Handcuffs. This is image is licensed under the Creative Commons

“Change will not come out of the sky. It’s a shame that after 310 years of chattel slavery and 150 years of injustice that we are worse in our treatment of each other. We are holding ourselves back. You can’t keep blaming the white man. The question is, what are we doing today to undo what he did?” 

Minister Louis Farrakhan

 

I am in no way an expert in crime, the criminal justice system, etc. These are just my views. First of all, I want to acknowledge that yes the criminal justice is racist  from the stop and frisk violations to the sentencing it hands down. I  have to acknowledge that there are thousands innocent people in the criminal justice system but this post is about those who are guilty.

Don’t get mad the messenger. I did not commit the crime. Get mad at the people who terrorize our communities.

I always expect a little push back due to my stance on crime and punishment. I believe people commit crimes because they want to and because they do not expect to get caught. No one has to commit crime. No one tells you to take drugs or to sell drugs to your people.

Image from stratfordcharter.files.wordpress.com

Nobody tells you to kill your brother over red and blue rags made in China. No one tells you to steal from someone or something. No one tells you to abuse your partner and children. Committing a crime is a choice just like having a 9 to 5 is a choice. Just like being a great mom or dad is a choice. Just like going to school or dropping out is a choice. Just like deciding whether you want a career as a pharmacist or a career as a street pharmacist is a choice.  We all have made choices. A small minority have made bad choices. Their actions have put them in the criminal justice system.  By doing this they have willfully chosen to limit their social, economic and political opportunities.

The criminal justice system affects us all. In 1999,“nearly one in three (32%) black males in the age group 20-29 is under some form of criminal justice supervision on any given day — either in prison or jail, or on probation or parole.” The Crisis of the Young African American Male and the Criminal Justice System

I personally believe that many people are sensitive to this issue because in some way their lives have been touched by the racist criminal justice system. Either they know someone in the criminal justice system or they have been in it themselves.  That is completely understandable.  Quite honestly, who would want to admit that a family member, an acquaintance or they themselves have chosen to break the law?  It’s easier to deflect responsibility than to take responsibility. Taking responsibility over one’s life is an act of power and revolution that many are afraid of.

The soft bigotry of low expectations.

“Never underestimate internalized racism. People can be oppressed, yet continue to express their oppression in their own choices.”  - Susan Morris

Regarding Black Americans, there are some who believe that because society is racist, the system and not the individual who committed the crime is wrong. It is promoted by Black-White supremacists who have internally adopted the ideas of racial inferiority and mask it by only blaming the system. They do not believe in personal responsibility. They believe that our only remedy is to commit crimes, not get an education, not own our own business, and not participate in the political system. They want us to wallow in victimization because we are in a racist society. They are”blaming the man” without realizing they too are acting like the man. They are trying to holding us down. What are their solutions? Nothing. They don’t want us to have anything  or be anything because they rather we do nothing. Folks, the truth is that we have choices.

Knowledge is power. Learn Black history.

File:Marcus Garvey 1924-08-05.jpg

Marcus Garvey, image from the Library of Congress

What many of these people forget is that with every systematic disadvantage against us in America we built many Black Wall Streets, we created our own schools, communities and opportunities.

Folks, we are the off spring of the original man. We are inventors, entrepreneurs, politicians, artists, tradesmen, mathematicians, queens, and kings, mothers of the earth and builders of civilizations. Wherever we go we thrive. It is embedded in us. What these Black -White Supremacists are saying goes against thousands and thousands of years of Black history.

Unlike others, I have high standards for my people. I know who we are and what we are capable of. I just wish others would take off the metal shackles and marvel at the beauty I see.