Five Lessons Learned from the Oscar Grant Case

By Monique W. Morris
thegiro
November 9, 2010

http://www.thegrio.com/opinion/5-lessons-to-learn-from-the-oscar-grant-case.php?page=2

Last Friday, transit officer Johannes Mehserle, who was
convicted of involuntary manslaughter in July for the killing
of Oscar Grant, was sentenced to two years in prison -- the
minimum sentence, which is expected to carry little more that
a few more weeks of incarceration, with time served.

The sentence has opened old wounds, causing many to question
the extent to which the justice system values the lives of
African-American males, or whether it is predisposed to
validate the perception that black men's lives are
disposable.

As the family continues to pursue its options with the
Department of Justice, our broader community should recognize
this moment as a critical opportunity to reflect on the top
five lessons we can learn from the Oscar Grant case.

Lesson 1: Justice is not now, nor has it ever been,
colorblind.

After Mehserle's sentencing was delivered, Cephus "Uncle
Bobby" Johnson openly declared that the criminal justice
system was "racist." While the family has voiced concerns
about the extent to which key judicial decisions may have
influenced the outcomes of the case, the truth is that they
-- and others like them -- are haunted by a legacy of
perceived and real violations of African-Americans' human and
civil rights in the criminal justice system.

"The US Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to proceed
in a way that results in more executions of those who kill
whites than those who murder black people," said Eva
Paterson, President of the Equal Justice Society. "The Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals in liberal San Francisco recently
held that despite the fact that disenfranchising ex-felons
disproportionately excludes brown and black people from
voting, it still would not eliminate the racial bias from the
criminal justice system. The jury and the judge in the Oscar
Grant case perpetuated this blatant bias. It's business as
usual. Post-racial? Not really."

Lesson 2: A local killing is never just local.

Oscar Grant's fatal shooting in Oakland. Mark Anthony
Barmore's fatal shooting in Rockford, Illinois. Sean Bell's
fatal shooting in New York. Seven-year old Aiyana Stanley's
fatal shooting in Detroit. While these cases tend to be
treated as isolated incidents, they are actually symptomatic
of a larger trend of excessive force that undermines the
legitimacy of law enforcement in many communities of color.

"These isolated incidents rarely receive national attention,
and it is not until the trial or sentencing that the general
public becomes aware of what's happened," said Barbara
Arnwine, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee for
Civil Rights, based in Washington, DC. "There's no
connectivity seen nationwide, so it becomes a story of one
cop or one police department. No one sees that this is a
pattern of police misconduct that occurs often, with African-
American men as targets. It's one of the reasons there hasn't
been a prioritization of these issues in the proper context
or the development of a coherent action plan by activist
organizations and leaders nationwide."

Lesson 3: Images Matter.

Research on implicit bias shows that as people who live in a
racially stratified society, we unconsciously harbor biases
that sometimes we're not even aware of -- and they inform our
decisions, ideas, and actions. These negative stereotypes,
often reinforced through media and entertainment, have a
terrible impact on the outcomes of African-Americans in the
criminal justice system.

However, multimedia can also be a powerful advocacy tool, if
used appropriately. When the video of Oscar Grant's killing
went viral, it became a force for collective mobilization,
ultimately providing the grounds for a murder charge against
the officer, and sparking local legislative changes,
investigations, and trainings that we all hope will prevent
something like this from happening again.

We must continue to record our stories and tell our truths so
that we are armed with information -- both empirical and
anecdotal -- when demanding justice. It can be a game
changer.

Lesson 4: Systemic change is needed -- and we need it now.

While decades have passed since scholar activists such as Ida
B. Wells and W.E.B. DuBois first challenged the justice
system to uphold a higher standard that is void of racial
bias, there is still a need to ensure that we administer
justice with fairness and integrity.

"The lesson learned is simple," said Michelle Alexander,
Associate Professor of Law at Ohio State University and
author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness. "If we fail to muster the courage and the
will to do what is necessary, there will be more funerals for
men like Oscar Grant -- many more. Meanwhile, millions more
poor people of color will cycle in and out of our prison
system, locked up, locked, out, and discarded, just as they
have for decades."

Lesson 5: We can heal--but not with a beer summit.

In the distant memory of the American public, a prominent
professor is still sitting on the lawn, sipping beer with the
President of the United States and a local police officer,
discussing racial profiling and excessive force in ways that
will never truly be digestible to those who struggle to heal
from the victimization caused by excessive force in their
communities.

"The recent sentencing of Johannes Mehserle is yet another
example of how our communities are re- traumatized by the
very institutions that should protect the public good," said
Dr. Shawn Ginwright, Associate Professor of Education at San
Francisco State University and author of Black Youth Rising:
Activism and Radical Healing in Urban America. "The
sentencing sends the simple yet familiar message that a black
man's life is somehow less important than others. While we
may not articulate the psychic pain this message causes, the
symptoms are seen everywhere. Most evident is our loss of
hope, unresolved rage, and most importantly, political
apathy."

However miserably we have collectively failed to stimulate
action against police misconduct in the past, the fact
remains that we can heal from this type of victimization --
and we must. This is a call to action.

___________________________________________

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