FREDDIE GRAY TRIALS: ON WHAT WE DEMAND NEXT FROM MARILYN MOSBY

The laws that protect citizens from police officers have to change. We as citizens are too much at their mercy. In order for the laws to change, our black prosecutors are going to have to step outside the white constructed status quo. If black prosecutors step outside the status quo and get a black jury that convicts one of these officers on a questionable "felony murder" charge that winds up challenged, going to higher and higher courts until we get to the supreme court, and the laws get changed.

But as a prosecutor you'd probably have to take a big chance with your career. Because the first few (or many) prosecutors that try this are going to lose.

I don't know how consciously Marilyn Mosby stepped into the status quo, thereby taking the most conservative step toward securing or increasing her own power within Baltimore's political system. But I really do suspect she chose the status quo. And, I think that because I'm pretty sure her goal, and everybody else's main goal in 2015, was to stop the Black Live Matter Protests. And that became at least as important as putting somebody (anybody) in jail for Freddie's death. 


Continued from
RESPECTABILITY, POWER PLAYERS, AND THE FREDDIE GRAY TRIALS
http://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2016/07/respectability-politics-power-players.html

Whether or not Marilyn Mosby is one of **The Black One-Percenters** attacking members of **The Black 99%** in the form of three black officers riding in the van, Mosby needs to change course now.



Whether or not Marilyn Mosby is divided from the black officers in the van by class and status, the Black One-percenters do right by the rest of us sometimes, a lot of the time. In fact, white supremacy provides all of us with a common enemy (anti-black racism not white people) that can be seen as expanding and binding our upper-crust into a black ten percent. And I'm glad of that.

So I'd like to believe that Marilyn Mosby, like a pre-presidential Barack Obama might have done(?), leaned into the status quo, deliberately ended the Baltimore Black Lives Matter protests in pretense of complying the with a white public's view on the matter, always planning to go after the men that beat Freddie Gray to death, because that's what happened.

I'd like to believe this because it's always been quasi-obvious to me that the black people in van would go free. And I'm hoping that was obvious to Mosby too. I hope she has some sort of strategy left for the white men that falsely arrested and beat Freddie Gray.

But I think this is just me dreaming a little dream of total black unity.

I think my eyes didn't deceive me. I think my original perception of this situation was correct. I think Mosby attacked three black officers for an indirect personal gain. If it wasn't due to a class/status thing (as discussed above) then maybe its just the usual: Prosecutors usually make the cases they can make to keep their batting average high -- and this can be seen as yet another personal gain motivation.

Mosby's being black might not have changed that prosecutorial approach to prosecuting. High batting averages in the court room move you into higher and higher circles of power. Or, she may simply be somebody who cannot think outside the box. She saw a rule broken, she used that to prosecute regardless of this reality --

Freddie Gray was beaten to death. Period.

People in power are people who seek power are people who need to be watched, even when they are black. Let me say it again: We, as black people, never would have gone for a white man pulling three black people from out of nowhere and charging them with the most serious charges when they weren't even on the scene when the beating occurred.


Black faces in high places don't mean that much even when those black faces are attached to people who clearly mean us, well.

Look at how hindered President Obama has been. And during his first term, in my opinion, his goal was just as much getting re-elected as doing X, Y, and Z for all people in general and black people, lowest on the social totem pole, in particular. In other words, he worked but he worked at securing his power, just like any other politician would. Even if President Obama had been focused on lifting up the group with the lowest social capital, his own black folk, over the course of his entire presidency instead of just the second term(?) he was working within a system of white supremacy.Working within a system constructed by white supremacy doesn't mean you are all powerful even when you are the "leader of the free world."

For those who may think I'm just trying to give the black officers a break, for those who still believe in "the rough ride" think about this: Would Freddie have been able to sit in a police van like this one?




The image at the top may not be the exact van Freddie rode in. But a search for Baltimore's police van brought this up again and again. To me it looks like a person with a sciatica would have a hard time sitting straight up in van like this. To me, it looks like the van is constructed in a way to punish before you even get to the jail. I mean, you don't have to have leather over goose down seats. And maybe picking up people who are drunk, high, and sick means you want hard surfaces.

• Look at how far the seat is away from the back of the knees it is. 
• Look at how short the seat portion is. 
• Look at how Freddie can't walk, with his head off to the side, before he gets to the van...instead of an ambulance. 

This case was about race no matter how many words and images Marilyn Mosby threw up to say it wasn't, and if Mosby still has access to one or both of the people that arrested Freddie Gray, then Mosby needs to make the case that he beat him to death because Freddie Gray was beaten to death, no matter where his spine FINALLY broken beyond repair, no matter where he drew his last breath.

Frankly, we all dropped the ball when we did not question Mosby's evaluation of the case. We would have challenged a white man or a white woman if they had trotted out such nonsense. Mosby, being a black woman, she might have changed course. There's a lot we might not know. Caesar could be a real life Uncle Ruckus. Barry Williams, the judge, could be a real life Uncle Ruckus.

However, the thing I do know is that Mosby has not failed alone. We did not call "bullsh*t" when she should have. We did not make her change course earlier. The Black Lives Matters Protests should have continued after she started talking about the seat belt and trotted out the three black officers in the van.

I hope Marilyn Mosby can pull this case out of the fire. But it's going to be tough after "seat belt...seat belt....seat belt."