Justice & Chocolate Milkshakes

I just returned from my second Civil Rights trip to the Deep South with Tzedek America a few days ago.

Again, it was a group of young teens, around forty five of them—but without their parents this time (much better!).

And this time, I got a chance to teach, which was exciting. I led the children in singing in the morning, and also in some deep discussions. For instance, while our Black educator talked about the invented Jim Crow rule of 1/16th “negro blood” as a way of excluding Black people from “white” spaces, I wondered aloud about how we as Jews do the same thing to each other.

This crowd happened to have a bunch of kids from mixed parentage (one Jewish, the other not Jewish, perhaps Latino or Asian…). So I asked them if they’d had the experience of being told they weren’t “really” Jewish, or not Jewish “enough,” or anything along those lines.

The stories of pain and hurt poured out.

I pointed out that the Nazis had been thrilled to learn from American racism how to institute such rules for their own purposes—and how we continue to hurt each other, having internalized all of this and perpetuating such ideas.

I hoped that they would be able to widen the lens through which they were witnessing the painful history of Black people in the U.S. to themselves and to the present day in general. This is, of course, the goal of these trips.

The news of the Civil Rights Act being weakened yet again came out in the news in our last days.

More pain.

The ultimate question: when will this stop? And how will we stop it?

When we got home, I opened Bryan Stevenson’s book, Just Mercy, only to be bombarded by more pain. (We visited EJI’s Legacy sites, as we do for each trip). An excellent, spellbinding book about the injustices of our criminal “justice” system, it deepened my understanding of just how punitive a society we live in, and how this system is a continuation of our legacy of slavery.

When I thought about my blog, I thought, how could I write only about pain? Don’t we have enough of it already? Again, I asked myself as I sat down to write, what can I add that is new and hopeful in the midst of so much daily anguish in the world?

And what is “just mercy”?

I finished the book in a few days (that’s how good it is!—you should read it if you haven’t yet, or if you’ve only seen the movie), and it made me cry many more times than once. Like the children on these trips, I was deeply disturbed by what I learned.

But there was (at least) one story Stevenson told that gave me hope.

One day when he was visiting one of the (many) people on death row or condemned to die in prison that he defended, a white prison guard with Confederate flags all over his truck and tattooed on his body, subjected him (the lawyer!) to a strip search just to wield his power and humiliate him.

Stevenson gave in to it because he’d driven hours to see this client and didn’t want to let him down. And he went through it more than once.

A long time later, Stevenson was finally in court with his client, finally giving testimony after years of the courts refusing to even consider or hear that this Black man, very emotionally and intellectually disabled, should not have been tried as an adult for something he did as a young teen.

And there was that cruel guard again. The cruelest guard in the prison, that even other guards avoided, was the one to drive this prisoner to the courthouse.

Stevenson gave his testimony about the loss, abuse and neglect his client had experienced all his years growing up: his mother’s death when he was a toddler, his horrific time in foster care, from one extremely abusive home to another, and how this had damaged this man’s brain and psyche.

When Bryan returned to the prison to visit his client after the testimony, he wanted to make sure this cruel guard had not tortured the young man on the trip to court and back.

This time, as Bryan entered the prison, the same guard was there to greet him. He immediately prepared to go to the bathroom for his strip search, but the guard stopped him.

“You don’t have to do that. Oh, and I already signed your name in for you.”

What?? Why was he suddenly being so nice?

The guard put his hand on Bryan’s shoulder kind of nervously and said (I’m paraphrasing): “I wanna tell you something. I want you to know I was listening to all you said in that courtroom. It was very painful for me. You see, I grew up in foster care, and I thought nobody had it as bad as me. Now I see that some people had it even worse. I was so angry for so long, and listening to you, I realized I’m still kind of angry about what happened to me. Do you think that what happens to you can cause permanent damage, like that doctor said?”

Bryan responded something like, “We can all do better, but we’re always more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.” The guard was comforted and relieved.

Now, there’s something I didn’t tell you about this particular client. Every time Bryan visited him, he asked Bryan if he’d brought him a chocolate milkshake. With the mind of child already in his 30’s, this was his greatest concern. And despite all the abuse he received in prison, he remained cheerful, sweet and kind. Always disappointed that Bryan hadn’t been able to bring him a milkshake, he’d tried his best to focus and understand the legalities he was facing.

When Bryan went in to see this client that day after court (he did win!) he wasn’t asked about the milkshake. So Bryan decided to play the game; “I’m sorry, I wasn’t able to bring you a chocolate milkshake.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I got my milkshake,” said his client smiling.

Right before Bryan went in to see his client, the guard had told him one last thing in a whispered voice before letting him go; “Oh, and I…I did something I probably wasn’t supposed to do. I got off the highway on our way back and went into Wendy’s to get him a chocolate milkshake.” Bryan looked at him, shocked. The guard kind of smirked.

Bryan heard that, not long after, this man left his job permanently as a prison guard.

The promise of mercy, the idea that we can be forgiven for the worst things we’ve ever done—not because we deserve it, but just because—is at the center of this book.

The promise of true justice is something that Stevenson and his Equal Justice Initiative has been fighting for over the past few decades—and has succeeded in achieving in many ways, is about finding our humanity. It’s about seeing others as deserving of mercy, knowing we are all flawed and we can all do better. It is heartening to learn about how much the organization has grown and also how it has managed to sway this monstrous, unjust system towards greater justice.

It gives me hope—hope that I am passing on to you.

May we all find our humanity. May we all find forgiveness for others and ourselves, do kindnesses to others who may or may not deserve it, whether it’s a simple chocolate milkshake or something bigger, just because they are human too and might do better if treated with kindness, knowing we are all better than the worst thing we’ve ever done.

In that way, maybe we can begin to build a more merciful society, starting right here, wherever that may be.

Gut Shabbos.