Page 12
February 13, 2019
O PINION
Opinion articles do not necessarily represent the views of the Portland Observer. We
welcome reader essays, photos and story ideas. Submit to news@portlandobserver.com.
Legal Double Standards Keep Us in Shackles
Pulling back
the curtain on
unjust laws
o sCar h. b layton
It’s time we stop
lying to ourselves.
The lying has gone
on much too long and
every time the lie is re-
peated, we are all the worse for it.
The lie is that in America, ev-
eryone is equal under the law. It’s
time to pull back the curtain on
this lie, but in order to do so, first
we must have an understanding
of what “law” actually is. In its
most basic form, law, is a process
of authoritative control whereby
certain members of a particular
community establish and maintain
a specific public order.
This definition may seem like
a mouthful, but history can help
us unpack it. Nazi Germany had
anti-Jewish laws, the racist regime
of South Africa had apartheid
laws and the southern states in
this country had Jim Crow laws.
The Nazis, the Afrikaners and the
Southern segregationists all had
authoritative control over their
respective national and state com-
munities. And with that control,
they each ordered their societies
in the manner they desired.
In each of these instances, it
by
is not difficult to identify those
community members who sought
to maintain a specific public or-
der, nor is it difficult to identify
the “specific order” they
sought to maintain.
For blacks in South
Africa and the segre-
gated southern United
States, subjugation was
the public order where
they lived. And in the
case of Jews living under Nazi
us that what passes for justice in
this country is not color-blind.
Our laws are written with
high-sounding words, full of dig-
nity and sensibility but words are
not deeds. And as in courtrooms,
the long arm of the law, embodied
in the form of law enforcement of-
ficers, reaches out into the streets
and neighborhoods where we wit-
ness the double standards that are
applied in enforcing our laws writ-
ten in lofty language.
lic order that allows whites to
walk the streets with automatic
rifles unmolested by the police,
but justifies gunning down a black
man who is purchasing a BB rifle
in an open carry state. And it finds
no fault in a police officer execut-
ing a 12-year-old black boy for
playing with a toy gun in a park.
This is the law in Ohio.
Many cities and states main-
tain a specific public order that
targets people of color for fines
Ohio maintains a specific public order that
allows whites to walk the streets with automatic
rifles unmolested by the police, but justifies
gunning down a black man who is purchasing a
BB rifle in an open carry state.
control, it was extermination. For
these people, those were the laws.
A law need not be just or fair or
benign to be the law. Law, like a
gun or any other tool, can be used
for good or for evil.
To disguise the fact that laws
can be cruel, unjust and designed
to harm certain members of our
community, “Blind Justice” was
the myth created to foster the
notion of a fair legal system in
America. But observations in most
American courtrooms will instruct
Even though the 13th Amend-
ment to the U.S. Constitution end-
ed slavery more than 150 years
ago, people of color are still forced
to wear the shackles that are the
double standards in our country’s
legal system. Bigots and racists
use our system of laws and law
enforcement to police black and
brown bodies, making it clear to
people of color that we are neither
welcome nor expected to exist in
white spaces.
Ohio maintains a specific pub-
and the confiscation of property
in order to fund local and state
governments. Ferguson, Mo. was
proven to use the disproportion-
ate levying of fines on people of
color to fund their municipal ac-
tivities. That was the law in Fergu-
son. The state of South Carolina’s
civil forfeiture law allows police
to confiscate money and property
from people merely suspected of
having committed a crime. This is
often done without a trial, and in
some instances, without even an
arrest. Black men are subjected
to this law at a rate vastly dispro-
portionate to their numbers in the
general population. A statewide
journalism project in South Car-
olina titled “taken” reports that
while comprising only 13 percent
of that state’s population, black
men represent 65 percent of all
citizens targeted for civil forfei-
ture. This is still the law in South
Carolina.
The slave codes, the Fugitive
Slave Act, the Jim Crow laws of
years past and the gutting of the
Voting Rights Act just a few short
years ago are all part of a process
of authoritative control by certain
community members to establish
and maintain a specific public or-
der that keeps people of color in
shackles. There are many more
laws that do this, but the list is too
long to discuss in this short com-
mentary.
We must pull back the curtain
to determine the true public order
purpose of each law governing our
lives and to identify those commu-
nity members who seek to estab-
lish and maintain them. Once we
do this, then we can ask ourselves,
if this is the America we want for
ourselves. And if not, what are we
going to do about it?
Oscar H. Blayton is a former
Marine Corps combat pilot and
human rights activist who practic-
es law in Virginia.
Oprah Winfrey and Her Mom’s Strong Finish
A tender story
of their last
conversation
b arbara C oombs l ee
Oprah Winfrey’s
mother, Vernita Lee,
died two months ago
on Thanksgiving Day,
and Oprah recently
shared with People
Magazine the tender
story of their last con-
versation.
As usual, when Oprah shares
a personal experience, her gen-
erous and insightful telling con-
tains important lessons for us all
in 2019. These lessons are about
mustering the courage to admit
the life of a loved one is nearing
its end. They’re about bringing
that knowledge into the open
and acting on it, so the things
that need to be said, will be said.
They’re about creating an open-
ing for words to come that will
by
ring in our ears forever, close a
life story and heal our wounds.
Two crucial decisions enabled
Oprah and her mother to have one
of the most meaningful conversa-
tions of their lives. The first was
to decline aggressive, invasive
treatment regimens as
bodily functions dete-
riorated. Three years
earlier, when Vernita’s
kidneys began to fail,
she put comfort and
quality of life first, and
declined dialysis. Re-
cently, as other organs shut down,
the family chose hospice care in
the home. Without this decision,
we might have heard quite a dif-
ferent story, of desperate medical
interventions, physical suffering
and emotional trauma. Research-
ers have found these are a recipe
for complicated and prolonged
grief, haunting loved ones with
unfinished business, lingering re-
grets or unresolved conflict.
So the first lesson here is that
we’d best consider our specif-
ic end-of-life priorities before
consenting to intensive medical
treatments that usually diminish
the quality of a waning life, but
rarely prolong it. If Oprah had
been visiting her mom in a hos-
pital’s intensive care unit instead
of a very warm, small room in her
own home, if her mom were rid-
ing a conveyor belt of tests and
treatments, technology and mis-
ery, there would have been little
space for their blessed and beau-
tiful goodbye.
It probably wasn’t easy for
Oprah and her mom to create
the setting for a loving truth to
emerge, as it rarely is. Our cul-
ture sends constant messages
that we must treat death as an
enemy to be conquered, deploy
every medical technology in the
battle and reject the possibili-
ty of “defeat.” It takes a lot of
courage to resist incessant calls
to battle. We need a new kind
of heroism. We need more hero
stories of people standing brave-
ly, alert enough and informed
enough to discern the perfect
timing for surrender and retreat.
Thank you, Oprah, for telling us
this heroic story.
Oprah’s second crucial deci-
sion came when she recognized
the opportunity for sacred conver-
sation was now, and delay would
squander the opportunity. She
had left her mother’s home, but
felt compelled to return because
their story was unfinished. Any-
one who has lost someone close
knows this truth: Just because a
loved one dies does not mean our
relationship with them ends. No,
our bond will continue through
all our days. But death does seal
the story of that bond. The story
can only grow and change while
our loved one lives.
Oprah tells of returning to her
mother’s side, resolved to do
what she could to craft a fitting
farewell. She tells of patiently
waiting hour after hour for the
mood, the opening to appear. She
becomes frustrated with the TV
shows that preoccupy and dis-
tract her mother. On the second
day of her intentional waiting,
she turns to music, that it might
break through to the deep places
of the soul and dislodge the sa-
cred words waiting to be spoken.
Thankfully, the music accom-
plishes this goal.
As Oprah’s story about her
mother shows, it can take per-
sistence and good timing to have
sweet closure at the end. But
only our words, and no one else’s
words, can recall a shared life,
celebrate its joys or put its pain-
ful memories to rest. May we all
have the opportunity to follow
Oprah’s wise and loving example
to a blessedly strong finish.
Barbara Coombs Lee, a former
ER and ICU nurse and physician
assistant, is the author of the new
book Finish Strong: Putting Your
Priorities First at Life’s End. She
is President of Compassion &
Choices, the nation’s oldest and
largest organization working to
empower everyone to chart their
end-of-life journey.