Enough is enough. It’s time for a national Black Bill of Rights to protect our lives

The Founding Fathers were concerned that at some time in history there would be a group of men that would desecrate the rule of law so severely that the safety and welfare of our union would be unrecognizable. Not a single one of them would have told you that #BlackLivesMatter, though they may have been concerned about the president’s tweets.

The bedrock of our laws was drafted with the notion that stopping bad political actors would be necessary and easier to accomplish if the only groups holding these rights were limited to white men, with additional deference given to those who owned property.

The issue facing Black America today is that the republic is no longer intact. We couldn’t keep it. And the checks, balances and ability to provide oversight are damaged perhaps beyond repair. This has created an existential political chasm in the U.S. in which we exist side by side in two Americas, but governed by one.

The outgrowth of 400-plus years of racially fueled entitlements has set into motion a diabolic chain of events that Black Americans have fought, and must continue to fight, against on a daily basis. While Black citizens are consistently fed the narrative that they should rely on justice, and commit further to a system that refuses to recognize our humanity, white America is constantly moving the goalpost and allowing justice to be stretched far beyond her means.

Even political leaders of color claim ownership of the rights and protections held within our founding documents and assure us that its sustenance will always be there to siphon from whenever needed. Still, history provides enough evidence to know, these rights have been perpetually undermined since the abolition of slavery to the present day. Freedom has never been ours to hold.

For example, ask any police officer if they receive extra protections under the law, they would deny it. But police union contracts and the extrajudicial set of rights that are woven into the fabric of the Law Enforcement Officer Bill of Rights (LEOBR) bestow an additional layer of protections for police, a specific class of people based on their job. This unmooring has become the caveat to our judicial and justice system. Its proper function was always predicated on the definition of an America remaining confined to the shared identity of its original founders. While keeping a labor class firmly in place.

When combined with the legacy of policing as a means to enforce social hierarchy, the foundational leniencies found in these and other related documents create loopholes that allow officers the authority and ability to circumvent justice. Although law enforcement derives its fundamental legitimacy from the consent and participation of the community, the rights of the police eclipse those bestowed by the United States Constitution on its citizens. Black society, as the historical subject of power held by others, continues to be systematically excluded from not only shaping but taking part in this and other institutions that govern us.

Despite public knowledge of the difficult truths of our nations origins, Black people continue to pay an exorbitant price for these substantial oversights. As we continue to be locked into a system that was not created for us, we are inherently bound to its rule, law and structures. The well of justice has always been dry for Black America, so what does this moment mean for Black lives? Where do we go from here? To make this right, society-at-large must recognize the worth of the Black person. The Black people of this nation deserve better.

We deserve our own Black Bill of Rights.

The Black Bill of Rights is a framework designed to provide a template for Black communities to begin the initial steps to collect the benefits of justice that should have come with building an entire nation. The framework comes with articles that can be used as policy point guidelines, places where local communities can advocate to hold law enforcement and their policies regarding Black Americans fully accountable.

Designed to target the loopholes that are strategically placed in our justice system, the Black Bill of Rights is not a remedy, but a roadmap for how we can gain our sovereignty while highlighting cities across the country where citizens have already done the hard work of closing them. Last, this framework has been created to end the violence inflicted on our communities by those who receive extra privileges under the law simply because of their job.

The proposed Black Bill of Rights includes:

• The right to a police force that reflects the makeup of the community being served

• The right to transparency of all law enforcement policies and procedures

• The right to create a police commission with subpoena power for investigating uses of force

The Black Bill of Rights exists as a living document and can be codified into laws and adopted by all 50 states to serve as a way to create similar templates in other areas where systemic racism has led to persistent injustice such as healthcare, housing or education.

To read the Black Bill of Rights in full, with examples of the legislative measures that have already been passed in the United States, visit https://www.activismarticulated.com/black-bill-of-rights/.

This story was originally published June 27, 2020 at 5:00 AM.