This is Systematic Racial Injustice

“Everyone is crying out for peace, yes
None is crying out for justice
Everyone is crying out for peace, yes
None is crying out for justice

I don't want no peace
I need equal rights and justice
I need equal rights and justice
I need equal rights and justice
Got to get it, equal rights and justice”

Equal rights and Justice is perhaps one of my stand-out songs from the late great Jamaican reggae artist Peter Tosh. The lyrics of the song are as piercingly clear as daylight. The lyrics are repeated over and over in a way that permeates even into the mind of a non-reggae fan.

I am not the biggest fan of reggae music, but I have come to appreciate the messages in most reggae songs especially the ones done by Bob Marley and his group of wailers that included Peter Tosh. The first two verses above of Peter Tosh’s song, gives an idea of what his thought process was. Yes peace is what the world needs, but it is forlorn to demand for peace where equality and justice are non-existent.

What am I on here? Definitely not a reminder of the 1980’s hit songs. I am never one to look backwards when looking forwards is available. However, the recent protests and demonstrations in the USA have reminded me of the lyrics of Peter Tosh and I realized that his song is as much relevant today as it was in 1982. The protests in St Loius area started following a grand jury’s decision not to indict a Ferguson, Mo., white police officer, Darren Wilson, who fatally shot and killed 18 year old black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014.

While the area of Ferguson may have become notorious with police brutality towards blacks, the killing of unarmed black men has continued unabated countrywide as 34 year old Rumain Brisbon was also killed by a police officer in north phoenix following a chase and scuffle.

In the days that have followed, the protests have spread to Oakland, Berkely and San Francisco prompting many news networks to report the protests to have reached a nation-wide scale after a black New York City resident Eric Garner, died after a white city police officer put him in what is being widely referred to as a choke hold.

Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley, and John Crawford have all been recently killed in circumstances which are racially propped, fueling mistrust and raising the voices against mistreatment of black people at the hands of white police officers. 

Justice must be for all races

For those of us following the stories on cable TV many miles away, these may seem as just another breaking story. These events in my view are very regrettable and an affront on humanity. The fact that this is all happening in the USA which is the land of plenty where freedoms abound only comparable to atmospheric oxygen, is an embarrassment to humanity.

Since America is usually the ‘world standard’, I will not be surprised when police at home here in Africa shoot innocent citizens and get away with it giving reasons that police in the USA do not get prosecuted too. That may sound comical but it was the kind of answer given by our Zambian politicians during the constitutional review process when the will of the people was clearly to do away with the death penalty. Not once, but repeated with great clarity and succinct, the answer was, that ‘America still upholds the death sentence.’

Well, not many will agree with me that the recent murders of Rumain Brisbon, Michael Brown and Eric Garner though not racially motivated, their known killers have escaped justice because of the racial issue and nothing else. It seems the land of freedom has not yet unfastened the shackles that deny freedom, equal rights and justice for all. Selective justice is the order which has kept the killers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Rumain Brisbon.

The case of Trayvon Martin may not be recent but his shooting was in the same line as that of Michael Brown. The fallacy of the legal process that followed in seeking justice for his known killer is what brings me back to the racial debate. Trayvon was a black teenager who happened to be walking wearing a hoodie over his head and ultimately had his life cut short for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

His killer, Mr George Zimmerman who was doing neighbourhood watch patrol, claims he asked the young man to stop but he didn’t and instead reached his hands in his  jacket and fearing he was drawing out a gun, Mr Zimmerman shot at him a couple of times killing the young man instantly. Trayvon Martin’s body was found with no weapon on him and investigations ended with George Zimmerman facing murder charges in a Florida court which would eventually clear him of all charges.

Nobody can credibly claim to know with any degree of certainty what transpired in the confrontation between the two involved individuals.  Since only Mr. Zimmerman lived past the confrontation to tell his account in court. No one will ever know the actual truth and facts of the evening. The situation can almost be likened to that of Oscar Pistorious and Reeva Steenkamp-the world may never know the truth.

As it turned out, the six member all-female jury found George Zimmerman’s account of what transpired, certainly both plausible and to a high degree supported by the physical evidence. Accordingly, they determined that there was reasonable doubt of any culpability thus cleared him of all charges.

What followed the decision were protests from the black communities who asked the question that had the roles and races been reversed, would a black George Zimmerman have avoided jail for fatally shooting a white Trayvon Martin?

I can still ask the same question for Michael brown. If an 18 year old white Michael Brown just going into college with no criminal record was shot dead by a black police officer Darren Wilson, will the officer have walked freely?

The fact that a grand jury cleared Mr Wilson and found him with no case to answer brings me to my next point, that the systems are structured to protect wrong doers on racial lines. 34 year old Brisbon’s case for instance was the 19^th time police opened fire on a suspect in Phoenix in 2014. Simple truth is that they get away with it so they do it again, and again.

Look at how the investigations and consequent prosecution of George Zimmerman went. With no eye witnesses and the only account coming from the suspect it proved difficulty to prove such a case beyond any reasonable doubt. Knowing that murder would be hard to prove the District Attorney and his team of prosecutors in Florida decided to prosecute Mr Zimmerman on cases they would find it the hardest to secure conviction. If the charge was manslaughter, it would have been much easier to secure a conviction of George Zimmerman.

I may not be a criminal law guru but the truth is that it is not the easiest of undertaking to secure a conviction where the only other witness is the deceased. Without making a habit of referencing the Oscar Pistorious case, the blade runner was not found guilty of murder but thank God, judge Masipa found the killer of Reeva Steenkamp guilty of culpable homicide.

Looking back at the Trayvon Martin case, the system, through first the investigating officers then the prosecution attorneys, had a daunting task of proving murder beyond a reasonable doubt there by giving the jury the easiest job-let George Zimmerman walk free.

Perhaps a more damning illustration that the justice system supports these inhuman and highly racially inclined murders is yet the case of Michael Brown. Among the documents that the St Louis prosecuting attorneys released on November 24 after the grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson are; police radio traffic; and an alleged audio recording of the shots fired by the police officer, a transcript of testimony from an Air Force pathologist who performed an autopsy.

Police officer Darren Wilson told the grand jury that his gun went off during a tussle with Brown through the open window of his police car moments before Brown was fatally shot. The Associated Press has reviewed all of the grand jury documents that have been released and none appear to include a transcript or a recording of a two-hour FBI and county police interview with Brown's friend, Dorian Johnson, who was with Brown when he was shot.

Dorian Johnson was walking with Michael Brown when they encountered Officer Wilson in a Ferguson street. Wilson fatally shot Brown, who was unarmed, after a struggle. According to Dorian Johnson, Wilson provoked the violence. Dorian also said Wilson fired at least one shot at his friend while Brown was running away. Unlike the case of Trayvon Martin where the only other witness died, here the justice system decided to do away with the evidence of the only witness and only deliberated on the evidence of the suspect. What a fallacy!

Protests against the killing of blackmen: Picture source- Associated Press

My view… My thoughts…

I can’t help but think Peter Tosh was right. Who needs peace? The pictures we are seeing on TV every day would not be as they are if Darren Wilson was not cleared by the grand jury. In some cases the protests have become violent with protestors resorting to looting, and police employing full force and effecting arrests. In order to achieve peace, justice must be served in a system that promotes equality before the law.

In towing the line of thought provided by Peter Tosh, it is actually easy to relate his thoughts to Haile Selassie who said; “Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned…, everything is war. Me say war.
That until there is no longer 1st class and 2nd class citizens of any nation. Until the color of a man's skin is of no more significa…nce than the color of his eyes, me say war. That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race me say war!”

There is no way a system should perpetuate the killing of one race by another with such impunity. Yes the cases do pass through the justice system so to some extent there is action. The truth is that these cases are just taken through a justice system that makes sure the cases are eventually dropped. The old adage says, justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done.

I have for a long time mulled over the credibility of justice systems and the law profession as a noble and honorable one given that in most cases the application of justice is relative. One case with the same facts can get a thousand judgments by different judges. Then there is the question of which system is most fair, the one where the learned judges decide guilty or innocent or where a jury of chosen citizens decides. The degree of inconsistencies is too high in current justice systems the world over.

Further, the application of true justice is in my view flawed by the fact that while it may be legal to do an activity 'A' in area '1', it may be illegal to do the same activity ‘A’ in area 2. Maybe that is even less confusing than the fact that crime ‘B’ committed by suspect C can result in a guilty verdict if represented by attorneys ‘XYZ’, the same crime ‘B’ committed by the same suspect C may result in an innocent verdict when represented by attorneys ‘ABC’. Still, you could substitute have the same defence attorneys but just put there a different judge and you get a totally different verdict.

I know for sure the law profession has tried to standardize by bringing up concepts like ‘precedent’ which cases are referred to previous similar cases and judgment made on the basis of an earlier ruling. The question though remains that justice systems whether in USA, UK, South Africa or Zambia are heavily flawed and true justice is rarely served. The rich get away with a lot of indiscretions while the poor suffer even for crimes of others or become constant victims like Michael Brown paid with his life. It is not only on the basis of social class that justice is served or denied but also on racial lines. Taking someone’s life and having a system protect you because of your skin colour is the worst form of inequality and injustice.

There are half baked attempts at ending racism in the world like the attempt to rid the problem in sport. I say half-baked because I see no reason to fight a white footballer who in the heat of the moment in a game calls a black footballer a nigger but do nothing to a white police officer who shoots to death a black teenager walking by the sideway with his friend. Maybe yes the footballer deserves some sort of punishment or the white fan in the stands who directs monkey chants at a black player or throws bananas deserves a stadium ban so they can learn to be civilized, but that white cop who chokes a black suspect to death must be prosecuted for taking a life away.

Throwing a banana is a lesser form of racism and why should we fight the lesser form and not the kind that has no regard of the life of another race. Racism as minorities experience it and as it is understood in most social justice circles is worse when it is in the form of a systematic kind of oppression. Then, it may be difficulty to cure.

The American black community must also come to terms with the fact that civil rights activists of yester-year like Jesse Jackson will not get them anywhere if in 2014 they have not yet achieved the right to life for the Black man. Now is the time for the American black community to identify new leaders in the fight for civil liberties as clearly they are still too far from civilisation.

I say so because the recent killings may have attracted the attention of the media, but a lot of injustices take place in the American justice system. A book I was reading earlier this year highlights the problem faced by minorities as African-Americans and Hispanics in the USA where the justice system makes it easier for them to go to jail and as a consequence generations end up behind bars with no future and this is running from one generation to the next.

In the book titled, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, the author Michelle Alexander highlights the facts that the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The author brings out simple statistics and facts to prove that the US justice system targets black men for mass incarceration at the forefront for racial injustice in America which destroys the black communities and that of other minorities.

That said, there are still questions that beg for honest answers. If justice systems can protect someone that takes another person’s life, where are the lawyers who swore to protect the noble profession? Why can’t this great anomaly in the justice system and law be fixed? Does morality count in Law? To whom are judges accountable to? How relative is justice and application of the law?

These are not questions for the American justice system only. In Zambia race may not rank high on the list of parameters for injustice in our police and courts of law but the social class parameter ranks high any day. Stereotypes of tribe can also prove a stumbling block on how one receives fairness in the justice system in Zambia.

These killings in the USA have exposed the decades old worst form of systematic racial oppression and America must know that peace is being jeorpadised in that great country and consequently the world at large. Peace doesn’t exist where there is injustice.