On Tuesday I attended a rally at the municipal court on 100 Centre Street in Manhattan organized by Court Watch NYC and VOCAL-NY in favor of the bail reforms that are now a week into effect. It was a powerful event, with Jumaane Williams, Tiffany Cabán, Akeem Browder, and many of my other heroes giving powerful advocacy for this groundbreaking legislation that represents a major step toward fixing our racist and classist court system. Here’s a photo I took, and also a tweet—look hard and you can see me on the periphery!
But I also want to give you a little peek into what you don’t see here. I arrived a bit early, and I noticed that there was a really intense media presence—two cordoned-off areas housed a wide array of local and national media organizations, and many reporters were actively recording. At first I was like, Well, they’re finally paying attention! Then I listened to them speaking and realized they were all there because Harvey Weinstein was due in court on his multiple sexual abuse charges.
As the camera people milled and reporters fixed their appearances in their separate spaces, my eyes wandered to the courthouse steps and I noticed something that hasn’t left my mind in the two days since: People walking out of the courtroom, obviously just set free from pre-trial detention by the new bail law. The first thing I noticed was that they were all people of color, every single person I saw. Then I noticed that they all had people with them who obviously cared about them and were glad to have them back. One group in particular is burned into my memory: a young Black man, flanked on both sides by an older man and woman, possibly his parents, both of whom had a hand firmly in the crook of each of the young man’s elbows guiding him along, smiling and talking to him while scanning the area warily, seeming to be looking out for some unseen force that would spring from the bushes or the media area and take this young man away from them.
Later, when Jumaane spoke of the differences between the treatment of Harvey Weinstein, walking in and out of court as a free man on multiple charges of rape and other sexual abuse, and poor people of color, who sit in jail for years on misdemeanors, I was still thinking about that young man, and the hundreds like him who are going home relieved but damaged from a judicial system that can only be understood through the lens of fear and apprehension. I didn’t see Harvey Weinstein come in or out of the court that day, and I wasn’t really interested to. I only wish all those journalists were a little more interested in the people walking out right in front of their noses, free from an unearned detention by a legal system that just may be starting to bend toward justice.
Because that’s the real story.
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