We need to talk about an injustice Bryan Stevenson
this is a really extraordinary honor for
me I spend most of my time in jails and
prisons on death row I spend most of my
time in very low-income communities and
the projects in places where there’s a
great deal of hopelessness and being
here at Ted and and seeing the
stimulation hearing it has been very
very energizing to me and one of the
things that’s emerged in my short time
here is that ted has an identity and you
can actually say things here that have
impacts around the world and sometimes
when it comes through Ted it has meaning
and power that it doesn’t have when it
doesn’t and I mention that because I
think identity is really important we’ve
had some fantastic presentations and I
think what we’ve learned is that if
you’re a teacher your words can be
meaningful but if you’re a compassionate
teacher they can be especially
meaningful if you’re a doctor you can do
some good things but if you’re a caring
doctor you can do some other things and
so I want to talk about the power of
identity and I didn’t learn about this
actually practicing law and doing the
work that I do I actually learned about
this from my grandmother I grew up in a
house that was the traditional African
American home that was dominated by a
matriarch and that matriarch was my
grandmother
as she was tough she was strong she was
powerful she was the end of every
argument in our family she was the
beginning of a lot of arguments in our
family she was the daughter of people
who were actually enslaved her parents
were born in slavery in Virginia in the
1840s she was born in the 1880s and the
experience of slavery very much shaped
the way she saw the world and my mother
and my grandmother was tough but she was
also loving when I would see her as a
little boy she’d come up to me and she’d
give me these hugs and she’d squeeze me
so tight I could barely breathe and then
she’d let me go
and an hour or two later if I saw her
she’d come over to me to say Brian do
you still feel me hugging you and if I
said no she’d assault me again and I’ve
had to say yes she’d leave me alone and
then she just had this quality you
always wanted to be near her and the
only challenge was that she had ten
children my mom was the youngest of her
ten kids and sometimes when I would go
in
spend time with her it’d be difficult to
get her time and attention my cousins
would be running around everywhere and I
remember when I was about eight or nine
years old waking up one morning going
into the living room and all of my
cousins were running around and my
grandmother was sitting across the room
staring at me and at first I thought we
were playing a game and I would look at
her and I’d smile but she was very
serious and after about 15 or 20 minutes
of this she got up and she came across
the room and she took me by the hand and
she said come on Brian you’re not gonna
have a talk and I remembered this just
like it happened yesterday I never will
forget it she took me out back and she
said Brian I’m gonna tell you something
but you don’t tell anybody what I tell
you I said okay mama she said now you
make sure you don’t do that I said sure
then she sat me down and she looked at
me and she said I want you to know I’ve
been watching you and she said I think
you’re special she said I think you can
do anything you want to do I will never
forget it and then she said I just need
you to promise me three things Brian I
said okay mama she said the first thing
I want you to promise me is that you’ll
always love your mom she said that’s my
baby girl you have to promise me now
you’ll always take care of her well I
adored my mom so I said yes mama
I’ll do that then she said the second
thing I want you to promise me is that
you’ll always do the right thing even
when the right thing is the hard thing
and I thought about it and I said yes
mama I’ll do that then finally she said
the third thing I want you to promise me
is that you’ll never drink alcohol well
I was nine years old so I said yes mama
I’ll do that I grew up in the country in
the rural south and have a brother
you’re older than me and a sister you’re
younger when I was about 14 or 15 one
day my brother came home and he had this
six-pack of beer I don’t know where he
got it and he grabbed me and my sister
we went out in the woods and we were
kind of just out there doing the stuff
we crazily did and he had a sip of this
beer and he gave some to my sister and
she had some and they offered it to me I
said no no no no that’s okay y’all go
ahead I’m not gonna have any beer and my
brother said come on we’re doing this
today you always do what we do I had
some your sister had some have some beer
I said no I don’t feel right about that
y’all go ahead y’all go ahead and then
my
that started staring at me he said what
is what’s wrong with you have some beer
then he looked at me real hard he said
oh I hope you’re not still hung up on
that conversation mama had with you I
said well what are you talking about he
says oh mama tells all the grandkids
that they’re special I I was devastated
and I’m going to admit something to you
I’m gonna tell you something I probably
shouldn’t I know this might be broadcast
broadly but I’m I’m 52 years old and I’m
gonna admit to you that I’ve never had a
drop of alcohol I don’t I don’t say that
because I think that’s virtuous I say
that because there is power in identity
when we create the right kind of
identity we can say things to the world
around us that they don’t actually
believe makes sense we can get them to
do things that they don’t think they can
do when I thought about my grandmother
cart of course she would think all her
grandkids were special my grandfather
was in prison during Prohibition my male
uncle’s died of alcohol related diseases
and these were the things she thought we
needed to commit to well I’ve been
trying to say something about our
criminal justice system this country is
very different today than it was 40
years ago in 1972 there were 300,000
people in jails in prisons today there
are 2.3 million the United States now
has the highest rate of incarceration in
the world we have 7 million people on
probation and parole and mass
incarceration in my judgment has
fundamentally changed our world in poor
communities and communities of color
there is this despair there is this
hopelessness that is being shaped by
these outcomes but one out of three
black men between the ages of 18 and 30
is in jail in prison on probation or
parole in urban communities across this
country Los Angeles Philadelphia
Baltimore Washington 50 to 60 percent of
all young men of color in jail or prison
or on probation and parole our system
isn’t just being shaped in these ways
that seem to be distorting around race
they’re also distorted by poverty we
have a system of justice in this country
that treats you much better
if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re
poor and innocent wealth not culpability
shapes outcomes and yet we seem to be
very comfortable the politics of fear
and anger has made us believe that these
are problems that are not our problems
we’ve been disconnected it’s interesting
to me we’re looking at some very
interesting developments in our work my
state of Alabama like a number of states
actually permanently disenfranchise us
you if you have a criminal conviction
right now in Alabama 34 percent of the
black male population is permanently
lost the right to vote
we’re actually projecting in another 10
years the level of disenfranchisement
will be as high as it’s been since prior
to the passage of the Voting Rights Act
and there is this stunning silence I
represent children a lot of my clients
are very young the United States is the
only country in the world where we
sentenced 13 year old children to die in
prison we have life imprisonment without
parole for kids in this country and
we’re actually doing some litigation
only country in the world I resent
people on death row it’s interesting
this question of the death penalty in
many ways we’ve been taught to think
that the real question is do people
deserve to die for the crimes they’ve
committed and that’s a very sensible
question but there’s another way of
thinking about where we are in our
identity the other way of thinking about
it is not do people deserve to die for
the crimes they commit but do we deserve
to kill means fascinating death penalty
in America is defined by error for every
nine people who have been executed we’ve
actually identified one innocent person
who’s been exonerated and released from
death row a kind of astonishing error
rate one out of nine people innocent I
mean it’s fascinating in aviation we
would never let people fly on airplanes
if for every nine planes it took off one
would crash but somehow we can insulate
ourselves from this problem it’s not our
problem it’s not our burden it’s not our
struggle well I talk a lot about these
issues I talk about a race and this
question whether we deserve to kill and
it’s interesting when I teach my
students about african-american history
I tell them about slavery
I tell them about terrorism the era that
began at the end of Reconstruction that
went on to World War two we don’t really
know very much about it but for African
Americans in this country that was an
era defined by terror in many
communities people had to worry about
being lynched they had to worry about
being bombed it was the threat of terror
that shaped their lives and these older
people come up to me now
and they say mr. Stevenson you give
talks you make speeches you tell people
to stop saying we’re dealing with
terrorism for the first time in our
nation’s history after 9/11 they tell me
to say no tell them that we grew up with
that and that era of terrorism of course
was followed by a segregation a decades
of racial subordination and apartheid
and and yet we have in this country this
dynamic where we really don’t like to
talk about our problems we don’t like to
talk about our history and because of
that we really haven’t understood what
it’s meant to do the things we’ve done
historically and we’re constantly
running into each other we’re constantly
creating tensions and conflicts we have
a hard time talking about race and I
believe it’s because we are unwilling to
commit ourselves to a process of truth
and reconciliation in South Africa
people understood that we couldn’t
overcome or part time without a
commitment to truth and reconciliation
in Rwanda even after the genocide there
was this commitment but in this country
we haven’t done that I was giving this
lecture in Germany some lectures in
Germany about the death penalty it was
fascinating because one of the scholars
stood up after the presentation and said
well you know it’s deeply troubling to
hear what you’re talking about I said we
don’t have the death penalty in Germany
and of course we can never have the
death penalty in Germany and the room
got very quiet and this woman said
there’s no way with our history we can
ever engage in the systematic killing of
human beings it would be unconscionable
for us to intentional deliberate way set
about executing people but I thought
about that what would it feel like to be
living in a world where the nation-state
of Germany was executing people
especially if they were
disproportionately Jewish I couldn’t
bear it it would be unconscious
and yet in this country in the states of
the old South we execute people where
you’re 11 times more likely to get the
death penalty if the victim is white
than if the victim is black 22 times
more likely to get it if the defendant
is black and the victim is white in the
various states where there are buried in
the ground the bodies of people who were
lynched and yet there is this disconnect
well I believe that our identity is at
risk that when we actually don’t care
about these difficult things the
positive and wonderful things are
nonetheless implicated we love
innovation we love technology we love
creativity we love entertainment but
ultimately those realities are shadowed
by suffering abuse degradation
marginalization and for me it becomes
necessary to integrate the two because
ultimately we are talking about a need
to be more hopeful more committed more
dedicated to the basic challenges of
living in a complex world and for that
mean for me that for me that means
spending time thinking and talking about
the poor the disadvantaged those who
will never get to Ted but thinking about
them in a way that is integrated in our
own lives you know ultimately we all
have to believe things we haven’t seen
we do as rational as we are as committed
to intellect as we are innovation
creativity development comes not from
the ideas in our mind alone they come
from the ideas in our mind that are also
fueled by some conviction in our heart
and it’s that mynhardt connection that I
believe compels us to not just be tended
attentive to all the bright and dazzling
things but also the dark and difficult
things
václav havel the great Czech leader
talked about this he said when we were
in Eastern Europe and dealing with
oppression we wanted all kinds of things
but mostly what we needed was hope an
orientation of the spirit a willingness
to sometimes be in hopeless places and
be a witness well that or
Taoiseach of the spirit is very much at
the core of what I believe even Ted
communities have to be engaged in there
is no disconnect around technology and
design that will allow us to be fully
human until we pay attention to
suffering to poverty to exclusion to
unfairness to injustice now I will warn
you that this kind of identity is a much
more challenging identity than ones that
don’t pay attention to this it will get
to you I have the great privilege when I
was a young lawyer meeting Rosa Parks
and Miss parks used to come back to
Montgomery every now and then and she
would get together with two of her
dearest friends these older women a
Johnny car who was the organizer of the
Montgomery bus boycott amazing
african-american woman and Virginia
Durrell white woman whose husband
Clifford Durr I represented dr. King and
these women would get together and just
talk and every now and then this car
would call me and she’d say Brian miss
parks is coming to town we’re gonna get
together and talk do you want to come
over and listen and I’d say yes ma’am I
do and she said well what are you gonna
do when you get here I said I’m gonna
listen and I’d go over then I would I
would just listen it was be so
energizing and so empowering and one
dime I was over there listening to these
women talk and after a couple of hours
miss parks turned to me and she said no
Brian tell me what the equal justice
initiative is tell me what you’re trying
to do
I began giving her my rap I said well
we’re trying to challenge injustice
we’re trying to help people have been
wrongly convicted we’re trying to
confront a bias and discrimination the
administration of criminal justice we’re
trying to end life without parole
sentences for children were trying to do
something about the death penalty we’re
trying to reduce the prison population
we’re trying to end mass incarceration I
gave her my whole rap and when I
finished she looked at me and she said
mmm she said that’s gonna make you tired
tired tired
and that’s what miss Carlene Ford she
put her finger my patient says that’s
why you’ve got to be brave brave brave
and I actually believe that the Ted
community needs to be more courageous we
need to find ways to to embrace these
challenges these problems the suffering
because ultimately our humanity depends
on everyone’s humanity I’ve learned very
simple things doing the work that I do
it’s just taught me very simple things
I’ve come to understand and to believe
that each of us is more than the worst
thing we’ve ever done I believe that for
every person on the planet I think if
somebody tell us a lie they’re not just
a liar I think if somebody takes
something that doesn’t belong to them
they’re not just a thief I think even if
you kill someone you’re not just a
killer and because of that there’s this
basic human dignity that must be
respected by law I also believe that in
many parts of this country and certainly
in many parts of this globe that the
opposite of poverty is not wealth I
don’t believe that I actually think in
too many places the opposite of poverty
is justice and finally I believe that
despite the fact that it is so dramatic
and so beautiful and so inspiring and so
stimulating we will ultimately not be
judged by our technology we won’t be
judged by our design we won’t be judged
by our intellect in reason ultimately
you judge the character of a society not
by how they treat the rich and the
powerful and the privileged but by how
they treat the poor the condemned the
incarcerated because it’s in that Nexus
that we actually begin to understand
truly profound things about who we are I
sometimes get out of balance all in with
this story I sometimes push too hard I
do get tired as we all do sometimes
those ideas get ahead of our kind of
thinking in ways that are important and
I’ve been representing these kids who
have been sentenced to do these very
harsh sentences and I go to the jail and
I see my client who’s 13 and 14 and he’s
been certified to stand trial as an
adult I keep start thinking well how did
that have
then how can a judge turn you into
something that you’re not and the judge
is certified him as an adult but I see
this kid and I and I was up too late one
night I started thinking well gosh if
the judge can turn you into something
that you’re not the judge must have
magic power
so yeah Brian the judge had some magic
power you should ask for some of that
and because I was up too late and wasn’t
thinking real straight that started
working on a motion and I had a client
it was 14 years old a young poor black
kid and start working on this motion
within the head of the motion was a
motion to try my poor 14 year old black
male client like a privileged white 75
year old corporate executive and I’ve
put in my motion that there was
prosecutorial misconduct and police
misconduct and judicial misconduct it
was a crazy line in there about how
there’s no conduct in this county it’s
all misconduct and at the next morning I
woke up and I thought did I dream that
crazy motion or did I actually write it
into my horror not only had I written it
but I had sent it to court
couple months went by and I just had
forgotten all about it
and I finally decided oh gosh I got to
go to the port and do this crazy case
and I got in my car and I was feeling
really overwhelmed overwhelmed and I got
in my car and I went to this courthouse
and was sitting what this is gonna be so
difficult so so painful I finally got
out of the car and I started walking up
to the courthouse and as I was walking
up the steps of this courthouse there
was an older black man who was the
janitor in this courthouse when this man
saw me he came over to me and he said
who are you I said I’m a lawyer he said
you a lawyer I said yes sir and this man
came over to me and he hugged me and he
whispered in my ear he said I’m so proud
of you and I have to tell you it was
energizing it connected deeply with
something in me about identity about the
capacity of every person to contribute
to community to perspective that is
hopeful well I went into the courtroom
soon as I walked inside the judge saw me
coming and he said mr. Stevenson did you
write this crazy motion I said yes sir I
didn’t we started arguing people started
coming in because they were just
outraged I had written these crazy
things and police officers were coming
in and system prosecutors and clerk
workers before
the court was filled with people angry
that we were talking about race that we
were talking about poverty that we were
talking about inequality
and out of the corner of my eye I could
see this janitor pacing back and forth
and kept looking through the window and
he could hear all of this hot air he
kept pacing back and forth and finally
this older black man with this very
worried look on his face came into the
courtroom and sat down behind me almost
a council table
about ten minutes later the judge said
we would take a break and during the
break there was a deputy sheriff who was
offended that the janitor had come into
court and this deputy jumped up and he
ran over to this older black man he said
Jimmy what are you doing in this
courtroom this older black man stood up
and he looked at that deputy and he
looked at me and he said I came into
this courtroom to tell this young man
keep your eyes on the prize hold on I’ve
come to Ted because I believe that many
of you understand that the moral arc of
the universe is long but it bends toward
justice that we cannot be full evolved
human beings until we care about human
rights and basic nigde T that all of our
survival is tied to the survival of
everyone that our visions of technology
and design and entertainment and
creativity have to be married with the
divisions of humanity compassion and
justice and more than anything for those
of you who share that I’ve simply come
to tell you that to keep your eyes on
the prize hold on thank you very much
so you heard and saw an obvious desire
by this audience this community to help
you on your way and to do something on
this issue other than writing a check
what what could we do well there are
opportunities all around us if you live
in the state of California for example
there is a referendum coming up this
spring where actually there’s going to
be an effort to redirect some of the
money we spend on the politics of
punishment for example here in
California we spend we’re going to spend
1 billion dollars on the death penalty
in the next 5 years 1 billion dollars
and yet 46% of all homicide cases don’t
result in arrests 56% of all rape cases
don’t result so there’s an opportunity
to change that and this referendum would
propose having those dollars go to law
enforcement and safety and I think that
opportunity exists all around us now
there’s been this huge decline in crime
in in America over the last three
decades and part of the narrative of
that is sometimes that it’s about
increased incarceration rates what would
you say to someone who believe that well
actually the violent crime rate has
remained relatively stable you know the
the great increase in mass incarceration
in this country wasn’t really in violent
crime categories it was this misguided
war on drugs now that’s where the
dramatic increases have come in our
prison population and we got carried
away with the rhetoric of punishment and
so we have three strikes laws that put
people in prison forever for stealing a
bicycle for low-level property crimes
rather than making them give those
resources back to the people who they
victimized I believe we need to do more
to help people who are victimized by
crime not do less and I think our
current punishment philosophy does
nothing for no one and I think that’s
the orientation that we have to change
Brian you’ve you’ve struck a massive
chord here you’re an inspiring person
thank you so much for coming to talk
you