The police have no expectation of punishment, even when they kill without cause.Their victims are usually black and they are rarely if ever punished for indiscriminate murder.

The United States leads the world in putting its citizens behind bars. The nation with just 5 per cent of the world's population has 25 per cent of the world's prisoners.

One out of every 99 adults in this country is behind bars, and half of those persons are black. Those figures are horrific, but the explanation for them is not at all complicated. Racism is the reason that so many are behind bars. If America were not so committed to continuing its culture of white supremacy, those dreadful statistics would not exist. Black people can always expect to be punished and to the harshest degree possible. We can expect punishment whether guilty or not, whether the punishment fits the crime or even if no crime has been committed at all. By Margaret Kimberley

Those facts are turned upside down where police crime is concerned. The police have no expectation of punishment, even when they kill without cause. Their victims are usually black and they are rarely if ever punished for indiscriminate murder. Two cases recently in the news illustrate that point. One man, Sean Bell, died in a hail of police bullets for committing the crime of saying farewell to his last night of bachelorhood. Bell was a New Yorker celebrating with friends in the wee hours before his wedding, as young men usually do. Cops surveilling the club he left believed, wrongly, that Bell and his friends were armed. They fired 50 shots into his car, killing Bell and injuring his friends.

The Bell case had a terrible familiarity from the very first day. The community is outraged, the Mayor and the police commissioner at first claim the shooting is justified and then back pedal. There are indictments but the police choose to be tried before judges instead of before juries. As almost always happens with fatal police shootings, Bell's killers were acquitted. As always, the community protested and continues to protest the verdict. But in the end, Bell's killers will never be brought to justice. If trigger happy cops know that judges will view them more kindly than ordinary citizens will, is it any wonder that America's prisons are bulging at the seams? A book by the late Judge Bruce Wright was aptly entitled, "Black Robes, White Justice." America's judges are fully dedicated to maintaining the white justice status quo.

Two of the three cops indicted in Bell's case are themselves black, but that fact makes little difference. The system that insures greater scrutiny of black people and their communities will mean greater likelihood of arrest, brutality or death, even when the police are black too. It may seem strange to compare the fate of the late Sean Bell with that of actor Wesley Snipes. Snipes is still alive after all, but he has fallen victim to the same black robe, white justice philosophy that has deprived the Bell family of justice. The day before Bell's killers got off scot-free, Snipes was sentenced to three years in jail for misdemeanour tax evasion convictions.

"This case cries out for the statutory maximum term of imprisonment, as well as a substantial fine, because of the seriousness of defendant Snipes' crimes and because of the singular opportunity this case presents to deter tax crime nationwide," so said prosecutor Robert O'Neill. It is obviously absurd to think that anyone needs to be deterred from repeating Snipes' experience. The real deterrence has nothing to do with rendering unto Caesar on April 15. Jail time for a misdemeanour conviction is not unusual for this prison nation. Neither is the need to make examples of black people who fall foul of the law. A prison sentence is unnecessary for Snipes, as well as for many of the thousands behind bars. How better to justify the prison nation and its racist nature than to put a famous black person behind bars for a crime that a jury determined was minor.

Snipes was once one of Hollywood's biggest stars, commanding millions of dollars for every movie he made. Such success is a double edged sword for black people. If they fall, they are punished and punished severely. Former NFL quarterback Michael Vick was doomed to be behind bars, so was Olympic athlete Marion Jones. The combination of their fame and their black skin meant they were destined for the big house, even though probation or lighter sentences were justified in their cases. Judge William Hodges admitted as much. "One of the main purposes which drives selective prosecution in tax cases is deterrence. In some instances, that means those of celebrity stand greater risk of prosecution. But there's nothing unusual about it, nor is there anything unlawful about it. It's the way the system works."

He might have added that prosecution is especially important in a system determined to make examples of black people wherever possible. As the judge said, it is the way the system works.


Article reprinted with kind permission of www.blackagendareport.com