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Just Mercy (2019)

Based on Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Just Mercy, released December 25th, 2019 chronicles the true story of Walter “Johnny D” McMillian; a black man wrongfully convicted for the 1986 murder of a white woman, Ronda Morrison and his journey to emancipation. The story is told through the perspective of newly graduated Harvard Law student, Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan). A bright young man who’s goal is to provide legal help and representation for people who are unable to afford that representation on their own accords. After forming the Equal Justice Initiative with the help of Eva Ansley (Brie Larson), Bryan visits the death row inmates being held at Holman State Prison in Alabama. It is there that he discovered McMillian (Jamie Foxx) and decided to do everything that he could to help him. 

After doing some digging, Stevenson discovers that McMillian’s case was based entirely around a statement made by a man named Ralph Myers (Tim Blake Nelson), who testified against McMillian in exchange for a lighter sentencing on his own behalf. After viewing the notes from the testimony itself, Stevenson notices that it is extremely contradictory and pushes for perjury charges. Upon noticing the interest in McMillian’s case, law enforcement becomes uneasy at the thought of any information being unearthed about the original trial and decide to try and intimidate Stevenson and the people he had brought together in hopes that they would stop investigating the case. Police have one of Stevenson’s witnesses arrested, successfully intimidating him enough to prevent him from testifying and pull Stevenson from his car at gunpoint before conducting an illegal search. This however, does not stop Stevenson’s work on the McMillian case. He decides to go right for Myers, who ultimately admitted to making up the testimony as a result of police coercion and fear tactics after they threatened to have him executed by electric chair if he did not give the testimony.

Even with this new found evidence the circuit court denies Stevenson’s pushes for a retrial. Frustrated with this act of injustice, Stevenson takes to the media, appearing on 60 minutes to talk about his dilemma and gain the public’s support in favor of McMillian. He then decides to go over the heads of circuit court and appeals McMillian’s case to the Supreme Court of Alabama directly, where he is granted his retrial. With Myer’s updated testimony, the help of a man by the name of Tommy Chapman (Rafe Spall), and the hard work of Stevenson; all charges against McMillian were dropped resulting in a release from Holman State and freedom to live his life. Stevenson goes on to remain friends with McMillian and aid in the release of other wrongfully convicted inmates including that of McMillian’s old cell mate Anthony Ray Hinton. 

Bias and corruption has been an intrinsic value of the court system ever since its creation, added to the abuse of power from law enforcement, there is an unequal sway in the favor of whichever side police are on. This imbalance leads to unfair trials, mistrials resulting in no conviction for guilty parties, corrupt courts and the conviction of innocents. Examples of this are present in the McMillian case as well as in other well known cases such as the brutal murder and kidnapping of Emmett Till; where an all-white jury ruled against the convictions of Bryant and Milam who later admitted to the crime in a magazine interview. With the rise in awareness of corrupt law enforcement, there has been an even greater push for reform in police as well as law upholding practices such as court. The goal is to reduce the sway police have in court settings resulting in a more equal and lawful trial. 

One of the major turning points in this fight relates back to the murder of George Floyd and the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer that knelt on his neck for 9 minutes ultimately killing him. Social Justice groups, BLM groups and many others sat in anticipation through this trial, hoping that it would be fair and uninfluenced by police involvement. As both sides stated their evidence it became increasingly clear that if Chauvin was not convicted, it was likely there was some sort of corruption or influence on the case from Minneapolis Police. However, the end of the trial concluded with a conviction on all counts, much to the surprise of Chauvin, who looked completely shell-shocked by the news. His reaction shows how much power corrupt police officers believe they have over society, as Chauvin really believed that he would ultimately be released and didn’t even imagine a conviction, let alone three convictions. The tides are turning, and society is fighting. Law enforcement can not be revered as Gods, they do not get to choose who lives and who dies just because they wear are badge and have a state issued gun. They need to be held accountable for their actions and that is what has begun to occur, even though we are a long way from equal. POC are still being killed by police everyday, and its unlikely that those officers will ever go to court for their crimes. But I believe that the conviction of Chauvin did set an example, it sent the message “you are not invincible”.

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Natural Hair Styles and Workplace Discrimination

When you apply for a job, it is not out of the ordinary to be presented with a dress code. Most of the time, these codes touch on things like piercings, tattoos and other body modifications along with wacky colorful dyed hair and appropriate clothing for the environment. But what happens when a person’s natural hair is a violation?

 In 2010, a young woman by the name of Chastity Jones applied for a customer representation gig and was offered the job on one stipulation, she would have to remove her dread locks. Confused and angered at the condition, Jones refused, taking the job opportunity with her. As dread locks are considered a natural protective style in the black community, Jones filed with the courts through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and took the company to bat on charges of discrimination. Unfortunately, she lost the battle as the court sided with her perspective employers initially and with an appeal in 2016. Her case was ultimately dismissed.

This is not an isolated event, for upwards of 50 years POC have been denied job opportunities or fired and sent home after the fact for wearing natural hair styles such as twists, dreads, knots or afros in the work environment. Companies tend to defend their actions with phrases including but not limited too: “it looks messy” “its unprofessional” and “its too wild”. Courts are divided on the issue, some ruling in favor of the prosecution while others side with employers on the basis of dress code.

Hair discrimination is not a new phenomenon. In the 1700′s female house slaves were forced to either cover their hair with head scarves, form their hair in styles to match the white women that lived there, or wear wigs. Moving forwards in the timeline, even after the abolition of slavery, walking in the streets black women were required by law to cover their hair if it was in a natural style as a signifier of social/societal position. Further on, in the late 1960′s the black community saw the invention of the “Hot comb”. With this introduction, straight hair became enforced as a way to denote higher class among black communities. Therefore natural black cultural hairstyles began fade from society before they were reclaimed with pride entering the 2000′s.

While hair discrimination towards black people is a problem for all genders, it has been found that black women are most often discriminated against regarding natural hair in the work place. According to LDF, black women are 1.5 times more likely to be sent home from the workplace for hair related offenses. Along with this statistic, LDF also states that black women are 80% more likely to change their natural hair to fit in with societal standards than any other demographic. 

The fact of the matter is discriminating against natural hair is erasure of black culture and synonymous to discrimination based solely on skin color. It comes down to the idea that its the culture that is being discriminated against, not the person. This is a systemic problem that continues to be an issue today. While it is not physical violence, this type of discrimination is culturally silencing. There are many civil justice and social justice groups that are fighting to help make a change regarding hair discrimination, one of them going by LDF (NAACP’s Legal defense and education fund). Recently, this group has been advocating for The CROWN Act, a bill that would put an end to hair discrimination once and for all. 

Even with the passing of The CROWN Act, it is still important for society to address these hair biases and micro-aggressive discriminations in their own communities. Like I stated above, hair discrimination is a systemic issue and will not simply disappear entirely based on legislation. Biases are interwoven in our communities and we continue to uphold them based on society expectations that we (non black people) don’t even know are there as we have been raised in this community and don’t currently know any different. I think it is important to fight phrases like “its just how they were raised” or “a product of their time”. While it may be difficult to rewrite racial biases, it is certainly not impossible and no one should get a free pass to uphold acts of discrimination.

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Comply or die is NOT legal. (x)

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#BLM

Black Lives Matter (also known in its shortened form, BLM) , a phrase that sparked a revolutionary worldwide response to not only the issue of police brutality, but also the enforced systemic racism plaguing society for as long as I can remember. But this simple statement, made out of grief, Black Lives Matter, was never intended to make such an impact.

In 2013, in her home in Oakland California, Alicia Garza typed the phrase into a disheartened Facebook post in response to the acquittal of one, George Zimmerman; the man on trial for killing a young black teenager by the name of Trayvon Martin. One of her friends after seeing the post, shared it, adding the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. It was here that BLM spread like wildfire through community after community and soon became a phrase tightly intertwined with fighting for a change. 

Following the success of the hashtag, Garza and her friends Patrice Cullor and Opal Tometi began the hard work of creating a web of activists in order to fight systemic racism against African American people; using the name Black Lives Matter. Soon after the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012, more black deaths were showcased racing across TV screens all over the country. Soon enough, everyone knew of the murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner in 2014. As more and more unjust killings came to light, the phrase only gained popularity, becoming a unifying statement for protests occurring all of the country. But, as soon as it erupted it seemed to die out, that is until the murder of George Floyd in 2020. 

There was not any particular reason that could be pin-pointed in regards to the phrase being put on the back burner, however, it is very likely that white people seeing no effect to them and their lives, stopped caring pretty quickly about black lives in danger. Without the traction given to the phrase by a white support base of a white supremist country, the white people in charge no longer cared about the concerns raised by POC and instead decided to continue living in ignorance to the violence and death that is occurring while they stand by doing nothing. 

After the murder of George Floyd, #BLM was again brought to the forefront as nationwide protests erupted across the United States. It wasn’t long until there were protests happening on an international scale as countries began to dismantle their own racist pasts. However, not everyone was happy about the return of the phrase. White supremacists all over the world emerged from the woodwork shouting “ALL LIVES MATTER”. Racism and violence aimed at black people got worse, leading to the killing of Breonna Taylor and Elijah McClain; as police officer after police officer go unpunished for their crimes. 

As a country we continue to fight, pushing for justice and condemning racism put into place to keep bigots in power and to undo a system that has been running rampant for hundreds and hundreds of years. And yes, we realize that all lives matter, but black lives are the ones in danger right now; and that has been proven with the response by white supremacists to this movement. 

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“Why do we have to keep telling you that black lives matter?”

Graffiti in Washington DC during a George Floyd protest on May 30, 2020

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Old but will always be relevant. 

Black Lives Matter. 

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get the fuck off my post

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This was drawn a while back but felt fitting to post now. Sometimes we feel something is so obvious we forget we need to explain it. Hope this helps informing!

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No Context Needed

vs

Get it yet?

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-fae

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