Margaret Kimberley

Bring back our girls. The message is a simple one that resonates with millions of people around the world. Those four words were first seen in a now famous twitter hashtag in the aftermath of the kidnapping of 280 teenagers from a school in Chibok, Nigeria on April 14, 2014.

In nations around the world, thousands of people will demonstrate in anger if the police do harm to a citizen. Not so in the United States. In this country a uniform provides a license to maim and to kill.

Prominent journalists in the United States may as well be on the White House payroll. They are consistent cheerleaders for whoever occupies the oval office and the corporate corner office.

Remember the names Garrick Hopkins, Carl Hopkins, McKenzie Cochran, Darrin Manning, and Charda Gregory. They are the latest victims of the unofficial but very real lynch law that has ruled America for centuries.

The Constitution requires the president to “…from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union….” Regardless of what the framers of the constitution intended, this event has devolved into empty theatrics, worthless punditry and outright lies.

The United States is a country which openly and unashamedly targets black people for police surveillance, prosecution, incarceration and death. Racism is the fuel which feeds the monster of criminal injustice, making a mockery of any claims of democracy and equal treatment under the law.

Nelson Mandela’s passing provides an important and rare opportunity for discussion of some very serious issues.

Not again. That was the thought for millions of people upon hearing news of the murder of 19-year old Renisha McBride near Detroit, Michigan.

Black people have been stigmatized with racist caricatures from the first moment that Africans encountered Europeans. People who worked without pay at the point of a lash or a gun were called lazy. The victims of sexual assault were themselves labeled as “over sexed” perverts and freaks.

A line in a poem says “to err is human, to forgive divine.” We hear constant exhortations to forgive and forget and let bygones be bygones. Most religions teach forgiveness as a major tenet.