BY STEVEN KASZAB
History is full of examples showing us that justice is a privilege reserved for the few: the wealthy, politically and financially connected.
When a justice system demands proof of your innocence, while viewing the accused as guilty until that proof surfaces, the system of justice seems to be blind to all but those with the ability to hire known lawyers and a defence team to point out any misunderstandings that arise.
A Black man with many priors stands before a judge, accused of violent crimes. Will such a man have the ability to raise money to get out of jail and hire a powerful legal team? If he is a financially well-off man perhaps, but if he is a “Average Joe,” the justice system swallows him up, incarcerating him while he waits for his trial, and possible conviction. While the justice system is supposed to be blind to financial, sexist and racial coding, the statistics show White men often walk, Black-Hispanic and men of colour often do not. Don’t you think so?
America’s justice system has a huge penal population, well into the millions. According to Scientific America some 71% of those imprisoned are not White. So do you think these men and women got there because of their choices, or did the system help to decide that Whites can be either: excused, rehabilitated or found not endangering the greater society.
White privilege is still prevalent within our system, with financial privilege a close second. A White person I know was pulled over for a DUI. A strange process began when he noticed that the police officer arresting him, wrote up the ticket full of holes that any lawyer could use to get him off the charges. The fact that he was driving without an updated driver’s license was not even noticed or mentioned.
At his arraignment he wished to declare himself guilty. It was the only way he could force himself to correct his lifestyle and behaviour. The judge spent ten minutes trying to persuade him to change his guilty plea to innocent. My friend’s determination was so complete that the judge added a single day for contempt of court (my friend swore a few times).
Now I have another friend from Altoona, PA, and yes, he is not White. Went to the prom with his girlfriend, was sober and well behaved. Driving home he went through a high-end part of his community driving his dads Cadillac and did not stop at a stop sign. You know what happened don’t you?
The police officer did not give him a warning or ticket, but instead took him to the police station. In jail, his perfect record accounted for nothing, nor that he was an honour student. His folks could not afford bail, so he stayed in jail until his arraignment. Innocent was what he wanted to plead. What happened? Well, someone robbed a resident in that part of the community three hours before, and the suspect was not White.
The World was White, but now its Black (non-White)
Justice for all is never achieved, just verbatim.
What can justice do for the lowly man?
While jails fill and are built anew continually.
When you are seen as an outsider always,
And the precious few escape societies hungry grasp,
Justice for all is the cry we all hear these days,
While the policeman stamps your future out at last
Martin L says the Black Persons going to win this war,
And a war of attrition it truly has been
Justice is a privileged and socially mobile thing,
Leaving the many in the ghetto brought to them
I walked through an airport recently with no problem, no questioning. Customs and border officers were busy getting into the face of many non-White travellers. To this very day, a non-White person flying anywhere with a long beard, and dressed in religious fashion, could get unwelcomed trouble.
Being different will always create difficulties. Being out of your place in another financial-ethnic society will be a challenge.
Race, financial and political privilege will forever be with us. The powerful will always be able to dance around the justice systems rules and regulations. Why? Well, the justice system is an exclusive club, filled with lawyers and police. They are the administrators and enforcers of the system. Some other form of judicial system is needed, with a firm root in community equality. Can victims of crime receive true justice, retribution in kind to the offences carried out by criminals against them?
“In the final analysis, true justice is not a matter of courts and law books, but of a commitment in each of us to liberty and mutual respect” (Jimmy Carter).
Mutual respect of all actors in the play known as the justice system, influenced, manipulated and written by lawyers and academics. God help us!
