On Sunday following the Trayvon Martin verdict, as part of a Facebook thread (started by me), I posted the following quote, paraphrasing Frederick Douglass (be warned \u2013 this is a major paraphrase!), \u201cPower concedes nothing without struggle and once the vigilance of struggle subsides, will seek to re-impose the comforts it once enjoyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are two reasons I ventured from the oft quoted Douglass, 1) Power concedes nothing without a struggle, a demand won\u2019t do, never did, never will; and 2) Power, as used here, knows what it has given up, never wanted to give it up, and will at every opportunity seek to re-establish itself. And this is essentially what justice is about.<\/p>\n
Although justice is often used as a noun, it is actually a verb. Justice is a never ending active force responsible for maintaining an equilibrium, a balance. In nature we see that when the natural balance\/equilibrium is disturbed, such as when a predator overfeeds, the resultant lack of food thins out the number of predators until balance is achieved. In extreme cases, such as when a species is wiped out or a new one introduced, a new balance is struck. This is the work of justice. It is no less in the lives of people.<\/p>\n
In the lives of people (and by that I mean as societies, not individuals) justice serves to distribute power in such a manner that the benefit of the whole is not jeopardized by desires of the few; or to protect minority from the tyranny of the majority (as so eloquently phrased by James Adams, POTUS #2 & Founding Father). This is why you have throughout history the uprising of the poor and downtrodden towards increasingly more just (see what I did right there?) societies. This process is on-going and never-ending, for there will always be those that seek personal benefit at the expense of the whole, and those who will continually fight against those desires.<\/p>\n
Primarily for this reason, even though I am close to 20 years in the work, I do not tire of social justice. I am aware that I am part of a legacy that extends to the beginnings of mankind and that will continue until we cease to exist as a species. It is for this reason also that I was not surprised, shocked, dismayed, or otherwise personally impacted by the not guilty verdict for Trayvon Martin\u2019s murderer; for I am crystal clear that Power concedes nothing without a struggle, a fight; and that Mr. Martin\u2019s murderer represents that Power in these United States. I am also clear that the African-American community has not fought much nor maintained a vigilant struggle against the Power which conceded the ability to overtly treat it as second-class since the time of the Civil Rights Act.<\/p>\n
The Trayvon Martin case, the school-to-prison pipeline, the pro-gun & anti-abortion legislation are all a part of what happens when vigilance subsides. They are all examples of Power re-establishing itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Sunday following the Trayvon Martin verdict, as part of a Facebook thread (started by me), I posted the following quote, paraphrasing Frederick Douglass (be warned \u2013 this is a major paraphrase!), \u201cPower concedes nothing without struggle and once the vigilance of struggle subsides, will seek to re-impose the comforts it once enjoyed.\u201d There are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allianceinstitute.info\/590try\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allianceinstitute.info\/590try\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allianceinstitute.info\/590try\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allianceinstitute.info\/590try\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allianceinstitute.info\/590try\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/allianceinstitute.info\/590try\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allianceinstitute.info\/590try\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allianceinstitute.info\/590try\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allianceinstitute.info\/590try\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}