Today a couple legal questions came up in discussion like what is the difference between ‘and’ and ‘or’ in a legal title or filing a discrimination suit against County for racial discrimination in the County Park system. Once I was involved in a partnership legal suit that cost me a good chunk of money to counter sue the partner suing me but at the end made no real difference in the settlement of the case. A civil rights lawyer mentioned we might have case for elimination of backboards courts and rims when African American basketball players became dominate in the nearby County Park system, something he called ‘recreational’ redlining.’ But there are few lawyers that take civil rights case and, even if you win, they can be costly.

There are two ways, in my mind, to challenge human rights violations, legally or by nonviolent action. The legal action is becoming less available except to persons or corporations that can afford a good lawyer. Every time we click “I agree” on an App or Web site or sign pages of legalize on a form at doctor’s office we really do not know what we are agreeing to. We just trust the other person to truthful. But if we trust the other party being a computer firm or Doctor’s office what do we even need to sign or mark forms of small fine print. We need to it not for our protection but for the protection of the provider of service. It is their lawyers they pay to write all the fine print covering liability for the provider.

In last night’s acceptance speech the Republican Governor reelected said that in Wisconsin “We believe the opportunity is equal but the outcome is up to each and every one of us.” I would like to ask the Governor if two young 20 year men commit the same crime but one is white, coming from a wealthy suburban family and recipient of quality education and one is black coming from a low income family and receipt of poor quality education will there be same results. Most likely the white young adult, if caught, will have a good lawyer by his side in court and probably get off or with reduced sentence that may be removed from his record. The black young man has more chance of getting caught and less chance of getting his sentence reduced or removed. If both at 20 years are determined to get a good job and both apply for the same job, with the black young adult with criminal record and probably without a car and white person has no record, probably with a car would you call that ‘equal opportunity.’ The law might apply equally to both men but the application because of status, money and position will not be the same. The law might say an employer cannot discriminate against a person because he is black with a criminal record but we know it will happen. Unemployment for young men in largely low income African American neighbors in Milwaukee is around 50%. Unemployment for young men in largely middle or high income neighborhoods is very low. Check out the blue dots on the Unemployment map according to 2012 Census information on M.A.P.S.. The more you get out of central city where there is racial discrimination and poverty to the suburbs the less unemployment there is.

Opportunity is NOT equal Governor and no matter how hard one tries a young adult African American male with poor education, lack of money and vehicle with a police record does not have the same ‘equal opportunity’ as young white suburban adult.

Another famous Governor who was well known for his building the prison system in Wisconsin, in the 90’s, commissioned a special study group to report back how we could reduce criminals and crime in Wisconsin. They reported back saying, prisoners and prisons “are bound to grow as long as the root cause of crime—poverty, lack of education and lack of family support—go unaddressed.” This is not what the Governor or politicians wanted to hear so more prisons with more prisoners grew until Wisconsin now ranks number one in the USA in percentage of incarceration of young adult African America males. People who create the fine print seem not be able to read the large print. Equal opportunity is a myth.

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