Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Saturday, January 11, 2020
SCOFFLAWS TO IN-LAWS
SCOFFLAWS TO IN-LAWS
African Americans as a group have no other end in view than to have the same rights, freedoms, opportunities, privileges, as possessed by whites.
Such is what the law prescribes and it’s what our constitution mandates. It is a preeminently reasonable end.
No one but a scofflaw would object.
Yet “scofflaw” enjoys a revered part of AMERICAN law, historically, as it has pertained to African Americans.
Scofflaw is the tapeworm in our gut. It derides, eats away, our doctrines. It mocks divinity, profanes citizenry, frustrates: mobility, savings, social stability, political economy, patriots!
Scofflaws, those who scoff at law , are the true power in our nation; for they do or do not do what they will, regardless of a law, immune to law. Worse yet they are rewarded by law for scoffing at law in lands, federal tax, state tax: relief, honors, offices, staffs, budgets, salaries, pensions.
Rewarded for scoffing at the law? Yes. But others who follow the law, who abide the letter and spirit of the law have been historically lynched, ostracized, vilified, fired, imprisoned, discriminated against; demoted, laid off, arrested, abused, beaten up , prosecuted, imprisoned, stigmatized, regardless of race.
Abiding by the letter and spirit of our law was deemed to be a crime, a tort, an aspersion in the majority of scofflaw segments of American society since: the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment, outlawing slavery and involuntary servitude; since the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to everyone who was born here; it gave equal protection of law, due process of law to everyone who was born here, regardless of conditions of prior servitude; since the 1870 Fifteenth Amendment formalized federal and state voting rights upon everyone.
A curious turnabout in names, in political nomenclature, took place after 1865, after our revolutionary civil war, “Freedom War”, as the slaves called it, for then, any now in line with new law, “in-laws”, were hacked to death by old “scofflaws!”
This ‘hacking’ used hack-kneed lies about raping white women, about stealing whites’ power, property, prestige, improperly and perversely.
But , these scofflaw hackers mainly used violent white supremacy guns, police, military, dogs, bombs, ropes, bonfires, bullets, judges, juries, editors, preachers , teachers, merchants, bankers, farmers, realtors to supplement, to prove, to implement their racist mythology about inherent inferiority of African Americans in body, mind, soul, even though African Americans had lived with the so-called “whites” in the same houses, same communities, in related families for centuries before 1865, going back to 1619 Virginia!
In short, being a “scofflaw” before 1865 was lawful. For the United States Supreme Court had stated that blacks—slave or free—had no rights that whites were bound to respect under American law rubric in 1857, in the case, DRED SCOTT v. SANFORD, that arose in Missouri.
Now, however, since the Civil War, our “Freedom War,” is widely regarded, is legally touted, as reversing DRED SCOTT; and since, in addition, to war, the post-war Amendments—13th-15th—did duly desecrate doctrinally the dastardly white supremacy declarations of the DRED SCOTT decision, it is now evident that we “in-laws” are more in line with American law than the scofflaws actually were throughout the 20th century despite the law !
White people in America, indeed, globally, must follow our law and stop being unpatriotic scofflaws!
White people must “overcome” the “scofflaws’” nefarious superstition, white supremest lies, mythologies, killings, demagoguery, disparities, depravities , discriminations, and become “in-laws”, in line with all of American law of basic brotherhood!