The biography, Just Mercy was published in 2014 by author Bryan Stevenson.  In 2019, the award-winning book was developed into a movie in 2019, winning multiple awards for its story and message.  This analysis will focus on the film version of this story.

The movie’s story follows the life and work of Bryan Stevenson, a recent graduate from Harvard Law School.  After graduation, Stevenson passes up corporate, high wage earning, jobs to rather move to Alabama and defend inmates who were wrongly accused of crime and others who could not afford representation.  Now, why was this film so successful?  While Stevenson helped exonerate numerous inmates, the film focuses on the relationship that Stevenson formed with Walter McMillian, highlighting the injustice and power struggle that plagued the justice system of southern states deep into the 1900s.

Understanding the injustices that the movie depicts is quite simple; black men in America were overwhelmingly charged for crimes that they did not commit and were not given fair representation by adequate lawyers.  Just Mercy uses both visuals and storylines further emphasize the depth of the injustices against black men.  Speaking first of the visual aspects, some of the most memorable scenes of the movie come as death row inmates line up at their cell doors, making any noise they can in support of a soon to be executed fellow prisoner.  These scenes gave insight to vastness of injustice that had happened.

The film made it seem that every prisoner on death row there was falsely accused through moments like this.  In regard to the storyline, the storyline attempted to further uncover the history of injustices in the case of McMillian.  The way that this movie depicts the injustices that existed reminded me of Spivak’s description of a subaltern.  As women were left voiceless in Spivak’s India, the black man was left voiceless in prison systems across America.

With injustice comes power, and power was expressed numerous times in Just Mercy.  Most memorably, the countless times that McMillian and other inmates were beaten or physically abused by white prison guards.  My mind immediately went to Hegel’s master slave paradox.  It was so disheartening to see this be lived out in modern times, but necessary to fully develop the power struggle that existed.

Now when Bryan Stevenson shared this story, and it was transitioned into a film, what was his intention in writing this biography?  What message did he want to be taken away?  I think that the intent was clear, develop an awareness of the injustice and power that existed in the late 1900s in the justice system.  As far as the message, I think Stevenson and the film writers wanted to make a case for the necessity for change in the ways black men have been treated for far too long in the justice system across the United States, and a powerful argument against the death penalty.

Austin  0:00

Alright, what’s up, guys? My name is Austin Gerwig

 

Zach  0:04

Hey, I’m Zach Whalen. And we’re both students at Ohio State.

 

Austin 0:09

All right, so on today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about something that’s very hot button topic right now.

 

Austin 0:17

And I go by name, a man named Donald Trump. And the question is whether or not Donald Trump is racist. And so today, we’re gonna be looking at a few different events in his presidency, of different things he said, and different things that have happened across the country.

 

Austin 0:36

And how he responded to these events, and try to determine whether or not Trump’s racist or not

 

Austin 0:41

so first off thing we want to talk about first is the Charlottesville car attack. So to kind of set the scene back in August of 2017. There were a bunch of rallies throughout the first few weeks of July, in early weeks of August

 

Austin 0:59

by white supremacist groups, and anti white supremacist groups, both fighting on both sides of the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia being removed. Obviously, white supremacists were pretty upset by this as soon as the Confederate soldier and

 

Austin 1:17

civil rights groups were very happy about this. So the protest started off pretty peacefully, with both sides saying their peace. That’s the beauty of America, we can have two sides to every story.

 

Austin 1:29

Although things didn’t stay peaceful for the entire time, as clashes kind of broke out.

 

Austin 1:36

days in August on August 12, exactly. A man from Ohio, drove through a crowd of protesters, killing about 30 people, or excuse me, injuring 30 people and killing one person.

 

Austin 1:50

After this, the FBI been this an act of domestic terrorism,

 

Austin 1:55

a horrific event. And

 

Austin 1:58

in response, our President got on like it was asked question, what do you think about the Charlottesville car attack? And can you condemn white supremacy?

 

Austin 2:08

And instead of what common thought would think you just condemn white supremacy? That was a horrible thing. Donald Trump said, there’s good people on both sides. Kind of hard to fathom. And Zack, would you think about that comment?

 

Zach 2:33

No, Austin, when you are the President of the United States, any question that comes up regarding if you condone extremist groups needs to be addressed swiftly and directly.

There were good people on both sides does not condone the white supremacist groups, stating this does not address the violence and actions that have been taken.

 

Zach  2:43

And then also all this violence and unrest, we need a leader that can unite the country. And I do not think that he is capable of this. And as we see time and time again, these racist remarks and statements of division

 

Zach  2:57

are not what this country needs. And

 

Zach  3:00

are the remarks of a man that is truly racist.

 

Zach  3:05

Going off of this, we see here and one of his rallies in June of 2016.

 

Video  3:12

What’s going on with him? You know what I look at my African American over here. Look at him. Are you the greatest? You know what I’m talking about? Okay, so we haven’t?

 

Austin  3:23

Yeah, that’s a pretty crazy little sound clip you have there for somebody that was running for president, you wouldn’t expect them to see us say something quite. You want to see that level of?

 

 

 

Zach  3:34

Can’t get more? Hey, look at my token person over here.

 

Austin 3:38

Exactly. And I think that actually leads us into something we discussed in class and I think, Zack, you want to hit on it that?

 

Zach  3:43

Was it. The master slave, you know, yes, this is Hegel’s master slave dialectic. This is when you have a master and a slave master being a person that believes that they are more superior than that other person being the slave.

 

Zach 4:05

What we see here with Trump during this rally is this African American that was in the crowd, his name was Gregory, shuttle, and he’s a republican from California. He was running for office. And he said that the only reason he was there, he’s not didn’t want to define himself as pro Trump. But he just wanted to see him speak because he had an open mind. So I don’t think he probably did not think that Trump would call them out like like that just because now he was black. No. Sure. That didn’t keep his mind open for very long when somebody speaks to you that way either. Now, yeah. The verbiage that Trump used when he said that he didn’t say look at the African American over there, which isn’t any better, but he says look at my African American, Ryan. The alarming thing is that is like the verbiage he’s using it’s, it shows ownership like he’s placing himself above that individual that was in the crowd?

 

Austin  5:00

Absolutely. I think that what you mentioned about, you know, the master slave dialectic

 

Austin  5:09

is just like you said, it’s this idea of somebody who holds power.

 

Austin 5:14

And kind of over in how they subjugate over others.

 

Austin 5:20

This is something, you know, that was thought of way back when, and

 

Austin 5:26

especially in the United States. So to be a free country,

 

Austin 5:30

you would think these sorts of

 

Austin 5:33

ideas wouldn’t exist today.

 

Austin 5:36

And when you see it from the president, United States, it brings up a lot of questions of

 

Austin 5:41

clearly these these things he’s saying or seem to be pretty racist. It doesn’t stop there. Is that exactly another example, too, right?

 

Zach  5:52

Yeah, yeah. So this is regarding

 

Zach 5:55

our relations with Mexico and Trump’s desire to build a wall. And to keep out the migrants that are coming in from Mexico and other countries, south of our border. And this, I want to read a little excerpt here from this post by the New York Times discussing an idea that Trump had in order to keep migrants out of our country. And it says privately, the President has once had often talked about fortifying a border wall with the water filled trench stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aids to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified with spikes on top of that computer seen in the flesh, after publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot.

 

Zach 6:44

migrants if they throw rocks, and the President backed off when the staff told him that that was legal. But later in the meeting, he recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow him down, as if there was a better idea and then just shooting them.

 

Zach  7:02

That’s not allowed, either. They told him and thankfully told him, but

 

Zach  7:08

this is just alarming, because, you know, these people are

 

Zach 7:14

his migrants are coming to the United States to seek asylum to find work, send money back to their families, you know, they’re the reasons for wanting to come to United States do not truly matter. They are human beings. And Trump wanting to do this

 

Zach 7:36

exemplifies one of the other concepts we’ve talked about in class. And that’s this concept of

 

Zach 7:45

the double vo Rs, I butchered that name. But this concept of other and it’s this concept back in the day, when it first originated, was more so about females being the second sex and how they’re

 

Zach 8:05

inferior to the males, but we can use this concepts. And in this example, Trump being the superior and then migrants being the other and Austin, What are your thoughts on this situation?

 

Austin  8:27

I mean, I personally think that, you know, this concept of othering

kind of exemplifies, you know, modern day racism.

 

Austin 8:33

And just just kind of using these these words from the President, as an example.

 

Austin 8:41

So obviously, he’s not, he’s not going out here and saying,

 

Austin 8:45

you know, there’s a specific race, that’s bad, there’s, you know, a specific group of people that are bad. He’s just generalizing anybody coming from, you know, the southern border, granted there. Um, I’m gonna go back to say what Donald Trump said, The Charlottesville rallies, you know, there, there are probably a lot of good people, I’m sure there are a few bad people coming, coming. There’s good and bad people.

 

Austin 9:07

Many bad people, right.

 

Austin 9:10

But what I what I will say off that is,

 

Austin 9:14

no matter who is coming through the border,

 

Austin 9:19

I think it’s important as a president not to develop this idea of you know, there are there these are these other people, you know, because whoever they are, you know, that’s going to lead Americans, when our leaders saying look at these other people that are trying to come into our country, you might have some different you know, feelings about those people that aren’t necessarily true. And so it kind of starts at the top where he’s not necessarily saying you know, racist things about a specific person.

 

Austin 9:47

But he’s, he’s not helping the situation with other Americans what they might feel and what other Americans might develop racist tendencies toward towards people that are trying to migrate to our country for for better reasons.

 

 

Austin 10:00

Would you agree with that?

 

Zach  10:16

Oh, no, I completely, wholeheartedly agree. And it’s, it’s now going on to more personal now, Trump. His wife, I believe, also was born in this country, right.  So the I don’t know where this

 

Zach 10:22

like need stems from for him on wanting to keep everybody else out when you know, we ourselves hundreds of years ago our ancestors have coming up came over to United States and his family as well.

 

Austin 10:31

And his family as well, he’s only he’s only second generation.

 

Zach 10:39

Oh, Is he, I did not know that. Yeah, yeah.

 

Austin 10:42

So I think I think those those three examples, and obviously they’re, you know, there are countless more that that we can talk about,

 

Austin 10:50

you know, things that President have said, that come across as rather derogatory and racist. pretty much straight up

 

Austin 10:59

the analysis whole idea of, you know, is he truly racist? Um, I know, Zach, you, I’ll give you a second, share your thoughts in a second. But I’m going to try to play devil’s advocate here a little bit.

 

Austin 11:10

And truly not assume anything by people’s words. For somebody that’s in the public eye, with everything that they say everything they say is, you know, is recorded.

 

Austin 11:21

I’d be a hypocrite if I haven’t, you know, probably slipped up and said something, but wouldn’t be taken the best way throughout my life. So we have to understand he’s under a microscope, right?

 

Austin 11:31

Granted, as a leader, you have to be a little more careful with what you’re saying.

 

 

Austin 11:37

But it’s hard for me to judge somebody who’s completely racist, unless I sit down, have conversation with that person personally. Rather than listening to sound bites, I would argue that

 

Austin 11:50

you’re going to find sound bites, no matter who the person is a things that they say that, you know, might not sound the best and are either racist, or Trump has said quite a few.

 

Austin 12:02

Clearly, his tendencies point to being more racist person. But I don’t know if I can definitively say that, you know, for sure he is racist, because I don’t think that’s fair to me as a human being to put that judgment on somebody without actually sitting down having conversation with them. Zach, what do you think to wrap us up today?

 

Zach  12:24

And I agree with with what you’ve said, um, I think as an individual people are not static and their life, their people are dynamic people can change. I think, with the the amount of things that you said that are, you know, raise, raise eyebrows,

 

Zach  12:41

these racist remarks.

 

Zach 12:44

I’m not sure where they come from. I don’t know if it’s a prejudice that he has, if it’s ignorance, but it’s completely Alright, for somebody to say something that’s ignorant. You know, it’s what’s what’s important is that once they are corrected on the ignorance, once they’re educated, that they change, they recognize their mistake, they can grow as a person. And that’s just not something we have seen, in the current president. Which is, which is alarming. You know, one thing that I like to think about in my own life is that we judge others based on their actions, but yet we judge ourselves based on our intentions. And to definitively say that Trump is racist. It’s not up to me, I can’t actually get inside his brain.

 

Zach 13:48

Though, like, he expresses himself, he says, exactly what’s on his mind all the time. Whether that be bad or good. And that’s actually a reason why a lot of people like him is for that reason.

 

Austin 14:03

It is something we haven’t seen in a while.

 

Zach 14:05

Yeah, but getting back on topic. Yeah. I can’t definitively say if he’s racist, but it’s up to up to the viewer to sort of look it up themselves, figure it out, form their own opinion.

 

Austin 14:20

Yeah, yes. So kind of to wrap things up here. Um, so I think we’re pretty much on the on the same wave length of, you know, obviously, some really bad things said, but kind of unfair for either of us to say like, like we already said we like you mentioned that he is truly racist. You would agree with that, correct?

 

Zach

I do. Yeah.

 

Austin

And so yeah, so I think that’s where we’re gonna end off today. Thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed it.

 

Zach

Thank you for listening. Have a great day.

 

Austin

Have a good one, guys.

On September 11, 2001, the United States faced the largest attack on its soil since Pearl Harbor.  In an attack orchestrated by the terrorist organization Al Qaeda, hijacked commercial planes struck the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.  Nearly 3,000 lives were lost that day.   In the aftermath of the attacks, a lot changed across the United States.  Airport and public transportation security was significantly increased, our military was mobilized and sent to the Middle East, and strong islamophobia and stereotyping developed toward Muslim Americans as a result of 9/11.

“I was afraid to go outside. If I stayed inside, I couldn’t mess up, except maybe with my words, which I policed carefully. I couldn’t speed, I couldn’t frighten anyone, I couldn’t break any law — no matter how tenuous — and therefore couldn’t be thrown in Guantanamo,” said American Muslim writer Shawna Ayoub Ainslie.  Ainslie’s fears were voiced after a Muslim American was killed just days after 9/11 on the 15^th of September.  Events like this began to happen nationwide and Muslim Americans feared for their safety as hate crimes skyrocketed, according to data from the FBI.  Obviously, the initial event was the major source of this issue, but as movies and new documentaries have come out through the years the islamophobia found itself to have new spikes across the United States.

So how was this issue combatted by Muslim Americans, and other Americans from Middle Eastern descent?  Multiple civil rights groups organized movements to prevent hate crime trends from continuing to increase and leading the way was South Asian Americans Leading Together, or SAALT.  This organization sought to limit the backlash toward Muslim Americans by beginning a campaign to explain to Americans that they stand with them in fighting back toward the radical Islamists who carried out the attacks.  The campaign titled, An America for All of Us, is best explained in the attached video, and drastically helped ethnic Americans plead their case to end racial profiling and hate crimes.  As previously stated, campaigns such as this one created by SAALT are widespread, but even today, 19 years after the attacks, islamophobia is still a very real thing in the United States undoubtedly because of the attacks on September 11, 2001.http://https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/911-10-america-all-us

 

References:

“Data: Hate Crimes against Muslims Increased after 9/11.” The World from PRX, www.pri.org/stories/2016-09-12/data-hate-crimes-against-muslims-increased-after-911.

The View of Muslims and Arabs in America Before and After September 11th, www.csun.edu/~sm60012/GRCS-Files/Muslims-post-9-11.htm.

“9/11 At 10: An America for All of Us.” Open Society Foundations, www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/911-10-america-all-us.