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medhinik 's review for:
Just Mercy
by Bryan Stevenson
Brilliant and beautiful. The type of story that makes me wonder how I can show more grace, compassion, and mercy toward others.
A few themes stood out:
- Each of us is worth more than the worst of our actions, and we must treat each other as the sum of our parts.
- The opposite of poverty is not wealth. It’s justice. And there is an unjust presumption of guilt assigned to the poor and people of color in this country. We must reform our current “justice” system that treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent.
- In theory, we are supposed to sentence people fairly after fully considering their life circumstances—trauma, mental illness, age—but instead we exploit the inability of the poor to get the legal assistance they need, all so that we can kill them with less resistance.
- He argues that we would never think it would be humane to rape someone convicted of rape as a form of punishment or assault someone who is accused of assault or abuse. Yet we are comfortable with killing people who kill, in part because we believe it can be done in a manner that doesn’t implicate our own humanity. I thought this was an interesting argument, and I agree people do not think about the societal harm incurred by condemning people to death. However, I do think that many do (cruelly) hope that people are assaulted in prison, and are at the very least aware that it happens to people.
- We are willing to condemn people to death or to unbearable suffering, not because they are a threat to safety, but because it makes us seem more tough and less broken.
- I found it poignant the way he described our manipulation of victims to partake in this corrupt system by asking them to recycle their pain and and anguish and give it back to the offenders we prosecute through cruel, unjust sentences. There is no closure, no mercy in the status quo path, only more pain, hurt, and violence.
- Ultimately, we must embrace our collective brokenness, which creates a need and desire for mercy, and a corresponding need to show mercy to others.
A few themes stood out:
- Each of us is worth more than the worst of our actions, and we must treat each other as the sum of our parts.
- The opposite of poverty is not wealth. It’s justice. And there is an unjust presumption of guilt assigned to the poor and people of color in this country. We must reform our current “justice” system that treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent.
- In theory, we are supposed to sentence people fairly after fully considering their life circumstances—trauma, mental illness, age—but instead we exploit the inability of the poor to get the legal assistance they need, all so that we can kill them with less resistance.
- He argues that we would never think it would be humane to rape someone convicted of rape as a form of punishment or assault someone who is accused of assault or abuse. Yet we are comfortable with killing people who kill, in part because we believe it can be done in a manner that doesn’t implicate our own humanity. I thought this was an interesting argument, and I agree people do not think about the societal harm incurred by condemning people to death. However, I do think that many do (cruelly) hope that people are assaulted in prison, and are at the very least aware that it happens to people.
- We are willing to condemn people to death or to unbearable suffering, not because they are a threat to safety, but because it makes us seem more tough and less broken.
- I found it poignant the way he described our manipulation of victims to partake in this corrupt system by asking them to recycle their pain and and anguish and give it back to the offenders we prosecute through cruel, unjust sentences. There is no closure, no mercy in the status quo path, only more pain, hurt, and violence.
- Ultimately, we must embrace our collective brokenness, which creates a need and desire for mercy, and a corresponding need to show mercy to others.