High Court

By Stephanie and Eric Stradford

AMWS, April 2, 2012, Virtual – This week America’s Future called for some “sistah justice” to look at the story behind the murder of Trayvon Martin. As media minds struggle to lead the masses toward the race card, true believers are pressing for the prize of fair and equal treatment for all.

Celebrities like Judges Mablean Ephriam and Glenda Hatchett topped a list of prominent Americans called to serve on a “High Court” to figure out exactly how this Trayvon Martin tragedy happened.

“Some would like us to believe that race is the trump card in pursuing justice for Trayvon,” said Stephanie A. Walker Stradford, founder and president of Youth Achievers USA Institute. “We’ve been there, done that, and don’t need to go back,” she said. “When one citizen views another as less than, it’s no longer a race issue. It’s a threat to somebody’s national security. America has gone to war for lesser causes.””

National security can be generally perceived as the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. “In America, when one citizen perceives another as less than, he becomes a threat to the other’s economic security,” said Stradford.

Economic security today forms, arguably, as important a part of national security as military security. The freedom to follow choice of policies to develop a nation's economy in the manner desired, forms the essence of economic security. “One of the reasons we have a $15 trillion national debt is because we have not valued each other as equals,” said Stradford. “There are too many George Zimmermans to count and not enough children valued in the equation,” she said.

The assertion by the President of the United States, “And I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together -- federal, state and local -- to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened,” adds cause for “soul searching” by all Americans.

The temporal economy of any American begins with a date, ends with a date and is quantified by the dash in between. The value of Trayvon Martin’s life remains uncertain until America comes to terms with “its own demons.” A three-fifths compromise originated with a 1783 amendment proposed to the U.S. Articles of Confederation. The amendment was to have changed the basis for determining the wealth of each state, and hence its tax obligations, from real estate to population, as a measure of ability to produce wealth.

The Three-Fifths Compromise is found in Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution: It was a compromise between Southern and Northern states reached during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 in which three-fifths of the enumerated population of slaves would be counted for representation purposes regarding both the distribution of taxes and the apportionment of the members of the United States House of Representatives.

In 21st Century terms, this “less than equal value” characterizes the historically disadvantaged American perceived by George Zimmerman on the night that he allegedly threatened the temporal economy of Trayvon Martin.

Historically Disadvantaged Americans can no longer be categorized as minorities and minimized to low priority social issues in conversations on equal opportunity. In America, there is a credible threat to national security whenever a citizen’s economic security is threatened. That threat is real in the perception of a “minority” within a fair but equal society.