#it's probably the McDowell cast that constantly gets mixed up with completely different arguments

[widgenstain]

Alright, I’ve seen these cases come across my dash before and I really wish people would look at them more closely before reblogging.

Tanya McDowell wasn’t just incarcerated for lying about her address. Snopes wrote about this exact comparison. McDowell undoubtedly had many more axes of oppression working against her than Huffman, yes, this is a problem that should be addressed, but they also committed very different crimes. 

This one was examined by PolitiFact and is shadier. Again they are different crimes, Leiglitner robbed drug dealers unarmed as part of a larger, armed group who he eventually snitched on, which is what reduced his sentence. Lloyd robbed businesses but yes, his sentence is way way way too high. 

Yep, piggy got away, big surprise, the reasoning for Green’s sentence apparently were his prior convictions, however, this stays a non-violent crime and the whole system is massively fucked, especially when compared to the next cases.

Corey Batey was one of four rapists in the Vanderbilt rape case. It’s cute that he’s crying in the image above, but he and his buddies brutally raped an unconscious 21-year old woman, filmed it, took pictures and peed on her. Three of the guys were black, one was white, the white guy got the longest sentence, while one of the black guys got off with 10 years probation since he was in the room, but didn’t rape her. Austin Wilkerson assaulted an unconscious 19-year old woman and got off with 20 years probation because the judge thought “Mr Wilkerson deserves to be punished, but I think we all need to find out whether he truly can or cannot be rehabilitated.” Is this fair? No, absolutely not, not to the two women who had their lives ruined by these monsters, nor to Dale Wayne Green who was sentenced to life for selling pot. But comparing these two cases doesn’t make a lot of sense, since there was a white man involved in the same case as Batey and he was punished more severely, while a black man from the same case was punished less severely than Wilkerson. 

Yep, this is a perfect example for comparisons. Same city, same police department, 24-hours apart, both have a long history of prior convictions (you know, for those dismissing Bailey as “a criminal”) yet the white guy with drugs and a gun in his car who ran from the police lives, while the black one who stayed in his car is dead. 

Anyway, if you’re wondering why I wrote that long-ass addition, it’s not because I dispute that racial bias is real, it most certainly is and there are very depressing great studies on it out there that prove that (some are in the links above, 3 and 5 are textbook examples, plus we’ve all seen Ava DuVernay’s 13th, haven’t we?). So yes, the American criminal justice system is FUBAR. 

But please, PLEASE people on the internet, check what you’re reblogging or posting once in a while. Life is complicated, it often cannot be reduced to simple infographics or catchy hashtags. Even if the things you see support your worldview, check them still! The same way you’re not immune to propaganda, you’re not immune to misinformation and oversimplifying issues and doing that makes you vulnerable in discussions with people who are actively trying to harm good causes. I still try to point out dodgy sources and bad conclusions to racists, but lbh, there is very little hope. So I at least hope that people fighting for things I fully stand behind don’t make the same mistakes and think critically about everything they see. 

Fuck the system