THE UNFAIR JUSTICE

OLAIA BECERRIL

Black gothic is a literary trend that explains the life of African Americans both in the past and in the present and what characterizes them by racial capitalism, afro-pessimism, and social death. One of those factors that also characterizes this literary trend is justice towards the black community. For years, justice towards African Americans has been very different from other races, judging them more by their skin color than by their actions.

When we speak of laws, we define it as the “system of rules which a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and which it may enforce by the imposition of penalties” (1) in which definition there is no talk of colors or races at any time. If we are all under the same law, why are some of them judged differently depending on their skin? And it seems that we live in a constant past, without advances in society, in an old-fashioned world, like in a black and white movie.



The unfair justice that is supposedly imposed on everyone equally, in the harsh reality is not like that. The amount of cases in which black people are not treated equally are indescribable. Juwan Deering, who spent 15 years in prison for the alleged murder of five children, Herbert Alford "spent five years in prison for a murder in 2011 that he did not commit [...] because a receipt could not be located showing that he did not he was in the vicinity of the crime”(NewsOne, November 2021), and like these men there are hundreds of more cases that seems that they do not lead to any change in the way we take justice and laws. 




A great example of this in the Black Gothic is Native Son, where Bigger, despite his mistake for having killed Mary Dalton, inadvertently fears that justice will not be taken equally since he is black. Bigger chooses to flee, to escape from what may or may not happen to him if he tells the truth, since the probability that he will not be heard or judged equally is very high. Today these injustices continue to happen, this community continues to be criticized in a very different way. During these last years the cases have not decreased since "In 2020, about 42% of people on death row were Black" (Selby, Daniele, 2021), which makes me wonder if we feel safe with our system of laws in the USA, if when something bad happens to black people they feel as involved calling the police as someone of another color. Since we were little they make us believe that when we are afraid or think that something bad could happen we should call 911, on the other hand when we grow up we realize that those who are supposed to protect us are the ones who can do us the most harm. 

Black Gothic is something that can be happening in books and seem fictional as well as it can be happening in real life, where black people have to fight day by day for their rights and bow their heads when the situation gets delicate.







Works cited

  1.  Definition of law by Oxford Languages

 https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/ 

  1. Selby, Daniele “8 Facts You Should Know About Racial Injustice in the Criminal Legal System.” May 2021.

https://innocenceproject.org/facts-racial-discrimination-justice-system-wrongful-conviction-black-history-month/ 

  1. NewsOne “Exonerated! Wrongly Convicted Black Folks Whose Names Have Been Cleared.” November 2021.

https://newsone.com/playlist/exonerated-falsely-accused-black-folks-freed-from-prison/item/1/


 

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