Justice is NOT Blind by Stone

Justice is NOT Blind

In a world filled with trends, status, division, stereotypes, profiling and hatred, fear of the unknown and unchartered has a way of framing closed minds and blinding open eyes. Straight, gay, black, white, overweight, bulimic, nappy, relaxed, wealthy, underprivileged, scholar, uneducated, articulate or ignorant should never be a compromise for lies.

For far too long, society has encouraged "cookie cutter" guilt or innocence. If you look like me, talk like me or share the same lifestyle as me, it is an automatic assumption that I vote, protest and/or agree with you. The judicial system and society would like to perpetuate the notion that justice has no limits nor boundaries but unfortunately it is filled with those classifications. The person with the tattoos and piercings is labeled a freak, the black female with four children and unemployed is labeled lazy, the white guy with gelled hair and feminine mannerisms is labeled gay, the white woman dating or married to the black guy is trailer trash and the black male with a gold grill and less than stellar past is labeled a threat.

I believe in the benefit of the doubt. Chance and experience happens to all of us and it is my belief that most people attempt to live by the affirmation that "when you know better, you do better." I'm not ignorant to injustices and prejudices being inflicted on the innocent and I do not promote nor condone those that allow it or perform the act themselves. Sometimes, you should not be guilty by association and also, birds of a feather do not necessarily flock together.

With all of the recent incidents occurring across the world, I felt the need to express my thoughts. Being a person of integrity, compassion and social/moral values, I am saddened by the "color lines" destroying factual and concrete evidence while also burning the weaker bridges of the socially-conscience. The ongoing racially motivated divide needs no further assistance enlarging itself. It has the media, the unlearned, foolish and unrelenting participants of ignorance to fuel its damaging fire.

It is my honest intent to be fair and unbiased when tasked with "judging" regardless of ethnicity, lifestyle, social preference or economic privilege but I admit to being an abuser of stereotyping and at times, guilty of jumping on the "heritage bandwagon." Wisdom over the years, has taught me to consider the whole matter before withdrawing or giving support towards issues. Unfortunately, most people do not take the time to process the facts before they jump to judgement based solely on the media spins.

Women tend to be sympathetic toward other women. Men lean towards the logic of other men. Special groups are empathetic towards its members. Also, it has been proven that tragic incidents involving different ethnicities, will undoubtedly bring about separation, frustration, violence and intolerance. The world has rapidly become an ethnic and national melting pot however attempting to positively diversify it, is a major challenge. Sadly, the color of ones skin is usually the deciding factor instead of the truth or the content of a persons character.

Oft times, the innocence or guilt is mutilated by racially charged emotions, beliefs or background which further pushes a separate agenda. We may have "overcome" physically since the days of slavery, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Jim Crow era and the Freedom Riders but in some regards, we are still enslaved mentally. I think that for most national cases involving race, "justice is definitely in the eye of the beholder" and therefore makes it NOT blind.