FeedsKwame: "Right is Right--Wrong Is Wrong!"
I can hear my old friend, Mrs. Eddie Mae Jones shaking her head and repeating, “Right is right and wrong is wrong.” She would continue, “What is wrong with that boy- what is wrong?”
When I heard the news that former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick had been indicted on 19 fraud related charges, Eddie Mae’s words came to mind.
It is now time for our system of justice to work to once again decide who is right.
Mrs. Jones, Eddie Mae to me and those who loved her, was a thoughtful, jovial woman who was raised in Birmingham, Ala., and had a front row seat to all the racism and bigotry the South had to offer in the 1940s and 1950s. She later lived and died in Detroit.
Eddie Mae would have my family and me to her stately home on the west side of Detroit for her mouth-watering beef brisket on Sundays after church. As you may have guessed, Mrs. Jones is an African American. I was in awe of her human decency, her stunning home and friends that were more upper middle class, (Judges, lawyers, engineers, social workers and doctors) than anything I had been exposed to growing up in a working class neighborhood in the shadow of our Nations Capitol, Washington, DC. in the 1960s.
Her home was often filled with the business, judicial and political elite of Detroit. All bright, thoughtful, capable people sitting around her dinner table discussing the issues of the day.
As Kilpatrick’s troubles continue to spill out for all to see, these conversations came back into my consciousness.
A regular dinner guest at Eddie Mae’s home was Colonel Cliff Worthy, a career military man and the father of Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. Colonel Worthy was an imposing figure whose words and sense of integrity and decency were as straight as his military posture. There was never a time that I did not feel I learned and grew as a human being when I was in Colonel Worthy’s presence.
I do not recall if I ever met the future Prosecutor Kym Worthy at Eddie Mae’s home. I did tell her a few years back that I knew she would serve the citizens of Wayne County well, with integrity and fairness, because she was her father’s daughter.
Fast forward a few years. I heard many friends and co-workers speculate about what Prosecutor Worthy would do regarding the text-message scandal swirling around the mayor. Many commented, “The whole city is corrupt;” “It will be politics as usual;” “Like will protect like;” and a few thought she would, “nail him to the cross.”
My comment was always: “I knew her dad, she will follow the law and do what she believes is right — period.”
I would quote my friend, Eddie Mae, “Right is right and wrong is wrong.
As we now know, Prosecutor Worthy followed the law of the land and held Kwame Kilpatrick accountable for his actions. He is sitting in prison today because she did her job.
As Prosecutor Worthy did her job, I could hear Eddie Mae’s words like an old hymn being sung: “Right is right and … wrong is wrong!”
As a reminder, all should remember, under our system of justice the Kwame Kilpatrick, state inmate number,702408 has a right to a presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Now, it is up to federal prosecutors, as the peoples’ lawyers, to convince jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty as charged.
“Right is right and wrong is wrong,” my good friend, Eddie Mae Jones, would remind us all. Her words of wisdom are as relevant today.
May truth, right and justice prevail.
Right is right and wrong is wrong.
God bless you, Mrs. Eddie Mae Jones—you were so right.
Tom Watkins is a business and education consultant in the U.S. and China. He served as Michigan’s State Superintendent of Schools, 2001-2005, and Mental Health Director, 1986-1990.
