Just Mercy is the kind of story that some people want to shy away from and others want to discredit for reasons of their own since they don’t want to own up to the fact that there is and has been a serious issue with the police and people of color in this country for a long time now. While the issue gets blown out of proportion by people taking it upon themselves to be offended for folks that don’t know they exist, stories such as this do happen as it was proven with attorney Bryan Stevenson and the defendant Walter McMillian. When Walter was accused of murdering a white woman he had plenty of witnesses to state that he was 11 miles away at another even when it happened, and not all of them had reason to lie for him which means that the evidence should have been enough. Yet the authorities at that time took it upon themselves to make a scapegoat out of him and imposed a quick over and done trial that lasted only a day and half and used little if any real law to convict him and eventually sentence him to life in jail, which the judge eventually changed to death for no good reason other than he thought that life wasn’t enough. It’s hard not to feel outrage at this as Abi Travis of Distractify might have so it’s easy to condemn such actions since the movie Just Mercy is telling a true story no matter how much it might have been embellished to make the movie a little more appealing.
The story is one that rests uneasily on the American consciousness since it still stands as something that people don’t want to talk about even if they know it’s happening. Depending on where a person lives they might feel outraged or they might not feel all that much since the idea of due process, a fair trial, and actual justice don’t mean the same to everyone. But on the other hand being taken in court by an innocent facade and mountains of evidence given by those that don’t want to see a person convicted has been used in the past to get someone off the hook that was guilty and needed to be punished in some way. In other words it’s too difficult at times to know who’s telling the truth and who’s just trying to cover up for a crime they committed but can’t face up to. In this case however there were enough people stating that McMillian had an airtight alibi and couldn’t have possibly committed the crime and there were those that just wanted to see someone punished and thought that a black man would be a good target. Saying that this is a deplorable practice in a nation where race has already been used to tear the populace apart in decades past isn’t quite enough, but it’s a start. Such cases as this prove that some racial tensions haven’t resolved yet and no matter how badly we want it, the issue of race hasn’t dissolved as much as it needs to. The fact that the movie took from a real story is something that seems fit to hold this up to the public eye and remind everyone that this did in fact happen, that race is in fact still a determining factor in the guilt or innocence of some individuals. Peter Applebome of The New York Times did a piece on this that’s kind of intriguing.
To think that there are some folks that would look at this and shake their heads and jeer is kind of saddening since it indicates that a lot of people are willing to turn a blind eye to these matters since it’s not happening to them. I won’t like and say that I’m a social justice warrior or a crusader of any type, as I’m not and won’t ever be considering that my view is that such people skew so hard to the left that they forgot long ago what real justice is while favoring the belief that everyone, no matter if they’re guilty or innocent, should be given the benefit of the doubt. The far right isn’t any better since their beliefs are just as nutty but from a different perspective. This movie highlights the need to treat people like people, not based on color, race, or anything else, but based on the fact that they’re human, they have the same needs, desires, and also need to have the same ability to defend themselves when accused of something and the same hope that justice will win out at some point and work for them as it’s supposed to. Some might think this is an SJW’s ideal movie but really it’s something that we all need to pay attention to no matter our perspective on it. Being a true story doesn’t change that fact one way or another.
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