In this powerful and personal talk, human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson talks about the justice system in the USA. The US has now the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with 2.3 million people in jail (that’s around the same population as the country Qatar). One out of three black men between the age of 18-30 in the US has been in prison at one point in their lives [1]. In cities such as Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington the numbers are even more devastating, where up to 50-60% of all young men of colour are either in jail or prison or on parole or probation. All this is happening with a background of slavery and segregation that have systemically affected the black community, but this is rarely re-examined or talked about.
Bryan Stevenson, through the Equal Justice Initiative has been fighting for the rights of the marginalised in the US, many of which have been disadvantaged because of their poverty or race. He believes that when it comes to poverty, the opposite of poverty is not wealth, the opposite of poverty is justice. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill and aiding children prosecuted as adults. EJI has recently succeeded in winning a ban on life imprisonment without parole sentences imposed on children convicted of most crimes in the U.S. and has initiated major new anti-poverty and anti-discrimination efforts [2].
the opposite of poverty is not wealth, the opposite of poverty is justice
Bryan Stevenson believes that slavery did not end in 1865, instead he believes that it simply evolved. It can be seen especially in the racial profiling of presuming guilt and dangerousness assigned especially at African American.
So why do we need to care?
I am not an American citizen, nor am I black, but I care deeply about the issues of the black community in the US. The reason is because I see the ripples of influence of what is happening there everywhere else in the world. One of the most recent issues that stem out of this American situation is Hollywood White Washing, this might sound like a minor issue compared to the mass incarceration mentioned above, but it is still real. Like it or not Hollywood’s mega budget productions are the barometer of entertainments for the whole world, and it has consistently under represented every other race.
“The Hollywood assumption is that all viewers, whatever their racial identification, should be able to identify with white characters, but the reverse is seldom true. Even today many white viewers choose not to see films starring non-white actors or films set in minority ethnic environments, allegedly because they feel they cannot identify with the characters. Because of that fact, Hollywood tends to spend more money on white stars in white movies, and far less money on non-white actors in overtly racial or ethnic properties. The very structure of classical Hollywood narrative form encourages all spectators, regardless of their actual colour, to identify with white protagonists.” said professors Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin say in their book America on Film.
This then ripples into the racial profiling of assumed guilt and dangerousness we see around the world for people of colour, because we rarely see protagonist in movies portrayed by people of colour. Prejudice is therefore propagated strongly by this environment of White Washing both in the entertainment industry and in the media.
ultimately, our humanity depends on everyone’s humanity
As Bryan Stevenson said in his talk, “ultimately, our humanity depends on everyone’s humanity”, which resounds well with what Martin Luther King said decades ago, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. For that reason this issue matters, because Racism is real, and we need to start acknowledging it.