I walk toward them, continuing. “I told you when we started this case that it was about Ruth Jefferson being presented with an impossible choice: to do her job as a nurse, or to defy her supervisor’s orders. I told you that evidence would show Davis Bauer had underlying health conditions that led to his death. And that is true, ladies and gentlemen. But this case, it’s about a lot more than I let on to you.
“Out of all the people who interacted with Davis Bauer at Mercy–West Haven Hospital during his short life, only one of them is sitting in this courtroom at the defense table: Ruth Jefferson. Only one person is being charged with a crime: Ruth Jefferson. I spent an entire trial skirting a very important question: Why?
“Ruth is black,” I say flatly. “That rubbed Turk Bauer, a white supremacist, the wrong way. He can’t stand black people, or Asian people, or gay people, or anyone else who isn’t like him. And as a result, he set into motion a chain of events that would lead to Ruth becoming a scapegoat for the tragic death of his son. But we are not supposed to talk about race in the criminal justice system. We’re supposed to pretend it is merely the icing on the cake of whatever charge has been brought to the table—not the substance of it. We are supposed to be the legal guardians of a postracial society. But you know, the word ignorance has an even more important word at its heart: ignore. And I don’t think it’s right to ignore the truth any longer.”
I look right at juror number 12, the teacher. “Finish this sentence,” I say. “I am…?” I pause at the blank. “Maybe you’d answer: shy. Or blond. Friendly. Nervous, intelligent, Irish. But the majority of you wouldn’t say white. Why not? Because it’s a given. It’s identity that is taken for granted. Those of us who were lucky enough to be born white are oblivious to that good fortune. Now, we’re all blissfully unmindful of lots of things. Probably, you did not give thanks for showering this morning, or for having a roof over your head last night. For eating breakfast and having clean underwear. That’s because all those invisible privileges are easy to take in stride.
“Sure, it’s so much easier to see the headwinds of racism, the ways that people of color are discriminated against. We see it now when a black man is accidentally shot by the police and a girl with brown skin is bullied by classmates for wearing a hijab. It’s a little harder to see—and to own up to—the tailwinds of racism, the ways that those of us who aren’t people of color have benefited just because we’re white. We can go to a movie and be pretty certain that most of the main characters will look like us. We can be late for a meeting and not have it blamed on our race. I can go into Judge Thunder’s chambers and raise an objection and not be told I’m playing the race card.” I pause. “The vast majority of us do not come home from work and say, Hooray! I didn’t get stopped and frisked today! The vast majority of us did not get into college and think, I got into the school of my choice because the educational system really works in my favor. We don’t think these things, because we don’t have to.”
By now, the jury is getting uneasy. They shift and shuffle, and from the corner of my eye I see Judge Thunder regarding me narrowly, even though a closing argument is mine alone to give, and theoretically, if I wanted to read Great Expectations out loud, I could.
“I know you’re thinking: I’m not racist. Why, we even had an example of what we think real racism looks like, in the form of Turk Bauer. I doubt there are many of you on the jury who, like Turk, believe that your children are Aryan warriors or that black people are so inferior they should not even be able to touch a white baby. But even if we took every white supremacist on the planet and shipped them off to Mars, there would still be racism. That’s because racism isn’t just about hate. We all have biases, even if we don’t think we do. It’s because racism is also about who has power…and who has access to it.