Let us be reminded also that our stance on punishment is in sharp contrast to our Christian gospel’s redemptive message of repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation, as expressed in Luke 4:18; and that our salvation, individually and collectively, is linked to our treatment of those in prison, as declared in Matthew 25:41–43.
Dr. Anthea Butler was stopped for driving while black in her late-model luxury car. As a flashlight shone on her boyfriend’s pale face, the police officer asked, “Did you pick her up somewhere?”
Dr. Anthea Butler was stopped for driving while black in her late-model luxury car. As a flashlight shone on her boyfriend’s pale face, the police officer asked, “Did you pick her up somewhere?” The officer assumed that the car could not have been hers, and that her presence next to a white male implied sex trafficking. He overlooked the Ivy League professor of color in the driver’s seat to speak to her passenger.
By the eighth grade, Kimo had stopped showing up for school. He preferred the beaches of western Oahu or the island bus system that took him away from the frustrations of the classroom. It wasn’t long before alcohol and drugs replaced surfing and bus riding as distractions, followed by a career of petty theft and assault. When he was 20, Kimo was shipped off to a private prison in the Arizona desert, contracted by the state of Hawaii to house its prisoners.
