It is at the center of our national attention. And, justifiably so. It’s presence permeates our national psyche, whether we acknowledge it or not. We cannot forget the sight of a White Cop prosecuting, convicting, and executing George Floyd. Another Black Man got the Death Penalty for no apparent reason. The swirl of police killings of Blacks, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, brought to my mind a system that has been condoning racist police killings of innocents in Texas since the mid-Seventies. Police armed with no-knock warrants, and a “shoot-first and ask-questions-later’’attitude also carried along a throw-down gun and a match box of Marijuana (nobody but Police carried MJ around in match boxes). In 1968 – 1970 while I was in law school, students would get opportunities to show and tell about the things that they learned while riding the street with police. So common were such practices that I thought at first they must be legal. Clarity of vision occurred for me when HPD officers testified they took Joe Campos Torres for a “Get-Out-of-Jail-Free” nocturnal swim across Buffalo Bayou. Joe drowned. The only catches were: (1) he was very drunk; and (2) he was still hand cuffed behind his back. I still do not know why Sanford Radinsky was murdered when Houston Police executed a no-knock warrant, and killed a thirty-six-year-old, wealthy, white, dope smoking, lawyer, at the same time. I am not sure what role race may have played in Joe or Sanford’s killings, but Joe was Hispanic, and Sanford was Jewish. Regardless, that is not the way our system of justice works. Guilt for being of a race is by definition also, INJUSTICE.
All too often, in the soon to ensue “Death Penalty” jury trial of the killer cop, evidence is skewed as well, and murder gets condoned in the name of the LAW. The saga of Gregorio Cortez began as he tells about being, a Texan/Hispanic convicted multiple times by “white” juries. Cortez was released each time by the Texas Appellate courts, because he did not get any chance to a “fair trial.” A fair trial is also the point of the story about Greg Ott, and my cousin, Bobby Paul. Ott was recently released from prison in Texas after killing Ranger, Bobby Paul Doherty, in 1978. Ott lived, because the U.S. Supreme declared a moratorium on death-penalty cases, and his was vacated or commuted to “Life in Prison.” The issue was not whether Ott got a fair trial. He got a fair trial. The Texas Board of Pardons and Parole must decide if “Justice” requires them to conclude that Ott is no longer a threat to society. Ott’s persistence and stamina at being a model prisoner for more than twenty-five years caused some who had worked to keep him in jail forever to switch sides. These last two stories show there is no appeal nor hope for rehabilitation once the death penalty is imposed. Ott was released because of his exemplary conduct while in prison.
The difference between my later two scenarios and Mr. Floyd’s death highlight the facts that the rush to execution does not always involve death of the “Protester”, and that given enough time even an obvious candidate for the Needle might be “corrected” by the TDC. It takes “time” not death to deliver Texas justice. There may never be clear or convincing proof of whether Ott shot through a closed door or one that was kicked open and banged shut before he could get off a shot. However, Ott could have seen and heard Officer Doherty, if anyone (disputed) believed he did or said anything to Ott before Ott pulled his trigger. Ott’s defense was that he did not know he was shooting at a policeman. Officer Doherty was not just another cop in the raid. He was the lead officer in charge, a REAL Texas Ranger.
First Eliminate the Death Penalty
Imagine, if you can, that several of the distressed citizens who were present and heard Mr. Floyd plead for a breath, had decided to intervene. Three other armed cops were “assisting in his apprehension, detention, murder. Now would begin an equally deadly interplay of “What if…” What if they were successful, but someway the offending cop on George Floyd’s neck wound up dead? What if a fellow demonstrator were killed in the affray? What if…What if – Muddy water could not clear up with time? That time must pass without more consequential dying. Keeping the “facts” stirred up only helps the “Killers.” If the subsequent general chaos played a role in creating the riot, did it have a part in causing Mr. Floyd’s death? Why not indict all identifiable rioters as well? Answer: the burden of proof in a criminal case requires the state to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That anyone other than the killer and/or his three Amigos had any role in killing Mr. Floyd is extremely doubtful at this point. All the burden of proving guilt falls on the prosecution. The defense has no burden at all, except to show up for trial. Opinions about the defendants’ guilt or innocence are valueless unless they are admissible in a Court of Law. Then you can hear them along with the jury.
Only impartial jurors should be allowed to sit in judgement. That means that if they have formed any opinion on the defendants’ guilt or innocence they are disqualified for service on this jury. These “rules” are only a tiny few of the rules of law used in the Criminal Justice System that has evolved in America. The evolutionary process of America’s judicial system begs for consistency and surety of application to all members of our society. It is not a perfect system. No system is. Nevertheless, it cannot be effectively improved where there is no chance of improving the life of the victim of the state’s executioner. How much time does the executioner need to give the state’s “corrector” to work at rehabilitation for justice to be done? If Ott had died in prison, society might never know. Did he get another chance at life because he is white? Mr. Cortez was not white. That is why appellate courts are layered on top of juries, and Boards of review look after what remains. There is no second guessing of guilt based on verbal shouts of “String Him Up” demanding vigilante vengeance and there ought to be. More fair trials are called for in a democracy. Justice may be purely coincidentally for, but its only source is from independent wheels of the American Justice System, that grind very, very slowly but grind exceedingly fine. Our system is not broken but it is not fully understood by those who would replace it for any reason being shouted about on the streets today or being used to cover-up the violent intent behind the racism in the acts of “Old White Men” (OWM) who are losing their WAY!
War Can Overturn an Erroneous Supreme Court Opinion
Racism will not be solved nor salved by changing a few rules. IT is bigger than that, more fundamental. The United States Constitution, along with our statutes and treaties define American LAWS as the real power behind the proposition that we are a nation of laws, not of men. They are the “Supreme Law of the Land.” The U.S. Supreme Court decided Dred Scott v. Sandford, in 1857. However, the supremacy of Court made law was not thought, at the time, to rise to a level of equal supremacy with Acts of Congress even though they are the Court’s way of serving as a Constitutional check and/or balance. Is there a difference between determining Constitutionality of an Act of Congress versus determining whether a certain class of U.S. resident (the involuntary class in this case) has any Constitutional rights at all? When these man-made laws no longer serve our purpose as a free and independent nation the U.S. Supreme Court Justices have to make decisions about America that reflect the conscience of the community especially when the will of the majority of Americans is in conflict with the rights of a minority of their fellow Americans. The Dred Scott decision has been hailed as the worst, most poorly written opinion ever handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. The case involved a runaway slave who claimed to have legal possessory rights to himself and his family members. Chief Justice Taney tried to write an opinion that` would please almost everyone. Instead it pleased no one. He appears to have manipulated facts and evidence to produce a desired result we cannot be sure even he wanted. All such failed efforts make a mockery of our process and weakens the predictability the of the court. By 1861 a vocally rebellious “South” fought to retain what they thought was their property, human slaves. Humans as chattel property was not new in concept nor in practice. What was being over-looked was that the “sacred” nature of the concept failed to capture either the protection of either the U.S. SUP. CT. or the collective spirit of what was required of everyone who really wanted to be an AMERICAN.
A majority of Americans detested the slave system that had evolved from roots of brutal oppression. The American Civil War’s outcomes determined that the UNION won. All objections, whines and/or complaints were lost by the Confederacy on April 9,1865, when Gen. Lee SURRENDERED completely, unequivocally, but the term “unconditional surrender” was specifically left out, so that Lee and all of his men who had horses could disband and get home quicker. Grant’s nickname, “Unconditional Surrender Grant” had he insisted would have left the Rebs with no dignity and posed a major logistics problem for Grant to deal with tens of thousands of hungry and homeless POW’s. Was all of the killing to go for naught? Not if people learn that dignity does not come from being the LOSER.
Republican Position 1860
Before the Civil turned Hot War, the Republican Party Platform called all of those who favored “disunion,” but had not uttered a word about actual secession as those “Contemplating TREASON.” Had the South won the Civil War there could be no treason by the South. No, only the winners of war get to prosecute the losers. American “Justice” is not determined at the ballot box. It can be, but not when the issue of the right is inalienable and belongs to everyone equally. All Americans must get that concept imbedded in their souls or there may never be real peace. The Declaration of Independence did a good job of getting us started as a country, composed of immigrants, when it declared the TRUTH needed no one or more to vouch for it than its own “Self Evidence:”ALL MEN (Including Women) ARE CREATED EQUAL. There are no “ifs,” “ands” or “buts” nor any real doubt that Women should be read into it or we the PEOPLE would have to do IT peacefully or by armed forces. Fortunately, modern Americans have no need to take up arms, again. The American Civil War tested the mettle of the original concept espoused by old white men (OWM) that the creator(s) of men only started them off equally at birth. After that, all bets were off and the law of nature- survival of the fittest- was at play. ‘Taint fair when OWM’s have a 150+years head start. Three hundred years after slavery started in America, 1919, WOMEN, not “all” women(?), finally caught up to a written right of equality to black men. How? OWM amended the Constitution and bestowed Universal Suffrage on White Women. The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution came peacefully. Well, comparatively so, when juxtaposed to lynchings in the South, and the killings in the U.S. Civil Rights movement.
An Almost Permanent Republican Majority
The Civil War ended the buying and selling of humans in open slave markets in the United States. Mostly Northern States passed laws enabling Black men to vote. The U.S. Congress did not act until l870 making voting rights a justice department national reality for Black men. Black men lost most of their protections from the evils of OWM and their children’s children through the ending of Reconstruction efforts. The Republican Party started just before the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln in l860. It replaced the Whig Party and it held the power of the Presidency from Ulysses S. Grant (1869) almost continuously for the next 64 years until Franklin D. Roosevelt took over from Herbert Hoover. The Democratic Party could win only two four-year terms for Grover Cleveland in 1885 and again in 1893. Then the Democrats won two back to back terms for Woodrow Wilson 1913 and 1917. Of the 13 Presidents during these sixty-four years, two were Democrats, one was murdered before his first year was up and one died leaving his V.P. Coolidge to win only one four-year term. This left only four two term Republican Presidents during the entire 64 years.
Oligarchs of Old – Republican Robber Barons
The object of having a Permanent Republican Majority was not to fund a way to pay reparations to black victims for their losses and suffering. No, the OWM’s in charge were more interested in oil, gas, and keeping control of their wealth than enfranchising black men to vote. Ironically, with the help of Blacks who voted Democratic after the Herbert Hoover debacle, the Democratic Party almost established a Permanent Democratic Majority with a grand sweeping of both Houses of Congress and the Presidency from 1934 – 1947. The modern Republican oligarchy is no more acceptable to the average American voter than the “Robber Barons” of the mid to late nineteenth century. They still value the dollar more than the vote. To them the health of the person, individual, is still secondary to a healthy robust economy.
Railways were a new growth industry, and America was to experience an economic recovery that totally eclipsed the former slaves’ ability to compete equally with their former slave masters. Survival became more important, especially in the Old South. “The South” moved “West.” Look at any U.S. map today, and tell me what is “South,” that does not include Texas. The start of the Old South was Virginia and it went “South” along the Eastern seaboard through the Carolinas all the way to Key West at its Southeastern tip. Today, no state is farther “North” than Alaska nor more “West” than Hawaii. Though far removed, Oregon and Washington State are rightfully considered the New NW or Near NW, while California is more properly Mainland West.
Racism also has no color. But, no one can deny the role that the color of a person’s skin has played in slavery in America. Racism is so pervasive that we must now consider it “systemic.” It has insinuated itself literally into every operating system or network that allows us to function. It has tainted our laws, medicine, urban and rural development, philosophy, social sciences, education, identity, equality, and religion. It can kill you or just disturb your peace of mind. Only the completely sequestered or mindless can honestly say it has never bothered them or never will. It does not tolerate being ignored, does not wear well being taken for granted. Its worst enemy is the critical thought processes of an honest person who knows “who” they are. The Republican religious nexus with racism has used an affiliation with evangelism to be more destructive and disruptive.
“Critical race theory is an interdisciplinary body of scholarship that emerged in the aftermath of the civil rights movement as theorists grappled with naming and challenging the persistence of racism after the fall of de jure segregation.” Crystal M. Fleming, How to be Less Stupid about Race, Beacon Press (2018), p. 29.
Ms. Fleming’s work is both inceptional and conceptual. She is at the inception of work needing to be done as soon as practical, essential to the on-going of a quality of life for everyone and limited only by the creativity of her own concepts. In that regard, I humbly submit that “ignorance and stupidity” are not necessarily the same thing. Ignorance is a natural condition of life beginning at birth and changing to “knowing” with each educational experience, but STUPID is not knowing what/how to do, but doing it anyway.
A Rebellion of One
Our choices are a shaped by our experiences. My family moved to Houston in the middle of my third grade year,’53-‘54. 1954 is the same year as the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. I still recall some of the adult vitriol being voiced. I never really understood until much later, after graduating from High School, just what the “Impeach Earl Warren” billboards were all about. Therefore, I assumed it had little to do with me. Wrong-0 for an 8-year-old. Since our neighborhood was completely segregated at Houston Gardens Elementary School, I just did not know that what was going on had everything to do with me and all other children in HISD as well as all K – 12 kids in America. I did know that the HISD was obviously orchestrating the foot dragging, ass scratching response then employed by HISD. In 1964 I matriculated from Sam Houston High School to the University of Houston, and there had been no discussions about race, much less classes dedicated to the subject. Plus, there were still no Black families living in our district; none with the expressed desire to attend ole Sam Houston High. Regardless, there were several Asian and Hispanic students. They were respected, at least by me, because of their higher class standard of living. Morales got a new 1964 ½ Mustang Convertible to drive to UT in the Fall, and the Reynas lived in the only all brick new home built on our block. The Gee’s owned their own restaurant. So, if there were any White Nationalists in our mists, and I am sure there were, I did not grow up around them either socially or knowingly. Sam Houston High School had the singular distinction in 1964 of having the lowest expressed desire for getting a college degree, including all of the Black H.S.’s
Integration should have been started for me and any Black classmates in the first grade, and then extended thereafter year by year until all K-12 grades had been integrated. Trouble with “my” plan was two-fold: no Black children lived in our district; and the rednecks who did were dead set against voluntary compliance. Compromise was not their agenda, and compliance did not occur until after I had graduated. The integration process in Houston was so tied up in legal proceedings in Federal Court that it was not settled until 1984. That was just mean-spirited white hardheadedness.
Sam Houston had long since been dead when integration took place in America. But, I think it safe to say he would have been opposed to the Southern extension of slavery into his “Name-sake” high school, because he risked his life to oppose slavery in Texas and Texas’ entry into the Civil War. The problem with Racism, and the Anger it carries, Hatred fomented, Spleen vented and Bile spewed as they are its only characteristics without good or offsetting features to justify its position as the Pachyderm in our living rooms. It is there waiting to destroy the very vessel that carries its acid, us, or now, you. Because I have dealt with “IT,” I will gladly tell you how I did/do it.
I Am My Experiences, NOT Someone Else’s Judgement of Them
In Fall, 1964 the U of H was also ushering in is first integrated freshman class. For no apparent reason, I became concerned about race and my lack of maturity in understanding about its meaning to me. I was frankly confused about what I was feeling and what I was hearing. I did not know where to turn, so I asked a school guidance counselor about “IT.” One of the U of H’s better respected departments way back then was its Psychology Department. Psych evaluations were free to students, and I was interested in discovering more about self-analysis anyway. So, I made an appointment with a psychologist that literally changed my life; though, if had to tell you his name to save my life, I could not. He asked why I had called for the meeting. I told him that I did not understand why I felt like I was supposed to be prejudiced against Black people. His tone turned icier and harsh when he told me that racism was a “social maladjustment” not a psychiatric or psychological” problem. He told me that social readjustment was a personal problem that I could choose to fix. Fixing my issues or concerns were my choice, a conscious choice or an unconscious choice, but my choice nonetheless. “Now, get out of my office,” clearly agitated that I had wasted my time and more importantly HIS. I was determined to make sure that it was neither. Although I never felt the need to go back to him, I was sure that the option was foreclosed, and his door even more so. “I CHOOSE TO QUIT” using or responding with even the slightest tacit approval of racist behavior. I felt better immediately. “A personal solution for a personal problem. But, what can I do about systemic racism? How can I change the system? ANSWER: CHALLENGE IT from the outside looking in, and without doing more harm than good. In more ways than one, that’s been the story of my life.
VOTE! VOTE Early – VOTE Conscious – VOTE Your Conscience
The Democratic Party still held political power in the Old South until 1965.And that is when the black women in America finally got their piece of paper confirming their EQUAL Right to vote. Today the equal right to vote is so well embraced that special legislation is not needed to remind everyone but racists that Voting is not limited to qualified White men, nor can any religion be disqualified regardless of its main stream acceptability. The somewhat apocryphal story told about President Lyndon Johnson’s signing of that law into effect is that he wept and said it was because he had just handed the South (old South – the Bible Belt) to the Republican Party for the “next 20 years.” He was wrong! They still have its shell today, and it took 15 more years for them to get Texas (1980). What took them so long? Black lives DID NOT matter. Black votes did not count for much. Besides where or if Black voting did matter it was taken for granted to be for Republicans. That was “then” when growing the country first was the Republican priority. It was the Manifest Destiny of God and White Men. They had the Black Vote in the bag, and besides, Jim Crow laws in the South terrorized the Men who were the only ones at that time who could vote. Republicans were the only ones who could take the Black vote for granted. Plus, Blacks did not participate in trying to run the Republican Party. They were not allowed. Jim Crow Rules were literally “shot through” the day to day lives of Blacks in America. “Separate- But, Equal” defined the false promise of a cynical hypocritical “System” gone awry. The Republican Party did not abandon the Black community. The “R” Party was never there FOR them. The Republican Party and the Union Army were simply the only things that stood in the way of an indefinite term of involuntary servitude for them. Even blind gratitude will someday fail to be enough to justify abject servitude. Once there is an awakening, the blind will not give up their sight, nor their vision without a fight.
When and Why Black Voters Became Democratic
The rains came to the Mississippi River delta in April 1926 through the summer of 1927. That is when the world turned upside down for the PARTY OF LINCOLN. The River would swell to 80 miles wide at one point. The destruction was complete, and the bottom land was covered with water. 75% of the population were Black and more than a million were rendered homeless. The cataclysm provided the final impetus for a BLACK diaspora to the North and Northeastern states where there were jobs that did not involve the broken promise of “40 acres and a mule.” The National Republican Party was more concerned about the flooding destruction and impact on the party’s fund-raising ability than with the individual black losses of life. The President was Calvin Coolidge and his Secretary Of Commerce was Herbert Hoover. The hardest hit were the poor black farmers sharecropping in many instances the same land that had owned them. The money went to compensate only “landowners.” By this time in history many of the White landlords were the children or grandchildren of former slave owners. Regardless, the outcome was the same. By the time reclamation was started, so had the diaspora. It had been ongoing since WWI. Herbert Hoover was highly regarded as the man in charge of taming or re-taming the mighty Mississippi. Highly regarded by everyone but the Black community, even in the “north.”
Riots and protests were not only NOT used by the Black community back then. They were unthinkable. The harsh reality of where they had come from must have resembled the same lopsided whites-first society where they had once lived on the Mississippi River Delta. The “handwriting was on the wall” when a White Policeman sent to oversee a shipment of supplies as a part of the American Red Cross’ relief effort ordered a Black male homeless victim to help unload a supply boat. The man refused to work for free, so the cop took out his service revolver and point blank, shot the unarmed man dead. The message was received, loud and clear, when the truth came out and President Hoover would do NOTHING about “it.” [Sound familiar?]
The Republican Party rewarded Hoover in1928 by electing him President. But, by 1932 it was a combo of economic Depression and Hoover’s seriously damaged reputation that gave Franklin D. Roosevelt a landslide victory. The Colored Advisory Commission led by Russ Moton had been formed by Hoover to investigate complaints about how Hoover had run refugee camps called “Tent Cities” that housed tens of thousands of flooding victims. The “Commission” had no real authority, as seen later, it was just a ruse to deflect blame, gather false praise and coverup general incompetence. Hoover got the report about payments to “White Only” victims squelched before it could cost him the election. Hoover managed the news, and manipulated Black leadership promising other reforms of discriminatory practices. He failed to keep any of his promises. As a result, Moton and other black leaders began to encourage Blacks to move to the Democratic Party. That they did, helping the Democrats to an unprecedented four consecutive terms in office with two Presidents, F.D.R and Truman. Republicans quit talking about a Permanent Republican Majority until 1992. That is when the Republican House elected Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House. Not an original idea unless you think that all of the partisan bickering that came with it was also started by Newt.
High School
In the next Presidential election, 1933, the Northern Blacks flexed their fledgling political muscle to help elect Franklin D. Roosevelt to his first term in office.There was no Constitutional term limit on the number of times that a U.S. Pres. Candidate could be elected to the office before passage of the 22nd Amendment became law in 1951. The notion that a U.S. President ought not serve more than 2 terms in office was first voiced by George Washington when he explained the reasoning as to why he was not seeking and would not accept a 3rd term. I recall learning about the 22nd Amendment in High School. Some high schools in the U.S. required a little US History but almost none of the high schools in the Deep South required state’s history nor an in-depth study of presidential succession. Plus, the Great Mississippi River flood of 1927 was literally unheard of in Texas even though some of the flooding touched a small part of the state.
Throughout history Racism has been as pervasive as a pandemic. Still it is not taught nor looked at academically in grade schools in America. Harvard’s Graduate School is just now trying to finalize a usable grade school curriculum. Even though the Civil War has been over for more than 150 years the Republican Party is still employing voter suppression tactics reminiscent of those used in the Old South. The Republican President in Office (RPO) today is still whining about FDR’s 4 successive victories, now Constitutionally limited to 2 terms. And, he is one of only two “Constitutional” Presidents ever to get the office vis-a-vie the Electoral College. Both are Republican. One President started the war that the other, RPO, is still waging. It is the longest continuous war in U.S. History. The current set of Republicans in “control” of running this country have also alluded to the “fact” that FDR’s last term in office was awarded to him by a public loathe to change “horses-in-mid-stream.” If the current RPO, intends to keep using this charade as a reason to hang on to his office post-election, he’ll need more than a historical reference to F.D.R. In fact, both of RPO’s predecessors in office were peacefully elected and left, but the war remained. Why would any reasonable person consign another human to a risk of death solely to retain the power of his ill-gotten gain? Over 600,000 men were killed fighting the Civil War. IT was more costly in the loss of American life than all the other wars involving U.S. soldiers since then, until the U.S. was expelled from Vietnam Nam. War is the ultimate devastation that can result from the intersection of racism and greed. Those intentionally blind to their own racism will carry it with them into every intersection they encounter.
The TRUTH
The decision that was my choice has served me so well that, although I have had numerous occasions to change it, I never have. I also have more trust in my feelings as a source of truth, my truth. “The Truth Shall Set You Free” is so much more empirically questionable than “all men are created equal” as to rob it of self-evidence. RPO’s repetitious lies about almost any and everything make a mockery of the truth as well as our system of justice and democratic principles. The first thing he guaranteed us that, if he did not win, THE ELECTION WAS RIGGED. Both statements foreshadowed the truth. He did not get a majority of the popular vote and he had rigged the outcome with the outside interference of Russia’s, Putin. RPO’s spread of disinformation and other “art forms for the manic liar” is so pervasive and complete that the listener could assume that the opposite was true and be right most of the time. Critical thinking is absolutely essential when dealing with the RPO (OK, enough, this RPO is TRUMP).Professional help can be essential for a successful outcome, but the most valuable tool for getting at the “truth” was shown to me by a fellow lawyer, Gerry Spence. His success with using “Psychodrama” is due in part because it is a “teachable method” of interacting with new or potential clients, to interviewing witnesses, to cross-examination of adversaries all way through the progress of the Trial Court case, and through its appellate cycle. It easily became the single most valuable experience that I have had in more than 50 years of “practice.” Properly done, psychodrama takes its protagonist to self-awareness.
What is the logical absurdity of Trump’s use of overt Racism? No, I am not posing a rhetorical question. IT is a clear path Backwards in time and maturity as far back as 1619. Answer: SLAVERY. Otherwise, Trump’s race baiting effort is just aimless, senseless, hateful and harmful rhetoric. Not to make light of a subject as serious as cancer, but his predecessor in this grand scheme of his, “Create Racial Strife to Provoke Another Civil War”, was Charles Manson and his idea called “Heller Skelter.” Now, is this the type of brain trust that America needs or wants? Answer: Vote Him Out
A Big Price for Freedom
Sadly, America’s route away from the Civil War is pock marked scar tissue created by a legacy of lies from the Party of Lincoln. The objective of the war was to end slavery. But, since the North DID NOT start the war, the shooting war, they had no plan to end it. It swiftly became a war of attrition, with a “Last Man Standing is the Winner” method of determining its outcome. Technically, the South claimed that the North fired the First shot, by electing President Lincoln. WRONG! A Confederate ship fired the first shell at Ft. Sumter on the morning of April 12, 1861. The battle ended two days later, with neither side suffering a casualty when Major Anderson’s badly out numbered and out gunned garrison surrendered. Major Anderson, rose in rank and was the closest thing to a war Hero that the North had for some time.
Of the more than 2.4 million soldiers who were known to have participated in the War, 650,000-750,000 were killed or died of disease. Now, how is that for absurdity? For decades, the total dead was thought to be “only” 622,000 but newer methods of estimating war dead placed the real number between 650,000 and 850,000. So, the average, 750,000, deaths fills an unknowable void with a no-less-likely-than -more figure. The death rate for the North was roughly 60% compared to about 40% in the South. The obvious reason for the discrepancy is that the North had more soldiers on the battlefield. The Confederates may have been overall better shots than Northern conscripts from the large cities in the North or they may have felt that their Home Land was more at risk, thus more incentive to win. Regardless of the reasons, a lot more than a high kill rate would determine the War’s outcome like:
No foreign recognition for the “Legitimacy of the Confederate State”
A single crop economy, cotton, in the South, with
No large scale industrial output,
No real navy in the South, and
Running out of military necessities like gun powder,
No railroad nor time or plan to build one, and last, but not least,
NO MANIFEST DESTINY nor plan to make one.
The Union had no plans for what to do with, for or about the Blacks left in the South, either. The economy for their prior output had been savaged. The Republican Party never WANTED the slaves. The Republican Party callously turned its back on the post-war plight of the black minority in the South. The Party’s very first PLATFORM called out for its self-perpetuation, because the “causes” for its existence are “permanent in their nature… .” Perhaps the Party of Lincoln was resigned to the inevitability of racism. Racism’s pernicious presence would fit well into plans for their Party’s future. The first thing its first plank focused on was the Westwards expansion of the United States. And, so was the last thing. The new party’s platform concludes with the call for westward expansion to the Pacific Ocean by railroad, paragraph 18. But, the Party Platform does not mention the word “slavery” until its 7th paragraph, nor call for its abolition until paragraphs number 8 by stating “… we (The Republican Party) deny the authority of Congress, … or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery… ,” and number 9 by branding the reopening of the African slave trade as a “crime against humanity and as a burning shame to our country and our age;…
Broken Promises
The Blacks had to know that they were being left to fend for themselves. At least by the end of the War they had to know that there was nothing here for them. They were promised forty acres and, in some cases, on a “first-to-ask-for-it” basis, was meant to get a free mule. The army simply had not been given enough to go around.
Unlike the value of a verbal gift of a mule, the value of forty acres was reduced to writing by General William T. Sherman in issuing Special Field Order No. 15 on January 16, 1865. A mere 6 months later about 40,000 former slaves were “living-it-up” on 400,000 acres of the Georgia and South Carolina Coast. Congress got in the act and authorized the “Freedman’s Bureau” to sell plots to Blacks and loyal Southern Whites. Then President Andrew Johnson ingratiated himself to no one, but OWM by ordering most of the confiscated land be returned to its original owners. Force was used in some cases to physically dispossess some Blacks.
Just imagine the horror of being forced at gun point from your home by a man dressed in the same uniform as the man who had sold it to you. Then again 60 years later a new Federal uniform shows up to force your relatives back into a concentration camp of slave labor on the flooded Mississippi River Delta. (Slavery? Again?) How many times did the Republican Party get to lie to American Blacks, before their patience snapped and their leaders told them to look to the Democratic Party for help?
A popular term when I grew up in Texas was ”Indian Giver.” Of course, it is a derogatory term to demean someone for taking back what they had gifted. It refers to how America treated its indigenous people. They came with the land. They fought back against the OWM rule, unlike Black people who all came in chains and shackles. The American Indians did not take kindly to being made slaves and they fought back as a well. Able bodied Blacks did too. They did not flee from fright. Perhaps they feared having some toes chopped off or of losing a whole foot, if they got caught twice.
So, are OWM’s really justified in using their fear of Black retaliation to justify their race hatred of Blacks or anyone else? Black America isn’t interested in stealing OWM’s money or of robbing the White guy of his “Power.” They want what was promised to them and then taken back. – it would have been cheaper to have done it in 1864. The right to reparations is always more difficult to prove in 1965, or 2015. But, 2000 former slaves were successful at keeping the land and the mule. A competent lawyer can establish the missing values on a matrix of circumstances take into account each individuals’ loss of his /her proportionate share of a prove-able right of recovery. The U.S. Congress could enact special legislation. Central to the act could be waivers on limitation, identification of causes of action, language ensuring adequate, competent representation and/or any other appropriate measures.
The will of the American people, especially Black brethren, needs to be given a voice and aired in open debate for all of the world to see and hear. Fortunately, only one side has expressed an open support for “Racism” i.e., Trump and his greedy basket of “Deplorables.” Republicans as well as those who support them know who they are, and what they are, whether they admit to being racists or not. Just follow their arguments as admitted by Trump and where his argument and/or his silence leads American citizens, logically.
First: His Silence Speaks Volumes – His open admiration of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin must be coupled with his refusal to criticize Putin in spite of recent revelations that Putin put a “bounty” on the head of American soldiers killed by the Taliban terrorists plus the fact that Trump KNEW of the value being placed on the heads of our troops, when he casually dismissed the FACT as old news. His recent outbursts show more compassion for the value of dead Confederate soldiers’ statues than the lives of our volunteer American fighting women and men. Such a callous lack of concern by any one of any lower rank should earn them a Court Marital and a Dishonorable Discharge. His call for your vote instead is ludicrous by its proportions. Reductio ad absurdum.
Second: Race Baiting Tweets –
—July 15, 2019. He told four Black Congresswomen they should go back “to the crime infested places” where they came from. One is a naturalized citizen with as much right to be wherever she pleases as the three other native born Americans.
—June 11, 2020. He advocated siccing dogs on protesters, and defended naming US Military bases after Confederate soldiers.
—June 19, 2020. Juneteenth campaign rally called off for Tulsa Oklahoma, at site of racial massacre there in 1921.
—About a Neo-Nazis at a protest rally: He says that he’s sure they are very “fine people.”
Third: Others have called out his racism.- The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Paul Ryan told everyone listening on June 7, 2016 that Trump’s a “Racist.” I had originally intended to include a short list of prominent respected Republican leaders who have already concurred on this point. However, a quick deviation to any search engine at or about TRUMP> Racist should open evidence of a veritable plethora of his racist acts and statements.
As the coming election presents more pressure on Trump to broaden his base and moderate his stance on the Black and/or minority vote he relishes and says he wants, instead he taunts the backlash with even more, doubling down on his brand of venom and spleen. Civil War was an irrepressible conflict the result of which the U.S. would become a slave freeing nation for the first time in its 92 years, and every year thereafter (155). I think 600,000 + deaths a large enough body count to have resolved the slave holding issue. It occurs, to me that the “American Way” to resolve this issue peacefully would be to hold an election, first.
Let’s Vote on IT
Since we can all agree that Trump, is a racist, why waste a trip to the ballot box, when we know that losing to him again will be more injurious to our health, especially if he gets a popular majority, than risking the perils of contracting COVID-19. WE would need to add nothing to the ballot.
Just agree that every vote for Joe Biden would be a vote against slavery and every vote for Trump would be a vote for slavery. Ask yourself, “What have you got to lose?” You’ve already shown your hand, so why not put both balls out there too and really double down. We now all know what only a few have suspected since you started this racist B_ _ _ S_ _ _. Either way the entire country would know whether Americans are more racist than not. So, why not put your money where your mouth is. You know, “Put Up, or Shut Up,” ‘cause your last cat is now outta-da-bag.
Larry Joe Doherty (OWM), Lawyer, Ethicist, American, Texan
September 12, 2020
