Justice

Salaam,

Justice doesn't exist on this earth. I wish it did, but no matter what side of the tracks you stand on, you know it not to be true. You know of cases, you know of unfair dealings.

I believe that Justice exists on the other side. Not my side of the tracks or your side, but transcending sides. I believe that Justice exists in the next life.

But I recognize that this, my belief, potentially brings no comfort. So I keep it to myself unless asked to share.

There is not fair and there is no jury of peers and there is no justice where people feel less empathy and sympathy because the other person has brown skin and coarse features and kinky hair. There is no justice when someone cannot relate to the pain of someone else because they look different than themselves.

And there is no potential for sanctuary when my brothers and cousins and eventually my sons can be shot because a bunch of frightened people who don't look like us feel threatened by our brown skin, our coarse features and every other stereotype that comes with it.

It actually disgusted me to think that people didn't care about this, snuggled up next to their honeys and their children and rested comfortably knowing this was not their problem. Similarly, as a black person, I've never felt so exposed and helpless as when this verdict came crashing down.

I felt like we could shout as long as we wanted, but we wouldn't be heard.

Because this was a long time in the making. From all of the ways that slavery was upheld for 80 years after The Emancipation in peonage, prisoner leasing and sharecropping, from the way that system was revived in the War Against Drugs--it's veritable eugenics.

I thank God that it's Ramadan and I will find my solace in Him. Because those who believe that justice was served have a disease so deep in their hearts, and I know I cannot protect myself from being exposed to such people, and for the first time in my life, I am afraid of such a thing.