Thursday, July 23, 2009

And furthermore.....

What do I find interesting in the story of the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.? This:

His next project on race, he said, will be rooted in his arrest. "I hope to make a documentary about racial profiling for PBS," he said. "[The idea] had never crossed my mind but it has now."

He said the documentary will ask: "How are people treated when they are arrested? How does the criminal justice system work? How many black and brown men and poor white men are the victims of police officers who are carrying racist thoughts?

"I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that criminal justice system is rotten."
A lifetime of study, and it's a personal experience that makes him question the criminal justice system about what we know, and how we know it, and what matters most to us is pretty much what happens to us.

Sad how much we let systems do our thinking and experiencing for us, and how much we depend on personal experience to know anything about the world. Not a critique of Mr. Gates, or his next project; just an observation.

No comments:

Post a Comment