At
first, I was aghast to come across a question that seems insensitive
and preposterous. Evidence unanimously proves a privileged young white
man, Brock Turner, committed a heinous crime, sexually assaulting an
unconscious woman. Such odious behavior has now been amply compounded by
consistent absence of remorse and flagrantly disingenuous attempts to
deflect responsibility. Yet, there is apparent solicitous concern about
how this affects such a sorry soul's future career prospects? If that
isn't a blatant example of misplaced sympathy, I don't know what is. Of
course, Quora offers a tool to deal with 'bad' questions, just downvote
them. However, sometimes bad questions also provide teachable moments. I
think this one certainly does.
One teachable moment comes from probing why such solicitous concern for Brock Turner's but not for Cory Batey's future career options. Cory who you ask?
Another
teachable moment comes from asking why such different sentences for two
rather similar crimes. If anything, for such heinous crimes both
defendants should have received similar, harsh sentences. So why such
difference in sentencing?
Black (Batey) versus white (Turner) defendant, is one possibility (see below from 1).
Black (Judge Monte Wilkins; Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts) versus white (Judge Aaron Persky; Aaron Persky) judge, is another possibility (see below from 1).
Obviously some justice enforcers are color-blind as indeed they should be while justice itself is apparently blind...to racial disparity
that is. A 2013 report to the UN Human Rights Committee shows blacks in
the US are routinely disproportionately arrested, convicted and
sentenced for comparable crimes (2).
Are such disparities surprising in a culture where solicitous concern
expressed for a white but not black perpetrator of rather similar,
heinous crimes is apparently normal?
Teachable moments do have a problem in that there's no guarantee they're equally learnable
moments. The latter depends on the students, questioners and/or readers
in this case. After all, one can take a horse to water but can't make
it drink.
Bibliography
1.
King: Brock Turner and Cory Batey, two college athletes who raped
unconscious women, show how race and privilege affect sentences. Shaun
King, New York Daily News, Tuesday, June 7, 2016. KING: Brock Turner, Cory Batey show how race affects sentencing
2.
Report of The Sentencing Project to the United Nations Human Rights
Committee. Regarding Racial Disparities in the United States Criminal
Justice System. August 2013. http://sentencingproject. org/wp-...
https://www.quora.com/How-employable-is-Brock-Turner/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala
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