That's not rain
By Brandon Astor Jones
"The middle class is always a firm champion of equality when it concerns a class above it; but it is its inveterate foe when it concerns elevating a class below it." — Orestes A. Brownson (1803-1878)
Brownson's comment is as poignant today as it ever was. The middle class, with few exceptions, give little or no thought to cultivating an atmosphere of fairness in a society that relegates so many members to a level beneath it. The attitude described by Brownson can best be seen by observing actions — the actions of the even smaller groups within the controlling middle class.
The United States Supreme Court is a classic example of such a group making literally life and death decisions regarding those hapless people in social and economic classes considered to be below it, eg prisoners.
Presently, there are more than 2000 people on death row in the US, and with the exception of one woman, all those condemned to death come from backgrounds that are below so-called "middle class". If one is a person of colour, and/or poor, one is at the very least 1999 times more likely to be sentenced to death than a member of the middle class.
The nine-member panel that is the US Supreme Court, on the matter of capital punishment, with the exception of one man, thinks with an insidious, single-minded ruthlessness. The court's majority mind-set is governed by, and mired in, classism/racism.
To paraphrase an old cliche, I am talking about eight people whose legal decisions are rooted so deeply in class prejudice that the effect they have on Lady Justice is akin to urinating in her face. Then, after each one of those decisions, they self-righteously gather up their law books and in mindless legalese try to tell her, and a very gullible public, that it is raining.
The exception on that panel, Justice Harry Blackmun, who obviously has both a functioning mind and a conscience, knows that it is not raining. He recently said, "For more than 20 years, I have endeavoured — indeed, I have struggled — along with the majority of this court to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness ..." He went on to say, "Rather than continue to coddle this court's delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed [emphasis added]".
Despite the poor quality of a newspaper photograph of Justice Blackmun, I can clearly see the lines that were no doubt produced by the struggles he referred to, and the wisdom that brought him through them, in his face.
As always, on the right side of my makeshift desk, there is a glossy photograph of one of my grand-daughters, Charise. In her face there is that endless wonder of adolescence, beauty and hope for the future. Suddenly, I am reminded of the words of another justice who served Lady Justice from 1932 through 1938:
"The death penalty will seem to the next generation, as it seems to many even now, an anachronism too discordant to be suffered, mocking with grim reproach all our clamorous professions of the sanctity of life." — Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (1870-1938)
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He is happy to receive letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G2-51, GD&CC, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA.]