It’s Time to Change the Narrative

What?

After reading Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, listening to the Fresh Air Interview with Bryan Stevenson, and watching the school to prison pipeline video, I feel that I have a better understanding of how the history of racial violence in this country can’t be separated from the current issue of mass incarceration. I’d like to start off by looking at one of Bryan Stevenson’s main points of the book, Just Mercy. He stated that “This book is about getting closer to mass incarceration and extreme punishment in America. It is about how easily we condemn people in this country and the interest that we create when we allow fear, anger, and distance to shape the way we treat the most vulnerable among us” (Just Mercy, 14). He offers shocking statistics, that really opened my mind to a huge issue that we have in this country- mass incarceration! In December 1983, he said that “America was in the early stages of radical transformation that would turn us into an unprecedentedly harsh and punitive nation and result in mass imprisonment that has no historical parallel” (Just Mercy, 15). And consequently, today we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world, this is so crazy! In the 1970s the prison population was at nearly “300,000 people and today it’s at 2.3 million people” (Just Mercy, 15). As I continued to read more statistics such as “one in every 15 people born in the United States in 2001 is expected to go to jail or prison; one in every three black male babies born in this century is expected to be incarcerated,” I really started to see the connection between incarceration and race (Just Mercy, 15).

But where does this all begin? I believe that it begins in school, and I think that the short school-to-prison-pipeline video did a great job of showing just how this is a structural issue that needs to be addressed on a much larger scale. I must admit that prior to this class and watching videos and doing extensive readings, I had no idea what the school-to-prison-pipeline was exactly. I had heard about it before but was not educated about what it was and who it really affected. Now, I know that the school to prison pipeline is “shorthand for how schools are funneling students, especially black students, into the criminal justice system” (Video). It all started back in the 1900s when schools responded to fears about crime with zero tolerance. This approach mandated suspension for certain things and encouraged teachers to get stricter about small things, such as uniform violations and talking back. This led to getting more police officers in school, which was totally uncalled for, in my opinion. The police officers were much more prevalent in schools where the majority of the student population was black. It was the black students that were suspended or expelled 3X more frequently than the white students. It seems as though the system is against them from the very beginning, and establishes itself early on as a superior power. “For years, we’ve been the only country in the world that condemns children to life in prison without parole; nearly 3000 juveniles have been sentenced to die in prison” (Just Mercy, 15). This is honestly something I cannot wrap my head around, how is it possible that in this country we imprison children and sentence them to life without parole?

Not only do we imprison children in this country, but we also imprison innocent people, with no evidence of the “crimes” that they have committed. According to Stevenson, there is a “presumption of guilt, poverty, racial bias, and a host of other social, structural, and political dynamics have created a system that is defined by error, a system in which thousands of innocent people now suffer in prison” (Just Mercy, 16). Not only do I agree with this statement, but I can also attest to this. I have had very close relatives of mine incarcerated with the presumption of guilt and racial bias, and I know that they were falsely accused. This is such a difficult topic to discuss because I can relate to it so much, but I am also starting to see that there is so much power in bringing these feelings of frustration and anger to light. I have also started to see incarceration from a business- money-making point of view. As Stevenson mentioned, we are spending a lot of money to maintain and uphold prisons. “Spending on jails and prisons by state and federal government has raised from 6.9 billion in 1980 to nearly 80 billion today. Private prison builders and prison service companies have spent millions of dollars to persuade state and local governments to create new crimes, impose harsher sentences, and keep more people locked up so that they can earn more profits” (Just Mercy, 16). This makes so much sense when viewed from this perspective, and it feels so wrong that in this country we focus on making money by dehumanizing people and keeping them in cells for the rest of their lives.

In the Fresh Air interview with Bryan Stevenson, I think that one of the central topics addressed is the idea of racial injustice and violence; and the narratives and policies regarding immigrants. To start off, Stevenson said, “I think we’re once again in an era where the politics of fear and anger are shaping how our institutions respond.” He thinks that the courts have changed, but in a way that has become more hostile to people who are disfavored. And according to him, “It was that narrative of racial difference that got us comfortable with two and a half centuries of slavery. It was this idea that black people aren’t as good as white people and that black people aren’t fully human.” It is this narrative, or way of thinking, that has created an ideology of white supremacy in this country, as we discussed in class last week. It is this narrative that we need to focus on changing but how exactly do we do that? One argument that Stevenson made was through the work being done in his museums and memorial buildings. His goal was to “create connections to the past and the present so we understand how certain injustices of the present are kind of logical outcomes of the past.” This makes sense to me because, in order to move forward, we have to remember what happened in the past, address it, and prevent it from happening again. He specifically focuses on lynching, and how it affected his people. It was so heartbreaking to hear him speak about why people were lynched… “so many people were lynched just because they wanted to be free.” Black people were lynched because they talked about freedom, or perhaps because sometimes they didn’t call a white man “sir.” This absolutely infuriates me. But what can we do about it now? The answer is- educate people about it and don’t pretend like it didn’t happen. It is necessary to bring up the dark parts of the past in order to understand the struggles that people face and the burdens that they carry in life. In the past, we have created narratives that make it seem like lynching and slavery weren’t prevalent at some point in history. And Stevenson believes that “that’s why today when we have evidence of bias and discrimination, there’s no responsiveness to it that there needs to be. Until we reckon with history, we’re not going to get free.” So we need to create a new narrative and view all people as equal, in order for us to all be free.

* Source for all the quotes in this section: Fresh Air Interview with Bryan Stevenson.
All quotes were direct quotes from Bryan Stevenson.

So what?

Stevenson attempts to redefine what it means to be a person of color in America and the extent to which people are constrained in their capacity when he talks about his professional life as a lawyer. He stated that “I go places where I’m presumed dangerous and guilty. I went into a court not too long ago, right after I’d argued a case at the Supreme Court. I had my suit and tie on, I was sitting at the defense counsel’s table. The judge walked in. And he saw me sitting there, and said, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. You get back out there in the hallway. You wait until your lawyer gets here.” Embarrassed and apologetically, Stevenson stood up and said, “My name is Bryan Stevenson. I am the lawyer.” This awkward situation was laughed off, but it really wasn’t funny. Why did the judge automatically assume that the black man- Stevenson- was the criminal in this particular case? Simply because of the color of his skin?! This is so insensitive and wrong on so many levels, and it ties back to the narrative of racial differences that have been created about black people. Stevenson expressed his frustration about always having to explain himself, and how exhausting and draining it was to constantly have to explain his social identities. He affirmed that his people have been burdened for too long to stay silent a second longer. All he wanted was “a world where no black person has to be presumed dangerous and guilty, a world where my children and grandchildren and nephews and nieces are not having to navigate all of the obstacles that I’ve had to navigate. But we cannot get there if we’re unwilling to have enough hope, enough belief, enough faith that if we tell the truth, we can get to something that looks like justice.” This idea of the truth is very powerful and means something quite different to everyone. For example, if you were to ask a slave owner the truth about the lives that black people lived under his power, it would be very different than what the slaves themselves would say. I think that Stevenson’s point here is to give black people the freedom to speak their truth. They need to have the freedom to let everything out and let the world know how they feel, and how the history of their people will always be a part of them. It is only when we come together and talk about the horrible things that have happened in the past that we can dig deeper into why those things happened, apologize for the wrong things we have done, and move forward.

Now what?

I strongly agree with Stevenson’s ideas about a much needed “era of truth and justice in this country. I think there’s something better waiting for us that we can’t get to until we have the courage to talk honestly about our past. And there’s very little evidence that we have done that in the United States.” I think that this ties directly to my service learning community partner site because it is a space where they teach history, not from the winning perspective (the patriotic American point of view), but rather from the perspective of the marginalized people, and the teachers encourage the students to talk about how certain past events make them feel. In addition to this, each classroom is named after a different social activist leader, which I thought was very motivating and cool. Although I want to dive deeper into the lives of the students and the struggles that they are facing, I never want to make them feel uncomfortable or like I am there to interrogate them, but I want them to know that I am willing to be much more than just their tutor.

Lastly, I’d like to connect my service-learning experience with a quote that came from Stevenson’s grandmother which says “You can’t understand most of the important things from a distance. You have to get close” (Just Mercy, 14). I think that in order for me to understand the structural issues in the educational system specifically, I need to be exposed to the community and see how students are being educated. I need to see what kids are coming into NGS for extra academic support, why they are needing it, and why are they don’t have access to academic and counseling resources through their schools? I’d also like to add a little bit of detail from my volunteer experience this week. As stated in my GivePulse reflection, I was pleasantly surprised by how comfortable and open one particular student felt with me today. This student is currently a sophomore in high school and he vented to me about wanting to pursue a career in teaching but also realizing that in order for him to have a “more luxurious lifestyle” and to be able to support himself, he would have to pick another job, such as an engineer (this is what he mentioned). I encouraged him to do whatever he enjoyed the most and that everything else would fall into place for him later on. He confided in me that he had absolutely no money to go to college, so if he wanted to go to college he would have to get full scholarships or else it wouldn’t be possible. I told him that this was one of the great things about NGS- the connections that this organization has with colleges and the scholarship opportunities that are available through this program. To be completely honest, I was actually a little shocked at how comfortable this student felt with me, but it also made me really happy because he was open to sharing about his life. Lastly, he told me that he had so much homework due this week and was struggling to get it all finished because he had to help his roommates pack up all their belongings so that they could move to a different house. I asked why he was moving, and he told me it was because the rent was too expensive for him and his roommates. He made no mention of any parents, so I did not want to bring up a potentially sensitive topic. But I was observant and noticed that he changed the subject rather quickly after I started to ask about his roommates. I could clearly see that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so of course, I respected him, but I can’t help but still wonder what this student’s living condition is like? Does he have to pay rent also? Is this student working and going to school at the same time? Does this student have family members to support him? Are his teachers aware of all the things that he has on his plate? This was such a powerful moment and connection that triggered so many questions and realizations for me, that I decided to include this interaction in my critical reflection as well.