Finding Mercy in Ted Mann
Three years ago, I found myself wandering aimlessly around my high school’s library, searching through a sea of dusty shelves for something to save me from the doldrums of sophomore year. When I picked up human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy by virtue of its auspicious location (on display) and commanding title, I expected nothing more than an informational read about America’s inequalities or an interesting tale about legal redemption. What I received, however, was a window into the earth-shattering, heart-wrenching, reality of the Americans — disproportionately black, children, or both— who were caught in the cracks of our justice system. I received a cause.
Three years later, I’m sitting high in the audience of Ted Mann, staring down at an empty stage with a picture of Bryan Stevenson accompanied by the words “Can one person make a difference?” projected atop it. Around me, people chat amicably about one thing or another (I can’t believe this event is free! I hate Minnesota winters too. No — she broke up with him.) as I stare straight ahead, waiting for the man who unwittingly shaped my future to appear onstage. Just as the surrounding conversations reach a crescendo, the lights dim, and everything seems to come to a standstill. An immaculately dressed man strolls onstage, and we erupt into applause.
Bryan Stevenson, in speech as in life, is a man who wastes no time. “During my career,” he begins without a trace of grandeur, “I have won 158 reversals, releases or acquittals, for death row inmates.” We cheer at this, and he offers a knowing smile before continuing, “Did you know that one in three black male babies are expected to go to jail at some point in their lives.” The smile is gone, the crowd has fallen silent. “According to the Bureau of Justice, one in three black male babies are expected to go to jail at some point in their lives,” he repeats with mounting intensity. “For Latinos, that number is one in six. America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, and yet I believe that we can create equality in ways we haven’t seen before.” And thus began an hour and thirty minutes of what can only be described as a lesson in devastation and hope.
Stevenson’s speech was aimed directly at the individual, crafted to hold every single member of the audience accountable for both the present inequalities and the responsibility to amend them. In order to embark on this quest to “change the world”, Stevenson prescribed four essential steps:
First, he recommended that we get and remain proximate to the people and places that are suffering. Only through this perspective, he maintained, can a distant injustice be understood and transformed into a concrete cause with an attainable solution. “I found compassion and humanity and redemption on death row,” explained Stevenson to a sea of nodding heads.
The next step he discussed was to change the narratives surrounding the problems we wanted to solve, as the concept of white supremacy, of black inferiority all fuel the apathy surrounding the issues that plague black and other minority communities. Framing race as an issue of the past allows America to ignore the current and future implications that racism, prejudice, and discrimination pose, he explained. “I’m not talking about our history because I want to punish America,” maintained Stevenson, “I’m talking about our history because I want to liberate it.”
Stevenson’s third step was to be comfortable with getting uncomfortable. He reminded the audience that in order to achieve new victories, we would have to both blaze new trails and traverse older, wearisome ones. The path to justice is riddled with obstacle after obstacle and detractor after detractor, explained Stevenson, and it rarely overlaps with personal notions of comfort.
And finally, after an hour and thirty minutes of wading through the mess of our criminal justice system, after detailing injustice after injustice, he reminded us, above all, to remain hopeful.
Not once during this period did Stevenson break eye contact with the audience or interrupt his speech with an “um”. His voice rose and fell with a conviction that characterized every word. At times, it felt sermonic, a service that would’ve left even the most faithless individual believing in something. At times, it seemed almost elegiac. On multiple occasions, I was moved to tears (the surrounding sniffles confirmed that my emotions weren’t just a result of my chronic propensity to cry at anything remotely sad). And by the end, I was left uplifted, stunned, devastated, deeply moved, and above all, reflective of my own life — how living in a suburban bubble for 17 years often allowed apathy to seep into my daily life, how I’d often accepted the dominant narrative at the price of silencing my own, how the desire for comfort, for stability, for self-preservation, inhibited action and left complacency, how bleak the future always appeared, how the phrase “it won’t make a difference” pervaded my dreams with a hostile, false reality.
When the last words of his speech finished echoing off the walls of Ted Mann, a stunned silence settled over the hall. No one breathed, no one moved. And then, in one swift movement, the entire audience rose to their feet, breaking into thunderous applause. Bryan Stevenson dealt in Just Mercy, indeed.
