Thread by @NiggaTheory

I’m taking a very unpopular position on #DerekChauvinSentencing, the same position I take on the appropriate punishment for violent wrongdoers and “moral monsters” in N*gga Theory—namely, we must resist seeking to gratify our retributive urge to maximize their punishment.

“I would hope that Judge Cahill sentences Chauvin to the maximum amount of time in prison,” a civil rights lawyer & activist said recently in a public forum held by the Legal Rights Center, a nonprofit group that provides indigent defense and advocates criminal justice reform.

Even activists who generally oppose mass incarceration too often revert to punitive and carceral attitudes when a violent crime has been committed against a member of a marginalized group, especially if the offender, like Chauvin, belongs to a socially dominant one.

The rights and interests of victims of course must be recognized & vindicated, but that vindication need not take the form of the most punitive response possible, even when victims are from socially marginalized groups such as Blacks, women, and LGBTQ+ folk.

Proponents of heaping as much punishment as possible on people who harm victims from vulnerable and socially marginalized groups may be referred to as “carceral progressives” or “carceral advocates” for the socially marginalized.

I know many feel frustrated about my efforts to humanize the most otherized criminal wrongdoers, those viewed by many as scum. But N*gga Theory—a kind of “Scum Theory”—seeks to temper the hard edge of retribution toward so-called scum with compassion for human frailty.

So when you advocate for greater compassion for ALL wrongdoers, as N*gga Theory does, you don’t get to pick and choose among wrongdoers. N*gga Theory gives real teeth to the anti-carceral mantra: “All of Us or None.”

We must be so principled in our calls for reform that we want them even for our enemies. We must love and protect each other so radically that we don’t allow our feelings for the few to legitimize pain and suffering for the many.

Black folk will bear a disproportionate share of the costs of reinforcing a moral compass rooted in retribution, retaliation, and revenge. Those calling for the maximum punitive response to Chauvin are reinforcing that retrograde moral framework.