On Saturday, Michael Dunn was found guilty of four out of five charges regarding the incident that resulted in the death of Jordan Davis.
On the first count, first degree murder, the jury could not reach a verdict. Michael Dunn faces up to 75 years of prison time for the crime he committed, however, I am left unsatisfied and honestly a bit angry.
Once again, it seems as though the life of a young black male simply does not have as much value to the American criminal justice system. Similar to the trial of George Zimmerman, the deceased victim was seemingly on trial, instead of the murderer. The state prosecution in both cases had to go to extraordinary measures in order to validate the deceased as a “victim.” It seems to me that only black male victims have to meet an extensive criterion to receive any sympathy from jurors. But before you dismiss my thoughts as just a visceral, unsubstantiated diatribe against the American criminal justice system, let me provide some quantitative data to buttress my claim.
Since Dunn used the controversial “Stand Your Ground” law as his defense, I will examine data that purports the disparities of white-on-black crime versus black-on-black crime. (Parenthetical pause. In my opinion, crime should best be described in terms of proximity, rather than race. For example, a white person is more likely to be killed by another white person, and the same applies to other races of people.)
John Roman of the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center released a study which found that “the killings of black people by whites were more likely to be considered justified than the killings of white people by blacks.”Roman utilized FBI data from 43,500 homicides from 2005 to 2009. According to an article on PBS, “He sifted out the only killings in which there was a single shooter and a single victim, both of whom were strangers to each other—narrowing the pool to about 5,000 homicides.”
One shortcoming of the reports was the fact that Roman did not compare the Stand Your Ground states to those who do not have the laws. Despite the shortcoming of the report, Roman “found that Stand Your Ground laws tend to track the existing racial disparities in homicide convictions across the U.S. — with one significant exception. Whites who kill blacks in Stand Your Ground states are far more likely to be found justified in their killings. In non-Stand Your Ground states, whites are 250 percent more likely to be found justified in killing a black person than a white person who kills another white person; in Stand Your Ground states that number jumps to 354 percent.”
The disparity is evident, but Roman does state “the figures do not prove bias.”
Despite all of the data, some will remain clueless about the assault that appears to be taking place on young, black males. In reading this, I just ask that you understand where my anger comes from.
I’m angry because now when I wear hooded sweatshirt, I have to think about how someone will perceive me.
I’m angry because I have to take into consideration that someone may perceive me as threat by the volume of my music.
I’m angry that we live in a society that has such negative entrenched views of people who look like me.
But, you know any “two-year old child can throw a fit.” I just hope that anger felt by me and many others will be channeled into a positive manner.
Tim Abram is a senior public policy leadership major form Horn Lake.
