Racial Inequality In Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy

Martin Luther King Jr. said “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy” (King, n.d.). If there ever was a man or women who stood in the midst of such challenge and controversy it would be Bryan Stevenson, Heather Ann Thomson, and Michele Goodwin. These people are of the many who have stood at the gavel of extreme arrogance and bigotry advocating against racial inequality, the wrongfully convicted, the poor and marginalized American citizens including men, women, and children denied effective representation and prosecutorial misconduct. Bryan Stevenson’s interview on the Bill Moyers Journal and Just Mercy, Heather Ann Thomson on “How

Yet, according to government statistics, African Americans and whites have similar rates of illicit drug use and dealing” (Bryan Stevenson and Michelle Alexander, 2010). Therefore, the war on drugs was a systematic effort to target and arrest African Americans on the pretense of suspicion of drugs, which accounted for a higher incarceration rate among communities of color creating a racial divide. With this intention, the criminal justice system is a racial based institution that marginalizes and controls the fate of African Americans. In the book Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson represented Walter McMillian who was wrongfully convicted of murder and put on death row without legal and fair representation states, “We’ve institutionalized policies that reduce people to their worst acts and permanently label them criminal, murderer, rapist, thief, drug dealer, sex offender, felon- identities they cannot change regardless of the circumstances of their crimes or any improvements they might make in their lives” (Stevenson, 2015). With this in mind, Walter McMillian’s case is one of the many racial segregated cases that was denied effective representation and prosecutorial misconduct because he was black, which has subjected many African Americans to unfair treatment by the criminal system leaving

First, the justice system dehumanized African Americans making it easy to strip them of their human rights. Just Mercy states that “dehumanization begins at the removal of personal identification. A convicted criminal is issued a prison identification number, which allows guards and other authorities to maintain an impersonal relationship with inmates” (Stevenson, 2015). Therefore, by striping convicted criminals of their individuality dehumanizes them, which allows authorities to act inhumanely towards the inmates. Also, the racial justice system dehumanized African Americans denying them of their civil rights. Steven stated, “We didn't have to incarcerate people for 10, 20, 30, 40 years for simple possession of marijuana, for drug use. We didn't have to do that. We made choices around that. And now the consequences are devastating” (Bryan Stevenson and Michelle Alexander, 2010). As can be seen, prosecutorial misconduct is a reflection of the justice system to dehumanize African Americans, which led to a punishment that did not fit the crime and the unlawful use of racial justice to incarcerate African American longer than white people. Ultimately, the disparities of dehumanization among African Americans has allowed for inmates to experience increased violence. In the article Women, Girls, and Mass Incarceration, Michele