{"id":250235,"date":"2020-05-31T10:39:56","date_gmt":"2020-05-31T14:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/?p=250235"},"modified":"2020-05-31T14:06:51","modified_gmt":"2020-05-31T18:06:51","slug":"commentray-towards-a-more-perfect-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/features\/commentary\/commentray-towards-a-more-perfect-union\/","title":{"rendered":"COMMENTRAY: Towards a More Perfect Union"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Front row (l-r) Gabe Christian, Aisha Braveboy, Cunningham\u00a0 and others involved in the case<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Second Paragraph of the United States of AmericaDeclaration of Independence)<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The in-your-face lynching of George Floyd on May 26, 2020, by a so-called police officer unmasked the increasingly tyrannical nature of U.S. society. \u00a0The murder of George Floyd and the terrorizing of innocent African Americans, and other people of color, makes a mockery of the American Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n

Floyd begged for his life and the officers stood there and murdered him in broad daylight. No human being who witnessed this violence perpetrated under color of law can sit idly by and accept it as business as usual. America must contend with the fact that this heinous conduct is nothing new. The murder of George Floyd by those who disgraced their uniforms has its roots in a history of US law enforcement as slavecatchers.<\/p>\n

Those slave catchers roamed the country prior to the US Civil War to enforce the wishes of the Slave Power which held sway in the United States. It was the bold, courageous, transformative and freedom-loving leadership of President Abraham Lincoln which broke the back of the Slave Power with victory by the United States Army in the Civil War of 1861-1865. Prior, slave catchers policed the United States at will, operating under the color of law granted them by infamous Fugitive Slave Act passed in Congress on September 18, 1850.<\/p>\n

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was met with even more impassioned criticism and resistance than the earlier measure. States like Vermont and Wisconsin passed new measures intended to bypass and even nullify the law, and abolitionists redoubled their efforts to assist runaways. The Underground Railroad reached its peak in the 1850s, with many enslaved people fleeing to Canada to escape U.S. jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

Resistance also occasionally boiled over into riots and revolts. In 1851 a mob of antislavery activists rushed a Boston courthouse and forcibly liberated an escapee named Shadrach Minkins from federal custody. Similar rescues were later made in New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

The ghost of the Fugitive Slave Act continues to haunt every police department in the United States insofar as systemic racial prejudice makes a mockery of the United States Constitution. The uprising which swept the nation after the murder of George Floyd was made up of Americans of all colors. Such resistance to tyranny is in the noble tradition of the American abolitionists who fought the slave catchers operating under the cover of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Let no one dare reduce these acts of resistance to mere criminal conduct or \u201criot.\u201d \u00a0This shameful condemnation of those who resist the tyranny of the new Slave Power, to being that of a \u201cmob\u201d or \u201crioters\u201d forget American history.<\/p>\n

Who was the first to fall for American freedom and independence? Crispus Attucks, an African American, was the first to give his life for American liberty when he was shot by British troops on March 5, 1777, at the Boston Massacre. He is hailed as a hero today. So too are all those who rise in defiance against a murderous system of policing of the kind that took the life of George Floyd. Unless and until law enforcement in the United States eradicates racial and class prejudice from its ranks, and abides by the United States Constitution, we shall not know peace.\u00a0 The police are supposed to be servants of the people, not masters who use our tax dollars to oppress and kill us at will in the streets, or in our beds, as they did when they assassinated Black activist Fred Hampton in Chicago on December 4, 1969.<\/p>\n

Are we really living in a constitutional democracy where rule of law prevails? Such wanton taking of the lives of our people is a violation of the US Constitution. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868, and granted citizenship to \u201call persons born or naturalized in the United States,\u201d which included former slaves recently freed. In addition, it forbids states from denying any person “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” or to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.\u201d By explicitly mentioning the role of the states, the 14th Amendment greatly expanded the protection of civil rights to all Americans.\u00a0 Today, African Americans routinely have their rights violated by random acts of stop and frisk, false imprisonment, brutal beatings inflicted by so-called law enforcement, and murders such as that of George Floyd.<\/p>\n

The United States is at a critical juncture. This must be a period of reset.\u00a0 The very heavens are calling on us to change our craven ways. We either move toward a society of empathy, love, and kindness one towards another or fall upon each other as wolves.<\/p>\n

Look at the situation for what it is:<\/p>\n