Black and brown people are known for being tossed in jail for things they were accused of. Some of these people are not just thrown in prison but put on death row, even when there is evidence stating they didn’t do the crime or pleas from the people involved to spare their lives.
People of color being thrown in jail and placed on death row is something that has been happening for a long time and is a major problem in the black and brown community. In comparison, it is far more implausible for a white person to be put on death row and have their lives taken away because of something they didn’t do. In his article “African American Wrongful Convictions Throughout History,” Edwin Grimsley explains the timeline of when white people started using excision against black and brown people in the justice system.
People of color have had issues with white people for centuries. It's something that isn't always taught inside of history and it's something one has to do research on by oneself. Europeans have been beating, killing, and ganging up on black and brown people for such a long time, it’s nothing new. It is heard about to this day with Emmett Till, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Sonya Massey, and more recently Marcellus Williams. These are all cases of white people killing black people inside and outside of court. Marcellus Willams was executed even though they had physical evidence that he was not the one that did the crime. Now they are making racism much bigger inside of the courtrooms. Since police brutality exists outside of the courtrooms, they beat, torture, and manipulate people into wrongful convictions or force people to act as witnesses. Cases like this are brought inside the courtrooms, sometimes racially profiling these people of color without even hearing the evidence to prove their innocence.
Since 1870, racist people inside the courtrooms made putting black people on death row for something they were accused of the new system of slavery since it became a big thing during the Jim Crow era. Anybody can get put on death row and be innocent. However, they kill black and brown people who are innocent more frequently. The innocent white people are almost always released at the last minute. When everyone was so focused on trying to get black people to vote the white people had a bigger plan and were killing innocent black people inside the courtrooms. This isn’t surprising since it has been going on for generations and generations. Just because it isn't new doesn't mean that it isn't sad.
It is so important that people know the history of what's actually happening to people of color and how long it has been going on and put it to a stop. George Stinney was 14 years old in 1944 when his community accused him of the murder of two little white girls and gave him an unfair trial. He is not the only one who died because of false information, but he is the youngest one to be accused and executed. Black people are not the only ones that experience being executed unjustly. Brown people< which is people within Hispanic descent, also experience this. The Phantom, whose real name is Carlos DeLuna, was a Latino man who was accused and excused for the murder of Wanda Lopez in the 1980s.
People in America need to stop pretending like they don't see what's happening in the world and open their eyes to see what's going on in the American justice system and get these people out of the police stations and courtrooms.