Recently, one of my friends shared a video created by TheYoungTurks on Facebook and expressed her opinion about the frequent injustices in our court system. This video was originally posted on YouTube on September 17, 2016. The video is titled "Justice System Lets Baby Rapist Walk Free" and is about a young man named Kraigen Grooms, who admitted to raping a 2-year-old girl in April 2013, when he was 16 years old, while another man in New Orleans watched and recorded the abuse, reported Ottumwa Radio. Kraigen was not given any time in prison, only a mere 10-year suspension sentence.
It was noted that Kraigen is a White male, while the 2-year-old girl is a Black female. There are several people who have questioned if the race of the perpetrator and of the victim have anything to do with the final outcome of the case. Although if we're being totally honest, I didn't really ponder about the potential racial bias; I was too busy being grossed out.
Shortly after sharing the video, my friend got some comments on her post about how this story could no longer be relevant because it was about an event too far into the past. Honestly, it was an incredibly weird claim to make in the first place. The incident happened a few years ago, but the legal details did not become finalized until later on, so it's not as if the story was "too far into the past" anyway.
Somehow, the discussion led to the statement from the original commenter that slavery was no longer relevant because it was "too far into the past" and did not take "linear time" into account.
Well, that was a triggering statement to make.
However, that's actually not the first time I've seen or heard that argument.
I remember a conservative Twitter account tweeting that Americans needed to stop blaming white people for racial injustice because white people no longer own slaves. Someone responded that white people today do not have slaves, but their ancestors did. The original tweeter countered by saying that Americans blaming white people for things that happened in the past was exactly the problem.
Another time I've heard someone say slavery is no longer relevant was in a conversation I had with someone about affirmative action. Affirmative action is a policy favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer or have suffered from discrimination within a culture, so it largely benefits black people in this case. Essentially, she believed affirmative action was not necessary because racial discrimination is a thing of the past - it died when slavery and the Jim Crow laws died.
For me personally, the biggest loophole in the statement that a dated institution or event can no longer be relevant is that historical events are necessary for learning about the past and reminding ourselves of the mistakes and good decisions America has made throughout its years.
Cue the overused, cliché quote: "history tends to repeat itself."
It goes without saying that slavery and racially discriminatory laws were bad, baaad, BAAAAAD mistakes that our nation made in the past.
I would say that people of all political parties agree that our nation used to have a problem of blatant racism. The division is between those who believe that we have inherent, institutionalized racism today and those who believe racism is eradicated because there are no longer any laws that explicitly discriminate against minorities today.
We do have inherent, institutionalized racism today. Actually, I also believe that we still have more than enough examples of blatant racism today, but most of our racism today is inherent and institutionalized. I think one of the ways our institutionalized racism really shows itself is in our justice system, and the trend of our justice system sometimes (often) giving less harsh punishments for white individuals. Regarding the baby rape case, I'll be honest - I really, really do not care what race a rapist is, rape is rape and that is all. Truth is, we can never know for sure if racial bias is a factor in individual, specific court cases; we can only notice trends over several cases.
As someone who does believe in inherent racism, I acknowledge that our inherent racism TODAY stems from our blatant racism from the PAST. It is because of our former constructs that ideas of racial prejudice were bred and carried over into our society today. In fact, right now is probably the most important time to discuss not only scenarios of racial injustice in the present but also scenarios from the past that may not have been highlighted because our society was less open to discussing racial injustice back then.
