This double-standard applies to nation-states as well, with determinations of morality and righteousness on the one hand and immorality on the other being made on the basis not of any agreed upon standard but instead on political expediency and self-loving bias.
What is fair for us is not fair for others. This brings us to the fundamental contradiction of human existence- our inability to apply the same standards, rules of just conduct, and empathy to all humans despite being 99.999% the same. The jury members open their eyes in surprise and anguish as they consider this mutilation happening to a white child and in an incandescent moment, realize that they must be equally horrified at the mutilation of Hailey’s daughter. Whatever one might think about the movie, this particularly scene is brilliant, moving, and telling. Brigance understood that the jury would rightly be horrified if they considered this happening to a young white girl but had to put humanity before race affiliation to extend that empathy to an African-American child. The jury squirms as they hear the story and at the end Brigance says “now…imagine that she’s white.” As it turns out, Hailey’s daughter, a young African-American girl, was violated in exactly the way Brigance describes, prompting her father to shoot the men who attacked her thus.
In the movie adaptation of John Grisham’s “A Time to Kill,” Carl Lee Hailey’s defense lawyer Jake Brigance, in his summation, asks the jury members to close their eyes while he tells a horrid tale of a little girl being attacked, raped, beaten, tortured and left to die by two grown men. Share on WhatsApp Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Telegram Share on Reddit Share on Email
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