White Men are Closer To God

In 1949 before the civil rights and black rights movements progressed, before there was  any sort of empathy for the people of color, there were 4 black  young black men in lake county Florida who were accused of raping a 17 year old white teenager Norma Paggett. This was Florida which was under the authority of Jim Crow’s segregation, where there was an established trend of white people without any hesitation accusing black people of crimes, which often resulted in unjust violence.

Ernest Thomas -one of the four accused- immediately escaped after being hit with such an indictment. What happened next was brutal. An enormous manhunt followed him, which to some accounts calls for more than 1000 people. 400 bullets were shot at him before he could even get the basic right of justice in the law court. Two of the others were convicted and sentenced to death and the youngest one who was just 16 years old named Charles Greenlee was sent to life imprisonment. The prosecution was dishonest. It was unfair in its practices and never presented legitimate evidence. When serving prison time the accused black men were treated with utmost disrespect and the most brutal abuse.

In 2021 Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi reviewed this case and the outcome was the dismissal of all four of them being relieved of their crimes. However, It was too late and all four of their lives were devastated in the past seven decades. Hence, this proved that the rape was never the crime, but it was the color of their skin which got them behind bars to suffer decades of oppression.

Fast forward to 2026, a new terrifying case came to light involving seven white and light skinned men drugging and abusing their fellow student in Cornell, one of the Ivy League schools. Now looking back and witnessing how strict the law regarding rape was, one would assume that the seven men would have been sitting in prison right now. But no, this happened back in 2024 and was only possible to come across due to the lawsuit filed against them by the girl who claims to be raped. The deans and heads of Cornell University -all white men- give them a punishment of merely writing an essay of what they did wrong.

Nevertheless, only due to the power of social media’s backlash, two of them were expelled, two were suspended for at least two semesters, and others were not found responsible. These punishments are nothing compared to the 400 bullets a black man had to face. A woman claims being raped by seven men while also being intoxicated, but authorities are still not sure whether these alleged convictions are true or not.

Governments can claim that there is prosperity and social cohesion and that discrimination is long gone, but everyone with some mind is aware of the privilege white men receive. They have to spend less of their energy proving themselves and becoming successful because their pale skin and blue eyes do the work for them. On the other hand, people of color and with accents have to spend lifetimes and generations proving their innocence and escaping prejudice. The case of Groveland Four shows us that racism has always been deeply rooted in the law. A system built by white men who at that time had black slaves will always favour the white men rather than the freed slaves.