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Of justice and memoirs

I usually alternate reading a serious, non-fiction book with a lighter, fiction one. Some people might think my overwhelming tendency to read mysteries for my "fiction" as not necessarily lighter--murder and mayhem?--but I don't read really gory stuff and what I like about mysteries is that at the end the murderer is always caught and justice prevails.

Which brings me to what I am currently reading, a non-fiction book called "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson. Stevenson is a lawyer who has worked in the South, mainly Alabama, for decades focusing on justice for death row inmates. He was involved with the infamous Walter McMillian case, a large part of which is what the book is about.

Even knowing what the South is like in terms of racism and police brutality, this book shocks and disturbs me. When Stevenson says that 1 in 3 black male babies, across the U.S., are likely to face prison sometime in their lives, wow. I have tried to find out whether that statistic is actually "true" but, like all stats, it can be played a number of ways. Be that as it may, it IS true that we have a serious incarceration issue in the U.S., one skewed against the poor and, because minorities are disproportionately poor, against poor non-whites.

It makes me feel helpless. What could I do even if I were able to vote here in the U.S.? What are the options for "justice" when it comes to protecting society from crime? Stevenson relates an incident in his Introduction where he was confronted by Atlanta Police while he was in his car, forced out of it, subjected to an illegal search. He didn't have anything in his car and hadn't been doing anything wrong. He admits, though, if he had had drugs in the car, he would have been hauled off to jail. The easy implication is that, even if the search is illegal, if you aren't doing anything wrong you'll be fine. Not always so though. As in the case of Walter McMillian, police can fabricate evidence if you are of the wrong race, religion or, potentially political persuasion. We think it can't happen to us because we profile well--we are senior citizens, white, drive nice cars, live in a nice house. Are we living in a fool's paradise though? And, if we are, is there something we need to change, something that WOULD make society more equitable, more "just"? It's a refrain I have heard from my college days.

And deep stuff for a Monday morning. 

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