Elsie Law's Daily Dose Of The Law

"I remember reading a phrase once that said, 'the freedom of the press belongs to those who own the press.' We can thus reiterate that the constitution and the legal system in this soceity are not a neutral instrument, and that the law belongs to those who write it, and to those who use it to control the resources of a society.

Business crime is more damaging than most working class crime and so-called lower-class crime. As a matter of fact, we tend not to even see business-crime as crime itself, but instead as violations of codes, as not following procedure, even though it may rob people of jobs. It may rob people of their very lives. How many people from Dupont will be arrested and put in jail and locked awaay for killing those thousands of Indians? How many people will be destroyed or executed as the result of the stealing of monies, of millions and millions of dollars from the general populace as a whole? Will Chase Manhattan be permitted to go out of business? Or will Citibank, for the mistake of making bad loans? No, they won't. What will happen? They will rob the very monies out of our pockets so that they may stay in business.

It has been established that while robbery, burglary, auto theft, and larceny account for 15 percent of theft against property, embezzlement, fraud, forgery, and commercial theft (the so-called white-collar crimes) are responsible for 78 percent of crimes agaainst property. It is difficult for people to even see a so-called top business executive as a criminal. The very concept of criminal has an image attached to it. We shall find, of course, that to a great extent that image is non-European, non-middle-class and non-upper-class, but is an image that portrays the so-called lower-classes (or non-Europeans). It is of interest to note that Zacarro, husband of the vice presidential candidate [Geraldine Ferraro], could steal millions and pay a thousand-dollar ($1,000) fine- and continue in business- while our sons and daughters who may steal nickels are sent to jail, and executed, done in, beaten, and assassinated by the police. We are gouged for rent and other kinds of things by the system; yet those that gouge us are perceived as pillars of the community.

These are the kinds of contradictions that breed disrespect for the law, and disrespect for those who enforce the law. It does not matter if a law is written in neutral terms. What really matters is whether that lar is enforced non-discrimitaely; and this societyis one that is famous for writing beautiful laws, which are enforced in a non-equal fashion." -From, "The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness"