By: Rev. Peter Johnson
I have been arrested more times than I care to remember. Sometimes my crime was marching. Sometimes it was protesting. Sometimes it was refusing to accept an America that told Black people to sit down, be quiet, and wait patiently for justice.
I learned something about American justice while sitting in those jail cells.
The law can have very good eyesight. It can see a poor man stealing from a grocery store. It can see a Black teenager standing on the wrong corner. It could see civil rights workers marching across a bridge in Selma. But when money, power, and political influence enter the room, American justice sometimes seems to develop cataracts.
That is why a new Gallup survey should concern every American. Eighty-nine percent of Americans now say government corruption is widespread, the highest level Gallup has recorded in two decades. Republicans, Democrats, and independents may disagree about almost everything else, but overwhelming majorities agree on this: something is wrong. That should trouble every citizen who still believes public service is a public trust.
CNN recently examined that growing concern in the context of President Donald Trump’s second administration. Questions being raised include Trump family business interests, cryptocurrency ventures, foreign investment, presidential pardons, and whether the lines between public responsibility and private financial benefit have become dangerously blurred.
We should be careful with our words. An ethical conflict is not automatically a crime, and an accusation is not a conviction. I have spent too many years fighting injustice to abandon fairness simply because I dislike the person being questioned.
But fairness requires us to ask the questions.
A company connected to the Trump family, World Liberty Financial, received a reported $500 million investment from interests tied to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates’ national security adviser. Months later, the administration made policy decisions benefiting the UAE, including access to advanced American computer chips. The White House maintains that President Trump’s assets are managed by his children and that there is no conflict of interest. Maybe you believe that explanation. Maybe you do not.
My concern is bigger than Donald Trump.
I have lived long enough to know that corruption does not carry a party registration card. Democrats can be corrupt. Republicans can be corrupt. Black elected officials can misuse power. White elected officials can misuse power. The moral standard cannot change because the person involved belongs to our political team.
Those of us who grew up Black in America understand unequal accountability.
We remember when a Black man could lose his freedom over a small amount of marijuana. We remember young people receiving criminal records that followed them for the rest of their lives. We remember mothers begging judges for mercy. We remember civil rights demonstrators arrested for demanding rights the Constitution already promised them.
Meanwhile, wealth has always purchased something poverty cannot afford: access. Money buys lawyers. Money buys lobbyists. Money buys introductions. Money puts your telephone call at the top of somebody’s list.
That does not mean every wealthy person is corrupt. It means democracy becomes dangerous when ordinary citizens begin believing there is one set of rules for them and another set for those with money and influence. Scripture asks a question America ought to hear again: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Justice is not Republican. Justice is not Democratic. Justice is not liberal or conservative. Justice is justice.
The greatest danger is not simply that corruption exists. Corruption has existed since human beings discovered power. The danger comes when corruption no longer shocks us. When we shrug our shoulders and say, “That’s just politics,” democracy loses a little more of its soul.
I marched because I believed America could be better than it was. At 80, I still believe that. But democracy cannot survive on belief alone. It requires accountability. It requires courage. It requires ordinary people to remind powerful people that public office belongs to the public. A democracy can survive crooked people. What it cannot survive is a nation that stops caring whether they are crooked.
Rev. Peter Jerome Johnson, was the youngest staff member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference under Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. An alum of Southern University, he founded the Peter Johnson Institute on Nonviolence.
