The (dis)course of America

What? Identity. Why is it so important to us? Well, for most people identity is your name, race, gender, your culture, who you think you are, and most of the time who others perceive you to be. I know that I am more than just one component of a being, but the rest of the world only gets to see the parts that I allow it to see. As a free human being that has no incriminating records on me I can have a say in what I choose to share and what I choose to keep a secret, but over 2.3 million people in the United States do not hold this privilege. In the U.S., there are 2.3 million people that have been incarcerated, and from the first day they were put in handcuffs their public image had been impacted forever. The identity of criminal is a hard burden to carry, because of all the stigma and discourse surrounding the word “criminal”. We see criminals as dangerous people. Even Bryan Stevenson was scared about his first meeting with a convicted felon. “When [he] had learned that [he] would be visiting [a] prisoner alone, with no lawyer… [he] tried to not let [his] panic show” (pg. 3). A criminal record follows a person everywhere. When they are applying for a job they must say whether they have been in trouble with the law, even if it is a minor offense. It’s not like they can lie, because it is on record, and someone will eventually find out. And the negative connotation that comes with being a criminal deters people from wanting anything to do with them. “… there [is] something missing in the way we treat people in our judicial, that maybe we judge some people unfairly” (pg. 13). We judge only based on what we know, and all we usually know about a convicted felon is that they are simply just that. We don’t know their background, because we don’t take the time to care. It’s not our problem. But Bryan Stevenson believes it is.

So what? If people only looked at Bryan Stevenson’s credentials, then they would see that he is a highly educated man and a practicing lawyer. If that was the only thing people looked at then he would probably be a well-respected man in the South. Unfortunately, that is not the only thing that people look at. One of the first things people would notice is the color of his skin, and the second thing people would notice is that he is man. He is a black American male. The identity of being a black male in America perhaps carries more danger to it than the identity of being a criminal. We have all heard the stories that have been in the news over the past few years of the shootings of multiple black males being shot by law enforcement for no real apparent reason. The only reason we can come to is that these men were shot, because they were black. The U.S. and especially the South have given not just blacks, but any person of color this negative stigma. There is a notion in most of the country that “white is right”. With this attitude, it becomes dangerous for anyone of color to exist in the United States. Bryan Stevenson is put in an interesting position. He is a lawyer. That title holds a lot of respect, and for the people he is representing, that title is a symbol of hope; hope that one day they will be set free from their prison confines. On the contrary, his racial identity and the location of what he calls home puts him at a disposition. The South is generalized as racist, and so Bryan is probably not very respected by the people surrounding him. He wrote about a time where he was just sitting in his car listening to music, and then he found himself being laid out on the hood of his car while a cop searched his car without a warrant or his consent. As a lawyer Bryan knew this was illegal, but he also knew that no matter what his skin color had him at a disadvantage. It is crazy to think that a man who probably knew more of the ins and outs of the law than the two cops he mentioned chose not to stand up to them just because he was black and that gave him no chance. He had to put up with being mistreated. How is it right that we allow people to put up with being mistreated? “The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned” (pg. 18).

Now what? The constraints that Stevenson and all Black male Americans face is the bigotry that still plagues the U.S. There are so many people that are so set in their ways of racism. It is hard to change someone’s mind once their mind has been made up. Stevenson has the ability as a free man to try and make change and to turn the discourse about Black America into a positive topic. For the incarcerated their reach is very constrained. The best they can do is to help the young men and women that come in, and to show them that life in prison is not the life they are meant to live.

At Ritter House the constraints that the people it serves face is the discourse that is attached to the social status of the term “little to no income”. People either take pity on the homeless or see them as pests that infest our streets. For those living on a very low or fixed income, they seem to be forgotten about. We see that they have enough to barely get by, but we don’t take the time to understand their situation. We have become apathetic to these people. Sometimes, I don’t even think we see them as people. We push them aside, because we feel like they contribute little to nothing to society. Some of these people are veterans that fought for the country we take pride in. Yet we have pushed them aside, because it has simply become too much of nuisance to care. To redefine discourse in America and in the world, we need to break the American norm of selfishness. We need to see more than what we have been told to look at. Look past the censorship and the socially acceptable. Break the stigma. Change the (dis)course of America.