The rape of my African American great-grandmother by a white man was ignored by law enforcement authorities in the western North Carolina county where the crime was committed because it was not that unusual an occurrence.
In the 1880s in North Carolina, that particular public order allowed white men to rape Black women with impunity while dealing a death sentence to any Black man who was believed to have assaulted a white woman.
The laws were not written in the books that way, but neither are today’s laws that allow armed white murderers to be taken into custody alive, while unarmed Black men are summarily executed by police for selling cigarettes without a license.
Today, we have the murder of George Floyd, yet another unarmed Black man, by yet another white police officer and there is a new awakening of the American conscience.
Why do those elected officials who claim to champion law and order go silent when a police officer breaks the law and murders a Black victim?
