Justice On My Mind

I have been thinking a lot about crime and punishment. Mainly about who determines what is criminal and who administers punishment. And whether punishment is justified for all crimes or any crime. And more specifically, is there any other way to deter unlawful or immoral behavior other than punishment. I keep thinking about Bill Cosby. I recently saw 1968 documentary entitled “Black History: Lost, Stolen or Stayed” that he narrated. If you have never seen this video, find it and watch it. You too will realize that he has been #woke for a long time. And with his awareness, he used his ample resources to help uplift black people.  I keep thinking about the fact that he, as a black man who made it, never forgot to give back. And we as a community can never forget that. There are folks who have done the same or much worse than he allegedly has and done far less for black folks in terms of using their resources to help uplift the community yet continue to get the unflinching support of the black masses. R Kelly.  I am in no way defending him or the crimes he may have committed. I am saying that we as a people tend to abandon people who have stuck their necks out for other black people. Malcolm. Martin. Marcus. This list is endless. We live under a regime that never breaks code. It supports, defends, upholds white supremacy no matter what because they know what is at stake – POWER. And if we understood power, we would understand the need to protect those of us who have power and have used that power for our benefit. We are their only defense. And we can enforce morality and community standards in a way that does not weaken us. And trust me, we are weakened when a black multimillionaire philanthropist, media mogul, and his legacy are destroyed. There used to be time when we had a council of elders along with a loving community who could humanely and more justly sit in judgement of a person who had done wrong and prescribe a consequence that would hold them accountable and not just make them an example. We understood that human beings are both good and bad. That means that both the judge and the criminal are the same: capable of both good and bad.  Ma’at taught us to look at the totality of a person’s life and to judge accordingly. That’s who we are. We are, however, Africans who have suffered under the laws of this land and have an extremely bipolar way looking at this justice system that does not offer us the same perspective or humanity. This is the same justice system that arrests black men and women for doing what millions of people do at Starbucks and the Waffle House daily. It is the same justice system that refuses to punish the televised  murders of black men, women and children while offering compassion and understanding those that terrorize black people in that name of white power.  And it does so intentionally. We cannot be confused about that. It was corrupt from the beginning. It is corrupt now and it will be corrupt as long as their symbol for justice is an unbalanced scale. Can they rightly stand in judgement of anyone? It doesn’t feel or smell right. As Jay-Z, Tyler Perry, and Puffy become billionaires, we have expectations for them to use their resources for their people.  The question is, when they come for them, and we know they will, will we be there to protect and defend them?