Black Boys in America
Mackenzie Elle Knight
Mackenzie Elle Knight
Black people in America have been put on the back burner an enumerate amount of occasions. Especially when dealing with court cases that determine where their life ends up from there and on. The Central Park Five, now known as The Exonerated Five, Walter McMillian, Rodney Reed, Marvin Anderson, Stefon Morant, Leroy Harris, etc. are victims of a system that is relentless, incessant, and determined to oppress Black men in America. The list of Black men victimized includes Emmett Till and Jussie Smollett. These particular cases are quite similar, they both deal with false police reports, yet only one case was prosecuted swiftly.
Emmitt Till was a 14-year old Black boy accused of whistling at a white woman (Carolyn Bryant) and murdered after being tortured the next morning as a punishment for it. A&E publishes, “his assailants—the white woman’s husband and her brother—made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head and then threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the river.”
Jussie Smollett’s case is similar because he too made a statement about an attack that allegedly happened to him. Sopan Deb, author of an innumerable amount of articles, explains, “Mr. Smollett, who is black and gay, tells the police that at about 1:30 a.m., two masked men he believed to be white attacked him on the 300 block of East Lower North Water Street in downtown Chicago. The assailants, according to Mr. Smollett, hurled homophobic and racial slurs at him, put a rope around his neck and poured a chemical substance on him.” It was later found with evidence that Jussie orchestrated this attack to gain popularity. Soon following the attack, he was indicted for false police reports and is currently in and out of jail.
During the interviews, all clients state, “both Jussie Smollett and Emmett Till’s case were built on race.” Skyler Pugh explains, “Um, yeah most definitely because it’s just the concept of like two Black men.”
Brianna Johnson adds, “yes, because both cases deal with two Black men. The [Emmett Till] case was definitely racist, but the [Jussie Smollett] case also depends on um, how he’s a public figure, how the police reacted, and people in his daily life.”
There has been a lot of criticism from the Black community about the cases because when dealing with similar cases and the perpetrator is Black and white; one is automatically favored simply because of their skin color and the history of their past victories due to this reasoning: Jussie Smollett being indicted is simply because of “wasted time,” so just like him, Carolyn Bryant did the same, however, today is living life as a liberated privileged woman in an America with a corrupt system that only favors those that look like her, and Harvey Weinstein, Mario Batali, Louis C.k., Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump, etc. “Um, I think the [system] is flawed,” Pugh responds.
“Uh, [the system] has some holes in it and...bad holes, but they are trying to fix it up by reopening cases,” Johnson replies. One of the interviewees, Kwesi Owusu, interpretation is quite different from his peers. He believes from then to today’s society there has been an immense change especially for Black people representing each other in the court of law, “Jussie was sent to jail because he is a Black man. [Authorities] always believed the white people and not the Black people.”
Kwesi’s statement can easily be proven, “The 2016 data show convictions that led to murder exoneration with black defendants were more likely to involve misconduct by police officers than those with white defendants. On average, black murder exonerates waited three years longer in prison before release than whites.”
This fact can turn into another Black boy or man in America being a: Walter McMillan, Rodney Reed, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, or Yusef Salaam. Their life was stolen from them, while the real perpetrators were living free. That is not fair for the wrongfully convicted merely because officers and prosecutors wanted cases to speed up or hurry and come to a halt. There has to be accountability for wrongdoing that causes torment and anguish to these Black men and boys’ minds. Brianna Johnson, an 11th grader at Hillgrove, claims, “All [involved] in the case, especially both the white man and woman being the reason for Emmett’s death.”
Similar to Johnson’s response, Owusu agrees, “Carolyn Bryant because it was her fault.” This country was built on hate, bigotry, and torment. Until it is acknowledged there will be no real change. Until difficult conversations are had there will be no real change. It is not the oppressed in this country’s responsibility to make racism dissipate, it is the privileged, the dominant, the majority that has an ancestry who kidnapped, killed, raped, and brutalized the very people that aided in making America the melting pot that it is.
Emmitt Till was a 14-year old Black boy accused of whistling at a white woman (Carolyn Bryant) and murdered after being tortured the next morning as a punishment for it. A&E publishes, “his assailants—the white woman’s husband and her brother—made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head and then threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the river.”
Jussie Smollett’s case is similar because he too made a statement about an attack that allegedly happened to him. Sopan Deb, author of an innumerable amount of articles, explains, “Mr. Smollett, who is black and gay, tells the police that at about 1:30 a.m., two masked men he believed to be white attacked him on the 300 block of East Lower North Water Street in downtown Chicago. The assailants, according to Mr. Smollett, hurled homophobic and racial slurs at him, put a rope around his neck and poured a chemical substance on him.” It was later found with evidence that Jussie orchestrated this attack to gain popularity. Soon following the attack, he was indicted for false police reports and is currently in and out of jail.
During the interviews, all clients state, “both Jussie Smollett and Emmett Till’s case were built on race.” Skyler Pugh explains, “Um, yeah most definitely because it’s just the concept of like two Black men.”
Brianna Johnson adds, “yes, because both cases deal with two Black men. The [Emmett Till] case was definitely racist, but the [Jussie Smollett] case also depends on um, how he’s a public figure, how the police reacted, and people in his daily life.”
There has been a lot of criticism from the Black community about the cases because when dealing with similar cases and the perpetrator is Black and white; one is automatically favored simply because of their skin color and the history of their past victories due to this reasoning: Jussie Smollett being indicted is simply because of “wasted time,” so just like him, Carolyn Bryant did the same, however, today is living life as a liberated privileged woman in an America with a corrupt system that only favors those that look like her, and Harvey Weinstein, Mario Batali, Louis C.k., Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump, etc. “Um, I think the [system] is flawed,” Pugh responds.
“Uh, [the system] has some holes in it and...bad holes, but they are trying to fix it up by reopening cases,” Johnson replies. One of the interviewees, Kwesi Owusu, interpretation is quite different from his peers. He believes from then to today’s society there has been an immense change especially for Black people representing each other in the court of law, “Jussie was sent to jail because he is a Black man. [Authorities] always believed the white people and not the Black people.”
Kwesi’s statement can easily be proven, “The 2016 data show convictions that led to murder exoneration with black defendants were more likely to involve misconduct by police officers than those with white defendants. On average, black murder exonerates waited three years longer in prison before release than whites.”
This fact can turn into another Black boy or man in America being a: Walter McMillan, Rodney Reed, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, or Yusef Salaam. Their life was stolen from them, while the real perpetrators were living free. That is not fair for the wrongfully convicted merely because officers and prosecutors wanted cases to speed up or hurry and come to a halt. There has to be accountability for wrongdoing that causes torment and anguish to these Black men and boys’ minds. Brianna Johnson, an 11th grader at Hillgrove, claims, “All [involved] in the case, especially both the white man and woman being the reason for Emmett’s death.”
Similar to Johnson’s response, Owusu agrees, “Carolyn Bryant because it was her fault.” This country was built on hate, bigotry, and torment. Until it is acknowledged there will be no real change. Until difficult conversations are had there will be no real change. It is not the oppressed in this country’s responsibility to make racism dissipate, it is the privileged, the dominant, the majority that has an ancestry who kidnapped, killed, raped, and brutalized the very people that aided in making America the melting pot that it is.
