Anyone that follows local Cincinnati news is aware that NAACP president Chris Smitherman and the Rev. Dock Foster, president of the Baptist Ministers Conference, were arrested at an early morning protest in front of the North Avondale School construction site. There were about 60 of us there protesting , including 1230 am WDBZ radio personality Lincoln Ware. Our protest was an ongoing campaign to get more African-American participation in school construction projects/Banks project/City projects. The list is endless. There were many of us, more than half, willing to get arrested, including Ware. However, Smitherman made it clear that he wanted us to stick with his strategic plan.
The 50 plus citizens that stood outside for a couple of hours, including my pregnant cousin, freezing our asses off in the cold, did so because we are sick and tired of being sick and tired of the economic apartheid in Cincinnati. A few of you may not agree with the strategy taken, a few of you may not agree with the issues we concern ourselves with. That’s fine. Instead of pointing the finger at us and saying, “Why don’t you’ll...” I say, why don’t you.
Personally I’m sick and tired of the double-standard of justice in this town. The reality is that if President Smitherman didn’t have local name recognition (3,000 plus NAACP members, 60 present), and if Rev. Doc Foster wasn’t dressed to the 9’s (the brotha was clean), with his high powered attorney posted up outside the JC, it’s likely that Smitherman and Foster would still be in jail with the other poor whites and blacks, some convicted in the court of Deters public opinion before they are ever convicted in a court of law.
The reality is this: Blacks are more likely to be arrested, less likely to be released on bail, less likely to see members of their own race in the courtroom and jury box and more likely to be the target of the death penalty.
That’s reality. Join me for a green beer?
PLEASE SHOW YOUR SUPPORT AGAINST ECONOMIC APARTHEID (GO TO COURT tomm-THURS AT THE JC AT 12:30 AM IN COURT ROOM A) follow me on twitter fbkwrites (will tweet the hearing)
