Why did Brandt Jean show such compassion to Amber Guyger?
No one knows how they will handle grief when it arrives. We are told about the stages. We are told that time heals all wounds. But grief is personal and we can't always anticipate how we will respond to it. |
This week in Dallas we watched Brandt Jean, 18, hug Amber R. Guyger, the former police officer who shot and killed his older brother, Botham Shem Jean, as he sat alone in his apartment. He hugged her in a courtroom after she was convicted of murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison, far shorter than the maximum sentence of 99 years. |
Sarah Mervosh, a national correspondent who used to cover courts in Dallas and had been covering the Guyger trial for The Times all week, said she had never seen anything like it. |
"Most of the time you would see expressions of anger and grief," she told me. "To see someone so young express forgiveness so unequivocally was striking. And then to watch the judge wiping tears from her eyes and later stand up and give Amber Guyger a hug as well." |
Sarah said she knew immediately that this was another big moment in a story about a case that had been unusual from beginning to end, but she didn't anticipate the reaction. I can't say that I did either. |
Some have criticized both Judge Tammy Kemp and Brandt Jean for showing such compassion to Ms. Guyger. The backlash has been compared to 2015, when survivors and relatives of those massacred in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church offered forgiveness to Dylann Roof. Not everyone agreed with them either. |
Both cases have led to important conversations about who, in circumstances like these, gets compassion and forgiveness and who doesn't. Ms. Guyger is white and said she thought she was in her own apartment when she shot Mr. Jean, an unarmed black man who had been eating ice cream in his home. |
Imagine if the roles were reversed, and it was Mr. Jean standing in the courtroom. |
I like to think that what Brandt Jean did was more than an act of forgiveness. A young black man dealing with his grief as best he could — that's bravery. |
And in other Race/Related news, this week a judge ruled that Harvard does not discriminate against Asian-Americans in its admissions process. Thank you for all of the thoughtful responses to last week's call-out on college roommates. We'll be returning to the topic soon. |
EDITOR'S PICKS We publish many articles that touch on race. Here are a few you shouldn't miss. |
|
Invite someone to subscribe to the Race/Related newsletter. Or email your thoughts and suggestions to racerelated@nytimes.com. |
Race/Related is a newsletter focused on race, identity and culture. It is published weekly on Saturday mornings at 7 a.m. and edited by Lauretta Charlton. |
沒有留言:
張貼留言