In Times Like These

by R.T., guest writer and inmate

In times like these.

I was having a conversation with a man about our current state of being and the direction in which the country was headed. And to my surprise, the man said to me “Give it another twenty-five years—the country will be much better then.”.

That hit me like a jolt of lightning with “thoughts rushing through my mind”  of voices from the past saying, “We heard those same words too!” Voices of Marcus Garvey, Medger Evers, Martin Luther King—even Elmore Geronimo Pratt. I’m sure that if they were alive today, they’d still be waiting, “Yep, another twenty-five years. It will all be better then.”

“Today, it ain’t happened yet. These names are of the past, and yet, how soon we forget that in time the memory of them is lost, nevertheless; everything has remained basically the same.”

“Oh, we can vote, go to school and even work side by side; yet, in that courtroom, I can still hear the prosecutor’s snide remarks and feel the local patronages hostilities in their hateful glares—these the judge selected to be my peers.”

I continued to express my feelings to the man on the “Make America Great Again” speech that was made by the President. “Make American great again”—but for whom?

In times like these.

I look back painfully to when the KKK and their supporters fought openly against the law of the land. Today, they are the law.

How can anyone really expect things to get better when hatred is being passed down through each generation? Just to confirm the continuation, today I saw on CNN news, a bullet-riddled memorial of slain 14-year-old Emmet Till, who was brutally and savagely lynched by two white men and murdered in the year 1955. And there stood today, in 2019, upon the TV screen, three white college students with automatic rifles in hand—with faces full of smiles—as they displayed their signs of white pride.

Why does a country so full of amazing possibilities, and promises of freedom, and fairness for all, refuse to eradicate the injustice that has plagued their judicial system forever? To have the power to correct the wrong that goes on. “It’s not a secret that persons within the judicial system work hard to keep the injustice hid and the truth contained, refusing to consider the innocent’s claim in times like these.”

Then I heard the man say, “Give it another twenty-five years—it will be all better then.”

I expressed to him how I had sent in many motions and letter arguments to the courts to appeal their decision based off of their opinion. “Come on, an opinion—let’s get real; it only took an opinion to take away my freedom; true fact don’t matter? They based their decision of the merits of what they believed.”

“One thing’s for sure, they showed me their true ties through the unseen eyes of a system designed to compromise your every thought, beliefs, and even your pride. Then, in the end they’ll tell you that, “it’s the law they abide.”

I asked them to reconsider the decision that they made because it is my life. Have all the facts been weighed? The Clerk of Courts responds with a letter full of façade, “Sorry, we wish you better luck in the future; unfortunately your sentence has been affirmed.”

In times like these.

I think about Elmore Geronimo Pratt, a Black man falsely accused of killing two white people in spite of the fact that he was under surveillance by the government that proved that he was four hundred miles away. He was found guilty in the court and served nearly thirty years for a crime that he did not do, but was made to suit the prosecutor’s manufactured charge.

In times like these.

Man, man, man, what can I do, when I’m dealing with a system designed to prosecute and ignore the truth?

I think back to the past, when the Supreme Court judge, Robert B. Taney, representing the highest court of the land, made a decision called the Dred Scott Decision and defined its meaning to all other courts and people to follow throughout the land. That African Americans were of an inferior order, so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, dated March 6, 1857. It still reigns true today throughout the judicial system everywhere and in every way. So, how can Black people ever expect to receive fair play?

In times like these.

I think about the Central Park Five, when five Black youth were forced to take pleas to crimes that they didn’t commit. Just because one takes a plea doesn’t mean that they admit to being guilty. It means that they were overwhelmed by a biased and unjust system.

Labeling me guilty, not by the facts of the crime but by the color of my skin. The Central Park Five isn’t an isolated incident; there are Central Park Fives throughout the United States in times like these. Then I heard the man say, “Give it another twenty-five years, things will be much better then.” What do you say? What—I can’t,--I can’t hear you, what ‘cha say?