Did Sandra Bland die in vain?
Did she?
On first blush this may appear to be a rhetorical question. It is not.
This question after careful thought and contemplation about the brief life and times of 28 year-old Sandra Bland demands a retort.
While you are thinking, put this one in your pipe and smoke it too: Black men in America, when will we stop white boys from abusing our women?
I am not sure I need to write anymore than this to get my point across. Miss Bland died alone in a cold jail cell. A jail cell that was prepared for her by a white cop too full of his own boyish whiteness to communicate with an intelligent citizen whom he had stop for no apparent good reason.
We could be pronouncing any name today other than Sandra Bland. But today it is Sandra Bland. The list of names is as long as the names of the sons and daughters of Africa, who by force, were brought to these shores, and by operation of law were unchained by the law. These laws designated a second tier of citizenship on the books and in the hearts and minds of many descendants of their former captors.
The other day Sandra Bland became the latest victim of laws set in place after 1865 which essentially permitted people of color to move around the country, on a short lease, as long as they did not appear too uppity.
Seemingly, Bland’s ultimate crime was not in making an unlawful lane change, it was asserting her rights under “The Constitution of the United States of America.”
When white cops and black citizens encounter each other on the streets of America, whether in Baltimore, Ferguson, Staten Island, Cleveland, or Houston all too often these confrontations end in the death of the black citizen.
This type of policing has to be stopped. It must of necessity come to an end today. It will be “Justice in the Round” or it will be Farrakhan’s “Justice or Else.” In short, Brian Encinia and justice in America need to be “lit up” with every available legal taser the law will allow.
SOURCES:
Harold Michael Harvey, is the author of the legal thriller “Paper Puzzle,” and “Justice in the Round: Essays on the American Jury System,” available at Amazon and at haroldmichaelharvey.com. He can be contacted at [email protected]