Spang wrote:Aabidano wrote:How does anyone outside those involved with the criminal justice system benefit from black males being imprisoned?
White people benefit by not having to fuck with the justice system the way Black people have to every single day. You'll probably never get pulled over for driving while being white, for example. But if you do happen to get pulled over, likely for a legitimate reason, you probably don't have to do what
LeVar Burton does to avoid from getting shot by the police.
I have a friend that lives in a small town in Alabama. He did something stupid when he was 19, and was arrested. He had a bunch of parking tickets from parking on campus, and got a wheel lock on his car. He didn't have the money to pay for all of the tickets, and decided to take off the lock and drive home.
Now, that was not a smart move, but I've known of other people to do that and get charged with some fines, and maybe some community service or a suspended license.
He went to court without a lawyer, as he didn't have the money to hire one, and requested a public defender. The judge REFUSED him a public defender, and told him he had to plea guilty or not right there. He plead guilty, and was sentenced to 6 MONTHS in prison (not suspended). Max sentence, for a first time offender.
We later learned that this judge is overly harsh on young, white men. He was accused of being racist toward black men a few years before, and to "prove" he wasn't, he started being extra lenient on black people, and extra tough on white people.
Luckily, a lawyer in the court room witnessed all of this, then found his sister, and agreed to take his case on pro bono. She got the first decision thrown out, because the judge refused him a public defender, and he ended up paying the tickets + wheel lock fee + court costs + a small fine, and that was it.
Now, he was in the wrong, but that is not an isolated incident. Our fucked up judicial system screws over every race. I won't deny that minorities tend to get punished harshly more often, and even are wrongfully punished more often, but it is not exclusive to them.
Hell, I had to pay $3000 in alimony to a woman, my son's mother, that I WAS NEVER MARRIED TO because a judge misread some paperwork. I filed to have it corrected immediately, but it took over 2 months for him to change it, and I was never given the money back. He also completely ignored a signed, notarized agreement between the two of us, which is the only reason we even had an open case for him to file the alimony on. It seems that you can sign a legal contract, and if the other person signing it decides to change their mind 6 months later, then a judge can just act like it never happened.
A higher court would most likely have overturned it, but that would have required a much longer wait, and could have caused me to lose custody of my son until it got to them. Even then, the change that would be caused in his life by reversing the custody once again could have been enough to nullify the original agreement.
So, I was damned if I do go along with what he was doing, and damned if I don't, and instead push it to a higher court. All because paperwork was ignored\misread\overlooked. I eventually just signed a 2nd agreement to end it all. I ended up giving her 3 1/2 years of freedom from child support, agreed to cover all of his medical expenses, and agreed to pay his way on a plane once a year when she moves away. All because if he had continued to disregard the paperwork, and pushed this to trial, there was a good chance he would have taken my son from me (who has lived with me alone for over a year), and given him to a woman who cares SO much about him that she sees him once every week or two, even when she lives only 1 1/2 miles away (she has an open invitation to see him whenever we are home, or to get him for a day anytime, as long as she lets me know in advance).
Sorry, I'm done ranting. It just pisses me off when people act like being a white man means it is easy to deal with the court system in America. It can be a nightmare for anyone, and often is.