Just(us) Nah Just(them)

No Justice for Some of Us

Warning— Some of this may be triggering.

I have no idea how to write this so it may be a free flow of anger, frustration, sadness, disappointment, lack of surprise, and anger again.

Yesterday, this country witnessed a lynching. From my perspective, from the NAACP, from a lot of our perspective.

I wrote a couple times about Marcellus Williams in Missouri. For a refresher on the case you can go HERE or the last minute countdown can go HERE.

Unfortunately Mr. Willams was murdered last night, and two murderers remain free— the actual killer and the Governor/State of Missouri with a voluntary manslaughter assist to the US Supreme Court.

To the end, and to his credit, Marcellus kept his faith through it all and his last statement is both beautiful and haunting.

His faith didn’t fail him. Missouri failed him. The Governor. The Court. Me.

I personally felt responsibility because for months I have thought, why don’t I have a big platform to raise awareness and bring people in to this fight. Why am I not doing more? What am I doing? I will forever maintain the feeling that if I had been better, or more accomplished maybe something would have changed. Not because I personally would make a difference on my own, that is vanity and I’m no one special, but because if I was able to have a platform maybe others like me would too. But that is the system in which we exist— our platforms are limited and we are suppressed. But I just wish I could have done more.

For many of us waiting for the inevitable, the aftermath was summed up in this post from someone I don’t know or follow, but I saw this shared by a lot of us:

A man who was CONCLUSIVELY EXCLUDED from a crime by the prosecutor, past judge, and who had their scheduled execution argued AGAINST by the family of the victim— was killed. No justice was served. And it wasn’t like people were asking the Governor to issue a full pardon, they just asked to simply NOT murder him. A pretty simple request imo. But racism and hate don’t work that way. And why do I go to racism? Because that was part of the charging, the coerced testimony from a jailhouse snitch, the sentence to death (76% of death sentences are for killing white people) and the lack of sympathy or empathy for the humanity of Marcellus. The governor of Missouri is not against pardons or clemency or anything— just he saves them for white people. Remember the white couple in St. Louis pointing assault rifles at Black people protesting their/our right to live?

Yeah he did that. Full pardon. Get out of jail free. Pass go AND collect $200.

More proof? Well a white football coach of the Kansas City Chiefs legit ran over a five year old girl while drunk. The girl has permanent brain damage and will never walk again. What did the Governor do? You allllready know.

So don’t tell me there was some moral stance against exercising his legal authority. He was fine in those, and other situations. Just not this one.

And this goes to the top—literally. The Supreme Court refused to step in and stop this miscarriage of justice with the republican justices (including the allegedly Black Clarence Thomas) all were in favor of the state sponsored murder. The democrat appointed justices had more sense (and diversity) but elections, thanks to the broken electoral college, have consequences.

It is hard to feel proud of or in a country where we kill people. Even more-so when we kill innocent people. The death penalty is stupid, racist, unjust, and should be abolished but here we are. The justice system is not just, it makes no sense that the courts will on one hand sanction the murder an innocent and uphold/create the immunity of a 34 time convicted, 91 time indicted, adjudicated rapist. Like wut?

I don’t know where to go from here. I really don’t. For now I guess we take this as another effort to mobilize in honor of Marcellus and the others who are sure to come.

As I said on my twitter, one thing that some of us know is that as a Black person I am possibly one person’s lie away from being Marcellus at all times. We have to do more to protect us. We have to.