Still Free

Yeah, Mr. Smiley. Made it through the entire Trump presidency without being enslaved. Imagine that.

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Absolute Power Corrupts

Warning: "N-word" usage

So a few years ago I noted that Ras Baraka was now mayor of Newark and that he should deal with the crime in the city.  The reason I posted that was because as a son of a particularly "radical" man, he had the opportunity to show Newark and other black cities what so called "pro-black" governance is like. 

Well, one thing I considered was that such leadership would act a fool. Why? One reason is that a lot of people have no clue what it's like to have actual governing responsibility and the restrictions and compromises necessary in a constitutional republic. The other reason is that since a lot of "pro-black" people have power issues, as in, they really just want power, once they get access to power, they start doing things that they complained about when they were on the outside. Unfortunately, Baraka fell down this particular hole.

One of the worst things to do is to give near unlimited power to someone who believes themselves to be "right" and who feel they are doing whatever it is they want to do "for their own good". 

Let's examine this article by Michael Tracy:

From the outset, a pressing question — still yet to be adequately answered — was how exactly these Emergency Orders would be enforced on a practical on-the-ground level. Were police officers being directed to issue summonses and make arrests? If so, under what authority? The diffused patchwork of laws in the US made this difficult to ascertain in any kind of comprehensive way.

I have said repeatedly that one should consider that when one passes a law, that you are in effect voting to kill someone for not complying. Are you sure you want that?

Even if one believed that certain emergency measures were justified under the circumstances, the potentially perilous implications for civil liberties during that period were unmistakable. State authorities had been vested with vast new power to surveil and monitor citizens, regulate their behavior, and punish them for non-compliance — and yet our knowledge of how these authorities were actually deploying their powers was severely limited. Widespread closure of courts further complicated the situation.

You would think that the descendants of enslaved Africans would be particularly sensitive to the use of state power to regulate the behavior of citizens. 

You would think.

The data makes clear that within the March — May 2020 time frame, Newark Police went on a tear charging people with novel interpretations of crimes. One of the statutes they cited to bust people, APP. A:9-49(A), is defined as:

Commit[ing] any unauthorized or otherwise unlawful act during the threat or imminence of danger in any emergency that jeopardizes the health, welfare and safety of the people

Abusing a law in order to regulate citizens. Under the watch of the son of a "black radical".  

Interesting.

Here are some examples of “unauthorized or otherwise unlawful acts” which allegedly contributed to “jeopardiz[ing] the health, welfare, and safety of the people” that police accused people of committing:

  • Sitting in park

  • Sitting and talking to others

  • Sitting on milk crate

  • Visiting with no legitimate purpose

  • Hanging out

  • Being in the street in the company of another

  • In street in the company of others

  • Sitting on bench smoking

  • Encouraging others to not social distance

  • Standing outside enjoying the weather

  • Socializing with another

  • Not Social Distancing

  • Standing without mask

These violations are punishable by up to six months in prison and a fine of $1,000.

Read that list. Now I absolutely refused to live by those "rules". Mind you I don't smoke or sit on milk crates but really. Under "pro-black" leadership police were fining people for standing without a mask.

Think about that. This is what Dr. King fought for: Black mayors fining citizens in a largely black city for standing without a mask.

On April 16, 2020, a woman was charged by police with violating another statute, 2C:24-7.1A1, defined as “recklessly engag[ing] in conduct which creates a substantial risk of bodily injury to another person.”

Her violation was described by police as: “did knowingly endanger other citizens by no having a face mask as per governor executive order to have one to quell the high rate of covid-19 exposure.” [All typos in these descriptions are police errors]

Enforcing the "white man's rules" eh Baraka?  

See, where I live, police didn't do that bullshit. I'm not going to say that they did NO bullshit, but they didnt' do THAT bullshit. But in that black city with a pro-black mayor? Fine these niggas.

I'm sure it was for their own good.

On March 30, a man described as Black was charged with “CONGREGATING WITHOUT MAINTAINING A DISTANCE OF 6FT, AND WITHOUT A DESTINATION, IN VIOLATION OF THE GOVERNOR'S ORDER.”

Negroes cannot congregate without the express permission of their owners the governor and must have papers showing they have permission to have left their plantation.

On April 27, a man described as Black allegedly “failed to obey governor's exec. order by taking part in non-essential travel & failing to social distance.”

Negroes are only allowed to travel if they have permission papers from their owners. Negroes still cannot congregate.

I asked a spokesperson for Phil Murphy, Alyana Alfaro Post, what she thought of so many people being ensnared by the criminal justice system for the crime of defying the Governor by doing things like standing outdoors. She responded in typically banal fashion: “Throughout the pandemic, local law enforcement has enforced executive orders and issued citations when they deem appropriate, as they would with regard to any other state law.”

"Local law enforcement". Meaning all that BS falls at Baraka's feet.  

A man named Richard Brandt was cited for “walking on n. 6th street not wearing a mask or gloves in viiolation of exec. order 107” — right near his residence — on April 27.

He had been with his wife, going for a walk. Brandt told me: “We were by ourselves, she had her mask on. I had my mask in my hand.” Then two cops drove by them in a squad car and stopped specifically to give him the ticket. Brandt said of the main officer, “I think he was a newbie. I’m telling him I’m with my wife, I’m not around anybody. It took him a long time to write it up… The new guy was very nervous, he was almost perspiring giving it to me.”

Do you know how many people where I live were walking all over the place without masks? Aside from me? Many. Not all. Not by a long shot but many. No police officer so much as slowed down.  Yet there in Newark with "Pro-black" mayor, is fining niggas left right and center.

This is your lefty black leadership in action. When they get the power, they go on the power trips.

The kicker of all this is that later on in May, Newark (like countless places in the US) hosted massive protests after the death of George Floyd — all of which flatly violated the COVID policies which had up until that point been so strenuously enforced. And these were state-backed protests; they were endorsed by both Governor Murphy and Mayor Ras Baraka, even though both officials had just spent months hectoring ordinary citizens for failing to “socially distance” or for gathering in small crowds outside. Baraka himself was a participant in a protest that violated his own Executive Order — the same order that had been cited by police to charge Newark residents:

Baraka even admitted as much to me at the time: “This is a violation, but we’re doing it anyway,” he said of the protest in Newark last May. (And elected officials wonder why people got fed up with the manifestly arbitrary nature of these enforcement measures.)

"We're doing it anyway"

I'm the captain now.


https://mtracey.substack.com/p/new-documents-show-police-charged