I keep thinking especially of the film version of this story though I have read the Grisham novel as well. I would say the movie is a good movie, with great parts in it. Matthew McConaughey plays the lawyer Jake Brigance, who defends a black man, Carl Lee Hailey, who took revenge on the men who raped his young daughter Tonya. It's a little bit different than some of the real-life cases we've seen lately, in that Carl Lee is definitely guilty, and it's a story about jury nullification, as well as about racism and revenge.
I think of one scene before Jake's closing argument, where he's visiting Carl Lee in jail and he tells Carl Lee that he's not going to win the case. Jake starts complaining about how the jury sees Carl Lee, versus how they see him. Jake ticks off a couple of cultural and socioeconomic reasons, and then Carl Lee interrupts, saying, "Or you're white and I'm black! See, that's why I picked you, Jake. You just like them… Oh, you think you ain't, because you eat at Claude's, and you're here with me right now, but you are. What would it take to convince you to let me off? That's how you save my ass."
(Jake instructs the jury to close their eyes, while he describes the crime in vivid detail, and then he says, "I want you to imagine this little girl… And now imagine she's white.")
The racism in the film is not at all subtle, because the story is set in Mississippi. That gives white liberals and semi-liberals cover to think that things aren't so bad in the north, on the glorious victors' side of the Civil War. But recent events have disabused us of that notion, haven't they?
I think the fact that Jake wins the case with that closing argument--whether or not it would work in real life--illustrates to me that George Floyd and so many others would mean more to some of us if they were white. In the fictional story, the brutal rape and attempted murder of little Tonya didn't actually matter to most of the whites in the story, and the whites on the jury, until she was imagined as white.
Maybe this daily more obvious pattern which emerges of police brutality (and white vigilantism) is not pressing to us, because they're not people to us. We don't see them as people we know, and love. They're not really our friends and neighbors. And in the grip of an ideology, we have reason to dismiss especially the white activists who shout, "black lives matter!," because "progressive" has meant to us, "make stuff up to fit a narrative".
I definitely have felt defensive in response to some activism for black lives, especially before this. I guess I kind of thought that if a substantial number of police officers were racist--or at least abused their power--to some significant degree, that I would be some sort of advocate for anarchy, or moral relativism. The thing is, I don't know any absolute moral code that says you have to choke a man to death while he's completely defenseless, and pleading for his life. I'm no lawyer either, but forgery is not a violent felony. There was absolutely zero reason to use any physical force at all, much less to use sustained deadly force, while disregarding basic human cries for help. As I said the other day, people aren't supposed to die in the custody of the police. There is no reason to physically harm a suspect of any crime, unless the officers are attempting to prevent a violent crime against an innocent party. The reason we have police and juries and lawyers is precisely because we are a nation of laws, not a fearful rage mob. If some substantial portion of us whites are afraid of black men--simply in the normal course of living--the problem is us, not them. (Though not only men have been treated this way.)
Frankly, I don't think I'm saying anything too radical. We give the police permission to use deadly force potentially, in the work of law-enforcement, and we expect a higher standard of them, as a result. What I find more disturbing than anything in these discussions is the amount of people holding the police to a lower standard, instead of a higher one. If that isn't racialized fear, and authoritarian impulses, I don't know what is.
I think of one scene before Jake's closing argument, where he's visiting Carl Lee in jail and he tells Carl Lee that he's not going to win the case. Jake starts complaining about how the jury sees Carl Lee, versus how they see him. Jake ticks off a couple of cultural and socioeconomic reasons, and then Carl Lee interrupts, saying, "Or you're white and I'm black! See, that's why I picked you, Jake. You just like them… Oh, you think you ain't, because you eat at Claude's, and you're here with me right now, but you are. What would it take to convince you to let me off? That's how you save my ass."
(Jake instructs the jury to close their eyes, while he describes the crime in vivid detail, and then he says, "I want you to imagine this little girl… And now imagine she's white.")
The racism in the film is not at all subtle, because the story is set in Mississippi. That gives white liberals and semi-liberals cover to think that things aren't so bad in the north, on the glorious victors' side of the Civil War. But recent events have disabused us of that notion, haven't they?
I think the fact that Jake wins the case with that closing argument--whether or not it would work in real life--illustrates to me that George Floyd and so many others would mean more to some of us if they were white. In the fictional story, the brutal rape and attempted murder of little Tonya didn't actually matter to most of the whites in the story, and the whites on the jury, until she was imagined as white.
Maybe this daily more obvious pattern which emerges of police brutality (and white vigilantism) is not pressing to us, because they're not people to us. We don't see them as people we know, and love. They're not really our friends and neighbors. And in the grip of an ideology, we have reason to dismiss especially the white activists who shout, "black lives matter!," because "progressive" has meant to us, "make stuff up to fit a narrative".
I definitely have felt defensive in response to some activism for black lives, especially before this. I guess I kind of thought that if a substantial number of police officers were racist--or at least abused their power--to some significant degree, that I would be some sort of advocate for anarchy, or moral relativism. The thing is, I don't know any absolute moral code that says you have to choke a man to death while he's completely defenseless, and pleading for his life. I'm no lawyer either, but forgery is not a violent felony. There was absolutely zero reason to use any physical force at all, much less to use sustained deadly force, while disregarding basic human cries for help. As I said the other day, people aren't supposed to die in the custody of the police. There is no reason to physically harm a suspect of any crime, unless the officers are attempting to prevent a violent crime against an innocent party. The reason we have police and juries and lawyers is precisely because we are a nation of laws, not a fearful rage mob. If some substantial portion of us whites are afraid of black men--simply in the normal course of living--the problem is us, not them. (Though not only men have been treated this way.)
Frankly, I don't think I'm saying anything too radical. We give the police permission to use deadly force potentially, in the work of law-enforcement, and we expect a higher standard of them, as a result. What I find more disturbing than anything in these discussions is the amount of people holding the police to a lower standard, instead of a higher one. If that isn't racialized fear, and authoritarian impulses, I don't know what is.
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