Voice

Call me naive but  I am only now beginning to realize that having a voice has long been the domain of the privileged and the powerful. They get heard so their desires and thoughts shape so much of the world around us. This means that the few decide for the many how life should be run. This is not just frustrating, but very dangerous.

I recently finished watching two series on Netflix- both about men who the filmmakers claim are wrongfully incarcerated and victims of the power play that plagues many of the rural counties in the US. In these kinds of rural settings the local law enforcement is the law. In the face of very little opposition, and aided by an imbalance of power, DAs and Sheriffs run operations like their own fiefdoms. Personal grudges turn ugly when a crime is used as an opportunity to settle a vendetta.

If these documentaries are to be believed, power is so concentrated in the hands of the few that an ordinary person with no means to competent legal counsel can get lost in a system that is eager to find someone to blame. Each criminal caught and put behind bars is a feather in their caps, so the police and the public prosecutors bend rules, flaunt basic rights, and jail people on the slimmest of evidence.

Of course it would be foolish to simply believe what the film makers portray- but the striking parallels in both cases can not be ignored. Both are set in rural Wisconsin, both involve suspects from low income backgrounds, and both cases have exculpatory evidence that is just simply ignored. These were men who lived on the fringes of society and hence were were easy to blame and paint as criminals. 

The documentaries span decades in the life of these criminals and the overpowering theme is how their constant and steady claim of innocence falls on deaf ears. Their voices go unheard while the system that has sentenced them fights back using all the power at its disposal.

I am neither very powerful nor very privileged, but I would like to believe that I do have access to some means to defend myself should I be wrongfully accused- hopefully if it comes to that I will have a voice that will be heard. But if not I can't imagine a worse state of existence.