A Mercy By Toni Morrison

The play Mission of Mercy was written by Esther Lipnick. It was about a woman becoming a nurse. That woman's name was Florence. Florence Nightingale is many different things. But she is brave more than anything.

Food and appetite is a relatable experience for everyone. Many believe food is strictly just for enjoying while you eat, however within Toni Morrison’s novel “The Bluest Eyes” she makes many distinct references to food. Through these means, she creates each individual personality of the characters. She goes on to use this association for most food references within her novel. The result enables the reader to have a more relatable experience with each of her characters regardless of color. Overall, these food and appetites references allow the reader to have a more hands-on approach and bring about a greater understanding of her character 's mentality while helping to disregard racial associations.

In the book “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson, the author is a lawyer and founder of the Equal Injustice Initiative who helps and defends those that are in desperate needs. Stevenson tells different stories of different cases that he had through the course of his professional career. One of the most heartbreaking stories that Stevenson shares on his books is about a boy named Charlie. Charlie is a fourteen years old who murdered his stepfather because he was abusive with his mom and left her unconscious on the floor. Charlie was sentenced to an adult prison because his stepfather was an ex-police officer. When Steven heard about Charlie’s case he ran to the prison to go see him and the first thing that Charlie tells Stevenson is how every night he would get sexually abused in prison by so many men ,and how they would do really awful things to him. “Florida is one of a few states that allows the prosecutor to decide to charge a child in adult court for certain crimes and has no minimum age for trying a child as an adult.”(Stevenson). Charlie’s case is not an unusual one. There are hundreds of prisoners currently in US prisons who are suffering ridiculous prison sentences while other prisoners with more violent, heinous, and terrible crimes have been sentenced to lesser time in jail or are already out. In order to understand why this is still a problem, it’s important to first understand the current issues facing prisons today and what effects come from these issues. Then

“Just mercy” written by Bryan Stevenson is a story about “justice and redemption”(title). Bryan Stevenson tells the story about Walter McMillian a convicted murder. McMillian was unjustly charged for the murder of Ronda Morrison by Ralph Myers even though there was clear evidence that McMillian did not commit this murder. McMillian’s story proves the inequities in the American justice system, and Stevenson proves the faults in the system by telling McMillian’s story. “Proximity has taught me some basic and humbling truths, including this vital lesson: each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done”(17). When we judge people based on their person not the facts innocent people can be charged for crimes that they never committed, and that is where are justice system is unjust.

Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy, is a lawyer from the rural south that advocates for mostly children on death row. He spends most of his time in low income communities with next to no hope. His TED talk was based on his experiences in these communities, his career, and his knowledge regarding minorities while addressing his predominately financially stable, White audience. Trying to persuade an audience that is not effected by what you are trying to speak against is hard, however, Bryan Stevenson is able to do so. Bryan Stevenson’s 2012 TED talk uses ethos to persuade his audience by using his status as a prominent lawyer and an everyday person who many people know and can relate to with strong respectable values in life to prove himself as a trustworthy person in order to argue his point on how the American justice system distorts the truth racial discrimination in the system, as well as the poverty t faces. His use of ethos enables him to establish trust in his audience that can make a major difference in the justice system with most of them being well respected people in society.

Morality in its basic definition, is the knowledge between what is right and what is wrong. In Joan Didion’s essay, “On Morality,” she uses examples to show how morality is used to justify actions and decisions by people. She explains that morality can have a profound effect on the decisions that people chose to make. I think that morality is an idea that is different for every individual based on morals and background.

The novel, Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson covers many aspects of the legal system, including Stevenson’s quest to get prisoners who were convicted as adolescents out of adult prison. Through Stevenson’s experiences, he sees first hand experience of children that are sent to adult prisons. Specifically he saw how the prisoners who were convicted as children revert to a very low mental state and often have a great deal of trouble readjusting if they are even remotely capable of doing so. One of these experiences that Bryan Stevenson encountered was with a young fourteen year old named Charlie and the impacts of an adult world in a child’s head. Children should never be pushed into adult prisons or receive adult punishments because of their lack of clear understanding of difficult situations.

While Morrison depicts myriad abuses of slavery like brutal beatings and lynching, the depictions of and allusions to rape are of primary importance; each in some way helps explain the infanticide that marks the beginnings of Sethe’s story as a free woman. Sethe kills her child so that no white man will ever “dirty” her, so that no young man with “mossy teeth” will ever hold the child down and suck her breast (Pamela E. Barnett 193)

In his memoir Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson recounts the stories of several clients whose mental illness was ignored during their trial. Some had intellectual disabilities, others were dealing with the aftermath of severe trauma, but each one was changed in some way. Whether their reasoning had been altered or they simply did not understand what was happening, any crime they committed was closely tied to their mental state. Logically, a major detail like the defendant’s thought process and motivation behind the crime would have been discussed, but this was not the case. Any evidence of their illness was forgotten about or outright ignored by both the prosecution and the defense. When considering each crime with their mental illness in mind, sentencing the defendant to death row is needlessly cruel. Their avoidance of the topic shows a complete failure to understand how important it can be to an individual’s decision-making abilities.

Although some consider material wealth to represent one’s worth, no financial measure can express the value of personal integrity when an individual encounters moral challenges. In Toni Morrison’s A Mercy, the author explores this concept through the behavior and character of Jacob Vaark, a white farmer trying to make a living in the New World. Initially committed to avoiding slave trade, he involves himself by accepting Florens, a fourteen year-old, from the affluent D’Ortega to repay a debt. This decision begins his spiral from modest sustenance farmer to obsessed, narcissistic landowner who then destroys himself and his legacy. Consumed with building a mansion as a monument to him, Vaark loses his path and his moral clarity and

In the book Just Mercy: A story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson, there are several topics discussed regarding the American Justice system. One of those many topics discussed is regarding how a person’s race, social status and income, may influence the outcome of a court trail. In present day America, many years after the era of Jim crow and segregation the Justice system still seems to be more lenient towards white Americans, especially those with high income and a good standing in society. The American justice system has become unjust in the trials deemed to be fair, due to an evident prejudice against minorities, their social status and whether or not they receive a well off or poor income.

In the novel, Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson, the author depicts his experiences with cases that dealt with racial inequality and unfair convictions. The most prominent case in the novel is about a man named Walter McMillian who was unjustly convicted of a murder charge and sentenced to death row. Throughout the story, it is apparent that McMillian’s case was more complicated than just racial profiling because it was entangled with deception. The unlawful behavior executed by law officials: judges, lawyers, police officers, to indict Walter McMillian counteracts the basis of the system of which judicial officials should abide by. To elaborate, judicial officials should be protecting the public by representing them with the use of the law. However, they occasionally ignore or withhold evidence that would alter an outcome that they did not support. Despite the fact that judicial officers incriminate citizens through their own racial biases such as racial profiling to benefit themselves in some aspect, the pressure derived from society is another factor that ultimately plays a significant role in the outcome or punishment of convicted criminals.

In the novel A Mercy, poetry collection of Thrall, and the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano the author use historical events and rewrite them based on the black experience. Both Thrall and A Mercy are neo-slave narratives in which the author did extensive research on the history of slavery and rewrote certain aspects in the form of a story to educate the masses. Olaudah Equiano however, being written by the author about his own experience of being stolen from his village as a boy and later on in life coming to realize that he identifies as a European is a true story. A Mercy rewrites the experience of black voodoo culture and witchcraft during the time of slave codes with striking similarities to the story of Tituba. Thrall has several poems inspired by true story and paintings from Europe during the times of slavery. Despite the contrast in how both of these are written they all share a common thread on the treatment of black slave during that time. In A Mercy, Thrall, and the autobiography of Equiano all being to take on the culture of their slavers and are labeled as barbaric for their culture and are forced to see culture through the eyes of others.

One of the points that is consistently brought up in Toni Morrison’s Paradise is that of the all black town “Ruby”. Paradise uses the setting of Oklahoma to discuss how many black towns are shaped by past history and religion. While the town in this novel is fictional, there have been real all black towns in the United States, and it seems that these towns influenced many aspects of the town Ruby, which is why it is so easy to imagine that the story could actually be real. Many authors have written in general about the novel, and specifically about the town within it.

My commitment to resolve issues concerning water and our environment draws on one of my biggest strengths, the will to care and get close to others. In my History 105 class, we discussed the book, Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. The book has been a big influence in my way of contributing to my community. One evening the author spoke in the Beasley Coliseum, he mentioned proximity and keeping hope alive. Afterward, I put these two philosophies together to significantly influence others. I met Jordan during the Week of Welcome. She was feeling disconnected and marginalized here in Pullman. I committed sometimes helping Jordan finding clubs, church and other activities. I took the initiative of seeking for anything around the campus that might