Washington, DC – The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI), a faith-based coalition of 34,000 churches comprised of 15 denominations and 15.7 million African Americans, is morally outraged at the light sentence that Judge Lawrence Moniz gave to Michelle Carter citing extraneous circumstances. There was no extraneous circumstances in this case, it was plain and simple. She took advantage of her boyfriend’s mental state and compelled him through verbal harassment to commit suicide. In the eyes of the Church this is murder.
Rev. Anthony Evans President of the National Black Church Initiative says, “The extraneous circumstances in this case, is the fact that Ms. Carter knew the mental state of her boyfriend, she manipulated, she used, abused and decided to play God with the life of that young man by telling him through a text ‘Kill yourself…’ Judge Lawrence Moniz is allowing her to be slapped on the wrist for such an egregious act – human depravity. The point here is that if this young lady was a man, a black man, a black woman, a Latino man, or a Latino woman, the court would have felt compelled to make an example of this young person’s generation that cyber bullying is egregious and morally wrong. Thus moves with all haste to impose one of the most strenuous sentences we have ever seen. However, if you are white, female, young and can cry on cue you get a pass and a slap on the wrist while the other family is doomed to emotional destruction on the loss of their son.”
In the age of cyber bullying, young women and young men are utilizing a viable social tool to harass, belittle, and bully some of God’s most vulnerable children, even to death. This is not the first case, neither will it be the last case, but Judge Lawrence Moniz, because he did not want to be overturned by the court of Massachusetts, decided to play it careful and to sentence her to the lowest common denominator of the sentencing guidelines. At the same time, granting a stay so that she can be free to verbally violate other persons or men. This is not justice, this is white justice. Here is another case of a privileged young woman who has forced the family of the victim to wait three years for any sort of justice and at the time of conviction, the court refused to put her in jail.
The Church cannot stand by and allow the court to be the arbitrator of societal ethics and to tell us that a murder is not a murder, that stealing is not stealing, that lying is not lying, when you are white, female and privileged. This is another case of America being slapped in its face with the injustice that we all will receive because we are not white, female and privileged.
