Corrupt racist US courts don’t recognize African Americans as equals: Mark Mason

Press TV has conducted an interview with Mark Mason, activist and political commentator, San Francisco about the verdict of not guilty for George Zimmerman over the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin, which has ignited nationwide protests in the US. The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: I’d like to get your opinion on the ‘not guilty’ verdict of George Zimmerman. Was justice served, or was it neglected? 

Mason: No. There is no way justice was served. We have a judicial outrage. Of course, the setting is that here in America, African Americans have never been full citizens with all the rights and privileges of being an American citizen. 

We know about the near genocide of African Americans; the enslavement of them until we had to have a civil war or in the 1860s. On paper in 1865 African Americans became free, but they have never become free of vast deep racism. 

They are the most deeply poor impoverished in the United States. The judicial system does not recognize them as members - honorable and dignified members of our American community.

Press TV: Many observers say that the issue of race played a very prominent role in this case and the trial of George Zimmerman. What has to happen to bring about change in such scenarios and who has the power and the fortitude to bring about that change? 

Mason: We’ll see, but I believe it will not make any significant change. There has been a call for the Department of Justice, Eric Holder, to file a federal civil rights case. Yes go ahead with that, that should be done, it’s on the books, that process should go forward within the context of the clearly corrupt judicial system that we have. 

But we need another mass social justice movement that we had in the 1960s. And we need to come together across the nation to go out into the streets and to begin demanding justice for African Americans in the United States. They are across the board still to this day deeply impoverished and the racism is very real. 

This one statistic: African Americans make up 12 percent of the population. They are 36 percent of the US prison population. And that one statistic alone should tell us that there’s something deeply, deeply wrong; that we still have a deeply racist system. 

The judicial system is racist; the policing system targets African Americans; and they’re not getting justice in the court room.