I've learned to appreciate reading the news every morning. This morning I read a particularly disturbing article that felt like deja-vu. More on that soon. Earlier this year several articles were released about Brock Turner, the white Stanford freshman swimmer who assaulted and attempted to rape a 23 year old woman behind a dumpster after a party, despite the fact that she was unconscious. Judge Aaron Persky handed down a sentence of six months, though the minimum sentence for Turner should have been at least four years.
The judge was swayed by a character witness testimony, positively affirming Brock's character and remorse for his actions. He also received letters from friends and Brock's parents detailing how tumultuous his life had become as a result of his actions. "He won't eat his favorite foods anymore," a letter from Turner's father to Judge Persky said. Turner's sentence has since been reduced to three months in a local Ohio prison for good behavior and he will have to register as a sex offender.
Similarly, I read earlier today that white University of Colorado-Boulder student Austin Wilkerson was recently sentenced to two years of work release and 20 years of probation after he was convicted of raping a drunk freshman girl, whom Wilkerson said he would help get home from a party in 2014. Both of these young men successfully utilized their inherent white male privilege to get out of prison sentences. Their lawyers were successfully able to paint them as innocent young men who felt bad for their actions.
Young men of color do not have such a privilege in life or the legal system. Take for instance Brian Banks, an African-American man. At 16, Brian was accused of raping a 15 year old white classmate. Brian was sentenced to six years behind bars in an adult prison after turning down several plea deals touting very long sentences -- including 25 years, which exceeds the maximum of 14 years for rape. His sentence effectively ruined his plans to play football at the University of Southern California and took away ten years of his life.
This is regularly the case for people of color in the American legal system. Voir dire, the process of jury selection in a court of law, is biased against people of color nine times out of ten because, oftentimes, mostly or all white juries are selected to serve. They may not generally understand the inherent background differences faced by people of color in a society that considers Caucasians to be the model race due to systemic racial prejudices passed on throughout millennia. Brian Banks said it best in an interview with the New York Daily News regarding the Brock Turner case:
"I would say it's a case of privilege," Banks said. "It seems like the judge based his decision on lifestyle. He's lived such a good life and has never experienced anything serious in his life that would prepare him for prison. He was sheltered so much he wouldn't be able to survive prison. What about the kid who has nothing, he struggles to eat, struggles to get a fair education? What about the kid who has no choice who he is born to and has drug-addicted parents or a non-parent household? Where is the consideration for them when they commit a crime?"
These events have made me hesitant to read the news for fear that I will find more stories of young white men being treated leniently for serious crimes with no respect to their victims, while black men (and women), sit in prison for less serious crimes or because their jury or judge did not like them though they were totally innocent.
