I've been following the incredible yet all too predictable situation in which the distinguished Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested for breaking and entering his own home. Here (hat tip to Mary H.) is an interview with Gates by his adult daughter, Elizabeth. Money quote:
If this had happened to you before Maggie and I were born, would your ideals and what you’ve taught us have changed?
No! The ideals stay the same. America has already been founded on great ideals. Listen, Liza. America is the greatest nation ever founded. The ideals are the greatest ever espoused in human history, and we just need the country to live up to them. But what I worry about are the 1 million black men in the prison system…
Yes.
…How they got there. Will they ever get out. The whole prison system is designed to dehumanize you. From the time you get in they take your belt off—they strip you of your identity. They put you in with other criminals in a claustrophobic cell—I mean, you don’t have a shot. It’s like the door shuts and boom: you’re dead. They’ve given you a new identity; they’ve stripped your identity as a person and given you a new identity as a prisoner and that is horrifying. I didn’t realize it until I experienced it. I was astonished, you know? Your cell phone doesn’t work and they set it up that way. It’s cold, man.
What a paradox. The greatest nation ever founded. The whole prison system designed to dehumanize. The hugely disporportionate incarceration of African Americans. We've got a lot of work still to do, and pray, pray, change our hearts, Lord.
Peace,
Chris
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