Is the Bank of Justice Bankrupt?

12/7/2014 

This is an essay I wrote sometime in 2013 after George Zimmerman was found not guilty in the tragic death of Trayvon Martin. I did not have the courage to post it on my blog then. Today, I find myself asking the same question but am encouraged that we are having a national discussion about racial issues.

******

The senseless death of Trayvon Martin and the fifty-year anniversary of King's I Have A Dream speech this year made me wonder what King would think of the current state of racial equality in this country. Do African Americans still languish "in the corners of American society?"

I was a young child during the Civil Rights Movement, too young to be aware of what was going on.  Although I spent most of my childhood in communities with little racial diversity, I was taught that racism is wrong. We learned to sing "red or yellow, black or white, all are precious in His sight" in Bible school. I remember hearing someone say the N-word when I was a teenager waiting for the school bus in Topeka.  Shocked, I turned around to see who said it.  A black teenager laughed; it was she who called her black friend the N-word.

Today, I live in a predominantly white suburb. I work for a somewhat diverse company, though it is also predominantly white. The company has a diversity training program so we can learn how our unconscious biases affect our perceptions and behavior. One of my brothers is married to a woman from Viet Nam, another brother is married to a woman from Thailand, and one of my sisters adopted an African American baby. They are all precious in my sight too.

Having our first black president is certainly a good sign of how far we have come as a nation since the Civil Rights Movement. Before Obama was elected the first time, I heard a coworker say that if Obama were elected, any criticism of him would be seen as racism. Our nation is so divided ideologically that I don't automatically see criticism of Obama as racially motivated. While I generally give people the benefit of the doubt, I do not believe that Obama would face the same degree of animosity and opposition if he were white, regardless of how liberal his politics. How in the world did the Birther Movement get any traction if not for racial prejudice?

We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. - MLK

MLK wrote in his dream speech, "we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt." Sadly, when it comes to criminal justice, the bank of justice can be bankrupt with respect to race. There was no justice for Trayvon Martin's senseless death. Florida's stand your ground laws have given armed citizens the license to kill - and not just in self defense. Martin was doing nothing wrong, yet he was profiled as a thief because of his color. He was denied the benefits of our criminal justice system, the system that says you are innocent until proven guilty by a court of law.

The Zimmerman case is just one example of unequal justice. New York has its "stop and frisk" policy that results in blacks being stopped for no reason. A black woman was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison for shooting a gun in the air. Black men are routinely sentenced more harshly than white men for drug crimes.

We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. - MLK

President Obama was criticized for his comments after the George Zimmerman verdict. There have been times when I have wished that Obama would keep his opinions about social issues to himself, yet he has a right to share his own personal experiences of racism. When Reverend Al Sharpton commented about the Zimmerman verdict, he also was criticized. Some said, why complain about the death of a black man when thousands of black men are killed as a result of so called "black on black" violence?

******

In 2014, many Americans still want to deny that racism exists. They still try to claim that "black on black" crime is a bigger social concern than racial profiling. When is the bank of justice going to start recognizing the worth of African Americans?