Elliott’s Law

Posted 26 September, 2007 at 3:05 pm by Kevin
Filed Under Racism |

Whenever people say stupid shit and are then called out on their stupid shit, why do they always bring up Martin Luther King? Gee, you read Dr. King in High School and so now you know exactly what he would have thought about every racial incident in the world? Martin Luther King’s name has become, in the eyes of many, a “get out of jail free card,” it seems. Just mention his name and you’re right! I’m sick of it. It’s insulting to his memory.

Taking my cue from Mike Godwin I propose the following as true:

As an online discussion concerning race grows longer, the probability of a person referencing Martin Luther King, Jr. as a means to justify their racist and/or ignorant attitudes approaches one.

My law differs in that I assert that all such instances are inappropriate. And yes, if you do this, you lose.

In other news, check out Elle’s great analysis.

Do you ever wonder why sit-in participants had to be so well-dressed, so calm, so “respectable?”

Well, of course you know. The people who would be the face of the Civil Rights Movement had to be virtually blameless. They couldn’t give white bigots fodder to dismiss them or the movement. They had to tread a line between being the human face of the movement while upholding super-human reputations and faithfully remaining non-violent.

It was a lot to expect, this demand for perfection, this unspoken implication that African Americans had to be more than human, had to prove themselves worthy of fair treatment, of justice.

But I believe it was necessary then, to stave off attacks from enemies of the movement. Because a flaw, a sign of poor judgment, an episode of human error could be used to question the validity of not only the people involved, but the movement itself.

Well, skip ahead half-a-century, and AAPP makes an observation that struck a chord within me, that “white liberals and white bigots seem to agree.”

See, when faced with the question of how the hell can you be so silent in the face of injustice, of unequal treatment, of blatant racism, rather than admit you dropped the ball* or more importantly, that you just didn’t get it, you reached back and borrowed those old techniques for impugning the movement.

You can’t support the Jena Six (or issues this highlights) because there is no hero?

For people who didn’t know much about the Jena Six, suddenly you were awfully concerned about offenses for which Mychal Bell had been convicted.

And you focused on the MAJOR point of “was the slogan really effective/correct/what I would’ve chosen?”

And you referenced the old, “I just can’t understand what they’re saying!” I was honestly boggled by the “But… but… I couldn’t get clear information” and “Little comprehensible info was published about it.”

Oh, and “Well they’ve been telling us we can’t stand for them!” No, you can’t. But you can stand with us.

Even if you don’t, guess what? We’re still going to see and fight the injustice in the treatment of this child.

And OOH OOH! Sylvia wrote a guest post at Kai’s!

So what glimmer of understanding do I wish to impart? Very simply, the Jena Six is not a matter of guilt or innocence. If you think this case is about dancing and singing with Al Sharpton in Jena while wearing black, go home or bury some soap or something. If you view this case as a stepping stone for your own self-aggrandizement here there and everywhere, sit at home and think a few seconds before stepping back out again. If you think this case is only about freeing these young men, you’re half-steppin’. If you view the Jena Six incident as uppity newcomer Negroes wanting to start some ruckus, then please go back to your guard post under your bridge. Denial about a person’s criminal actions in a case is unwanted. This fight is not about what we can do to stop people from being criminals (though there’s no denying that goal is important); it is about what happens when those people are already within the criminal justice system and cannot afford an OJ-style legal Dream Team. (Unlike the amorphous debates over God and hip-hop, Johnnie Cochran is dead — bless his soul.) Even if those six teenagers are guilty of participating in a school fight, the penalty of decades in prison does not fit the crime. If our mainstream media watchdogs are sleeping on the job or are too busy staring up Britney’s skirt, we will lose people to our system routinely burying them under the jail in a matter of days because of insufficient representation, reckless convictions on circumstantial evidence, inadequate investigations, the wonders of a legal device known as a peremptory strike, and many other devices and systemic indifferences that ensure any perception of a person’s equal justice under the law is gone. The Jena Six punishment scheme is steeped in racial animus, even if the average Jena citizen’s colorblindness is kicking into stratospheric oblivion (wait for the Jena librarian’s explanation). Even as the citizen of a neighboring Louisiana town shows his biases and hostility proudly. If an overall goal must be set that encompasses the legal concessions of the past few months, that goal is fair sentencing and legal processing for people of color. If a specific goal must be set that is targeted towards Robert Bailey, Jesse Baird, Mychal Bell, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, and Theodore Shaw, it is a fair trial with adequate legal representation and sentencing proportionate to their offenses if it is determined that they are guilty.

Whatever direction you choose, remember to speak out about it before there’s no one left to speak for you.

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