Orville Taylor | The hate must end

It is not history which has repeated itself, it is the sociology which has maintained. I made a statement on radio last week that I will not visit any church building or service where the pastor is preaching hate. Too many people are calling for revenge and bloodletting, with a twisted notion that it and justice are the same.

When they cannot find anything in the teachings of Jesus, they dig up passages from the Old Testament and blindly argue, “an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth”. Well Moses’ law would make the whole world blind, but imagine how much rum would leak from the mouth corners of toothless drinkers? Between Exodus and Deuteronomy there are at least 28 capital offences for which the Bible prescribed death. These include: adultery, rape, human trafficking, incest, homosexuality and bestiality. However, it also dictates killing for breaking the Sabbath, disobedient children, hitting of parents and daughters of priests who become harlots. And yes, Reverend, Deuteronomy 18:20 says death to him who “… shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak …”

So, follow the logic, whatever I do as a crime must be done back to me? So, I must burn down the house of the mother of the arsonist because her son burned down Mamma’s cottage? So, how do we punish the rapist who rapes his daughter’s friend? In Shakespeare’s Macbeth we learn, “… bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague the inventor”. Don’t be mistaken, criminals must be punished and life sentences make sense, but killing the offender does nothing.

Despicable Act

Two weeks ago, four American police officers carried out a despicable act. Watching it again makes me fight tears and it brings back all historical atrocities against black people. We have suffered too much and far too long as a people; lynchings and unadulterated lawless violations of black people’s rights. In 1921, coming out of a pandemic not unlike COVID-19, America had one of the wealthiest black neighbourhoods. Called ‘Black Wall Street’, the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was the epitome of prosperity, the American dollar recirculated and remained within that economy and black-on-black commerce created more than 300 black-owned businesses. Among these were doctors’ offices, theatres and pharmacies. There was even a pilot who owned his personal aircraft.

This column is too short to give a full account. However, the scream from a white woman in the presence of a black man and his arrest for charges she did not press precipitated black-white confrontations and unmitigated violence. Ultimately, the community was razed. When the dust settled, more than 1,200 homes were burned, between 100 and 300 lives were lost and 35 square blocks reduced to rubble and ashes. Though an extreme example of racial hatred, it characterised much of what black Americans have undergone since emancipation, with the police using the force disproportionately against them.

Yet, as Martin Luther King led the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and visited my plantation, The University of the West Indies (UWI), his message was always clear. Justice yes, but revenge, violence or hatred, no. Hating the racists and murderers makes us no different from them. “We must learn to live together as brothers … or we shall all perish together as fools.”

Cornbread Earl and Me

Just seven years after King was assassinated, the film Cornbread Earl and Me, starring a 13-year-old Laurence Fishburne and Jamaican Madge Sinclair, told the story of a talented college-bound basketballer, ‘Cornbread’, who was killed by a white and black pair of police officers. It was a case of mistaken identity. An enraged community attacked and beat them as if they were the New York Knicks before they were rescued by other cops. After attempts to cover up and intimidation, Fishburne’s character testified; the black officer changed his statement and concurred with the child, and the white cop punched out his white supervisor, who was still trying to pervert justice.

True, we have seen many other films such as the factual Fruitvale Station but the message from Cornbread is that peace and healing begin when we allow the wheels of justice to roll equally for all. And in that context, the message must be clear, that all lives are precious, even those of murderers. Moreover, we must allow for the judicial process to go through seamlessly, treating the ‘rogue’ cops as we would want any other suspect to be treated. We cannot lynch them; they must be tried and found guilty by a court.

Nonetheless, as we gaze critically on America today, let us remove our own logs too. Last weekend, 19 Jamaicans were killed by others, excluding a woman at the hands of the security forces, and a man died after 41 years in custody without trial.

There is better way.

- Dr Orville Taylor is head of the Department of Sociology at UWI, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.