Word: subway
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...once we cater to a person's fears, we introduce society's own problems into the court; the law of the street, becomes the law of the courts. It is not unusual that 12 New Yorkers would take a down-to-earth approach to the law. Subway riders all, they know the fears that come from riding underground, and appeared to think it hypocritical to send someone to jail for overreacting to a position that any subway rider could find himself...
...introducing Goetz's distorted perception of New York City into the courthouse they accepted the racially-clouded judgment of a terrified New Yorker, and dignified it as if it were law. Is riding the subway really a psychological drama, where a person when threatened is able to act on his fears with a gun, and be absolved...
...gnawing fear of "tough" Blacks now an acceptable code to govern walking the streets, so is fear of scrawny, bespectacled engineer types, who look like they may freak out and shoot you. What is to be gained by having everyone's fear become a legitimate basis for subway shootings? True, race enters the Goetz case only because society is racist, but there should be some point where racism can not be a justification for action; that place is the courtroom...
...tangible evidence of underlying racism in the legal system; a case in which a white man was treated sympathetically and was given the benefit of the doubt. It seems to be an identifiable--though complex--episode that takes statistics off government charts and into the streets and the subway cars...
...those predisposed to believe that any person who bugs white subway riders deserves nothing less than to have a few quick bullet shots sent in his general direction, the jury's not guilty verdict was hailed, to borrow one tabloid's headline, as a "Triumph for Common Sense." For those secure in their belief that America will forever look the other way when a Black person stands at the point of a white person's gun, the decision was but one more instance of the legal system's endemic racism...