Do
Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly
“The
prisons in the United States had long been an extreme reflection of the
American system itself: the stark life differences between rich and poor, the
racism, the use of victims against one another, the lack of resources of the
underclass to speak out, the endless reforms that change little. Dostoevsky
once said: ‘The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering
its prisons.’”
Howard
Zinn (A People’s History of the United States)
The Kyle
Rittenhouse trial was a microcosm of the current human macrocosm in America.
Everyone watched and entertained their own beliefs about the case. Everyone
thought they knew what the outcome would be, and yet when it came back innocent
on all counts, we were shocked to hear it. I know that if I were black, I
wouldn’t be shocked. Black people were probably surprised that he was even charged
with murder. I do believe the jury found the verdict in good faith based upon
his self-defense plea, but I saw a post on Facebook last night that captured
the essence of it for me. It said: “I jumped the fence into the polar bear
enclosure at the zoo and then had to kill all the polar bears in self-defense.”
I don’t
know what else to say about this. I feel so sorry for the families of those men
who were killed, for all the people involved all the way around it. Such a
senseless act of violence—on the street, and in the courtroom. Who knows what
the larger message is? I pray for the soul of America.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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