What then shall we say to these things?
There is a Glitch in the System
As I sat down to reflect on the verdict convicting three white men who chased down and killed Ahmaud Arbery, it occurred to me that regardless of whatever decision the jury would give, my ultimate response would be the same: “What then shall we say to these things?” (Romans 8:31A)
Today’s outcome reveals that there is a glitch in the system.
To be clear, the system to which I am referring is the criminal justice system.
Allow me to present my evidence and make my argument.
Oxford Languages defines a system as “a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network.” Systems are created and designed for production, most times in mass. Systems are most notable for patterns, procedures, and protocols as well as for particular outcomes to be produced.
The criminal justice system in this country fits that definition and description. The creation of this system is evidenced in the United States Supreme Court Case known as Scott v Sandford (60 US 393 (1857)). In this case, Dred Sam Scott, the petitioner, sued to have his freedom legally recognized by the state of Missouri after having lived in free territories that outlawed the enslavement of African Americans. In the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, Taney dismissed Scott’s case, arguing that Blacks are not considered to be citizens of the United States. Thus, Blacks would have no right or legal standing to sue in federal (or any other) court. In this case, Chief Justice Taney endorses and emphasizes the dehumanizing of Scott by infusing his racist and unethical belief into the majority opinion of the highest court in the United States in his comments:
[African Americans] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. (emphasis mine)
What makes this legal decision so reprehensible is that the oppression of Scott and millions of other enslaved African American is now, through Taney’s words and actions, legalized and legitimized in courts and communities throughout the United States. This legal precedent commissions the weaponizing and legalizing of racist, vigilante, and domestic terror against Blacks (and others) in this country.
Fast forward to two additional U.S. Supreme Court cases, Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) and Brown v Board of Education of Topeka (2), 349 U.S. 294 (1955). In Plessy, the U.S. Supreme court legalized segregation and coined the term “separate but equal.” In the 1954 Brown case, the decision declared segregation unconstitutional, but the U.S. Supreme Court determined in 1955 that the states were to end segregation with “all deliberate speed.”
These legal words, left up to individuals and institutions to interpret and implement, sanctions the weaponizing of discretion that allows people to determine when they will follow the law and when they will take the law into their own hands by ignoring the law altogether.
People like a judge who make no effort to appear unbiased (which he is charged to do as an objective fact finder) as he makes several public comments and gestures that explicitly side with a murderer;
People like a defense attorney who blames a murder victim who is running for his life and uses racist language against him, calling him a “victim…with no socks to cover his long, dirty toenails”;
People like a police officer in Chicago who shot and killed another Chicago citizen 16 times in “self-defense”.
These are but a few of the contemporary exhibits that expose racist historical foundations that created our legal system and are the frameworks embedded in the legal system when there are “no rights which a White man is bound to respect” as Taney disclosed.
What then shall we say to these things?
How can justice come from the criminal justice system?
As we cast our eyes and ears to the verdict rendered today, we ask “Has justice been served?”
My answer is nope, today’s verdict was a system glitch. Justice is intentional, glitches are occasional.
The substance and procedure of the criminal justice system in this country is not broken. It works as it was created to work and produces what it has been created to produce. Every once and a while, systems have glitches and an outcome is produced that the system was not designed to produce. While many of us call it justice, I call it a glitch of justice.
What are we being called to do, especially as members and friends of Community Renewal Society?
Sacred texts provide us with a starting point. Micah 6:8a (New American Standard Bible) states that of all the things that we, who believe and work for freedom and liberation, are required to do, we are to “do justice”. To do justice then means that justice is both substantive and procedural, it is a process as well as an outcome.
In this day and time, we, in our justice seeking, can pause and look back to see what has been done, take stock of what is happening, and look forward to determine what kind of future we wish to create. How can we engage in liberating love, the kind of love that is at the intersection and integration that holds community and accountability? We are called to a Sankofa moment and movement, which involves a simultaneous movement of looking back to retrieve what we need and bringing it with us to create a future moving forward.
In less than a week, we have seen how legal language, such as “self-defense” is setting new and disturbing precedents that can (and have already) been code for vigilante justice and racialized violence. Although Ahmaud Arbery was killed and determined to be the victim of murder, he was unarmed, but Blackness was his weapon. How then, can he (or any other person of color) be “unarmed”?
What then shall we say to these things?
If we are to continue to address and eradicate oppression, violence, and all of “these things”, we are to hold the offenders of justice accountable. And also, we cannot be co-conspirators in our own demise. We cannot be silent when it comes to freedom and liberation. We cannot be indifferent when it comes to local and state elections. We cannot compromise our commitment to justice when we try to evade jury duty. We cannot wait until after pending bills become public laws to protest the interpretation and application of oppressive legislation. We cannot shake our heads and go on about our business when school board meetings (often the breeding grounds of school-to-prison pipelines) are held but we do not attend.
No! If we are for us, who can be against us?
What then shall we say to these things?
Justice! In word and in deed.
Justice! In season and out of season.
Justice!
This is our call; this is our responsibility.
Natasha L. Robinson, Esq., Community Renewal Society Board of Director
Assistant Teaching Professor of Criminal Justice
Creator and Curator of Legaleaze Please! LLC
Professor Robinson is a criminal justice professor, former assistant public defender of Cook County, and board member of CRS and special guest essayist. She writes a response to the McMichael / Bryan verdict in the aftermath of the “heinous, cold and calculating murder of Ahmaud Arbery outside Brunswick, Georgia in February 2020”.
Read A Prayer of Thanksgiving, In Memory of Ahmaud Arbery by CRS Executive Director, Rev. Dr. Waltrina Middleton.