Fallacy of Justice.

FALLACY OF JUSTICE

Out on the north side of Minneapolis last week, a white man assaulted a little nine year old white girl and in his unsuccessful attempt to harm her, he seriously scratched and bruised the child who fought furiously to defend herself. She succeeded until help arrived. Even then–the brute held off the police, with threats to kill, until more assistance was secured.
Our way of telling the story does not boil your blood because the man was white or black. You have simply read the outstanding facts of an incident which actually occurred–an incident which the daily papers failed to say a word about. If they did, we have not been able to detect the story yet.
But now, suppose it had been a black man who assaulted this little nine year old girl out on the North Side of Minneapolis, the most congested Negro district in the city. Suppose it had been a black man who defied the police with threats to kill them when they came to the child’s aid. Suppose it had been a shiny, sweaty black man the police arrested for brutal assault on this little white girl. Suppose the facts in the case had been heard by the whites of the north side as they did through gossip and otherwise. Suppose these were facts, what would have been the result? What would have been the results in Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and even in Minnesota?
First, it was a little white girl who was assaulted–the “heighth of all things.” Second the scene of the incident was near the heart of Minneapolis’ black colony where the least little mishap maliciously done, might cause high feeling between whites and blacks. Third, when one policeman was unable to make the arrest and was threatened with death, what would have he done? Fourth, would the daily newspaper have told the story? What would the balck citizens of the North Side had to do if it had been a black who attacked the little white girl? Undoubedly some unpleasantness would have occureed.
It is undeniable by past experience. Some commotion may have been the result. However, we are only dealing with suppositions. A white man committed the atrocious act and a white man will suffer according to the justice of American made laws.
Now then, only Wednesday morning did Attorney A. L. Barnett, before the state Supreme Court, argue for a new trial for a black man charged with assault on a white woman, 19 years old, in Duluth June 14, 1920, while he was employed as a circus hand. The evidence in the case is so smattering that eight of his companions have been acquitted of the same charge. But three paid–three were lunched by the white mob in the heart of the city of Duluth in the state of Minnesota. It was at this time Minnesota went on record for its first lynching-bee. Could there be a repetition of this in Minnesota? Officers of the law say “No.” But who knows?
But our point is to show how the black man is singled out, how his shortcomings and bad deeds are put before the public, how no masks are used to cover up the facts but instead, every effort is made to play upon the least discreditable act a black man commits, how justice is distributed, and how the deeds for which a black would be lynched, a white man may commit and simply be scorned by his friends, modest spoken of by the press, if at all, and given a fair trial in the courts of justice. Even in Minnesota there is a difference.
So, it behooves us to fight this distinction and this kind of democracy in the most intelligent way we know of. We must ask and demand a fair deal of the propaganda against us will only serve to make the future more contemptible. Justice must have the same for blacks and whites alike. Public opinion must be moulded to make ‘color” less obvious, or the freedom, the rights for which the black man is struggling shall not be what we ask for, but a branded, distinctive kind.