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I was on a jury when a couple of white jurors tried to persuade the rest, all white but one, to return a guilty verdict immediately, without discussing the evidence or the testimony of the black defendant. I guessed then that they were lazy, just wanting to go home, but.. https://twitter.com/the_jizzle/status/1339722339273961472
...eventually I decided that racism explained their attempt to skip the deliberation. Being strategic, I think, two of us voted not guilty in our immediate straw poll, so the jury had to slow down. Then we did discuss sufficiently, I thought...
The defense case didn’t give us much reason to acquit the defendant of knowingly cashing a sizable stolen check. So we returned a guilty verdict in a bit over an hour, rather than the five minutes that part of the group wanted. Judging by the local paper, two years were served.
As a white juror, my first thought was not that my fellow jurors were racist but that they were lazy. So, there’s the impulse, which I attribute to my privileged status, to look past an explanation based on structural racism to a simpler, less demanding one of personal weakness.
Part of privilege is not having to know, not having to look too closely...
