It’s close to 4 am and I’m just walking out the door at Charleys. Three servers next to me, all women, flock to a car. I’m tired, the kind of fatigue that comes after running around on your feet for 11 hours straight.

 

Something from tonight stuck with me; an employee downstairs who had just finished his shift and came up to talk to some of us. I didn’t know him; I don’t know any of the staff in the kitchen really. They’re so far separated from the “front of house” staff (the ones who are seen by customers) that maybe I’ll get 2 minutes of interaction with the support staff on a good night. When I go downstairs on the off-chance that I need something or I’m grabbing a new container, the blasting rap music never fails to startle me. I always look at the 10 or so people preparing food and the 2 or 3 doing dishes; and without void I see that they’re all black. I take note; and walk back upstairs. I look around. Almost all of the servers are attractive young women of some combination of Caucasian descent. Why? I think to myself.

 

Back to the conversation: this staff member was talking about how tired he was, something that usually I’m pretty good at out-competing others for (oh your 5-hour shift was horrible? Imagine my average 11 hour one…), but I couldn’t compete with him. He was telling my manager how every day he gets up at 4 am to drive his wife to work, he then gets home at 6 am (her work is over an hour from his house), takes his daughter to school at 7 am, and must be to work 45 minutes away by 8 am. Not this work at the bar; a completely separate job. He works 8-4 and then drives to this job, which he works until 10 or 11pm. This happens every. single. day. of. the. week. Why doesn’t he just get a better job?

 

I flash forward to walking down South U at 4 am with my coworkers. It’s cold out, dark, but some drunk strangers are still crawling their way home. Bright lights grab my attention; red, blue, red, blue, how ominous those lights are without sound. I should feel safer, in this moment, surrounded by police. I don’t. I wonder, instead, what the person in this car was doing. He’s young, African American, driving a run-down car. Was he drinking? Or did he just happen to fit the profile of a criminal in the police officers’ eyes? I question.

 

I had never feared the police before this internship. I had never questioned a judge’s decision, or felt that a penalty for a crime was too harsh. I trusted, mostly. Trusted that of course, in the 21st century, in the United States, our courts surely were fair by now. I trusted that people deserved the punishment they received, growing up on the belief that you’re responsible for your actions.

 

I knew racism existed in our society. I thought it manifested in who people dated, certain word choices, maybe the occasional inappropriate reference. I thought the perpetrators were uneducated, deeply illogical people. I was wrong.

 

I thought the point of punishment was to discourage future crime. Fool me once blame on you, fool me twice blame on me? But then why is the 5-year rate of recidivism (committing another crime) 77% for inmates released from state prisons? I don’t understand. And why do African Americans only make up 12% of our population yet make up 37% of prison inmates? It doesn’t make sense. Having a skin color doesn’t make you more or less likely to commit a crime.  

 

I look at things differently now. Even subtle cues make me wonder.

 

I walked into orientation at my internship thinking that every day I would be interacting with criminals. I was mistaken. Instead, every day I interacted with mothers, sons, students, children, but most were far from criminals, they were human.

 

I began writing this project believing that I would come up with a solution; a proposal and set of guidelines that would sort out our justice system. I thought the problem was in the structure, the processes, the minimums and money. This is the explicit function of the criminal justice system; the one that I had become accustomed to and the one that many of us know. Commit a crime, go to court, complete your service, leave.

 

But the implicit function of the criminal justice system is one that blindsided me. Because it was in looking at the so called “criminals” and less at the processes that I began to see the true realization of what this system reflects. There is no easy fix for the problems we face, because the problems emanate in our society. Where we’re born, our education, how we’re employed, who society values; this is what defines our criminal justice system.

 

If you were anything like me; before reading these stories you believed the law was on your side. If you were anything like me; you’ve never had to truly interact with the law unless it was in your favor. If you were anything like me; you were sickened by reading about these people; you felt helpless; ashamed.

 

We can all do something moving forward. Because as I’ve found it’s the implicit function of this criminal justice system that does the most damage, so to fight the bias is to fight for humanity. I think twice when I see someone being arrested, I wonder if they truly were guilty of any crime. I take notice of the small injustices granted to certain members of society every day, and I do my best to level the playing field.

 

You don’t have to dedicate your life to representing the unrepresented; and that’s not what I’m asking for. But what I am asking is that you dedicate seconds or minutes of your day to question your judgements of others and think thoroughly if they’re rooted in truth or rooted in society.