What? In the book, Just Mercy A Story of Justice and Redemption by, Bryan Stevenson the readers learn about the different social identities that describe the author. The very first fact that the readers learn about Stevenson is that he is, “a twenty-three-year old student at Harvard Law School [who is] working in Georgia on an internship…” (3). This little known aspect about Stevenson’s social identity informs the readers that he is a well-educated smart young adult. The discourse about his identity of being well-educated and young adult implies that Stevenson must be upper middle class and that he might not be mature enough, because of his age. At the start of the book it was unclear whether or not he was of color, but the readers shortly
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One of the officers drew his gun out and aimed it towards him. Stevenson had no idea what was going on, but he cooperated with the law officials. However, the two officers felt that he was a threat and dismissed the fact that this man who was just sitting in his car listening to the radio might not be how they are after continued violating Stevenson’s rights. At that moment when this interaction was happening, Stevenson knew he did nothing wrong, “… I figured that I would let them know that everything was okay. It certainly never occurred to me that getting out of my car was wrong or dangerous” (40). Sadly, he was wrong. The social identity of “being black” has this implication in our society that black people are criminals and untrustworthy, “I could hear them talking about all the burglaries in the neighborhood. There was a particularly vocal older white woman who loudly demanded that I be questioned about items she was missing” (41). Although, if this situation were to happen again and Stevenson was a white male, he would have never been stopped by SWAT police, which proves that our society is unfair and unjust when it comes down to social
One of the officers drew his gun out and aimed it towards him. Stevenson had no idea what was going on, but he cooperated with the law officials. However, the two officers felt that he was a threat and dismissed the fact that this man who was just sitting in his car listening to the radio might not be how they are after continued violating Stevenson’s rights. At that moment when this interaction was happening, Stevenson knew he did nothing wrong, “… I figured that I would let them know that everything was okay. It certainly never occurred to me that getting out of my car was wrong or dangerous” (40). Sadly, he was wrong. The social identity of “being black” has this implication in our society that black people are criminals and untrustworthy, “I could hear them talking about all the burglaries in the neighborhood. There was a particularly vocal older white woman who loudly demanded that I be questioned about items she was missing” (41). Although, if this situation were to happen again and Stevenson was a white male, he would have never been stopped by SWAT police, which proves that our society is unfair and unjust when it comes down to social