I Wondered About Judge Kemp’s Body Language, And Then, Wallah…

MB

I watched and lis­tened to bits and pieces of the Amber Guyger mur­der tri­al days ago. Full dis­clo­sure, I missed most of the tri­al itself but watched the sen­tenc­ing phase.
I missed the tri­al because I have zero con­fi­dence in the American jus­tice sys­tem to hold a white cop account­able for mur­der­ing a Black per­son, much less a white female who hap­pens to be a cop.
Some friends of mine thought dif­fer­ent­ly, because it hap­pened to be a jury tri­al, and so they were hyped that for once the sys­tem would give African-Americans a sec­ond dose of the O.J Simpson adren­a­line, this many years later.

Me, I have no such delu­sions about any degree of equi­ty in the sys­tem I have watched up close for so many years.
I have seen a black woman sen­tenced to five years in prison for ille­gal­ly using a wrong address so she could get her child into a good school and a white woman who paid thou­sands to get her kid into an ivy league col­league get a cou­ple of weeks in a coun­try-club jail as pun­ish­ment.
We have seen a black woman Marissa Alexander receive twen­ty (20) years for fir­ing her gun into a ceil­ing to ward off her abu­sive hus­band, nine days after giv­ing birth to their child in Florida, a state with stand your ground laws.
We have seen Kelontre Barefield, 23, receive a (45) year sen­tence after plead­ing guilty to the shoot­ing death of a police dog.
We have also seen count­less­ly inno­cent and unarmed Black men gunned down in hails of police bul­lets and no one held account­able.
And who can for­get the National Kerfuffle that was cre­at­ed around for­mer NFL quar­ter­back Michael Vick’s alleged involve­ment in a dog­fight­ing ring?
Vick was even­tu­al­ly sen­tenced to 27 months in fed­er­al prison, even though there was zero evi­dence that Vick him­self had per­son­al­ly hurt a sin­gle dog.

Cyntoia Brown served fif­teen (15) years in a Tennessee prison for an inci­dent that occurred when she was a mere 16-year-old girl.
Cyntoia was sen­tenced to life in prison in the shoot­ing death of 43-year-old Johnny Allen.
Allen was found dead of a sin­gle shot to the back of his head.
Brown who nev­er denied pulling the trig­ger, said she was sent by her then-24-year-old boyfriend and pimp to make mon­ey. According to Brown, Allen picked her up at a Nashville Sonic restau­rant, bought her food and then took her to his home. She said he want­ed to have sex with her, and intim­i­dat­ed her by point­ing out the guns he owned and his expe­ri­ence as a mil­i­tary sharp­shoot­er. Brown shot Allen as he lay in bed, say­ing she feared he was reach­ing for a gun. 
Regardless of where the truth lies, Cyntoia Brown received a life sen­tence for a crime she com­mit­ted at the ten­der age of six­teen, and had been a vic­tim of sex traf­fick­ing.
She was insti­tu­tion­al­ized for more than half of her life. Eight years lat­er, in 2012, a U.S. Supreme Court rul­ing found sen­tenc­ing juve­niles to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al.
Needless to say, Jonny Allen just hap­pened to have been a white man. His sup­port­ers at the time said they did­n’t believe Allen propo­si­tioned Brown, only that he was try­ing to help her stay off the streets.
Ya.……

I got­ta say though, the fore­gone is real­ly not the cen­tral tenet of what I want­ed to say today.
Instead, I want­ed to talk a lit­tle about what I per­son­al­ly observed in State District Judge Tammy Kemp’s court­room.
I must admit that hav­ing spent many hours in court­rooms as a for­mer law enforce­ment offi­cer, and hav­ing spent eons of time watch­ing tri­als, both, as a writer, and some­one focused on the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, I found Judge Kemp’s man­ner­isms pecu­liar, to say the least.
I’ll also admit that while watch­ing the sen­tenc­ing of Guyger I shed a few tears.
Those tears fell for the Jean Family, I know what it feels like to lose a son who was like a bright light, albeit under dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances.
My tears flowed even more freely because of the intran­si­gent stub­born­ness of the injus­tice which still per­vades the American Justice sys­tem.
I thought to myself, and told my wife, if this tri­al was up to judge Kemp, Amber Guyger would be home free.
In the end, Amber Guyger was [kin­da] held respon­si­ble for the bla­tant unpro­voked mur­der of Botham Shem Jean. Her sen­tence for killing mis­ter Jean, 10 years. A tiny slap on the wrist.

Of course, to many in the African-American com­mu­ni­ty unused to see­ing mur­der­ous cops held account­able, this is some kin­da start.
For oth­ers, the ver­dict is just anoth­er exam­ple that for Black peo­ple in America, no mat­ter how dis­tin­guished they are, their lives can be snuffed out, and there is hard­ly any con­se­quence to police, even when they are sit­ting in their homes watch­ing tele­vi­sion and enjoy­ing a bowl of ice cream.

Before we talk about the impro­pri­ety of a sit­ting judge hug­ging a con­vict­ed mur­der­er, there were oth­er things which just seemed odd to me and I expect oth­er observers, oth­er than myself may have had a prob­lem with what we observed.
For exam­ple, a uni­formed Black female police offi­cer in the court­room, brush­ing back Amber Guyger’s blond hair, seemed to sym­bol­ize to me that no mat­ter their posi­tion, some Black-Americans are still not con­ver­sant that they are no longer on the plan­ta­tion.
Regardless of the fact that Guyger may have been a col­league, it was high­ly inap­pro­pri­ate that a uni­formed offi­cer was in open court act­ing like (Mammy).
In that very court­room, evi­dence was led that the then alleged mur­der­er Amber Guyger had mocked Doctor King’s death and espoused vio­lent killings.
As far as for­give­ness is con­cerned, I am all for it, nev­er­the­less, the very Bible which demands for­give­ness of us was used to keep us enslaved.
It seems to me that the only time that for­give­ness becomes a dis­cus­sion top­ic, is when white peo­ple seri­ous­ly aggrieve Blacks and are to be held account­able.
I am not opposed to the young broth­er of Botham for­giv­ing Amber Guyger and telling her he loves and for­gives her. It is his right. I am doubt­ful how­ev­er that con­tex­tu­al­ly, the young Jean has a full appre­ci­a­tion of America’s entrenched injustice.

The idea that a sit­ting judge would embrace (a just con­vict­ed) mur­der­er seemed way beyond the pale for me.
It may cer­tain­ly be the Christian thing to do but why are Blacks the only offi­cials sup­posed to demon­strate mer­cy and Christian for­give­ness on the rare occa­sions they get to decide?
I care noth­ing about the fact that Judge (weirdo) Tammy Kemp hand­ed Guyger a Bible. I am yet to see one sin­gle instance of a white Judge demon­strat­ing that kind of com­pas­sion to a Black con­vict. Where is their human­i­ty when they have pow­er?
Never have I seen it. Judge Kemp’s deci­sion to allow the Jury to con­sid­er the “sud­den pas­sion” defense which experts assert does not apply to Amber Guyger, may very well have impact­ed the Jury’s deci­sion to let her off the hook with a slap on the wrist.

Jude Kemp’s deci­sion to also act as “Mammy,” destroys the myth which many Blacks seem to embrace, that Blacks can change the injus­tice sys­tem when they hold posi­tions of pow­er in it.
Understandably Judge Kemp had to abide by the jury’s deci­sion, but her actions made it clear she was more con­cerned with pleas­ing her back­ers, rather than act­ing accord­ing to prece­dent.
Even before the dis­grace­ful hug, I thought from her body lan­guage Kemp would rather allow Amber Guyger to walk free.
Former ESPN anchor Jemele Hill — crit­i­cized the judge’s action as “unac­cept­able.“
I’m with her!
I won­dered whether I was being fair to Judge Kemp even as I was both­ered by what I saw. Maybe I was being too sensitive.

And then wal­lah…
No, you were not wrong Mike, there is always some­thing under the sur­face. Something deep­er than the self-right­eous Black Christians who refuse to think out­side the brain­washed and blink­ered box can com­pre­hend.
These pub­lic offi­cials, pros­e­cu­tors, judges, and oth­er lead­ers, are all behold­en to the pow­er­ful police unions whose endorse­ment they seek, while tac­it­ly sur­ren­der­ing your rights and mine, for those endorse­ments.
If you believe that hav­ing black police offi­cials, pros­e­cu­tors, judges or leg­is­la­tors guar­an­tees jus­tice, guess again.
In fact, the Dallas Police Chief is black, one of the pros­e­cut­ing attor­neys was black and of course, [Mammy] Kemp is also Black.
Clarence Thomas’s actions on the Supreme Court ought to have dis­pelled that myth long ago.

The indoc­tri­na­tion of Black peo­ple through Religion has been a mas­ter­ful stroke of genius on the part of the white oppres­sors.
Today, even when American Blacks sit in seats where they have the abil­i­ty to wield pow­er, they are so social­ized to be in servi­tude that they can­not help act­ing like servile fools.
Additionally, there are mil­lions more, who agree with their slav­ish def­er­ence, because they too are slaves to the brain­wash­ing.
It is a sad despi­ca­ble spec­ta­cle to behold. 

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, a busi­ness own­er, avid researcher, and blog­ger. 
He is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
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