Anyway, this week's essay is called, "I Am Not the Enemy" by Felicia J. Nu'Man, who is a Black woman and a prosecutor in Louisville, KY and who writes in the teaser to her essay that she "put[s] people in jail because they break the law, not because I'm a puppet of a racist judicial system."
This essay caught my attention for obvious reasons, and I thought it was worth sharing. I especially like what she had to say about the duty she feels to stand up for the rights of Black crime victims, even when that means prosecuting Black offenders:
My question to these black people who believe me to be a traitor is, when will you connect the dots?...There is a disconnect in the minds of many black people. My great-grandfather was murdered in Kentucky back in the 1940s. There was no investigation. There was no prosecution of the people involved. There was only a funeral, a widow and fatherless children. This would never happen today...We have the most perfect imperfect system on earth."
2 comments:
My Turn is my favorite too... I liked what she had to say about black victims as well. That said, the rest of it really bugged me. She's right that the answer isn't jury nullification or not helping the police/prosecutor. She does, however, lapse into the same rhetoric that I have a helluva time getting my students out of -- dispensing with structural problems of inequality and poverty quickly (and condescendingly -- she nicely leaves those questions to the 'social workers and the social scientists') and reducing it all to faulty individual 'choices.'
This sort of commentary is precisely why it's so hard for me to get my students to dispense with racial stereotypes when it comes to crime. I'm so tired of that -- yes, we all make choices and victims deserve justice, but our choices are socially structured and framing it solely in terms of victims vs. offenders nicely gets us away from ever having to worry about what I'd argue really matters. She also convenviently forgets that all those black men she sends to prison get out and go right back to the same place, with the same problems, and the same [lack of] choices to victimize the same [black] people. I'd love a discussion that doesn't center on victims vs. offenders but recognizes that they tend to share the same space and that what she does is perhaps not the most efficient way to solve the problem.
Apologies, rant now over... :)
Good point, NSP.
I have that same struggle in my classes. I always joke with my students that just because I suggest socio-structural causes/correlates of crime does not mean that I think we should just give all our felons a big hug and release them from prison. Of course people make bad decisions, and there must be recognition of individual responsibility and culpability. But, decisions are not made in a vacuum, and availability (or lack thereof) of resources and options obviously influences the decisions people make...
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