The Long Road to Social Justice
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 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 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 or another 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 exploits certain group of members of the 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 their 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 the 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 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 goes 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 rights 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 rights to abolish such 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.
