Book No. 65 of 2020
Incredible, moving book (I know it is very cliche to describe a book as “moving,” but oh well). I felt weirdly ashamed, reading this book, that I’m not doing 1/1000000th of the good that Bryan Stevenson is doing in the world, but at the very least I am happy that I donated to EJI and will continue to do so in the future.
Before reading this book I knew vaguely about the prison pipeline and the inequality and racism baked into the justice and carceral systems—this book very deftly and clearly brings these issues to light and demonstrates how they fit into broader society, to an astonishing degree. There are moments that are incredibly heavy and stressful (and made more so by the knowledge that these stories are just the tip of the iceberg) but there are also moments that are powerful testaments to the goodness of humanity.
I think one of the most important messages that Stevenson imparts is that people are so significantly shaped—and damned—by their environments, something we should all be more aware of imho. The book also offers a very clear-eyed summary of how racism has been an integral building block of American law.
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Thematically, this reminds me of Chanel Miller’s Know My Name, which also probes the intersection of humanity and the justice system, with all the complexity, pain, messiness, and healing that follows.