Holding Hillary Clinton Accountable: We Need Transformative Justice
This clip of #DEMSinPHL provides an insight on Hillary Clinton's thinking regarding the #BlackLivesMatter movement. The entire time of the #DNC, Hillary Clinton's connection to people as a mother. This was no exception.
Honestly, Sandra Bland's and Jordan Davis's mother said very touching words; my heart was stirred. However, I wondered the entire time as I watched and re-watched this clip if these Mothers really understood what it would take to bring justice to this nation, as this nation condones, invites, rationalizes, and excuses police violence.
The difficulty to attaining transformative justice that these Mothers did not address is that police violence is a form of state-sanctioned oppression. Police are protectors of the State. They are gatekeepers of the criminal justice that enforce the laws of the nation-state and its derivatives.
Attaining transformative justice in this nation-state will require more than God's favor. It will require more than platitudes and heart-wrenching speeches. It will require more than "good" cops holding "bad" cops accountable. It will even require more than saying their names in chanting unison.
We need a full-fledged transformation of our incarceration system. This transformation must start from the judges and only extend even to the cop on desk duty. We need to place Black lives at the forefront of our consideration, as we put action to words and reimagine this system we live in. We need not forget that Black lives are not the only lives this system targets. We need to build cross-racial coalitions that center the lives of other hyper-criminalized groups (e.g., Native Americans, Muslims, Latinos), We need not only restorative justice (as stated by the Mothers of the Movement), we need a conscious, transformative justice.
A conscious, transformative justice is a justice that recognizes the impact of the legacy of slavery on the conceptualization of Black people as criminals unworthy of breath. Without gun control legislation, the demilitarization of the police, and institutional structures that bring criminal accountability to cops who murder innocent citizens, we will not have the transformation we need. And, let's be clear: Without the transformation we need, this country will never silence the agitation of our Black voices.
Honestly, Sandra Bland's and Jordan Davis's mother said very touching words; my heart was stirred. However, I wondered the entire time as I watched and re-watched this clip if these Mothers really understood what it would take to bring justice to this nation, as this nation condones, invites, rationalizes, and excuses police violence.
The difficulty to attaining transformative justice that these Mothers did not address is that police violence is a form of state-sanctioned oppression. Police are protectors of the State. They are gatekeepers of the criminal justice that enforce the laws of the nation-state and its derivatives.
Attaining transformative justice in this nation-state will require more than God's favor. It will require more than platitudes and heart-wrenching speeches. It will require more than "good" cops holding "bad" cops accountable. It will even require more than saying their names in chanting unison.
We need a full-fledged transformation of our incarceration system. This transformation must start from the judges and only extend even to the cop on desk duty. We need to place Black lives at the forefront of our consideration, as we put action to words and reimagine this system we live in. We need not forget that Black lives are not the only lives this system targets. We need to build cross-racial coalitions that center the lives of other hyper-criminalized groups (e.g., Native Americans, Muslims, Latinos), We need not only restorative justice (as stated by the Mothers of the Movement), we need a conscious, transformative justice.
A conscious, transformative justice is a justice that recognizes the impact of the legacy of slavery on the conceptualization of Black people as criminals unworthy of breath. Without gun control legislation, the demilitarization of the police, and institutional structures that bring criminal accountability to cops who murder innocent citizens, we will not have the transformation we need. And, let's be clear: Without the transformation we need, this country will never silence the agitation of our Black voices.
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