American Violet

I recently watched a true story movie called American Violet. It was a story based in  a small town in Texas. A racist District Attorney was using illegal tactics to boost their crime stats up by arresting black people for drug crimes, specifically crack cocaine. Most of the people's only crimes were merely being black, poor, and living in the projects. One young lady in perticular was arrested and charged with possession of crack/cocaine in a school zone. She was threatened with a sentence of 16-25 years in prison if she didn't plea guitly and agree to supervised probation. Most people in her position would have taken the probation knowing the cards were stacked against them. I personally know a few. The young lady accepted the plea after 21 days in jail. Between that time the ACLU became involved and began fighting on behalf of the people. Needless to say they won. My reason for mentioning this book is this, growing up I've been on both sides of this fence. I've been the guilty crack dealer (really guitly) and I've been the innocent one getting stopped by the police just for looking like a hoodloom. Even recently in my small town of Fairburn, Ga. I was stopped by a patrol officer as a so called case of mistaken identity. I can easily say it was racial profiling but the officer in question was blacker than me. But I will tell you this, I've long understood the difference between a racist and a bigot.


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