The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

I remember watching this movie "A Time to Kill" which was about a 10 year old black girl who was violently raped and beat by two white men. Samuel L. Jackson played Carl Lee Hailey who was the father of the young black girl took justice into his own hands when he learned that the two men responsible would get off. Matthew McConaughey played Jake Brigrance who was Carl Lee lawyer and he informed Carl Lee that the men would get acquitted of the chargers due to deep-seated racism in Mississippi Delta. Carl Lee walked into the court room and shot both men that had raped his daughter. In addition, a police deputy was caught in the cross fire and as a result both his legs were amputated. Carl Lee was put on trial and this is when the story gets worse. Sandra Bullock played Ellen Roark who wants to help Jake on case as result she was beaten, tied to a stake in the wilderness in her own underwear, and left to die by KKK. The KKK also burned a cross on Jake lawn, burned down house and nearly killed his dog. These are all incidents that happen during the trial because Jake and Ellen (who are white) are helping Carl Lee (who is black) and the KKK hates blacks. In the end Jake was able to prove that Carl Lee motive to kill the rapist would have been justified in the public eye if he had been white.

The prejudice that happen in this movie that diminished equity is that KKK believed that their shouldn't have been a fair trial and that just because Carl Lee was black he should automatically be put to death. In the South KKK believed that blacks had no rights and whites ruled everything. In a similar case four white teens raped a black girl and walked away so the KKK believed that in this case the two men should have walked too just because they were white.

Watching this film made me sad. First and foremost the girl was 10 years old. The two men raped her so bad that she can't never have children. The men laughed and smiled as if what they did wasn't  wrong and that the young girl deserved it. I felt like people should never be so mean and evil. What real pleasure are you gaining from raping anybody especially a 10 year old girl. She was still a baby. I'm grateful and thankful that I didn't live in that time where blacks had no rights and many of them lived in feared of whites. The movie just really made appreciate all I have today because blacks didn't always this freedom.

If I had the ability to change anything in this film I would change the laws that allowed four teenagers to walk away from raping a girl. It wouldn't have anything to do with the color of their skin. If you do the crime you do the time. I would change the laws so that it would protect everyone and not just one color group of people. Racism is taught. I can't change the minds of members of the KKK but I would create laws that would protect the people from them. I feel like if the teenagers wasn't acquitted in the similar case than in this case it wouldn't have been any issues. By the teenagers getting acquitted it gave others the impression that "Oh if they can get away with it so can we". That just goes back to the saying of "Monkey See, Monkey Do". However, if the teenagers had went to jail maybe the other two rapist would have thought twice about raping a 10 year old girl.