Who is James Brisette?

Last week Juan Williams wrote an editorial for the WSJ that read in part, “Black America needs to get out of the rut of replaying racial injustices of the past.” The post of that statement set off a string of sometimes harsh reaction in a FB site I frequent. After reading the entire editorial which is in large part a plea for America to show the same outrage for young African Americans killed by other African Americans, and for the high dropout and incarceration rates of the black community, I understand the larger and legitimate point Mr. Williams is trying to make. That does not prevent me however, from feeling that Mr. Williams in his tone and language, still makes the case that both white racists and perhaps some white liberals have been trying to make to mitigate the urgency of the emotion generated by the murder of Trayvon Martin.

There can be little doubt that some on both sides of the political spectrum are seeking converts to their cause through the prism of the hyperbolic Trayvon Martin Case. BUT, any suggestion that all that lies at the root of the deep hurt we see on the streets for Trayvon is political maneuvering it seems to me misses the point, in some cases willfully and purposefully so. Barrack Obama, notwithstanding, America is still a society of deep pockets of racial animosity and misunderstanding. With apologies to Bill Maher where I heard this first, “Denial of racism is the new racism.” Speakers on the right have called the emotional, and in some cases inaccurate, statements from Civil rights leaders racist. From there the right goes onto directly or indirectly disqualify racism as an issue in America. The suggestion that what we hear from the Civil Rights community is in any way on par with the systematic racism still practiced in many parts of America—a racism they ironically claim no longer exists—is the boldest of lies.   Just ask the Family of TrayvonMartin. Or James Brisette.

Four Police New Orleans Police officers, two of them black, were sentenced yesterday to lengthy prison sentences after being convicted of killing James Brisette in the aftermath of Katrina without cause. In addition they were also convicted of lying to cover up the crime. Those lies included attempts to pin the blame on Brisette family members. If the lies generated by the police to cover up their heinous crime had been believed and adjudicated Brisette family members would have been sentenced to lengthy prison sentences for assault and attempted murder. In addition to the sentences handed down, the Judge in the case, Kurt Engelhardt, harshly criticized previous plea bargains which both prevented equal justice to half a dozen additional police officers clearly guilty in some cases of the same crimes the other officers were convicted of, but also tainted the local prosecution of the officers sentenced on Federal charges.

This of course is not the first incident in New Orleans, nor the last. Earlier this week a NOPD officer resigned after posting the following in response to the Trayvon Martin Killing on his Facebook page: "Act like a thug, die like one."

The US Department of Justice wrapped up an extensive review of the policies and practices of the New Orleans Police Department just last year.

Below is an excerpt from US DOJ Executive Summary of Civil Rights Division investigation into the New Orleans Police Department:

"Following its comprehensive investigation, the Justice Department on March 17, 2011, announced its findings that the NOPD has engaged in patterns of misconduct that violate the Constitution and federal law.

"The (NOP) Department has failed to take meaningful steps to counteract and eradicate bias based on race, ethnicity, and LGBT status in its policing practices, and has failed to provide critical policing services to language minority communities.”


The US DOJ report went on to document clear patterns of the use of excessive and often deadly force and affirmed the widely held view in the community that Police Supervisors were indifferent to the patterns of violence by officers. Moreover, they documented abuse of NOPD Policies and Procedures as well as Constitutional rights that went beyond the use of lethal force and included purposeful cover up of illegal Police activity which often tainted or completely covered up illegal NOPD activity.  

In another section of the report DOJ states: “Our review of 145 randomly-sampled arrest and investigative reports confirmed a pattern of unlawful conduct. Of the arrests that NOPD initiated, we found that a significant portion reflected on their face apparent constitutional violations, in that officers failed to articulate sufficient facts to justify stops, searches, and arrests”. In other words Racial profiling led to illegal stops and arrests.

Again from the DOJ Report: “We find reasonable cause to believe that NOPD engages in a pattern or practice of discriminatory policing in violation of constitutional and statutory law. Discriminatory policing occurs when police officers and departments unfairly enforce the law—or fail to enforce the law—based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, religion, or LGBT status.”

Then the DOJ report provides these stunning statistics: “…Arrest data provided by NOPD indicates that in 2009, the Department arrested 500 African-American males and eight white males under the age of 17 for serious offenses, which range from homicide to larceny over fifty dollars. During this same period the Department arrested 65 African-American females and one white female in this same age group.”

In 2009 the rate of arrests of black teenage men to white teenage men in New Orleans was almost 30 to 1. For back women is the same age group the record was 65 to 1. Does anyone really doubt that a racist power structure in the NOPD is at the root of these clearly discriminatory policies?  Moreover, while it is easy to lay blame racism for these heinous statistics, what does it say for the rest of America to acknowledge the statistics that Williams himself quotes:

“Almost one half of the nation's murder victims that year (2005) were black and a majority of them were between the ages of 17 and 29. Black people accounted for 13% of the total U.S. population in 2005. Yet they were the victims of 49% of all the nation's murders. And 93% of black murder victims were killed by other black people, according to the same report.

“Less than half of black students graduate from high school. The education system's failure is often a jail sentence or even a death sentence. The Orlando Sentinel has reported that 17-year-old Martin was recently suspended from his high school. According to the U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Office, in the 2006-07 school year, 22% of all black and Hispanic K-12 students were suspended at least once (as compared to 5% of whites).

“This year 22% of blacks live below the poverty line and a shocking 72% of black babies are born to unwed mothers. The national unemployment rate for black people increased last month to over 13%, nearly five points above the average for all Americans.”

I share Mr. Williams’s outrage over the atrocious amount of young black lives taken by other blacks, often barely more than kids themselves. But I reject completely any suggestion that black America or any part of America that stands in outrage for the shoddy Police work and preferential treatment shown George Zimmerman is stuck in a “rut of the past”. Too often these cases go unreported, and generally there is too little concern, including I think even from those on the liberal left, as to the dire consequences of the poor and especially minorities in the United States. As I’m sure Mr. Williams knows there is ample outrage in these communities for the sickness of nihilism that so infects many young minority kids today. Last night on the Daily show Larry Wilmore took note of dozens of protests against violence held in just the past few months, so this begs the question as to whether the issue is apathy in the community or on the part of the largely white media structure or Mr. Williams is a prominent member.

Neither political party talks much about the chronic problems of the poor anymore. It has become unfashionable. Issues of race are papered over until they explode as they did in Sanford, Florida, a city with a history of racial animus, particularly by the Police, toward the minorities in their midst.  Politicians rant about the failure of American schools. The results, especially in poor and minority districts speak for themselves, but the causality of poverty on education is barely mentioned. Great Society programs which had dramatic and positive effects on Poverty rates for Americans of all races are now either pilloried as wasteful giving to those who do not pay their share, or conversely judged to be more costly than America can afford. Poverty rates, falling incredibly heavily on single mothers and children are now the highest they have been in a generation. America has condemned the lives of far too many children to isolation and loss. .

To suggest that historically imbedded racism, and its cruel sibling poverty, is not a major and direct cause of that loss shows a disregard for the truth to the extreme. Liberals who take cause with Mr. Williams’s statement show only their intolerance for the truth of American society. If Mr.Williams means to suggest that we cannot move forward so long as we only look back, I can concur. But to suggest that we can only move forward once we stop looking back even if this means neither looking to our right or our left at the pain and suffering which rises up all around us, is perhaps a purer form of moral failure. Too many Americans  it seems to me are all too willing to move forward leaving the sick, the hungry, the poor and the abused behind. Mr. Williams presents facts, but for those that believe he speaks the truth, I respectfully disagree.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/new-orleans-police-officers-face-decades-in-jail-for-shootings-cover-up-after-katrina/2012/04/04/gIQARGhkuS_story.html?hpid=z2