Originally I wanted to do an angry “Dear white people, even
white people are fed up of your bullshit” post in defense of Munroe Bergdorf. I feel that it is an obligation of white people to utilise their privilege to tackle racism and enhance equality. I believe that it is every person's (regardless of ethnicity, religion, or any other differences) obligation to promote and share love and kindness. So I wanted to be more logical and informative than a big fat rant at racist
white people. I thought, the only way to change the world is to try and be
informative, have an objectively excellent argument, and be persuasive. Sounds
like an essay I did not so long ago in Jurisprudence where I used the 13th Amendment to make a few points and vent in an academic setting. I did that a
lot though to be honest. My whole degree was probably one big long rant against
racism and discrimination to single mothers. So for the sake of copyright law, I
am instead going to paraphrase my first class essay as evidence to the systemic
racism. Failing that see my Facebook rant of how fuming I was at National Card
Shops for being a load of bollocks and whitewashing everything.
Perhaps one of the most powerful institutions in any nation is its legal system. The legal system has the direct and indirect power to either promote or tear down discrimination and acts of hate. So it makes sense to show you how racism is still alive in the legal systems, let alone the minor issues such as card shops (but tbh I think cards are important but not everyone agrees, I'm sure a large percentage would agree the law is important though, or you get banged up or something). I just want to make a foundational point that EVERYONE should go watch "13th" on Netflix. I think secondary schools should make it compulsory in education as well to be honest, and then maybe we wont have so many thick "intelligent" racists....wont name no names but if the boot fits wear it.
So what is the 13th Amendment? Its a piece of USA constitutional legislation. It provides that: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except
as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
So it bans slavery? Nope not quite. This is why everyone needs to go watch 13th on Netflix. The declaration has the loophole that slavery is allowed as punishment for crime. There in lies the loophole. Politicians basically used the law then to criminalize anything that is known to be black culture (Weed was a big one) to mass incarcerate and subject black people to slavery. Prisons in the USA are actually privatized, and massive corporations were part of a collective that had a say in governmental legislation and owned the prisons for free labour to make huge profit on the back of black people unjustly. If you google the statistics of prison population and ethnicity in the USA you would see that a suspiciously large proportion are black for various unjust reasons. Some of them will be just outright criminals, but you cannot negate the fact that police (whether consciously or subconsciously) will always choose to be more suspicious of black people and so find more black criminals as a result, and racistly overlooking the white criminals. Let's not even get started on police brutality I don't need to explain that to you as the sad videos are all over facebook. Then there is the fact that tapes got found of advisors to politicians who created a "southern strategy" which criminalised aspects of black culture or hit black people hardest in negative impacts. You water down and conceal the racism in this southern strategy, but it is very alive under the radar. I mean just go google 13th the documentary. Also while you're at it go google ALEC USA (American Legislative Exchange Council).
So you see law is a power tool in which you can brain wash and even conceal stuff from the masses, but conceal it in a way that you've agreed to it through your democratic right, without knowing exactly what you are agreeing to. I feel Marx would be well proud of me right now. JUDGE ME. Technically the Rule of Law is meant to make the law a good thing in which it cannot be abused by the elite (as it stands challengable by society through its clear, consistent, and fair application). BUT now see my essay Extract (Clifford for the Surrey Uni, 2017, The Rule of Law Essay). I would like to note that this is being used solely for educational purposes to educate all the potential racists, and even just non racist people who don't understand that racism can really exist within the law itself without being obvious (saying this to save myself in copyright terms):
Karl Marx essentially was interested
in economics and society. He argued that law is a label, or rather an illusion
to obscure the power struggles in class and economy. Marxist theory on law is
that law itself does not really hold weight in the structure and existence of
society. Society is just an ever changing class struggle and the law simply
reflects the class structures of the time, which would be existent despite the
law itself.[1] Freedom
of contract for example, is an illusion when one will always have the
bargaining power over another despite its illusion that it serves both parties
equally, equality of application being a prime concept of the rule of law.[2]
Such a cloak of power is evident throughout time right up to present day as now
will be presented.
When law is created so abstractly by
an elite class such as politicians, and so far as corporations, people are made
to feel the law serves them across all classes, blind to the ulterior motives/power
imbalance behind the cloak of the rule of law.[3]
In the USA there has been a recent vat
of information revealed on the development of its constitution which allows for
modern day slavery to occur in an oppressive class system. The 13th
amendment on face value appears to ban slavery. It appears to be a tool for the
oppressed races which were severely subjected to steep class power imbalances.
However, on a deeper insight it serves to show a Marxist element of illusion. Despite
the amendment banning slavery, political/elite class movements behind the
scenes have allowed a mass incarceration of black people legally.
An American politician explained how
to make the law deceiving. Lee Atwater explained
how to make oppression and racism against black people so abstract that it
becomes acceptable so that it may carry on.[4] The fact that the law can be so deceiving
itself like this just shows that the rule of law has an illusory element to it.
The law is just a cloak to the deceitful classist aims and imbalances.
Furthermore, the privatisation of
prisons enveloping them into the corporate world has effectively brought
slavery under the radar but certainly in existence, largely black people due to
the mass incarceration enabled by the abstract legislation and policy
(criminalisation of cannabis and issues largely targeting black people only). [5]
This in itself shows that the power imbalance
itself is still actually physically there, despite the illusion of the politicians
serving the people and the rule of law serving justice and equality to the
imbalance. It could even be suggested from this example that it is a labour
class differentiation similar to that of Marx’s time (but worse in other ways
due to the racism and slavery element). The concept of the rule of law is cloaking
the imbalance that is still present and has never really been remedied. This
simply points to the fact that with law or not, society will always be
structured in such a way where there is a clash of classes in society, and the
elites will always have an oppressing hand on the underclasses. The concept of
elites being a real thing is even solidified by the ALECK issues.[6]
This is where corporations were creating
laws so abstractly and covertly to encourage the slave labour in the privatised
prisons to profit themselves. When corporations and politicians are working so
closely and abstractly to an end where these situations even exist, the Marxist
ideas are very strongly present and evidenced. It also defeats the idea of
democracy anyway, so it does not serve to rule all equally in that sense.
[1] K Marx and f Engels, The German Ideology
(1845) (repblished, trans. 1970, Lawrence and Wishart, London); K Marx, Preface
to Contribution to Critique of Political Economy (1859), in Bottomore and Rubel
(eds) Karl Marx, Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy (1961)
[2] Ibid
[3] Thirteenth
Amendment To the Constitution of the United States 1865; 13Th Film
Documentary (Ava DuVernay, 2016)
[4]
Lee Atwaters interview segment of 13Th (Ava DuVernay, 2016)
[5] At
no.5
[6] Alec
expose segment of 13Th at no.5; <
http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed > (accessed 4th
January 2017)
SO IN CONCLUSION, WHITE PEOPLE PLEASE STOP DENYING THE EXISTENCE OF INSTITUTIONAL RACISM, THE MOST POWERFUL INSTITUTION IN SOCIETY IS RACIST. PLEASE TAKE ACTION TO EMPOWER MINORITIES AND THE OPPRESSED. PLEASE USE YOUR PRIVILEGE TO EMPOWER AND GIVE OTHER PEOPLE EQUALITY. PLEASE LOVE. PLEASE BE KIND. PLEASE STOP TRYING TO INVALIDATE THE BLACK LIVES MATTER INITIATIVE WITH YOUR "ALL LIVES MATTER" BULLSHIT. JUST STAY QUIET IF YOU HAVE NOTHING EMPOWERING TO SAY. MORE LIFE MORE LOVE!
Oh and please check this website out as to the Lee Atwater making racism go under the radar within politics and law: https://www.thenation.com/article/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/
Also some light reading on the 13th Amendment if I didnt give you enough but you can't access netflix: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-13th-amendment-didn-abolish-slavery-article-1.2801218
The war on cannabis being a way to lock black people up: https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2016/03/23/nixons-drug-war-an-excuse-to-lock-up-blacks-and-protesters-continues/&refURL=https://www.google.co.uk/&referrer=https://www.google.co.uk/
ALEC (privatised prisons): https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed
There were some words in there that I couldn't bring myself to type....but it is IMPORTANT READING!!!!
Be good, love one another.
Peace out x
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