Death at the Border: America's Nightmare

By Mildred Robertson

The Trump administration’s wanton disregard for human life is evidenced by the death of two young children taken into custody at the border; sacrificed on the altar of border security. I am fairly certain that these losses do not weigh heavily on the conscience of Donald Trump; but I wonder does Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, or other Trump administration officials who have implemented these dastardly immigration processes and procedures have night visitations by these young innocents. I wonder are they haunted by the faces of these children whose only crime was to be born to parents fleeing oppression and persecution.

America was founded on the premise that we are a nation of immigrants, welcoming all who dream of liberty and prosperity and are willing to work for it. That is what these migrants represent. They, like our founders, are fleeing oppression and will face whatever peril awaits them for the opportunity to breathe free.

The Trump administration has stifled their attempts to find a better life with immoral policies and procedures that put lives at risk and corrupt our national legacy of equal justice and compassion for the poor and disenfranchised. Rather we have become the epitome of the “Ugly Americans,” who show disdain for the rest of the world; hoarding their wealth and shutting themselves off from everyone else.

How immoral is it to dump water in the desert to deny migrants a life-saving drink?  How depraved is it to jail children in freezing cages while denying them the comfort of a mother’s or father’s embrace. How morally bankrupt is it to deny a sick child food, water and basic medical attention? How pitiful is it to let children die in your care simply because they are poor and brown…and then say that it is their fault for daring to make the journey?

We often paint America with vibrant colors, leaving out all the darkness that is our heritage. But in order to see the real vision of who we are, we must include the darkness that is the “Trial of Tears,” the belly of the slave ship, the strips laid by the master’s overseer, the redlining of our neighborhoods, the inequitable justice system and the belief that somehow, white people are more entitled to the liberties offered by our constitution. Despite the incongruity of the lives they led and the words they spoke, the Founders said “All men are created equal.” It is a legacy that we declare we live by.

But that legacy is once again being tainted by the darkness of our weaker, meaner, more selfish selves. No child should be put at peril while in our care. No mother should experience the terror of having her child ripped from her arms with no assurance that she will ever see him or her again. No person that attempts the lawful act of immigrating to this country should be criminalized, victimized, and left for dead.

I do not know how Kirstjen Nielsen sleeps at night. I know that I do not sleep well. I know that I fall asleep at night, and wake in the morning wondering how we can redeem the soul of this nation.  We are trapped in a national nightmare. When we will awaken?

NC NAACP Urges Governor to Veto Voter ID Legislation

By Mildred Robertson

The North Carolina NAACP Conference has called on North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper to veto lame duck legislation recently pushed through by the GOP. The organization says it believes Senate Bill 824, “Implementation of Voter ID Constitutional Amendment,” will negatively impact minority voters in the state. 

The NAACP has drafted a letter, dated December 12, 2018, that outlines in great detail why the legislation is bad for the citizens of North Carolina. The letter further details that the  U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has already struck down North Carolina General Assembly’s previous attempt to enact a photo voter ID requirement in the 2013 omnibus voter restriction and photo voter ID law. The Court found that the voter ID legislation targets African-Americans "with almost surgical precision.” It further found that the legislation was “enacted with racially discriminatory intent,” and that it imposed cures for problems that did not exist.

Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman, president of the North Carolina NAACP Conference, states that there is no new justification for the implementation of this law and that it provides no additional safeguards for the voting process in the state. This legislation, he says, is simply evidence of the General Assembly’s “improper motivations.”

To read the letter in its entirety follow this link: LETTER

The Myth of Equal Justice

By Mildred Robertson

Cyntoia Brown killed a man. She will spend at least 51 years in prison if her sentence stands. It’s a familiar story…a troubled youth suffering from lack of parental support, trapped in the sex trade with no hope of escape. Brown says that she feared that the 43-year-old man that purchased her for sex would kill her. Prosecutors argued that she only wanted to rob him and chose to charge her as an adult with first degree felony murder and aggravated robbery. She got two concurrent life sentences. She was 16 years old. 

While there are many reasons why Cyntoia should not have been tried as an adult, including the fact that she was an underage victim of abuse, sex trafficking and suffered from a fetal alcohol disorder due to an alcoholic mother who abandoned her, her case is representative of the unequal balance of justice in our country.

According to a report submitted by “The Sentencing Project to the United Nations in April 2018, African Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested. Once arrested they are more likely to be convicted and to experience lengthy prison sentences.

It is conceivable that, had Cyntoia, been prep-school Becky from Manhattan, the courts would have viewed her differently. Her tragic life would likely have engendered sympathy and she would have been viewed as a victim rather than a predator. This is evidenced by numerous cases where the courts have shown leniency to young people who have committed crimes.

While Brown languishes in jail for killing her molester, Jacob Anderson, a former Baylor University fraternity president accused of raping a woman at a fraternity party avoided jail time as a Texas judge accepted a plea bargain that allowed 23-year-old Anderson to plead no contest to the lesser charge of unlawful restraint. By pleading no-contest Anderson did not have to admit guilt nor offer a defense.  

In a similar case, a California judge sentenced a former Stanford University swimmer to a six-month jail sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. Prosecutors had asked for six years for 20-year old Brock Turner. Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky said that Turner's age and lack of criminal history made him feel that imposing a six-month jail sentence with probation was appropriate. “A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him," Persky said.

It seems that the judicial system is comfortable looking the other way when white, middle and upper-middle class white men commit crimes, but find it difficult to find compassion for people of color who run afoul of the law. In 2016 Black youth accounted for 15% of all U.S. children yet made up 35% of juvenile arrests in that year.

The Sentencing Project found that one out of every three black boys born in 2001 could expect to go to prison in his lifetime. For Latinos it is one of every six, compared to just one out of 17 white boys in the same category. While ethnic disparities among women was found to be less substantial, they remain relevant.

The project determined that the United States has developed two distinct criminal justice systems…one for wealthy people and another for poor people and people of color. While America says that Lady Liberty is fair and balanced, minorities and the poor commonly don’t have access to the best lawyers who can defend their constitutional rights. This is evidenced by the overwhelmingly disproportionate incarceration of the poor and people of color.

Cyntoia’s case has gained attention because of several celebrities that have come to her defense. It is possible that the governor of Tennessee may pardon her. Let’s hope that happens. But that will not mitigate the myriad number of people incarcerated wrongly, or who suffer under overly harsh sentences because they are poor or black. It seems that justice is neither blind nor balanced in the United States. It appears that equal justice is a myth.