20.00 bill he used at the store to buy a cigarette that
warranted his death! The police brutality and racial violence killings in
American and many parts of the world is an institutionalized injustice used by governments, as money-making machinery,
and as a weapon to oppress others while protecting the rich and powerful, and
or to kill discriminatorily. And the death of George Floyd and many other black
men before him was a true-crime of racial profiling went rouge-it was a systemic racial institutionalized system at work, doing what it has been doing to people of colors-blacks in particular for centuries-for over
400 years.
The exploitation of
Blackman by a Whiteman has existed for many years and the reactions and call to
demand changes-safety and justice for black people is the evidence that we must
confront the monsters among us with all the tools at our disposal. Whether it
is our governments or group of people in society, we must confront the
injustice, if we want to live in peace and with freedom, liberties, and the
pursuit of happiness.
What are the lessons
from George Floyd’s death?
First and
foremost, uphold and protect humanity…the appreciation of the humanity of others is
what makes us humans. Humanity stands for the qualities that make people human,
such as an ability to empathize, sympathize; the ability to accept, respect,
love, and have compassion and faith in one another. The one race-human race,
therefore, includes everyone on earth!
Failure to respect the
humanity of others is a violation of human rights! Human rights, therefore, are
the legitimate sets of standards that allow people the right to live and to
live with dignity, freedom, equality or fairness, justice, and peace. Every
individual has these rights because of their humanity-they are human beings.
But above all, human
rights are guaranteed to everyone and should be protected under the Laws of
Nature and the individual natural laws, and by the Laws of Land/Constitution
without discrimination of race, color culture, nationality, language, religion,
or political, social-economic backgrounds, and other status. Human rights are
paramount to the full advancement of individuals and the development of
communities.
“Human rights exist above the state and beyond
history. They cannot be rescinded by one government any more than they can be
granted by another. They inhabit the human heart, and from there, though they
may be abridged, they can never be extinguished.” ~ Senator John McCain.
George Floyd’s incident
was more than just taking someone’s life, it was a violation of humanity to the
unimaginable heights! And we as humans and a community of people
must never again accept man taking another man’s soul unhinged like the devil
policeman did-kneeling on the human neck for nearly nine minutes and ignore the
plea-“I Can’t Breath, I Can’t Breath”… such cruelty behavior resembles a wild
beat predator preying others-a Simba chocking and sucking the blood out of a
deer’s neck as his meal of the day!
Humanity must have
a meaning that distinguishes people from wild beast animals.
What is the role of the
government of the people in shaping society and the world we live in?
Civility and civic duty are two different things, but both are crucial
for a good society. Societal Civilization should not only
mean or be equated with modern tall buildings, tarmac roads or electronic
railways, or development of industries and technology, but human civilization
must also match with the development and maturity of valuing human life…human development and organization of social, cultural, ethnicity, and language acceptance and
respect of the ways of life of all people in the society, moreover, the laws
advanced and respected for protection of people, both laws of nature and laws
of the land protecting every person fairly.
Abraham
Lincoln in his speech at the Gettysburg delivered in 1863 during the American
Civil War said, “Conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that
all men are created equal.”
And to date, we still believe this to true yet here we are in
the 21 century and continue struggling to respect the rule of law and abide by
the constitution to safeguards the individual rights to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.
Then, the uncivilized
society, as opposed to a civilized society, is the society that put in place
systemic racial institutionalized systems that oppress and exploit certain
groups of members of society. Uncivilized society is a crude, barbarous, wild,
and uncultured society for it lacks the socio-cultural development and advancement
of a civilized society. Civility, therefore, rises from civilization or
civilized society for it uphold and value the acceptance and respect for all
people in the society by rendering its role as a protector to all citizens.
If the first role of civilized government is to protect it,
citizens, from domestic and foreign violence or attack… then the unrelenting
insecurity and trauma experienced by black people in American society are
directly linked to the government’s failure to provide the safety of law and
order to protect their Natural rights as their basic human rights.
“The law cannot save those who deny it, but
neither can the law serve any who do not use it. The history of injustice and
inequality is a history of disuse of the law. Law has not failed — and is
not failing. We as a nation have failed ourselves by not trusting the law and
by not using the law to gain sooner the ends of justice which law alone serves…
Until justice is blind to color until education is unaware of the race until an
opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be
a proclamation but not a fact.” ~ Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th President of the
Unites
The violation of black people’s rights has been going on for
over 400 years now, it does not make it right or legitimate. There have been struggles against injustices
that have been felt and experienced throughout that period with some wins but
this time we must end racial injustice by dismantling the systemic racial institutions as a road forward and toward a more just and
civil society.
The local, state, and national
governments must start to govern again, for they have gone rogue at all
levels…taking government as their private company by taking the taxpayer’s
money for granted…using the money to build racial institutions that
discriminate, like the police system that brutalizes, exploit, and kill people
of colors without responsibility or accountability…Other racial
institutionalized systems-education system, the criminal justice system, the
healthcare system, housing, employment, and other social systems alike need
reforms to address the need of all people in the society equally…
“This is the truth cause of freedom. The man who
is hungry, who can not find work or educate his children, who bowed by
want…that man is not fully free.” ~ Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964.
Our political
leaders/government officials and government relationships have fallen into the
curving what is good for themselves and leave the public high and dry,
struggling to make ends meet, to make it to the next day as they work long
hours, two jobs yet unable to make a livable income…there is the deprivation of
their social liberties and the pursuit of happiness.
Lyndon B. Johnson,
the 36th President of the Unites State said in 1964 during Civil Rights Act speech…
“Americans of every race and
color have died in battle to protect our freedom. Americans of every race and
color have worked to build a nation of widening opportunities. Now our
generation of Americans has been called on to continue the unending search for
justice within our own borders. We believe that all men are created equal. Yet
many are denied equal treatment. We believe that all men have certain
unalienable rights. Yet many Americans do not enjoy those rights. We believe
that all men are entitled to the blessings of liberty. Yet millions are being
deprived of those blessings — not because of their own failures, but
because of the color of their skin. The reasons are deeply embedded in history
and tradition and the nature of man. We can understand — without rancor or
hatred — how this all happened. But it cannot continue…Its purpose is to promote a more abiding commitment to freedom,
a more constant pursuit of justice, and a deeper respect for human dignity…Let
us close the springs of racial poison. Let us pray for wise and understanding
hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our Nation whole.”
His words are still
relevant today and haunting America 56 years late! Does the
government have the will to tackle its daunting problem of injustice still
lingering around in the 21st Century society? Can a shining
city on a hill-the land of the free and the home of the brave talk the talk and
walk the walk to match the pride it holds so honorably and display
majestically? Maybe not unless ‘We the People’ rise and demand what is our
rightful share of the government-from, rights for fair and equal standards of
treatment, to the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Unlivable wages and high
taxes on poor working-class while big corporations pay no taxes and or will not
offer their workers sound benefits in comparison to the labor they put to work,
is grossly wrong and pure exploitation! This cycle of corruption is going to
eat the public wealth and people to the bones while leaders in the government
use the government to enrich themselves.
Instead of a President
and his entire government leadership act in a manner that promotes public good, freedom, unity, and confidence in
people in their land of
free; and in the independence of integrity and impartiality, they, in turn,
become an instrument of torture, of discrimination, and abuse of the rule of
law and the constitution.
The disconnect leadership, the broken and corrupt leadership
leads to deception, lies,
and manipulations of people and the public. It becomes inconceivable that you
are born and raised in America, studied in America, become a state
leader and or a president yet, you dare to say in public that you did not know
that there is that much of racially motivated police brutality and violent
killings in America! Who is deceiving who here, if not our government leaders?
If we have come to a
consensus as to what government leadership should look like, then the current government administration and the public’s
experience for the past four years (2016-2020) has been nothing but a wave of
corruption and disconnected relationships domestically and internationally as people watch and experience in disbelief the leaders they
elected to represent them turn their back on them and engages in destroying the
norms and values of American society, disrespect of the rule of law and the
constitution, abuse of the presidency’s office by using it for self-gain and
interests, praising neo-Nazi by calling them, fine-good people, calling the
media/press the enemy of people if they expose his wrong acts, and or engage in
disinformation by turning the truth into lies, and the lies into truth;
distortion and manipulation, and the list go on and on! All with little or
nothing to do with the representation of the interests of the people as they
are there to represent themselves and their interests.
Are the ‘We the People’
going to stand on the sideline and just watch and accept it as a way forward,
or are we going to get involved and reclaim what the founders envisioned-a free
society with the right to life, liberty, and a pursuit of happiness?
Institutionalized racial
injustice in America is an epidemic that infects and kills people, and we must
treat it as such. Social liberties should be safeguarded if our leaders respect
them as our constitution’s rights…the rights to healthcare, education, housing,
employment, voting, clean water, and clean air, as primary human necessities …people
have the right to make a living, for if those rights are no longer meet or
available for them the government has lost its credibility, and people have the
right to abolish such a government.
A Good government provides good social liberties which are the lifeline for the public good, for
healthy and strong communities. The government must dismantle the systemic
racial institutions of government because of their discrimination, for
harboring racial injustice, and for hindering good progress and the enjoyment
of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by all people of the society.
