Guilty

“He’s gonna take the police officer’s word over yours nine times out of ten.”

Patrick returned to the courtroom pew where I was sitting and informed me that he’d be changing his plea from ‘not guilty’ to ‘no contest’ upon the advice of the bailiff. “But you’re not guilty!” I said, the volume of my voice not really qualifying as a whisper anymore. “I know. But what can I do? He’s right.”

Patrick was in the city center one evening engaged in his work with the street paper when someone came up and took a seat beside him. This individual had been drinking and wasn’t yet done. That’s when the officer came up, took Patrick’s new bench neighbor away for public intoxication, and issued Patrick a citation for violating the open container ordinance. I had come along to court with Patrick in support and to vouch for his character. I’ve known Patrick for over a year and have never seen him intoxicated. Patrick enjoys a drink the same as many of the rest of us do, but doesn’t drink in public – ever, unlike many of the rest of us do. We knew it was going to be his word against the officer’s and though we weren’t suggesting that there was a sinister motive behind the issuance of the citation, we were suggesting that anyone can make a mistake – even a police officer. And in this case, according to Patrick, he had.

… if you’re homeless, you’re drinking

As Patrick looked at me, waiting for approval, I realized just how easy it is for me to slip into an ideal world where we could have actually reasoned with blind justice that a homeless man’s word was just as credible as a police officer’s and that a homeless man could muster up the resolve to assert so. Patrick, however, was fully willing to accept the thirty-day probation, pay the court costs, and resume his place in society – complete with the readiness to be drug back in before the judge if and when he should ever inadvertently find himself near an open container of alcohol, and an officer of the law should decide again to act on the tired assumption that if you’re homeless, you’re drinking.

There are some ideals that are more difficult to see realized than others. For example, ideally, my favorite restaurant would relocate across the street from my office rather than further down the avenue. But that’s not gonna happen and there’s nothing I can do about it. Ideally, the car with the “Choose Life” license plate would not carelessly run me nearly off the road, but all my swearing won’t change that either, (and ideally, I wouldn’t be swearing). However, there are some ideals that we can attain to by simply choosing to attain to them. Particularly how we choose to value one another outside the stereotypes we construct. Our stereotypes crystallize how we function, or even if we can function within our societies. This is an example of how something gets created out of nothing – stereotypes create a real-world order from perceived assumptions. Assumptions about things that don’t exist outside our minds. The end results are generally the same and are always more taxing on the underprivileged and marginalized. Patrick is ready to plead “guilty” or “no contest” even though he’s innocent. But he also knows there’s an order that he is powerless to overcome and though he doesn’t accept the charge, he accepts the punishment and the cost and contributes to the reinforcement of someone else’s truth and order.

A truth and order that is based on the assumptions that nine times out of ten, a police officer is trustworthy, and a homeless man is not.