Skin Color and the Rule of Law in the US

Clearly, if you have black skin, you can be shot legally and/or jailed if you are the shooter compared to similar situations with white skinned folks.  Florida is showing some cases where skin color does make a serious difference with how people are treated in court.


And since we can’t know “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” his argument ends tacitly, we should accept the verdict because … well … “the rule of law” is better than the alternatives.
Except the rule of law was not better than the alternatives for Trayvon Martin, just as it wasn’t for too many young, black men in the U.S. Far too often, if you’re a young, black male and you walk too fast, or too slow, or in the wrong place, or at the wrong time, or just happen to “look suspicious” … “the rule of law” is to beg for mercy and hope you live to see the next day.
And if you don’t beg quickly enough or in quite the right way and the other person decides to kill you, then far too often “the rule of law” is that your parents get to bury you, your killer gets to walk away, and a white person gets to write a hand-wringing article about how the justice system is imperfect but it’s better than the alternatives.
And it is … if you’re white.
Part of white privilege is not realizing that, for young black men, “the rule of law” is not much protection at all. Claims of self-defense are far more likely to be accepted if the victim is black, so if you’re a young black man and you defend yourself from a white attacker, “the rule of law” may well stomp on you anyway.


http://www.politicususa.com/2013/07/15/white-privilege-responding-zimmerman-verdict-paean-rule-law.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politicus+USA+%29