Justice Denied

            In the article "Justice Denied" which appears in the New York Times Upfront Magazine, it talks about how in many places in the south, murders, that had be racially motivated and taken place in the 60's, are still not solved today. The article "Justice Denied" is not only about how these black men were brutally murdered, it was about how these men, didn't get the justice that they deserved. During the late 50's and early 60's people could often kill a black man or torture one, and would not get caught because even the government would often agree that it was deserved. Justice should be allowed, even long after a persons murder, to make sure people know, they can't do something so horrible without getting punished.

            So that's exactly what the families of these men, murdered in the 60's wanted; they wanted justice. People in northeastern Louisiana wrote a letter to the FBI. This letter "expressed grave concern that the crime would go unpunished because the local police were probably complicit." This meant that the people were afraid that the police were actually involved in some of these brutal murders. The people turned to the FBI because they weren't getting the justice their family deserved from the local police. 

            But, the FBI didn't do anything either. Five decades later the cases remained unsolved. The reason why people never fought hard for their families justice is because they were afraid. "Relatives or victims were often afraid to come forward, lacking faith in judicial system, and fearing retaliation from groups like the Ku Klux Klan. The FBI didn't do much until till the pass of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, where they would investigate racial motivated crimes. Even after this act was passed, the FBI had limited information and limited ways to get information about the cases. Sometimes the federal jurisdiction on a case was limited, or the people who witnessed the crime had forgot important details. 

             In 2011, the FBI sent letters to about all of the families of those killed in the civil rights era for racial reasons about how they could not have enough evidence to convict anyone and get to the bottom of the murder. "Setting aside whether the FBI could have done more, I respect the dignity with which they are accepting responsibility for letting families know how the justice system had failed them." this was said by Margret Burnham, founder of Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project in response to the letters the FBI sent out. The FBI were not able to give the people the justice they deserved. It took a long time for the FBI to do anything, and that's just wrong. People deserve justice no matter how long after the incident, they will always deserve it. 

To Kill a Mockingbird: Revised

The world we live in now has not always been as kind to people who are different, as it is today. The book, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, deals with many different issues surrounding life in a small southern town. This southern town is a town that cannot except people’s differences, and were raised to treat the people differently because them.  The book tells a story about a little girl, Scout, and her brother, Jem, as her dad tries to prove a black’s man’s innocents. The town that Scout and her family live in is called Maycomb, which is in southern Alabama. In Maycomb there are many different types of social classes, and each one of them are treated a different way depending on which one they are in. Money affects most of the character's actions and the progression of many of the issues in the book.

Money affects the way Scout acts towards people in the book. For example in the book, Scout tries to tell her teacher how this boy is different, and how to act around him. Scout tells her teacher that the Cunningham’s never taken anything they can't pay back, when her teacher offers a quarter to a Cunningham. Scout speaks to her teacher in such a way, that the teacher gets mad at her. The way that Scout talked to her teacher, was like, "Duh! Of course they never take anything they can't pay back." Scout says it like that because that is the way she has always known it to be, almost like it's tattooed to their faces.

            Money also affects the things that some people cherish, that others take for granted. For example in the book To Kill a Mockingbird it talks about how the blacks’ church is smaller and less fancy than the whites church, because they don't have as much money. When Scout and Jem offers the raise money to help build them a new church, they turn them down. These people didn’t turn Scout and Jem down because Scout and Jem were white, the turned them down because they had pride. They believed in order for them to be proud of their church, they had to work to build it themselves; so then they can say, you don’t have to be rich to accomplish something that means something.

            Money affects many of the issues in the book. Money affects the issue of discrimination, but not just between whites and blacks. For example in the book To Kill a Mockingbird Mayella says in the court while giving a statement, "An' if you fine, fancy gentlemen ain't gonna do nothin' about it, then you're just a bunch of lousy, yella, stinkin' cowards, the - the whole bunch of ya, and your fancy airs don't come to nothin'. Your Ma'am'in' and your Miss Mayellarin' - it don't come to nothin', Mr. Finch, not... no." This shows that Mayelle realizes that she is treated differently, but also realizes that these people don't know anything about what she is dealing with, and yet they believe that they are better than her. This kind of discrimination has to do with money. Mayella is a white girl, but she was raised in a poor family, so people feel like they can walk all over her.  

            Money changed a lot of people’s ideas and really put some issues in new a prospective during the book. But money doesn't only make things complicated in the book, but also in the real world. Money determines where you can live, how you can live, and how hard you need to work. Yes, money doesn't make you happy, but it puts a different perspective on everything, usually a more sheltered one, for those people who have more money. People who have more money don’t value what they have as much. For example like in the book To Kill a Mockingbird, the blacks’ want to be proud of their church, because in this small country town, these people didn’t have much that they could say was their own; so they valued the church, it showed them they could do anything. Money shouldn’t be the things that weighs on people’s minds every day, and keeps them from sleeping, but it does. It affects the ways people see the world, and the way Scout, and Jem, and their father, and everyone in Maycomb sees the world.