SOBER THOUGHTS

 
I want to dedicate this commentary to my father, the late Wilkie Clark, who in 1971, as I approached graduation from Roanoke City Schools, tried his best to encourage me to attend Howard University, and major in law.

He was very much in tune with the flaws in our legal system.   Just as I now understand more clearly how our legal system victimizes so many black men, back then, my father understood the part that our flawed legal system had historically played in the legalized mistreatment of black folks in every area of American life, and especially in the Southeastern part of the country.   

In addition to this awareness, my father had a high respect for the law.  He came along at a time when Howard University was unrivaled in its reputation for producing great black legal minds who were well indoctrinated in the principles of making that law work to benefit black people, despite the inherent mechanisms within it that frequently worked against blacks.  Black law grads coming out of Howard University had been drilled, and had soaked in every aspect of the law, and knew it so well, until they became masters at what would it would take to turn it upside down, and inside out, to make sweeping changes that would ultimately make life better for black America. 

Through my association with my father, I was privileged to meet many of them, and I believe that at that time, the lawyers who graduated from Howard University came out of law school on a mission.   They were aggressive and determined to liberate black folks. 

But, no such lawyers are being produced any more.   I do not believe they are even being taught how to practice law aggressively any more.  Everywhere you go, all you see in law offices, are a bunch of sell-outs, who are looking for money, an easily winnable case, and a name.   Now, in many civil litigations, they want to run all over the golf course, or sit at the bar, and negotiate your fate with your enemy.   And they’ve come up with a fancy word for it…they call it arbitration.

At this stage of my life, I can boast many accomplishments.  I was privileged to earn a Masters Degree in Education; to teach in both the public and private sector; to be elected to public office which I held for 18 years;  to own and operate my own business; to author and publish books; and to help establish and write for a black news media  – But, I also have a few regrets, too.  One of them is that I didn’t follow through with my father’s pleadings that I go to one of the most prestigious black universities and take up the law profession.

Oddly enough, I have observed so many areas in life wherein black people are victimized without reservation, until I have had a lifetime of difficulty trying to decide where my own personal abilities could be the most effectively used to help rectify these disparities.

I have posted in this week’s People’s Voice, an article related to the Death Penalty study recently released by the American Bar Association.  

After reading such a report, I am livid. 

I am angry over how We The People, we, the politically correct, the affluent of the community, the pillars of society, the religiously self-righteous, the academia, the high and mighty  ― acquiesce with a system so riddled with flaws and so ridiculously and shamefully unjust and uneven and still go to bed, sleep soundly, and get up day after day, and not show any signs of concern or remorse over the lives that have been snuffed out with no sensitivity or regard for the possibility that mistakes may have been made; defenses may have been incompetent or inadequate; evidence may have been tainted; investigative work may have been sloppy; a jury may not have understood their instructions.      

I am angry over how incompetent lawyers “get over” economically ― and even get wealthy ― on the poor, the ignorant and the illiterate with their half-baked, half-hearted practice and mis-application of the law.  

And I regret that I didn’t go ahead and major in law and establish a practice in Alabama. 

Because if I had, I do not believe that I could have stood quietly and idly by and participated in a centuries-old penal system that casually victimizes the innocent as a matter of routine.

I couldn’t have stood to spend my lifetime sitting in the halls of justice, day after day, getting wealthy and fat preying on the ignorance of the innocent and the naïve, working within a system that would knowingly convict people to death without assuring the existence of a fair and just process through which to do it.  My conscience could not have allowed me to do it.

No.  I would have been another Thurgood Marshall or Constance Baker Motley.

I can just hear my daddy saying “Charlotte, I told you so…. I told you what to do, but you were listenin’ to your ma.  Yaw’ll didn’t think I had no sense.”   

I really regret it, because in today’s society, so charged with foolishness, and professional mediocrity, some one is needed, who is able to stand up and challenge the status quo, by demanding fairness, justice, and equity.    I don’t know one single attorney practicing today who has the guts to do it.

Today, God only knows how many black folk are suffering for not having listened to the wisdom of our elders.   In modern society, we have more blacks than ever entering every field imaginable.   It is unbelievable how our young  upwardly mobile blacks are now using these opportunities to advance themselves personally and economically without thinking about giving back to their communities or their people.   We must get committed to putting all our education and technological know-how to use, by applying what we know to become part of the movement to help liberate those who cannot help themselves – such as those who fall prey to the unfair judicial system.

Fairness, Justice, Equity…. It is our constitutional right.    It should not have to be bought or paid for.  It is a guarantee.  And under that constitution, our government has an obligation to all of us, to make it a reality, we the people must demand it, and we must have it (in the words of Malcolm X)  BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY!