Bayonette Through The Hearts Of People Of Colour

Dear Editor:

Re: T&T Chemist jailed for falsifying tests used to prosecute drug related crime – Pride Nov. 27/13.

This is the kind of outrageous story that drives a bayonet through the hearts of peoples of colour in North America.

The convicted chemist was either responsible for or contributed to the convictions of the innocent or the acquittals of the guilty in representing the state of Massachusetts in drug prosecutions. My concern here is primarily for the innocent.

Michele Williams, an American civil rights academic and Law practitioner, explained, in great detail, in her painful study, The New Jim Crow, how the American establishment has used selective enforcement of drug laws to redesign Jim Crow with devastating consequences for millions of people of colour in the modern United States.

The selectivity has been so blatant and the consequences so horrendous that, in my view, by themselves they constitute one of the strongest arguments for decriminalization of all drugs to the state where the law or rather the absence of laws was in the early 20^th century.

So here comes this person of colour who deliberately destroys more lives who are most likely disproportionately people of colour.

That she was caught is encouraging, but there is an element of irony involved. Most of the perpetrators of the conspiracies and perjuries that result in convictions of the innocent have been white authority figures who almost invariably go unpunished. This is a reminder to people of colour that even when you represent the establishment you are at greater risk than your white brothers and sisters.

Hon. Romain Pitt
Retired Superior Court Judge
Toronto, Ontario