A Pale Substitute

On January 22nd2019, Weber State University’s Center for Access & Diversity partnered with Racially Just Utah and the ACLU to screen the film “13th” in the Wildcat Theater, part of Race To Mass Incarceration: Film Series On Racial Disparities In The Criminal Justice System. The film examines the history of the criminal justice system in the United States upon the adoption of the 13thAmendment. Produced by Ava DuVernay, this film explores and addresses the racial inequalities prevalent within our nation’s prisons. It also serves to expose several ways that the 13thAmendment of the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment of crime, has not been upheld equally and continues to lead to severe racial disparities in that it has replaced slavery with penal incarceration for African-Americans.

Following the screening, a panel of four individuals spoke to their experience with the criminal justice system. Each panelist has had experience with the impact the criminal justice system has had either on themselves or through the experience of someone close to them. Narratives For Justice’s own editor, John Lindquist, was a member of the panel. Even though John’s experience with current and formerly incarcerated individuals through N4J has given him insight to the inequalities that exist within the criminal justice system, he was first to point out that the ACLU extended an open invitation to any African-American man who had suffered incarceration, and that because not one felt comfortable in such a setting or discussion he was there as substitute. 

While John’s perspective during the moderated and open question forum was primarily on the economic impact on mass incarceration, he was also able to relay a story from a N4J volunteer who told John that his mother told him at a young age, some people go to college, some people go to prison—a shocking personal and social statement on many levels. John was also the primary voice reminding the audience that Utah was not immune to the history of race in our country, nor from propagating racial discrimination. According the Utah State Prison’s own data on incarcerated profiles, and the United State’s census on Utah’s population and its breakdown by race, John offered his equation to make the number of incarcerated individuals in Utah equal by race, “We would have to go out tonight and lock up over 25,000 white people. And to house them, we would have to build at least three more prisons the size of our current facility.”