| The Brady Smith Case.com |
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Effects on our Community This case affects our community in two very major ways - individually and collectively. Individually Each boy that was molested will grow up with damage inflicted by their ordeal. As a group, kids who are molested are more likely to be involved in criminal behavior, substance abuse, depression, sexual dysfunction, and sometimes aberrant sexual behavior. How many kids over the years have been involved in wrongdoing in our community that were affected by this as a result of Brady Smith? This isn't to say they are not responsible for their own actions. But, these are kids already started out life at a disadvantage - they didn't need another huge barrier to overcome. The fact that this happened by a teacher also undercuts messages black kids get about how important education is. These kids went to school. When they were in trouble, they had to go to the Dean. So not only were they being taken advantage of by the Dean, they weren't in the classroom getting an education. I wonder what kind of lessons they internalized from that Collectively The second major effect on our community is collective, due to the way this case was handled. African Americans have complained for, well, centuries, about the mistreatment they get as a group in our criminal justice system. They believe that they are implicated more often in crimes that they did not commit, that their prison sentences are longer for the same crimes committed by other groups, and that crime against them is punished less severely than crimes committed against other groups. Even if you don't believe this is true, one has to admit that the perception exists, and the perception causes a lot of racial tension, not just here, but everywhere in this country. With such a high profile case, one would think the prosecutor would be extra careful not just to be fair minded, but also to be above even the appearance of impropriety. Sadly, the exact opposite is true for this case. The perception is that the State's Attorney 's office is protecting Smith instead of protecting black boys, confirming black families fears about the inequity of the justice system. How else to explain no jail time, the prosecutor was a friend of the defendant, he was allowed contact with any minor but those named in the suit, and the 6 month lag in the probation violations? One can only imagine the outrage if the situation were reversed racially. If a black man had abused a bunch of white boys in a southwest Champaign school, and then served no prison time as a result of a plea bargain worked out with a black woman prosecutor he had personally known for 15 years, serving a black male State Attorney, our community probably would have stormed the State’s Attorney’s office and demanded a recall election. As well they should. It is a travesty of justice no matter what color skin the defendant or victims are. So what are blacks to conclude that there has been no general uproar in the white community about this? What does it say about our community when we voted in the primaries to keep the prosecutor who allowed this to happen? That we are uninformed, or that we really just don't care what happens to black boys in our community? I hope and pray that we are merely unaware. I do believe that most people do the right thing most of the time when they have good information in front of them. We need to show the world that we do care about everyone in our community, and are willing to demand justice for victims of terrible crimes, and to hold accountable both those who commit them, and those who don't take them seriously. For ideas on ways to contribute, see the What You Can Do page. |