From philosopher John Rawls: "A just society is a society that, if you knew everything about it, you'd be willing to enter it in a random place."
I am still in California, and have been reading a good bit about the Jordan Davis/Michael Dunn case, including pdfs (available on-line) of many of Dunn's letters written from jail. I also watched portions of testimony on youtube, including by Dunn to the police the day after the shootings. I'm deeply troubled by the jury's finding that Dunn had engaged in three counts of attempted 2nd-degree murder of (Davis' friends in the car), while not finding that Dunn had intended to kill Davis himself. Maybe I'm missing something about the legal definition of 1st-degree murder.
What I know is that I'm upset about what feels like a long history of open-hunting season of blacks by whites in this country. Challenge my authority? Dead. Look at my woman wrong? Dead. Walk or drive in the wrong part of town? Dead.
I'm disturbed by what appears to be an increasing trend toward justification of violent -- even deadly -- action against those whom we perceive as threats. "Stand-Your-Ground" law does not require efforts to evade or retreat from threat, even when these courses of action might readily be taken by a frightened potential victim. Stand-Your-Ground law allows the perception of threat to function as a defense for the use of "deadly force." (As an aside, California's "insanity defense" is not satisfied if the
defendant believes his/her actions are justifiable based on personal
standards for moral behavior, but recognizes that the actions would
violate general standards for moral behavior. In the case of
Stand-Your-Ground laws, it appears that the defendant's stated personal perception is what matters.)
Florida's Stand-Your-Ground law was not invoked during Dunn's trial. According to Dunn's testimony to the police, Davis had a weapon in hand and was opening the door of the car in which he'd sat in the back seat, having explicitly said he would kill Dunn. Dunn told police that he should have just backed his car out of the gas station parking spot (to leave), but instead reacted in fear for his life by grabbing his gun from the glove department, loading it and defending himself. He stated that he continued shooting at the car in which Davis sat even as that car's driver backed it out and drove off. He said that he didn't know until the next morning that Davis had died from his gunshot wounds. (That last part is believable to me since, by his report, he and his fiancée ordered pizza after returning to their hotel room, and did not report the shooting to the police.)
A basic tenet in the field of psychology -- one I believe is true -- is that we do not respond to what is happening but rather to our perception of what is happening. I imagine that's why police and military undergo special training in order to decrease reactivity in hot situations. Even so, I figure we're all still human and we are biologically inclined, if you will, to defend ourselves and those we care about when we perceive threat.
What is particularly disturbing to me now is the deepening notion -- reality? -- that, in the eyes of the law, perception can be enough. Enough to kill another person.
If the NRA had its way, teachers would be in a position to perceive threat from the angry parent (the angry teenager, the angry custodian, the angry fellow teacher) down the hall and shoot that person, all in the name of self-defense and of protecting children and other school staff. There doesn't have to be a weapon, just the belief that there is a weapon, the perception that the other person's movements are related to the existence of a weapon, the perception of a shadow or a shape as a weapon, the perception of someone as being in a suspicious location. Well, we've bombed a wedding party in Iraq for as much as that. (USMC Major General James Mattis was quoted as saying that a wedding was implausible in that particular case: "How many people go to the middle of the desert… to hold a wedding 80 miles (130 km) from the nearest civilization? These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naive." I don't know; maybe they thought it would be safer away from town?)
In my work with children, I've watched (perceived) them accidentally bump into each other on the field and make accusations of intentional shoving. I've seen (perceived) a child take a drink of water from the fountain and then straighten and turn so fast that the water sprayed the next child in line -- who insisted that he'd been intentionally spat upon. These interactions can get aggressive very quickly, particularly when the children have behavioral difficulties to begin with. In these situations, my work was to help the offended child consider the possibility that perception might not be reality -- so it's important to, e.g., ask a question: "Hey, did you just spit at me?" My work was also to help the perceived-as-offending child understand how an unintended behavior might provoke an angry response -- so it's important to be aware, and to apologize for accidents.
Would I do better to counsel children to act on their perceptions of aggression so they can protect themselves before the other child hurts them? Imagine the career path of the principal -- or the therapist -- who called a child into her or his office after a scuffle and said, "Now Billy, from what I understand, you thought that Tommy was looking very upset and it looked to you like he'd balled up his fist, so you hit him first to protect yourself. You did the right thing."
I cannot help but think of Oscar Grant, Amadou Diallo, Mohamed Bah, and Trayvon Martin, among many others.
Going through quite a few of Dunn's letters from jail, I was struck by how decent he could be (e.g., in his letters to his daughter): just a typical, loving father trying to guide and support his young adult child. I was also struck by how crass he could be, as when he wrote, "I was thinking to suggest [to an apparently suicidal jail cell neighbor] an easy way to die would be to ask a car load of thugs to turn their stereo down! [smiley face drawing] Somehow I don't think that would get the laugh I was going for." In one instance, what he wrote reflected for me the worst of Stand-Your-Ground and NRA potential: "This may sound a bit radical but if more people would arm themselves and kill these fucking idiots when they're threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior."
Much has been made of Dunn's negative comments re: the music of "thug culture," which he describes in one letter as espousing violence toward women. If that's the definition, I'm with him in not liking it. I don't see myself shooting any singers or musicians over it, nor those who choose to produce it, sell it, play it and/or listen to it. I feel the same way about anti-woman and anti-police video games, and "first-person shooter" games, some of which have included links (ultimately removed) to information about the purchase of weapons shown within them.
In one of his letters, Dunn wrote, "The jail here is almost all black prisoners. You'd think Jacksonville was 90-95% black, judging by the makeup of the folks in jail here! I've never seen a group of people so racially divided. The blacks hate the whites and the whites hate the blacks up here. My fear is that if I get black [sic] on my jury, it will be a mistrial, as I am convinced they will be racially biased."
In a different letter, about his wish for a change of venue, Dunn wrote, "The fear is that we may get a predominantly black jury and therefore unlikely to get a favorable verdict. Sad, but that's where this country is still at. The good news is that the surrounding counties are predominantly white and republican [sic] and supporters of gun rights! Remember that saying: Rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6! However, I don't wish to be pre-judged and the blacks around here are doing just that. I'm falling into the same trap -- pre-judging the blacks -- but they're making it very easy to do by their actions." (Self-awareness followed by dismissal and finger-pointing.)
I don't know how Dunn interpreted the "90-95% black" composition of the jail in which he awaited trial, but I suspect it was not a social justice interpretation (i.e., that blacks were being unjustly charged and incarcerated at rates much higher than their white peers). I was attentive to Dunn's concerns regarding the potential for a biased jury, based on their being "predominantly black." That shoe has so often been on the other foot, with black defendants (as well as the families and supporters of black victims) concerned about predominantly or all-white juries -- and that's where my assumption lies regarding the high percentage of blacks in this country's jails and prisons.
"A just society is a society that, if you knew everything about it, you'd be willing to enter it in a random place."
As a white woman, I wouldn't be willing to enter US society randomly. Whoever you are, would you? It's worth thinking about who would stand to have an easier and/or safer life by doing so.
with love, meg February 19, 2014
