Abstract
The Trump Administration and its mantra to ‘Make America Great Again’ has been calibrated with racism and severe oppression against Black people in America who still bear the deep marks of slavery. After the official abolition of slavery in the second half of the nineteenth century, the initial inability of Black people to own land, coupled with the various Jim Crow laws rendered the acquired freedom nearly insignificant in the face of poverty and hopelessness. Although the age-long struggles for civil rights and equal treatments have caused the acquisition of more black-letter rights, the systemic racism that still perverts the American justice system has largely disabled these rights: the result is that Black people continue to exist at the periphery of American economy and politics. Using a functional approach and other types of approach to legal and sociological reasoning, this article examines the supportive roles of Corporate America, Mainstream Media, and White Supremacists in winnowing the systemic oppression that manifests largely through police brutality. The article argues that some of the sustainable solutions against these injustices must be tackled from the roots and not through window-dressing legislation, which often harbor the narrow interests of Corporate America.
Highlights
Slave Trade as the Entry Point of Systemic RacismThe alleged discovery of America by Christopher Columbus and friends in 1492,1 the use of refined sugar in processing food,2 and the use of wool in manufacturing cloths,3 signaled a bad omen for the African people
Between the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 on the one hand, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act which crystallized nearly two decades of agitations for true equality and protection of the law, on the other hand, the Black people endured a further 100 years of racial segregation, oppression, poverty and inequality in the country they built with their sweat and blood, even though their rights to be protected from these kinds of oppression were already inscribed in the black-letter law
This claim observes that often times when the police kill Black people unjustly, and no real justice takes place to address the wrong due to the systemic racism and injustice, not many white Americans cry out as patriots and protest for such injustice done to their fellow citizens
Summary
The alleged discovery of America by Christopher Columbus and friends in 1492,1 the use of refined sugar in processing food, and the use of wool in manufacturing cloths, signaled a bad omen for the African people. Between the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 (abolition of slavery), Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 (grant of citizenship to the former slaves and ‘equal protection of the law’), Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 (the right to vote accorded to the Black people) on the one hand, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act which crystallized nearly two decades of agitations for true equality and protection of the law, on the other hand, the Black people endured a further 100 years of racial segregation, oppression, poverty and inequality in the country they built with their sweat and blood, even though their rights to be protected from these kinds of oppression were already inscribed in the black-letter law.19 These types of oppression, chiseled more deeply into the justice system continue to manifest loudly even till today, mainly through the law enforcement agents. The paper has chosen a number of metaphors to map and discuss the painful black experience in America: these metaphors have arguably become synonymous with being black in America
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