February 9, 2001

The Honorable Kofi Annan

Secretary-General of the United Nations

United Nations

New York, NY 10017

Honorable Sir:

Again, we seek your assistance. The chasm of inequality widens. Our worsening condition places us in such a precarious position that only the United Nations and the International Court of Justice offer any hope for bettering our drastic situation. Based wholly on its history, the United States of America cannot be trusted to honor its pledge to end racial discrimination against its slave descendants. As with treaties the U.S. government made with its indigenous people, if all goes according to past practices, any pledge to slave descendants too will be unilaterally broken. Having trusted the white man to do the right thing, American Natives teeter on the brink of extinction trapped in reservations, or they hide in the hues of Americans residing in the chasm of inequality. The once great nations have been destroyed. When the Supreme Court turned equal protection on its head to rule in Bush v. Gore, America's pledge to end racial discrimination became worthless.

Like the rest of the world, you watched Election 2000 play out on international television. Unfortunately, the election did not garner the same kind of reaction your organization gave to national elections elsewhere around the world, especially in Third World countries. In some of these nations, there have been international efforts to protect citizens' right to vote for their national leadership. Based on media reports, you have been in the forefront of efforts around the world to make certain citizens vote and their votes are counted. Like former President Jimmy Carter, your participation as monitor serves to ensure people have unfettered access to the ballot box of self-determination. Ironically, you, Carter and the international community were absent on election day in America, and all of you remain conspicuously silent in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore. This presidential selection process, which occurred over the objection of the American electorate, a majority of whom voted for the opposition, killed any appearance of democracy.

If the court's decision is allowed to stand and go unchallenged, Bush is President-select, victor by court coup d'etat. African Americans and others summarily disenfranchised are being asked to doublethink to honor this undemocratic decision. We are being told to think America is a great democracy, when in fact the country is a Republic founded on white supremacy/slavery. Where is the international outcry about the sheer hypocrisy of it all? Where are the righteous demands to make democracy work in America, as she boisterously demands that it work in other countries? Where is Jimmy Carter and his benighted Carter Center? Either everyone is missing in action on the absence of democracy in America, or we are being misled by the media. If the international community is properly outraged as we think they ought to be, certainly as we are, then his fraudulency, Mr. Bush will become a laughingstock for allowing the word 'democracy' to come out of his mouth. The personification of American hypocrisy, he should be greeted with outbursts of laughter and finger-pointing, if not a more subtle cut direct, every time he says 'democracy' or 'democratic.' After all, it is sick satire - a joke being run on the international community! Beyond ridiculing Bush off the world stage for being a flaming hypocrite, we implore the world to speak and work with us to give African Americans the democratic right of self-determination.

While independent news organizations and others will count the votes, after the fact, the outcome of those efforts will not affect the court's selection of Bush for President, even if the final count favors Vice President Al Gore. American voters did not determine the outcome of this election, yet the court's decision is final. In plain sight, a politically appointed judicial body determined who would be our president, and thereby dictated what set of values will guide our national policies for the next four years and into the future, depending on the long run impact of Bush policies and his judicial appointees' decisions. For African Americans, the court, in Bush v. Gore, took away our right of self-determination, the cornerstone of true democracy.

Having watched their ballots being tossed out in determining who would be President, African Americans are now being asked to doublethink and accept the 'wool being pulled over their eyes' by calling America a democracy. We do not agree with the charade America runs for global consumption, which claims America is the world's greatest democracy. Worldwide democracy must surely be in dire straits for the world to watch votes openly trashed on television and still call America free - the home of democracy. Given the depths of hypocrisy, the odds of ending racial discrimination in our lifetime grow greater with every day that passes. This election provides more prima facie evidence that America has not lived up to its pledge to end racial discrimination, nor does it plan to do so any time in the near future. Fact of the matter is, President-select George W. Bush, Jr. promised white supremacy would continue as the rule of law in a Bush administration. He promised strict construction would rule the courts; he nominated former Senator John Ashcroft, a far right wing Southern conservative, for attorney general to help carry out his campaign promise. Honorable sir, we implore you and other world leaders to speak so African Americans can exercise the fundamental democratic right of self-determination. We need your assistance to end American institutionalized racism. Clearly, the ball is in the world's court.

In September 2000, the United States submitted its first response to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which became effective January 4, 1969. Predictably, the US did a number of things. First, it delayed responding for thirty years. Then, it admitted to past and ongoing racial discrimination in violation of the Convention's articles expressly forbidding disparate racial treatment. In its defense, it offered a range of reasons for blatant non-compliance with the Convention's anti-racism stipulations and sought to justify the fact that it has not paid reparations to the African American victims of its institutionalized racism. Like rote, it cited the Thirteenth and Fourteen Amendments, as well as civil rights case law, to justify its failure to achieve the international aim of the Convention - "the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination."

As justification for not paying reparations to African American descendants of slavery for past and ongoing racial discrimination, the U.S. cited black access to the courts. Blacks can bring lawsuits to seek redress from those who violate their equal rights under U.S. laws. Historically, the U.S. judicial system has not been an ally of slave descendants. African Americans are unlikely to have the financial wherewithal to afford an attorney or be able to overcome the hurdles of suing as a pro se litigant to successfully obtain redress in court. Moreover, those who sit in judgement find refuge for their biased decisions in strict construction. U.S. courts beginning with Dred Scott V. Sanford through Plessy v. Ferguson have tended to support white supremacy rather than equality - a must for democracy. Therefore, any appearance of unfettered access to the courts to pursue litigation for redress is a red herring. Without adequate legal representation, this is not a deterrent to institutionalized racism, nor does it provide a just compensation for the economic welfare loss experienced by its victims.

Whether or not any rights presumably granted African Americans under the Constitution are honored by the court depends on its philosophical makeup, as aptly demonstrated in Bush v. Gore. In addition to this latest example of judicial discretion, we offer for your edification the body of case law that encompasses slaves descendants' struggles to obtain civil rights equal to those enjoyed by other American citizens.

More important for now, during his Presidential campaign, George W. Bush, Jr. promised to appoint judges to the Supreme Court, indeed throughout the judicial system, that strictly interpret the Constitution. Decisions in case law for strict construction begins with the decision in Dred Scott through Plessy v. Ferguson; it is the losing side in Brown v. Board of Education. Under strict construction, white supremacy is the law of the land; it leaves the 3/5ths compromise intact. This is the groundwork for the Electoral College which circumvents one-person one-vote, the cornerstone of democracy.

This kind of thinking moves the struggle for equality backwards. It legitimizes the hostile environment where racial discrimination flourishes. To prevent that from happening, blacks went to the polls in record numbers to vote for Al Gore. He promised, "I will fight for you!" Blacks voted for him to keep Bush and his hostile promise out of office.

We steadfastly believe that had the votes been counted and included in the final tally, we accomplished our mission. Blacks elected Clinton, then we elected Gore. Yet, Bush is the president. How do we secure our victory? Will your organization intervene as you did last year in Haiti? Will you urge a full and accurate count? Like all third world countries, we are at the mercy of those who have traditionally held power in this country. Without your assistance, we cannot hope to peacefully end racial discrimination. We are helpless against American institutionalized racism. The world must not be silent. We respectfully request your assistance in the name of democracy for Americans.

Yours in the struggle,

Yohannes Sharriff Smith