Justifying Injustice...

[Elliot O. Millner]

THE AMERICAN WAY: JUSTIFYING INJUSTICE

“The European is to the other races of man what man in general is to all animated nature. When he cannot bend them to his use or make them indirectly serve his being, he destroys them and makes them, little by little, disappear before him…” -Alexis De Toqueville
Throughout American history, from pre-colonial times to the present, white Americans have utilized a variety of methods to rationalize and justify injustice perpetuated against ‘others’, often Black people. We could extend this justification technique to colonial Africa (among other places), however this is an article, not a dissertation.

These justifications were(and still are) employed not only to project the blame and responsibility of years of oppressive(and often savage) behavior onto the oppressed group, but also to legitimize the rewards gained by the oppressive group due to this behavior. Most of us are familiar with at least some of these acts and justifications, however I will list a couple just to refresh our memory:
Act: Decimation of Native American people and usurpation of Native American land.
Justifications: Native Americans were: Mentally, physically, and culturally inferior; naturally shiftless and lazy, lacking in work ethic; heathens, unable or unwilling to accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior…
Act: Enslavement and Terrorism of millions of people of African descent.
Justifications: Africans were: Descendants of Ham, son of Noah, and thus cursed to enslavement due to the sin of Ham dishonoring his father; mentally, physically, and culturally inferior; child-like, needed to be enslaved for ‘their own good’; naturally shiftless and lazy, yet somehow also naturally suited to slavery, and actually thankful for being enslaved.
As stated before, these are a couple of many examples. It is rather easy to look back historically and see the various heinous acts perpetrated against certain groups of people and the justifications used to support them. However, hindsight is of no help once the destruction and devastation has already taken place. So, the question is, what present justifications are being used to excuse and condone injustice? The injustices are many, and include:
Police profiling and brutality, disparate sentencing based on offenses(and race of the victim and perpetrator), Jena 6(and other similar examples), Hurricane Katrina, the anti-affirmative action/reverse racism crier movement, homeownership/mortgage discrimination and abuse, urban poverty, disparate sentencing of Black people to prison, regentrification, etc…
The justifications? Many of the justifications have not changed, though they are rarely spoken in public, due to political correctness. As with previous historical examples, the justification used changes depending on what is attempting to be justified. During slavery, Black people were often depicted as content, even happy to be slaves, and having no desire to do anything but please their master, and sing and dance. However, once slavery was officially abolished, it became necessary to develop different justifications for the lynching and terrorizing of Black people. Suddenly, the once happy-go-lucky, singing and dancing former slaves transformed into sex-crazed, violent, uncontrollable monsters, waiting around every corner to rape a white woman or kill a white man.
Sound Familiar? In the present, to justify the economic disparities that exist within American society, and the persistent poverty within many Black communities, the old ‘lazy/shiftless’ justification is often used. Subsequently, when it is time to justify sentencing disparities, police profiling and brutality, and the outrageous numbers of Black people in prisons, the ‘violence-prone, sex-crazed negro’ justification is pulled out(like a card). Distorted, oversimplified statistics are held up as proof of a natural proclivity of Black men to commit crimes, the same way that pseudo scientists used ‘objective ‘proof’ to support the idea of Black inferiority due to smaller brains, larger penises(seriously), etc.
When it comes to preserving the self-image and self-esteem of the white majority, nothing is sacred. God, nature, and now most popularly, ‘choice’, are used to justify injustice, to portray the victims of oppression as deserving of whatever they have received, all while casting themselves in the role of innocent by-stander, and definitely not in any way a participant or benefactor of any wrong-doing. As stated by Professors Jon and Kathleen Hanson, in their article The Blame Frame: Justifying Racial Injustice in America, “..in justifying racial inequalities, “separate and unequal” gave way to “separate but equal”, which has now yielded to “separate but chosen.” While that may seem like significant progress, in all cases, victims are blamed while non-victims are excused, the haves and the have-nots are separated, and the persistent chasm between them(which would otherwise be seen as unjust) is legitimated.” God has also been brought back into the justification game, in the form of ‘prosperity theology’( ironically, and sickeningly, preached at a substantial number of Black churches), which is another way to excuse and condone apathy at the conditions of those in poverty, while rationalizing individual financial success as somehow something that God wants, more so than freedom, justice, and equality for all people, and at the same time perpetuating the idea that those who have not somehow deserve or want it to be that way.

Another constant theme in all these justifications is that at various times, they all had(or still have) varying degrees of judicial support. Many racist and white supremacist ideas were quoted and cited in judicial opinions, even several that came from the United States Supreme Court. Although not so blatantly worded, that is still the case today. The language may be coded, the ideas may sound completely innocent, yet the results for those who have-not are ultimately the same. History has repeated itself enough for us to realize that nothing positive will come from us remaining silent and inactive in the face of attempts by many to preserve an illusory sense of self-identity by the usage of lies and distortions, at the expense of Black people, among others. Our individual success does not mean that we are above the struggle of those who still have trouble overcoming systemic obstacles placed in their paths. Our apathy and silence has provided encouragement to pathetic people from the dominant racial majority in this country, to attempt to use us as excuses for their own shortcomings. Not only have negative images been projected onto us to boost the ego and self-esteem of others, now we have people who have not experienced any type of discrimination, oppression, much less brutality, attempting to label themselves as victims(of what? Only they know). White men claiming that they are an endangered species. White men, who want to blame Black people for all their own failures, that have nothing to do with any obstacles, or oppression, or any type of lack of privilege or access to anything. ‘Men‘, who have spent centuries perfecting the art of not taking responsibility for their actions, yet now want to attempt to instruct Black people on responsibility and work ethic?? Certain white men in particular, that have no problem with upper-class white people who receive free passes into some of the most elite colleges and universities in the country, yet want to cry when a Black person supposedly takes a spot into a school that they think they were more qualified for?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that “ True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” We must be the agitators now, and produce the tension necessary to bring about true justice. Otherwise, we will be sitting years from now, reading another article about how we allowed injustice to be justified, yet again, and did nothing to stop it.