Monthly Archives: February 2007

My friends Marshall (a campus ministries director) and Will (a pastor) went to court this week for a mutual friend (formerly homeless) with serious health problems that prevented him from going himself. In his blog, Marshall writes about the way that prosecutors treated those in the courtroom. The class divide was evident. Reading about it made me both angry and weary. I urge you to read it, too.

“The Assistant DA who was running the courtroom I had to go to (our friend’s charges were being dealt with in two separate court rooms at the same time – how does that work?) made no effort to be pleasant. It was simple traffic court, but she made no ability to speak with kindness. It was clear that she wanted to establish that she was in charge and her rules were the only ones that counted.”

“The power dynamic was clear – there was a way of talking, a way of operating, and if you didn’t know how to talk and operate in that way, you were in trouble. At first I thought of this as a racial divide, but really it was a class divide.”

>> Read “A sad morning in court,” at “Joy In The Margins” blog by Marshall Benbow.