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As a space for democratic deliberation and decision-making, the jury box still has the potential to shift the criminal legal system. But, first, we must change who is able to serve on a jury.

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Did you, or someone close to you, participate in any of the demonstrations or marches against police brutality that took place in Minneapolis after George Floyds death?. . . If you participated, did you carry a sign? What did it say?

These questions were part of the questionnaire given to those summoned to serve as jurors in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd. Provided that judges and attorneys are willing to take these questions up, they could hold the key for beginning more nuanced conversations about race and the criminal legal system.

The legitimacy of the criminal legal system is in tatters, and rightfully so. The best path forward may be changing who is able to serve on a jury.

As is well known, the jury selection process is one of the most consequential and contentious phases of the criminal trial. Attorneys from both sides attempt to empanel a jury sympathetic to their side and, thus, more likely to decide in their interest. However, the battle is just as much a defensive one as it is an offensive one: attorneys can exercise considerable discretion in rooting out jurors who might be disinclined to decide in their favor for reasons of personal prejudice or distrust of law enforcement. Jury consultants, who specialize in this process, represent a multi-million-dollar-a-year cottage industry.

One of the key tools in these consultants arsenals is the questionnaire. It is used to gauge biases and predispositions in a more candid way than is possible during voir dire, the questioning process conducted by judges and attorneys in the courtroom, usually in front of the other jurors. The recently released questionnaire for the Chauvin trial represents a notable development in the jury selection process, and also an opportunity. It suggests an evolution in the way that the court perceives supporters of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and a possibility for incorporating jurors who can bring knowledge of systemic racism into the legal system. These changes will not come easilyjury selection is compromised by some of the same structural forces of racism that led to the killings that necessitated BLM in the first place. Black jurors are less likely to be called for jury duty, less likely to be seen as qualified jurors, and more likely than their white peers to be dismissed. The legitimacy of the criminal legal system is in tatters, and rightfully so. The best path forward may be changing who is able to serve on a jury through a contextual understanding of impartialitythat is, shifting our notion of what an impartial juror should mean in a historically unequal criminal legal system.

The questions posed to the Chauvin jury suggest that the norm of dismissing jurors who are critical of patterns of racism and police brutality might be shifting. Yet this can only be the case if judges and attorneys change their understanding of BLM, shifting their view that supporting BLM is an extreme position at odds with the responsibilities of being a juror. This view was put on display most recently in the case of Crishala Reed.

Crishala Reed's jury dismissal represented a check on her ability to participate in democratic life. Sure, she could vote, but the state did not trust her to help decide the fate of another person.

When Crishala Reed (then known as Juror 725) was called for jury duty in Contra Costa County in California in 2016, she was ready to serve. She was given a questionnaire, in which she stated that she was in support of BLM. Attorneys took the issue up, asking her if she agreed with the destruction of property (though the three defendants were charged with murder). She said she did not. Reed remained in the pool after questioning, but the prosecution used one of their peremptory strikes to dismiss her. They later defended her dismissal by saying that BLM was a fringe organization that condoned the destruction of property, thus making it impossible for her to apply the law as a juror. They also claimed that their dismissal was not racially motivatedthey would have dismissed a white juror who expressed the same views.

Reeds dismissal was not only a loss for the three Black defendants, but also a personal insult to Reedthe court effectively told her that she was not qualified to participate in the process of deciding justice because she supported BLM. She told the Marshall Project, I felt targeted. It was a life-changing experience for me, personally. And I still talk about it to this day. I tell my kids about it. Not to scare them but to make them aware. Her dismissal represented a check on her ability to participate in democratic life. Sure, she could vote, but the state did not trust her to help decide the fate of another person, supposedly solely because of her affiliation with BLM.

In an amicus brief filed at the California Court of Appeals, lawyers from the MacArthur Justice Center, the ACLU, and other civil rights organizations argued that Reeds dismissal was in violation of the Constitution. They contended that her support for BLM could be considered a proxy for race, given that many more Black people than jurors of other races supported the movement at that time. Consistent with the precedent set in Batson v. Kentucky (1986) and affirmed in Flowers v. Mississippi (2019), it is unconstitutional to dismiss jurors on the basis of race. While the authors of the amicus brief framed their argument in racial terms to form the basis for a successful appeal, this angle ignores a critical issue: beyond race, there is value in including BLM supporters on juriesmore broadly, there is value in including jurors who are critical of the criminal legal system and aware of its too often unequal and racist applications.

A potential juror mentioning the documented unequal pattern of racial violence at the hands of police should not automatically lead to their dismissal.

After the summer of 2020, BLM can no longer be considered a fringe organizationa large and diverse group of people supports the movement. A Pew Research poll taken in September 2020 found that 55 percent of Americans supported the movement, including 16 percent of white people who considered themselves Republicans or Republican leaning. Protests occurred in all fifty states after the death of George Floyd, and the issue of police violence against Black citizens has been chronicled and supported in a variety of ways around the globe. A potential juror mentioning the documented unequal pattern of racial violence at the hands of police should not automatically lead to their dismissal. Rather, it should be understood as affirmation of just the type of civic awareness and attention to law that jurors should have.

The founders instituted a jury system for criminal cases not only to check the tyrannical power of the state in prosecuting political enemies, but also to ensure that democratically sanctioned laws were enforced fairly. Today, as then, this is a mandate that requires lived experiences with law enforcement in particular communities. As countless civilian review board decisions have shown, it is impossible for law enforcement to monitor themselves, just as it is for representatives of law enforcement to determine what constitutes entrapmentthey are too enmeshed in the process and invested in guilty verdicts.

For this reason a distinctive part of the jury systems function is to bring in knowledge of the way laws are enforced in the lives of ordinary people. But this role is being undermined by what legal scholar Rachel Barkow calls the rise of the administrative state. In the administrative state, courts, instead of encouraging debate over different values and interpretations of justice, increasingly enforce regulatory decisions. Juries are the antithesis of this bureaucratic and regulatory vision of lawthe variability of having twelve randomly selected people decide a case is the jurys virtue as well as its shortcoming. Jury decisions are neither predictable nor consistent, but they are a laboratory for democratic deliberation. The jury should serve as a place where different communities reckon with what the guidelines for law enforcement should be. This means including individuals who understand the patterns of racism that BLM has brought to light.

It is time to shift our collective understanding of who constitutes an impartial juror. In realityjurors should hold the prosecution to a high standard and presume the defendant innocent.

It is time to shift our collective understanding of who constitutes an impartial juror. The concept of impartiality is notoriously difficult to define, in part because it implies that a juror must be equally fair to the prosecution and defense, when in reality their task is to hold the prosecution to a high standard and presume innocence on the part of the defendant. Impartiality is also difficult to understand because it contradicts everything we know about human nature. Past experiences, political ideologies, and cultural priming shape how we understand eventsno one can be truly impartial when asked to judge acts of intense violence and emotion.

In its distilled form, however, the Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury can be understood as the defendants right to jurors who have not already determined guilt. Just as attorneys and judges can ask questions to determine a jurors qualification, it is also significant that jurors understand the safeguards of the trial system for the defendant. It is here, between the poles of BLM and the constitutional ideals of the trial, that a new way of thinking about justice will emerge.

The questionnaire sent to potential jurors in the Chauvin case included questions pertaining to these safeguards, for example: Under our system of justice, the prosecution has the burden of proving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Would you have any difficulty following this principle of law? While the statement may seem to dissuade jurors from convicting Chauvin, it is a critical aspect of the process that jurors cannot ignore. Of course a juror who supports BLM will not automatically find every member of law enforcement guilty; it is worth being explicit about this during voir dire and in broader discussions of the scope of the movement. A juror takes on a highly particular role, distinct from that of an activist, protester, Twitter agitator, or bystander. Serving on a jury requires interrogating ones own biases, being open to the evidence presented, and understanding the jurys role as a check on state power.

Better questions from the court during voir dire are certainly necessary, but so are opportunities for different answers from potential jurors.

In the past defense attorneys have been disappointed that vocalizing support for BLM also occasioned a refusal on the part of a potential juror to acknowledge the responsibilities of serving on a jury, including openness to a consideration of the evidence. As the movement expands, there is an opportunity to articulate an ideological space for potential jurors to support BLM and critique the racialized patterns of law enforcement, while simultaneously remaining committed to the expectations of the trial and the protections for the defendant. Better questions from the court during voir dire are certainly necessary, but so are opportunities for different answers from potential jurors. The set of questions about BLM coupled with the more common questions about the trial process in the questionnaire for the Chauvin case are importantthey demonstrate the need for a prolonged conversation about justice that holds the ideals of the law and the flawed reality of their application in delicate balance. Indeed, as these questions show, one does not need to maintain complete faith in the legitimacy of the criminal legal system to be a competent juror. In fact many judges and lawyers do not, electing to work in the system for that very reason.

A change in our understanding of impartiality may also have implications for grand jury trials in police brutality. The recent grand jury decisions declining to indict officers in Rochester and Cleveland reveal that the recent nationwide protests after the death of George Floyd will not change how police brutality cases are adjudicated. Even in situations where the prosecutor does want to go forward with the charge, the formulation of the lawwith its emphasis on the officers subjective interpretation of threatfavors the officer. A change in an understanding of impartiality might lead jurors to show less deference to an officers subjective experiences of threat based on race, owing to jurors own lived experiences and understandings of how systemic bias might impact the events in question.

A juror in the trial of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin said that the jurors did not consider race at all during their deliberations, revealing what may have been seen as the epitome of impartiality then but has a different resonance today. In 2014 ignoring race was arguably the ideal when considering the stand your ground law in Florida. Today, however, understanding how racism persists despite racially neutral laws and purported claims to fairness is crucial to legal judgment. We are now painfully aware of how police target Black people in a way fatally different from the treatment they afford their white counterparts. In this climate we want jurors to be aware of race and the role that it plays in the legal system. Legal scholar Cynthia Lee has found that presenting jurors with race-switching jury instructions, where they consider how their thinking might change if the victim were another race, is one example of how we can uncover bias and aid deliberation.

Jury decisions are neither predictable nor consistent, but they are a laboratory for democratic deliberation. Here, we want jurors to be aware of race and the role that it plays in the legal system.

Judges may now be more inclined to include jurors who recognize the tension between acknowledging racism in the legal system and adhering to the systems ideals of protections for the defendant. Indeed, judges are being asked to do the same thing. Recognizing bias is currently a pressing issue for judges, who are having to confront evidence of their own implicit biases despite their professional obligations to combat partiality. For example, federal district judge Mark W. Bennett recently took the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT), one of the most well-known psychological experiments for identifying implicit bias. He reports finding the experience deeply unnerving, stating, I knew I would pass with flying colors. I didnt. Judge Bennett, however, used this knowledge of his own biases for goodhe advocated for an end to peremptory strikes (which are often the result of implicit biases), as well as training for attorneys and jurors about the ubiquity of these biases and what might be done in the decision-making process to offset their effects. Unfortunately, his suggestions have not yet been widely implemented.

While there are many reasons for BLM supporters to experience legal estrangement, a sense of detachment, and skepticism toward legal institutions and their capacity to achieve justice, serving on a jury may cultivate a different aspect of legal consciousness. As the most democratic institution in the legal system, it is the only one that respects the capacity of laypeople to make difficult decisions about punishment and forgiveness and respects those decisions as final, an ideal that is important to preserve even if many other aspects of the legal system are overhauled in the service of racial equity and a turn away from retributive punishment.

In 2014, after the grand jury in St. Louis declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown, local organizers and community members led by a group called the International Peoples Democratic Uhuru Movement in Ferguson convened The Black Peoples Grand Jury (BPGJ). The BPGJ examined the evidence and witness statements from the case in a mock version of the formal process. A small number of community members were also asked to recall their experiences with the Ferguson police, supplementing the testimony of Dorian Johnson, Michael Browns friend who was him at the time of his death. The leaders of the Uhuru Movement, which is grounded in the ideals of African internationalism and the need for the self-governance of Black communities, saw a chance for the BPGJ to manifest these aspirations. The formal grand jury was, from the Uhuru Movements perspective, skewed by racist language meant to influence jurorssuch as Darren Wilson stating that when he placed a hand on Browns arm he felt like a five-year-old trying to hold onto the Incredible Hulk. But the concept of a deliberative body convened to adjudicate decisions about guilt and punishment remained an aspiration to the community. The BPGJ reflects that, even in light of community disappointment and deep skepticism about the legal system, community members still want to participate in a meaningful legal process and help change the way that future crimes are understood.

The concept of a deliberative body convened to adjudicate decisions about guilt and punishment remains an aspiration, even to communities harmed by and critical of the criminal legal system.

Even though the BPGJs 11-1 jury decision to indict could not be enforced, going through the process of the trial was a critical part of the local reckoning that happened in the aftermath of violence. It engaged community members while gathering information in a central location, akin to a rudimentary truth commission. While the law is fundamentally linked to racist practices in this country, the idea that there could be fair procedures and democratic participation in the most important decisions of punishment lives on.

Indeed, procedural justice refers to perceptions of fairness in all the processes associated with the legal system. To cooperate with the system, citizens want reassurance that defendants will be treated fairly and able to access all the protections to which they are entitled. Innumerable studies have shown that people have an easier time accepting a decision that is not in their favor if they feel they were treated fairly in the process. Revitalizing the jury as a critical node of procedural justice through changing the way Black jurors and jurors who support BLM are included could open a path to civic trust.

For many people serving on a jury is the most demanding form of civic participation that they will engage in. It also reflects an ambitious version of enfranchisement where citizens have the capacity to determine the course of justice. In an era where consensus about shared facts is hard to come by, the jury process demands that an individual set aside preconceived notions and do their best to listen and contribute to a verdict that all can endorse. Despite the very real ways racial discrimination has marred the jury process, it remains one of our best hopes for a democratic society that takes the participation of all people, randomly selected, as central to the administration of justice.

The jury processremains one of our best hopes for a democratic society that takes the participation of all people, randomly selected, as central to the administration of justice.

Black leaders from William F. Butler to Frederick Douglass have understood the right to be on a jury as a significant part of enfranchisement. As Butler, the Kentucky-born political leader, said in 1867, First we had the cartridge box, now we want the ballot box, and soon we will get the jury box. Just as the tens of thousands of new voters in Georgia and elsewhere were able to shape the election of 2020, we are in the middle of a period of notable legal changes that could expand the number of jurors called for service and those allowed to serve. This may even affect whether or not defendants choose to go to trialthey may opt to more frequently if they can be confident that they will have jurors who represent a fair cross section of the population, especially in racial and ethnic terms. Changing our expectations of who should be allowed to serve on a jury shows us that the march for freedom does not tarry at the ballot box, but rather proceeds forward into the heart of the justice system and to the jury box itself.

Continued here:
Derek Chauvin and the Myth of the Impartial Juror - Boston Review

By 1857, additional departments were created in New York City, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Newark, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. By the twentieth century, the country saw major changes to policing, thanks to August Vollmer, the first police chief of the Berkeley, California, police department, established in 1909. As chief, Vollmer introduced new policing policies to his department, including lie detector tests, a police records system, police training schools, and mounted officers. He also helped to militarize U.S. police departments. Years after he served in the military, Vollmer credited his time fighting in the Spanish-American War with teaching him the military tactics needed because at the end of the day, Vollmer espoused, police officers were conducting a war, a war against the enemies of society and we must never forget that. His training schools, which were implemented nationally, were centered on the coercive institutions and practices of the imperial state that create and sustain empire, which refer to colonial conquest, the violent suppression of anticolonial dissent, and counterinsurgency operations. Police adopted many of these reforms across the country.

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At the University of California, Vollmer was the head of their criminal justice program, where his students took courses in which they learned about different racial types and how hereditary and race degeneration led to criminality. These sentiments were internalized by U.S. police departments across the country, many of which have also been infiltrated by white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Between 2018 and 2019 alone, police officers shot and killed at least two thousand Americans. Black Americans are viewed by law enforcement as more suspicious than white Americans, a sentiment that emboldens nonlaw enforcement persons, like George Zimmerman, to treat Black citizens as dangerous and therefore disposable. Two-thirds of 8,000 police officers surveyed across the country view police shootings as isolated incidents that have nothing to do with larger social issues. Black and Brown communities are less likely to rate police officers highly. In 2020 alone, the list of Black women and men killed by police includes Tina Marie Davis, a fifty-three-year-old mother killed by police in Spring Valley, New York; Breonna Taylor, a twenty-six-year-old emergency medical technician shot and killed by police while she slept in her Louisville, Kentucky, home; Tony McDade, a thirty-eight-year-old Black transgender man shot and killed by police in Tallahassee, Florida; Mubarak Soulemane, nineteen, shot and killed by police in West Haven, Connecticut; Lebarron Ballard, twenty-eight, shot and killed by police in Abilene, Texas; Kanisha Necole Fuller, forty-three, shot and killed in Birmingham, Alabama; Modesto Reyes, thirty-five, shot and killed by police in Marrero, Louisiana; Malik Canty, thirty-five, shot and killed by officers in Paterson, New Jersey; and Dijon Kizzee, twenty-nine, shot and killed by police in Los Angeles, California.

Another form of police brutality is sexual assault. Chattel slavery created an economic system in which white men tortured and raped enslaved Black women and children, who were then subsequently forced to give birth to the resulting children. Policing was born out of the same anti-Black violence that allowed Americans to justifyand which continues to excusethe violence of enslavement, from slavery to prison. Police departments across the United States are equipped with resources that allow them to physically assault and restrain citizens at any given moment. Along with guns, tasers, handcuffs, and rubber bullets, law enforcement also uses sexual violence as a tool. This includes cavity searches and rape; the latter is one of the most common complaints filed against police officers. David Correia writes:

Originally posted here:
The History of Policing in the United States Is About Controlling Black Lives - Teen Vogue

Clever has been an accomplice from the start of his career in the music business. The Alabama-born recording artist has previously commented on racial equity in his music, most notably on his 2019 song "Wooden Box". As the fight intensifiesagainst anti-Black racism in the United States, many have spoken out and used their platform to promote the change they want to see in the world. Clever continues being an accomplice to the Black Lives Matter movement, releasing his new song "Skittles" with Lil Baby, which deals with themes of police brutality, anti-Black racism, and more.

"Skittles" is one of the later songs on Clever's debut album Crazy, featuring Lil Baby as the two artists speak on their own experiences with the law. In Clever's hook, he references the murder of Trayvon Martin, singing, "When they get you for the Skittles and you pull over/I don't wanna pull over anymore." Martin had taken a walk to his local corner store to buy a bag of Skittles and he was fatally shot while returning home by George Zimmerman.

In Lil Baby's verse, the Grammy-nominated artist continues his work from "The Bigger Picture", making rhymes adjacent with what he was spitting a few months ago.

Listen to "Skittles" below and let us know what you think. Read Clever's exclusive new interview with HotNewHipHop here.

Quotable Lyrics:

We don't really f*ck with them 5-0Trying to pull me over up on the side roadGot a light blade and I drive slowGot a Black man in that car with meThey treat me like it's just a drug thingIt's just another couple thug thingThrow 'em in front of the judge thing

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Clever Calls Out Cops On "Skittles" With Lil Baby - HotNewHipHop

Kyle finally went to the campus police. They searched the room and found two of the knives but not the largest one. They moved the roommate across campus. They apprised Kyle of his options. They somehow settled on the one that didnt require a police report or formal inquiry before a student-led disciplinary panel, but rather a kind of reconciliation process in which he and his roommate worked it out through talking, better understanding each other. Kyle even helped that now-former roommate move his belongings, shook his hand. Kyle would find out only after I began asking questions to college officials that the roommate was still denying calling him n----- even after that supposed reconciliation.

I was angry that all of that had happened before my wife or I were told a thing. We didnt have the opportunity to guide Kyle through a situation more complex than he understood. I was angry that I wasnt there to kick his roommates teeth in, angry that I was angry Kyle hadnt kicked his roommates teeth in, angry that I had allowed Kyle to see my anger. I was angry that he wasnt safe at a school where we thought he would be.Mine was a conflicted anger. Kyle had thought things through and acted in accordance with the way he had heard me preach a thousand times. To see the full, complex human being, no matter the circumstances. To not allow fear or anger turn into bloodlust or bitterness. To be steadfast even when others would be hotheaded and irrational.

But I was still angry. Because I understand that Kyles reactionto move on, to adjust, to try to forgetis what weve been doing as a Black family in Trumpland for the past four years. And before that, as a Black family during the Barack Obama administration, when our white neighbors worst racist impulses leaked to the surface.

As President Joe Bidens administration works to reverse the damage done by a presidency that stoked division and hate, and as Americans all continue to heal from the January 6 Capitol riot, the whole country is about to go through a version of what Black people in Trumpland have been going through for years. The Justice Department is straining under the weight of the 250-and-climbing cases it is pursuing, but how many of those people there will face no legal sanctions at all? Many will return to their hometowns as teachers and pastors and clerks of courts. A few have returned to my county to more cheers than criticism. Many, many more still support what happened, openly or not. My congressman, Republican Tom Rice, is likely to be punished with a primary next year because he surprisingly voted in favor of impeachment after spending years as a hardcore Trump supporter.

What my family and meand many other Black peoplehave learned during these past 12 years is useful not just for people of color, but for all Americans after the Trump years. Weve learned that the people we once thought of as neighbors and fellow church members would throw away their principles, and the values we all thought we shared, for an ugly brand of politics. And theyd do it even while hoping to preserve a personal relationship with usand it was on us to just swallow our anger and move on.

Our lessons are especially instructive after Americans saw on January 6 just how far some of his supporters would go to ensure that Trump stayed in power, and just how little respect they had for the physical safety of people in the Capitol that day, as well as for our supposedly common project of democracy.

Many of us now understand that though some of our neighbors might be unreachable, we still have to figure out how to build a bridge back to them. We have no choice. They are still our neighbors. Enmity isnt healthy for us, no matter whos at fault.

As the country struggles with how to reach a reconciliation, a coming-together after years of division, I have a warning: It will be about as satisfying as the reconciliation my son had with his former college roommate. A fake handshake or hug; a denial that anything wrong was done anyway; and the victims sustained, head-down commitment to a shared goal of progress, even with so many open wounds and halfhearted reckonings along the way.

***

We noticed the first real changes in the wake of President Barack Obamas victory in 2008. My family and I attended a mostly white evangelical church, and the demeanor of many (but not all) members began to shift once Obama became president-elect. They began viewing me more as a Black man than they ever had before. Black as in he wont humor my racism; Black as in he gets upset and asks us to do better when we accidentally copy him on email chains that include racist memes and stereotypes. That kind of Black.

I wasnt Black in their eyes before Obama was elected, not really. Politically, I still considered myself independent enough to routinely vote for candidates of both parties, and I agreed with them that it was wrong to label the Republican Party racist. I had voted for President George W. Bush and Senator Lindsey Graham and Governor Mark Sanford, and even told one of my white friends they werent irredeemably racist if they had once used the N-word in anger. I believed in redemption then. I believe in it now.

Some of them literally told my wife and me that we werent really Black. We werent on welfare. We got married before we had kids. We had professional careers and standing in the community. Those were Black markers in their minds. It never occurred to them to reconsider, given that we were living, breathing examples that should have challenged their thinking. Though they were too comfortable with racial stereotypes even then, it felt as though they were reachable.

That changed when Obama won. I was baffled by national pundits declaring a post-racial America because a Black man was in the White House. What I saw was white neighbors, friends and colleagues clinging more passionately to their racial identity. Confederate flags, always in abundance, became even more so. It was then that I was radicalized, years before Trump declared his candidacy in 2015 with a speech in which he called Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists.

The 17-year-old Black boy Trayvon Martin was killed in late February of 2012, just as Obamas re-election campaign was beginning. By the time I had heard of the shooting and some guy named George Zimmerman in someplace called Sanford, Floridawhich is geographically in the South but has never felt like the South to memy mind had gone where it usually did when a report of a young Black man being gunned down came across my timeline. Yet another senseless tragedy, I thought, as I grieved for his parents and wanted a full, fair investigation.

I didnt want anyone to lose sight of the real issue, that George Zimmermans arent the biggest threat to young Black men. Young Black men are often killed by young Black men. When youve seen what Ive seen, live where I live, such thinking is cultivated nearly from birth. In my anguishand anger and frustration that I couldnt do more to make things betterI had bought into the cries of Black-on-Black crime, even though I knew most crime was intra-racial, not just among Black people. I watched my Black father beat my Black mother. Before that, my grandfather shot my grandmother. I watched my oldest brother be taken away to prison for committing murder. I sat in courtrooms and took the stand in the defense of my youngest brothers who had been involved in the violent drug trade and were either partially responsible for or involved in the killing of more than one young Black man. A niece lost her mother to bullets intended for my youngest brotherbullets shot from guns wielded by young Black men.

I wanted us to focus on us, to solve the problems we faced, problems that couldnt be fixed by a hyper-focus on white racism, even if that racism was a significant factor in a systemic way.

Martins death was unlikely to change my mind. Id seen too much, had been cut too deeply to be moved by one more Black death. Im ashamed to admit it, but thats where I was: a cynical soul who had lost his passion to keep fighting for racial equality. A helplessness I noticed too late had set in.

His death became bigger in my mind when a significant number of the members of that mostly white Evangelical church I was attending began siding with Zimmerman.

My experience with young Black men and violence had initially convinced me to double down on attempts to humanize everyone, to convince people that you dont have to be a monster to do something monstrous. Their lack of experience with young Black men and violence had led those white Christians to succumb to the worst racial stereotypes. They believed Zimmermans version of events because it rang true to themthat a young, Black thug was trying to kill him for no reason, leaving Zimmerman no recourse but to kill or be killed. They believed Zimmerman had reason to follow Martin and suspect him of committing crimes because crimes are disproportionately committed by young Black men.

It did not matter that all Martin had done was walk home from the store and even tried to avoid a confrontation with Zimmerman. Their belief in that version of events solidified when Obama said if he had a son, that son would look like Trayvon. To them, that meant the nations first Black presidenta man many of them despisedhad taken sides, convincing them to stand in opposition.

There is no doubt in my mind their defense of Zimmerman would have been softer or quieter if their hatred of Obama had been as well. Their racist hatred of the president turned racial matters like the killing Martin into us vs. them, and Trayvon Martin into a political football they could kick around in a culture war. It no longer mattered that I was their friend, their neighbor. The president had defended Black boys like Trayvon, so they had to defend Zimmerman.

I couldnt dissuade them, not even when I asked how they would have reacted had it been their child who was killed. Their kids would have simply answered whatever questions Zimmerman had and made it home safely, they insisted. I asked them how theyd feel if it had been Kyle instead, my Black son who had been raised in their church. Would it have been OK for someone like Zimmerman to have suspected Kyle as a criminal and confronted him that way? I asked. Of course not, they said. They loved Kyle and would grieve with me if anything happened to him. They had given Kyle a pass because they knew us. Their assurances sounded like too-sweet words designed to cover for a much greater sin.

***

I was baptized in that mostly white evangelical Christian church in Conway, South Carolina. I raised my kids there. I stayed for nearly two decades before I could no longer take what I had experienced: not a hatred, not blatant racism, but something worse.

They often invoked the name of Jesus in love, no doubt, even praying for Obama and me when I got sick late in 2013. But the name Jesus was also used to convince me and others like me that it was best to grin and bear racism, to rejoice when we were afflicted, to be calm when we encountered injustice inside the church or elsewhere, to love our neighbors, to prioritize their wants and needs and comfort more than we even loved ourselves. The Confederate flags on the pickups of fellow church members or in their homes? We shouldnt judge them, because we were to never forget that wed all fallen short of the glory of God. And in any case those flags werent about racism but a celebration of heritage that should be respected.

I knew then that though George Zimmermans werent a major threat to young Black men, those who would defend a George Zimmerman were.And then, after the election of Donald Trump, I saw something else. Not only did individual figures like George Zimmerman win the sympathy of my Trump-supporting white neighbors. People like Nick Sandmann and Kyle Rittenhouse became their mascots during the Trump years, a symbol of what united them against the rest of us. The white-conservative embrace of Nick Sandmann and Kyle Rittenhouse further radicalized me; the divide between Trump supporters and what I considered behavior still acceptable enough to maintain close relationships only grew, and I was starting to see no way to close it.

Sandmann, a high school student from Kentucky who was filmed in a much-hyped confrontation with a Native American elder while on a school trip in Washington, D.C. became a cause clbre in 2019 for conservatives who saw themselves as subject to rules written and unfairly enforced by liberals. I take part of their point that initial footage of the confrontation was taken out of context, unfairly suggesting Sandmann was a racist instigator, and that the widespread reaction before all the facts were in was ugly and unwarranted. Still, the massive swell of support from conservative writers and Fox News personalities was difficult for me to understand, too.

When the dust settled, those high school students and their families had somehow become, in my neighbors minds, the ultimate victims of racism in America. Never mind the racial disparities in the criminal legal system, public and higher education and the business world. No matter. Their plight launched a million missives and think pieces about how young white boys were being victimized by cancel culture. Sandmann was given a prominent speaking role at the 2020 Republican National Convention, a celebration of a party whose only platform seemed to be the worship of Trump. On that stage during the convention, Sandmann reveled in his realized power, willingly becoming yet another weapon for white conservative Christians to use in the culture wars.

What happened with Rittenhouse was even more telling. Rittenhouse was a baby-faced 17-year-old white kid the night he allegedly shot three people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who had been demonstrating against police brutality after the shooting of a Black man. Rittenhouse is charged with killing two of the men. He pleaded not guilty in court, and his supporters claim the killings were in self-defense. According to his supporters, Rittenhouse was a hero, a patriot doing the work law enforcement officials refused to do. Rittenhouse was reestablishing law and order the way Trump had called for.

This was Kyles life being destroyed, actor Ricky Schroeder told The New York Post. This is his freedom at risk. It infuriated me to see an innocent 17-year-old young man being tried and found guilty before trial. Schroeder was so moved he donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Rittenhouses bail and defense.

This has been the reality of America for much of the 21st century: a sense that young white people are becoming the real victims of race and racism.

Thats why I wasnt surprised by what happened January 6, and am not crazy to believe something worse could happen if we dont change course. Because I have spent the past dozen years learning just how wide a gulf exists between me and those on the other side of the Trump divide. Though I knew we didnt share the same set of facts, I was convinced we at least shared the same god. Im no longer sure we do.I saw Trump and Blue Lives Matter flags still flying in my neighborhood months after the election, even after an insurrection that included dozens of former and current police officers. Trump signs still dot sidewalks where I take daily jogs. The Fox News Channel blares in the background when I sit down at my favorite restaurant.

During these years, Ive had to listen to Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich talk about food stamps while Im getting my kids bikes repaired, and tea party pundits disparaging Obama while I wait at the local auto mechanic. After the election, while driving to work, Ive encountered mile-long caravans of Trump supporters. Theres no question many of the people I come in contact with believe the election was stolen from Trump and question the legitimacy of Bidens presidency. I teach not too far from where the North Carolina man who shot up a D.C. pizza parlor to rescue nonexistent child sex slaves in a nonexistent basement once lived. I have taught Trump supporters and sympathizers, and will likely teach them again, and have to be mindful of honoring and respecting them as much as I do every other student I encounter. I will. I must. Because this is their America; Ive learned that over the past 12 years, and everyone learned it on January 6.

But Kyle, and my 16-year-old daughter Lyric, still have the right to demand better, even when standing up for themselves discomforts the white people in their midst. One day, they wont have to just grin and bear it, wont have to submit to a one-sided reconciliation. And Americans across the country can still demandmust demandthat their elected leaders recommit to facts, to fairness, to the democratic process instead of using white grievance to usher in new voter suppression efforts and attempts to shame into silence those who refuse to just give in.

Trump supporters and their sympathizers are right: This is their America. But make no mistake, this is our America, too. We dont have to apologize to anyone for wanting to shape it in our image as much as they want it to remain in theirs. Before January 6, I didnt fully understand the importance of making that clear. I wont forget again. And I wont allow my kids to forget, either.

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Opinion | What the Rest of America Can Learn From My Experience Being Black in Trumpland - POLITICO

Two perspectives, two teens.

One, doing nothing wrong, is viciously beaten by a cop, and the clip of the beating is shared on social media and the news. The other tries to pretend he didn't see it, tries to ignore it -- the beaten teen might be a friend, but the cop is like family.

Rashad is Black, Quinn is White.

The young adult novel "All American Boys" is fiction, but very realistic when it was published in 2015, and much more so today.

Co-authors Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely worked to include two perspectives of the police beating of a Black teen because they'd found themselves feeling two similar, but different forms of anger at the different ways U.S. justice seems to treat Black and White citizens.

"All American Boys" is the Portage Communiteen Read, a collaboration by Portage Public Schools, the Portage District Library, and This is a bookstore/Bookbug. Reynolds and Kiely will be holding an online conversation on the novel and "Antiracism and You," March 16.

We spoke with Reynolds last year, when he and his novel "Long Way Down" was the 2020 Communiteen focus. His appearance was canceled due to the pandemic.

This year we spoke with Kiely. Speaking from his home in New York City, Kiely says that "All American Boys" came out of an uncomfortable moment between the two writers, back when they were two strangers on a promotional tour of a group of young adult authors.

It was 2013, and George Zimmerman had been acquitted in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

When the news broke, "I'm angry and I'm frustrated and I'm sort of wrought with emotion -- and I'm traveling and living with a stranger," Reynolds told NPR in 2015.

Asked about that time, Kiely tells us the moment between the authors was like Dr. Martin Luther King's speech on "two Americas living side-by-side."

"Jason's mother, a black woman in South Carolina, called him to say, 'I'm nervous, I'm scared as you're traveling around the country, because what if there's a George Zimmerman out there for you?'" Kiely says.

"My mother, who I know loves me, and I love her, did not call me. She has absolutely no reason to have that fear. And I think that throws it into real stark contrast, those two Americas."

While on the authors' tour, it seemed there was "one high profile case of police brutality after another," he says. "We're sitting there in airport terminals looking up at the TV and watching the news, and Jason is leaning over to me, saying, 'You know what? Something like this happened to me, something like this happened to my cousin, something like this happened to other people I know.'"

Then Reynolds asked Kiely, "How about you, Brendan? What was your experience like with the law, growing up?"

"And I had to look him in the eye and tell him how many times I'd gotten away with crimes, essentially. Pulled over for speeding and not getting a ticket, and when the keg party in the little stand of trees between a couple of buildings gets busted up and none of us gets arrested, let alone get beaten up."

"The real difference in our realities was so stark, and to have to say those truths to each other and then begin to form trust and a friendship, is what enabled us to really try to write 'All American Boys.' We had to build a friendship first, and every friendship needs honesty at its base."

We spoke further with Kiely about perspectives on police, his hometown of Boston, racial healing, and radical honesty. The interview was edited for length and clarity.

Second Wave: We hate to bring this up, but this subject of children's books is in the news, and feel free to say you don't want to talk about it -- Dr. Seuss.

Brendan Kiely: "I just want to be a tad thoughtful as I respond to this... I grew up (with Dr. Seuss books), have a 20-month-old child now, and my instinct is to go for the same books... But I learned that books that I may have loved are offensive and caused harm to other people in our community, so I have absolutely no problem setting them aside for any one of the thousands and thousands and thousands of children's books out there...."

There is greatness in the Dr. Seuss collection, but there are also ethnic stereotypes. "I think we can both revere people for some of their greatness, and we can also critique them when they make mistakes. And I'd say that's true of myself, too."

When a high school teacher in New York City, "I wanted to do the best that I could do for my students -- it meant that sometimes I'd have to listen to criticism from my students, from other teachers, from the families of students I taught. And if they ask me to rethink the way I did something because it was offensive, then if I care about people, wouldn't I want to review that and accept the mistake was made, and go from there? I think that's what we're talking about with Dr. Seuss."

Kiely also loved books of Tintin comics, which he eventually realized were full of ethnic stereotypes. "It kind of feels a little queasy, now. Yet at the time I loved it."

When he discovered "Lord of the Rings" as a teen, he began devouring fantasy and science fiction novels.

"I loved being transported to those other worlds. That's what kept me reading for most of my younger years. My mother was feeding me all the fantasy, and my father was feeding me all the sci-fi."

SW: You grew up just outside of Boston, a city with a reputation for racial conflict. What were you seeing?

Kiely: I just happen to be working on a new book that's part memoir, part research about White privilege and Whiteness... stories about growing up in a nearly-exclusive White community. So my introduction to race and racism was often an introduction that spoke about it as if it was happening far away."

While growing up in a White neighborhood, "there was never a conversation about 'race' because the assumption always was that if you're talking about race you're talking about People of Color, Black people, Indigenous people, that again nearly none of them were in the community in which I grew up, it was so predominately White.... I was kind of trying to find my own footing in looking for language, finding language, needing to find language about my own racial identity."

Kiely remembers the riot that broke out at a Boston Green Day concert in the mid-'90s, and seeing that the Boston Globe went with a front-page photo "of an Irish man with a tattoo on his bicep throwing a punch on a Black man. The racism is so deep and steeped in Boston. The segregation is so deep and steep in Boston.

"While I was growing up, a lot of what I thought was racism was a story of bad guys hurting innocent people, and it only was until later in life, some teachers in high school, some other adults and friends -- and certainly when I was in college -- that people began to open that story up (for me). It's not about bad actors and innocent victims, but it's a complicated story of all of us and how race plays a role in our country from its founding moments to this day."

SW: The White teen in "All American Boys," Quinn, wants to ignore the fact his friend Rashad was beaten by a policeman he knew and trusted. What's the role for White people in these situations, in the BLM movement, in the response to videos of police brutality against people of color?

Kiely: "I'm going to try to set this in Quinn's narrative, but I mean this in a broader sense -- the first thing that Quinn has to grapple with is that he has to believe what he saw.

"I think as White people in the United States, we have to believe what we see. We've seen it so many times, we've seen the kind of violence that White people in positions of power get away with, whether that's Emmett Till in 1955 or Rodney King in 1991, and all the cases in between there, up to George Floyd in 2020. Not to mention all the women who we don't speak of enough. '#sayhername.' Rekia Boyd, Sandra Bland, and the list goes on.

"We have to believe what we see, that's the first step. And not denying it -- denying it protects us and makes us feel better that we're not somehow guilty, or denying it helps us feel like being White doesn't in some way make it incumbent upon us to have some accountability for this violence, when in fact I think it does.

"I think the second step is to look more closely at the truth of our history, and see just how deeply racism affects everything in our country's history, because by looking at our history more honestly we can look at our present more honestly.

"Those first two steps are about doing the work within ourselves -- (the third step) is to actively listen to the stories and truths coming from communities of color. In the news, and also in other media, meaning, as a White person I think it's incumbent on me to read more books written by authors of color, see more movies directed by and starring people of color. To follow more journalists on social media who are journalists of color. Because, by reframing my narrative, not in a way that reflects my preconceived biases and instincts for denial, but instead consuming narrative that challenges some of that, I think ultimately I, as a White person, grow and become a fuller human being."

SW: How is it, co-writing a novel with not only another author but another author who has his own perspective as a Black man on race and police?

Kiely: Co-writing with anyone is hard, "but we made it work. He's one of my closest friends, now. It was a long road of becoming friends first that made that possible.

"As we were watching once case after another, one that really hit home for me was the case of Eric Garner (who died in a police chokehold after being accused of selling loose cigarettes in 2014) in New York City. I was angry. I was angry that I kept seeing this happen over and over again. And I was angry at the disparity between Black communities and White communities like mine, and our relationship with law enforcement. And Jason was angry, too, but our angers were different. Different angers.

"That's what made our book special. We shared a kind of common motivation, we shared a common goal, to lay bare the truth of police brutality and racial disparity with regards to law enforcement. But our different racial experiences fueled two different narratives. I can't claim to know what it's like to be Jason growing up, and likewise very honestly neither can he claim to know my experience.

"And I think by being honest about that with each other we were able to create a kind of novel in dialog, in a way that won't always happen when two people sit down to write because we began with acknowledging that our racial experiences create two different narratives."

SW: So, as a White person, you were taught that the police are there to serve and protect citizens, but you became angry when seeing that's not the case when it comes to police dealings with African American citizens? And Jason's anger is from knowing this directly?

Kiely: "Absolutely. He knows it from first-hand experience.... Also, while Jason and I are writing about Black and White experiences in just the way you're describing it, part of that anger is how I was taught a trust, and it was a trust I could believe in.

"I still trust law enforcement to this day. How can I not? Most often, my interactions are beneficial. And we need law enforcement in our community to some extent."

"But I would be remiss to not also mention that the group of people most likely to die in their interactions with law enforcement are Indigenous folks in the U.S.

Kiely says that in encounters with police, "the rate at which (Indigenous people) are killed in their interactions with police officers is more than three times as likely as White people, whereas with Black folks it's more than two times as likely.... The sheer number difference is just outrageous.

"I might just add that, I think neither of us could have expected the depth of friendship that emerged from what began as a few moments of pretty radical honesty. And I think I sometimes hope that in a broader sense our country could have more racial healing if as a country we took the time to have more of those moments of radical honesty."

SW: What have been the reactions from young readers to "All American Boys?"

Kiely: "It's been read all across the country and in many different kinds of communities.... The startling thing is, that despite the differences in community, some of the responses are the same.

"Young people are, first of all, thrilled to read books in which the characters sound like them. 'Hey, they sound like the way we talk!' And they're also thrilled to see on the page the emotional reality that they themselves are experiencing in real life.

"Their own world is reflected back to them, whether it's the kids who can say, 'I know how Rashad is feeling right now, because I've experienced that, too.' Or, the kids who're saying, 'I've never been around anything like that in my life, and I trust the law because that's what I've been taught, and they've been there to help me my whole life... And yet I keep seeing this stuff on social media or the news or wherever, that I don't understand. I'm confused, and want to know more.'

"That kind of confusion that young people are experiencing, regardless of their community, is reflected in the book, and it's why we wanted to write the book. We wanted to give young people a chance to air out their feelings, a chance to air out their confusion, a chance to look for moments of empowerment that's something they don't often see in books.

"I'm just so proud and grateful that young people are responding to the book in the way we hoped they would because as Jason will often say, we wrote the book for them."

Join the conversation"Antiracism and You: Online Conversation with Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely," Tuesday, March 16, 6 p.m. Registration link.

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'Radical honesty' leads to friendship that makes writing 'All American Boys' together possible - Concentrate