YouSaid · the spoken record

Bryan Stevenson

lines on the record: 47
first: 2023-02-08
most recent: 2023-02-08
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I believe we're more than the worst thing we've ever done. I believe that grace is power. I believe that love is justice. And I believe that we have to judge how we're doing by how we treat the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned. You're very, very welcome. What a privilege to talk to you. You're so welcome.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I certainly feel the pleasure of God in this work. I feel the hope of God. I feel the love of God in standing next to people who have been disfavored, who have been rejected, who've been condemned. I really do think that you measure sometimes your spirituality measure the health of your soul, not by how you treat people who are rich and famous and privileged. I think you measure the health of your soul by how you treat the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned. So I actually feel privileged to be able to stand next to condemn people, to serve the condemned, to serve the incarcerated, to serve the discarded and disfavored, because it's in that service that I feel the power of God most intensely. That's where I feel the”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know justice is a constant struggle. It's what we need to respond to so many of our problems. I tell people all the time, I don't believe that the opposite of poverty is wealth. I think we talk too much about money. I think the opposite of poverty is justice. It's the way we relate to one another. If we create conditions that allow us to be more honest and fair and just.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mercy is like a mirror. I think mercy is what you give to others with the hope that it'll come back to you. It's what you give to people who don't deserve it. It's what you give to people who haven't asked for it.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think when we see people being treated unfairly, when we see people who are at risk, when we see people who are unloved, when we see people thrown away, I think those of us who have a heart for compassion, justice, and mercy, and those of us who want to be better people need to step in. And we need to do what we can to stop the judgments that are being made that are unfair. I think part of it is that we have to kind of adopt a different metric system for ourselves. I think often we measure how we're doing in life by how much money we make or how many people know our name and all these other kinds of metrics, how many people respect us that we're. I think there's another way of measuring how you're doing by how many stones you catch, by how often you actually position yourself to help those who need help. There is something redemptive, powerful, transformative about catching the stones that people throw at each other unfairly.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have. Yeah, we did a couple of cases that went to the Supreme Court that have now banned Life Without Parole sentences for children convicted of non-homicides and have banned mandatory life without parole for all kids. And I'm really proud of that because I think we did something really disgraceful in the 1980s when we started calling some children super predators and every state lowered the minimum age for trying children as adults. We still have 15 states where there's no minimum age for trying a child as an adult, which means that I sometimes represent 10 and 11 year old kids who are looking at it for decades in an adult prison. We've got 10,000 children in adult jails and prisons where they're at great risk of sexual violence and abuse.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I just listened to this young man just talk and talk and talk, and he was so excited. And that's, and when I hung up, I thought to myself, we should never give up on children. We should never, ever, all children are children. We should never give up on them because everybody gave up on this young man.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is. I actually have seen wrongly condemned people liberated, freed. I've seen people who were told that they're worthless and nothing reveal something beautiful and powerful. And that's incredibly affirming for me. And I remember one day I had this incredible young man and went to prison at 14. He would just love to read. And he called me late one night, just about 20. And he just couldn't stop. He said, I have to call, you have to talk. He had just finished reading The Brothers Karamatov by Dastoyevsky, and he was just so full of things he had to tell me.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do. I think we have to believe that every person can get to a better place. I have some clients about whom I can say. This person will likely never be able to get released. They've been compromised in ways that that's not going to be an option. But I still believe that redemption is possible. I've never met anybody about whom I could say this person is beyond hope, beyond redemption. And I've seen it. I've created moments, sometimes small moments with people who have been really terribly treated that feel like hope, that feel like life, that even feel like love. And that makes me think that we should accept the redemption as something we have to seek for everyone.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's taught me that mercy is not something we give to people because they deserve it. Compassion is not something we offer to people because it's what we do because it's the way we find mercy for ourselves. You can't get mercy unless you give it. You can't receive compassion unless you give it. And it's made me want to be merciful and compassionate. It's made me want to understand the people who are unhappy with me, who are hostile to me, who sometimes act as if they hate me. I used to get death threats and bomb threats. And it's made me not want to believe that the people behind those threats are just enemies or haters or bigots. It's made me recognize that they're like my clients. They need someone to kind of get past what's created this burden, this fear, this anger, this.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm walking inside finally, just kind of blown away, and he grabs me by the arm. He said, wait, wait, I got to tell you something else. I said, What's that? I said, well, I just want you to know I did something on the way back from the courthouse to the prison. I said, what'd you do? So I decided to take an exit, and I took your client to a Wendy's and I bought him a chocolate milkshake. Would have never ever guessed it. And that just reminded me, even with my issues, I have to be hopeful, I have to look for ways to embrace everyone, even those that have been misled and misdirected by this horrific history of racial inequality.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“His hand out, and he said, You know, I came up in the foster care system too. I didn't think anybody had it as bad as I did, but maybe your client had it words. He said, sir, can I please shake your hand? I hope you keep fighting for justice. I would have never Guessed it, and I walk inside. Mr. Confederate flag.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he takes me over to the door. I'm trying to figure out what's happening, and he's trying to unlock the door, and his hands start shaking so badly he can't get the key in the lock. And I'm looking at him, and finding he gets the key in the lock, he unlocks the door. He turns to me. His face is red. He says, Mr. Stevenson, I have to say something to you. I said, what's that? He said, I was in that courtroom and I was listening. He said, I want you to know, I think what you're doing is a good thing. He said, I hope you keep fighting for justice, would have never predicted it.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Been so intimid Exactly. And who was in the courthouse when we had the hearing? And I said, I'll go in the bathroom. He said, Oh, we're not going to do that today. I said, okay, I'll go over here and sign the book. He said, Mr. Stevenson, I saw you coming and I signed you in. Trying to figure out what's going on. Right, exactly.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I didn't bring you a chocolate milkshake. I'm your lawyer. I'm here to represent you. And I started asking questions, and he wasn't paying attention. I realized he was hung up on this milksheet. And so I finally said, look, I'm sorry. I didn't know you wanted me to bring you a chocolate milkshake. The next time I come, I'll bring you a milkshake. And this man smiled horrific background was in 29 foster homes by the time he was 10, severely mentally ill. Schizophrenic, crack addicted, bipolar at 13, no medical care homeless, and in the midst of a psychotic episode commits a brutal crime, terribly defended at trial, gets the death penalty. We start working on the case, and finally it's time to go to court. And I see that guard who I hadn't seen since was the guard that brought him from the prison to the courthouse. And he was just glaring at me in this courtroom. We have three good days of courthy good about the case. And a month later I go see the client. And sure enough, there's the guard. He says, hello, Mr. Stevenson. How are you? Kind of threw me. I said, I'm fine. I said, I'll go in the bathroom for you.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I wasn't expecting this. And then the client comes out, and the first thing he says to me, I never met him before, young African-American man. He looks at me and he says, did you bring me a chocolate milkshake? And I thought to myself, this is the strangest day I've had in a really long time.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Your state. My state, yes So go get my bar card. I go up to him. I said, Look, here's my bar card. He said, okay, well, you still have to go in the bathroom. I'm going to give you a strip cert. This is where they strip you naked and do a body cavity search. I said, no, lawyers don't get strip search. He said, you come into my prison, you're going to get in that bathroom. So I had to go in there and subject myself to a humiliating strip search. So then I come out and I say, I want to go see the client. So you've got to go back there and sign this book. I knew I didn't have to, but I did. I was about to go inside after he finally opens the door and he grabs me by the arm. He said, hey, did you see that truck out there? I said, yeah, I saw that truck. He said, I want you to know that that's my truck. So angered me. And I was sitting in the prison waiting for the client to come out with a cigar.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, there was a bumper sticker on this truck I hadn't seen before. This bumper sticker read quote, if I'd known it was going to be like this, I'd have picked my own cotton. Hadn't seen that one before And I went to the door, and there was a white guard at the door, and when he saw me, I said, Hi, I'm here for a legal visit. He said, You're not a lawyer. I said, oh, yes, sir, I am. He said, where's your bar cart? He actually made me go back to my car and get my bar card.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's absolutely true. But that doesn't mean we have to kill them. We have the capacity to incarcerate people for a really long time. It really isn't about what people deserve. It's about us. And part of the reason why I think ending the death penalty would be good for us is that it would liberate us from some of the worst parts of our history. You can't be in counties and communities where people have been lynched and threatened and menaced and terrorized and then have a person of color taken to death row. Our death penalty is very racially skewed. You're dramatically more likely to get it if the victim is white than if the victim is black. And if the defendant is black and the victim is white, then it's even much greater chance of getting the death penalty. It's a way in which we actually create a world where people can legitimately say black lives don't matter because we don't protect people who are poor and we don't protect people of color in the same way. We protect other people. And that's because we use all of our resources on expensive things like the death penalty at the cost of actually providing public safety to other folks.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have a system of justice that treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent. Wealth, not culpability, shapes outcomes. And we've never had more innocent people in jails and prisons than we have right now. We went from 300,000 people in jails and prisons in 1972 to 2.3 million people today. And that means we've never had more innocent people in jails and prisons than we have right now. We've had 154 people who were sentenced to death get exonerated, proved innocent. That means for every nine people we've executed in this country, one innocent person has been proved innocent. It's a shocking rate of error.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it should. And I think the reason for that is that the question of the death penalty isn't do people deserve to die for the crimes they've committed. People commit some horrific crimes. I'm not going to dispute that. But I think the threshold question is, do we deserve to kill? And we have a system of justice that treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent. Wealth, not culpability shapes outcomes. We have a system.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And just the pain and shame of that made me believe that we can do better. Then there are people like Jimmy Dill who I write about in the book I'm having that conversation with right before they execute him, and he's intellectually disabled, and he can't get his words out. And that was a moment for me, even though I wasn't present at the execution chamber. It was very hard. And I remember just standing there with tears running down my face. And that's when I began reflecting on my own brokenness.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Last day of his life. Can we get the phone for you? And I never will forget him saying to me in those last few minutes this was just about 30 minutes before the execution. He said, Brian has been so strange. He said, more people have said, what can I do to help you in the last 14 hours of my life than they ever did in the first 19 years of my life? And I was holding his hand, standing there with him, thinking, yeah, where were they when you were three, when your mom died? Where were they when you were seven and you were experimenting with drugs? Where were they when you were a young teenager returning from Vietnam, traumatized and drug addicted? And with those questions resonating in my mind, he was pulled away and strapped in the electric chair and executed. And the shame of that for me was what I couldn't let go. They had the guards come in and shaved the hair off his body to prepare him for the execution. And I watched those men do that. And I don't think I'd ever seen human beings more pained by something they had to do than those guards. They all quickly, most of them quit soon after.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hours, can you tell me that story? Yeah, Herbert Richard was a Vietnam that came back traumatized from Vietnam, couldn't get the legal help he needed. I was back there with him right before the execution, and he was saying to me, all day long people have been saying, what can I do to help you? Can we get you water? Can we get you coffee? Can we get you stamps to mail your last letter?”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is. I mean, I think the truth of it is that we've all fallen down. We've all made mistakes. We've all hurt each other. And we want to recover from that. If we're a decent human being, we want to kind of get to a better place. And that's true for all the people who are incarcerated. And I think when we begin to recognize our own brokenness, we recognize our need, our obligation to help the broken recover. My clients are broken people. I work in a broken system. People judge us, prosecutors, everybody's been broken by their distance from the people that they're trying to and sometimes manage. And I think that means that we've got to think more honestly about what it means to be broken, what it means to have failed, what it means to fall down, but also what it means to stand up, to recover, to redeem ourselves and to redeem others.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He never touched another human being. He never got programs. He never saw anybody. When we started working with him, he had literally been in a cage, in an isolated area for 18 years. And he's an amazing human being. He's bright. He writes incredible poetry, but he's also struggled. He cuts himself. He's attempted suicide multiple times. And helping him recover has been a great challenge, but it's also been a great privilege because he takes someone who's been crushed and broken and thrown away. And yet see that person capable of creating beauty and honest reflection, which he does powerfully in his poetry.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Emmanuel was a 13 year old boy who was pretty much living in the streets. He was trying to get admitted to a gang. He was required to commit this robbery. He attempts a robbery. He shoots a woman in the side of the face. He's arrested. He's charged with attempted murder. He's told to plead guilty and he'll get a 15-year sentence. He pleads guilty and the judge gives him life without parole. He's so small when he gets to the adult prison that they don't have a uniform big enough for him. And the warden has to make a decision. So I put this little 13-year-old boy in a dorm where he'll be preyed upon. Or do I put him in solitary confinement? So they put him in solitary confinement. And because he was 13 and he was struggling and he was abandoned and he was neglected and he was in this horrific condition, he never had a perfect six months. So he spent 18 years in solitary confinement.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think when you put yourself in situations like this, you learn things, you learn about the power of hope. You know, you learn that you have to believe things that you haven't seen if you really want to change the world. I learned that I couldn't just have ideas in my mind about what I wanted to do. I needed to be informed. I needed to be strategic and tactical, but I also learned that I wasn't going to actually make a difference if the ideas in my mind weren't fueled by some conviction in my heart. And so you learn to kind of trust what your heart tells you about, what you have to do. You learn to stand when everybody else is sick. You learn to speak when other people are quiet because you have to do the thing that advances, justice, that advance what you believe in.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was so debilitating to all the people of color in that community, people of color and poor people. There were some poor whites that knew him well. And they would come up to me and they would say, Mr. Stevenson, it would have been so much better if he'd been out in the woods hunting by himself when this crime took place, because at least then we could entertain the possibility that he might be guilty. But because we were there with him and we know he's innocent, we don't know how to make sense of this. We don't know what to tell our children about how to survive in a place like this. That's right.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which It was just unheard of. Unheard of to reinforce this idea that he was guilty and dangerous and to also try to coerce him into making a false confession, something he was unwilling to do. And it was...”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Harperly, and if you go to Monroeville, they love to kill a mocking bird. And yet we're completely indifferent to the plight of this innocent black man who was put on death row for 15 months before the trials. The only case I've ever done where the client was actually put on death row before ever being arrested.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was part of it. Yeah, he was the first time when I saw just how troubled our system was because he was a man completely innocent at his home raising money for his sister's church, surrounded by 30 other people at the time the crime takes place 11 miles away. In Monroeville, Alabama. That was the most ironic thing about this.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They started pushing him down the hallway. I could hear the chains clanging, but I could still hear him singing about higher ground. And things changed for me. All of a sudden, I knew I wanted to help condemn people get to higher ground. But more than that, I knew that my journey to higher ground was tied to his journey to higher ground. If he didn't get there, I wouldn't get there either. And that's what proximity does for us. I think when people get proximate to the problems and the things they care most deeply about, not only does it help them do better work, be better problem solvers. I think it changes them. I think when you get close to something that is meaningful to you, it changes you. And that's why I think we all have to find ways to get closer to the things we care about, the problems that burden us, the things that keep us up at night. We run from problems, most of us, but sometimes we have to run to the problem.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he kept saying, Brian, don't worry about this, just come back. And they were pushing him out. And just before they pushed him out of the room, they shoved him and he didn't move. And he turned to me and he said, Brian, don't worry about this. You just come back. And then he did something I never forgotten. He closed his eyes, he threw his head back, and he started to sing, and he started singing this hymn, he started singing. I'm pressing on the upward way. New heights, I'm gaining every day, still praying as I'm onward bound. And then he said, Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This was in Jackson, Georgia, Georgia Diagnostic Classification Center. It's where death row is. It's where the executions take place. And when they got the chains off of him, he walked in, and I was so nervous. I said, I'm so sorry. I'm just a law student. I don't know anything about the death penalty. I don't know anything about criminal law. I don't know anything about constitutional law. But when I said, but you're not at risk of execution anytime in the next year, that man said, wait, wait, wait, say that again. I said, you're not at risk of execution anytime in the next year. And he grabbed my hands and he said, wait, say that again. I said, you're not at risk of execution anytime in the next year. And he says, I can't tell you how happy I am to see you. He said, you're the first person I've met who's not a death row prisoner or a death row guard. He told me that he'd been talking to his wife and kids, but he hadn't let them visit because he was afraid they would show up and he'd have an execution date. And we sat down and talked for almost three hours. And we don't even schedule to be there for an hour. And so the guards got mad. They came in and they were treating the guy so roughly when they were taking him out. And I tried to get him to start.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was nervous, I was a law student, I was so anxious. How were you? I was 22. And I went back there, and they had just sent me down there to tell him that he wasn't at risk of execution. And I was waiting for them to bring him in. And when they opened the door, I was just shocked by how weighed down with chains he was. He had handcuffs on his wrists. He had a chain around his waist, shackles on his ankles. What prison?”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, exactly right. And that nothing is more tragic than the profound absence of hope that believing that going to jail in prison is inevitable. And we have too many kids in our society living in the margins of society with this expectation of incarceration.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Most of the people we put in jails and prisons are not there because they're a threat to public safety. We did that because we were looking for ways to make ourselves look tough. No, the crime rate, the violent crime rate is actually where it was in most communities in the 1960s before we had 2.3 million people in jails and prisons. And one of the things we've done is we've actually disrupted communities. We've made it more likely that people will offend. I talked to 13 and 14 year old boys in poor neighborhoods who tell me that they don't expect to be free by the time they're 21. And it's a tragic thing for me to hear. But that's what they see happening in their communities. They see their friends and their brothers and their neighbors effectively dying from being sent to prison or dying from drugs and gang warfare.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think we've become a nation that basically throws you away without much thought. We've put a million people in jails and prisons for drug dependency. We decided to deal with drug dependency as a crime issue rather than a health issue. We declared a war on drugs. We took away a discretion. We called for mandatory sentence. We competed with each other, politicians on who could be the toughest on crime. And when you do that day in and day well, it does change you. I think it corrupts you. You actually lose your capacity to be compassionate. You lose your capacity to be merciful. And when you lose that capacity, you actually end up in a very bad place. But did you not need to be...”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That they're better than other people just because they're white. That's kind of child abuse. It's kind of a lie we give to children, and we haven't helped them recover. And so now this presumption of dangerousness and guilt is out there.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think part of it is understanding how we got where we are and then making shifts. And so what I say to people about why that's relevant today is so the whole demographic geography of this country was shaped by the racial terror that follows slavery. We have black people in Oakland and Los Angeles and Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, New York, Los Angeles. And these people of color fled to these communities, not as immigrants looking for new opportunities. They fled as refugees from lynching and violence. And for me, the ugliness of segregation wasn't just that you couldn't get to the school you couldn't go to school, you couldn't vote. It was the humiliation. My parents were humiliated every day of their lives. Every time they saw that white and colored sign, they were burdened and beaten and marginalized. And it carries with you there. There are injuries that come from that. And white people were misled too because they were taught.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do with me? Well, I think part of it is that we are so quick to kind of see if it's safer for me to talk about this. So am I going to get blamed? And we put our defenses up. And that's not really what we need. We don't need to be blaming people. We need to just understand. And the way that slavery should...”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right. And we did that because slave owners wanted to feel moral and Christian and just while they owned other human beings. And to do that, they had to see these people they owned as less than human. And our thirteenth Amendment doesn't deal with this narrative of racial difference. It doesn't deal with the ideology of white supremacy. That's why I argue that slavery didn't really end in 1865. It just evolved. It turned into decades where we had lynching and racial terrorism”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the great evil of American slavery was not the involuntary servitude, was not the forced labor. I think the great evil of American slavery was the narrative of racial difference we created, the ideology of white supremacy we made up.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I think that there is this presumption of guilt that gets assigned to black and brown people in this country. It's a presumption of dangerousness. And I think it's a result of our history of racial inequality that we've never adequately confronted, that have never adequately dealt with. And we all carry this sort of implicit bias, and it manifests itself. It's become problematic because we're so anxious and we're so ready to judge one another.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, thank you for that. I genuinely believe that if most people saw what I see on a regular basis, they would think differently about the world. They would really have a different understanding. And there are reasons why you felt that way. Lots of people feel that way. It's because we've actually been taught and trained and pushed to think that way. I think for the last 40 years, we've all been a little bit corrupted by what I call the politics of fear and anger, where we quickly demonize other people. We've been told to be afraid. We've been told to be angry. We've kind of put these people in these institutions far away. We don't see them. We don't get to interact with them. And, you know, when you're afraid and you're angry, it's easier to kind of think things about people that may not be complete and fair. It's also true that when you don't have to see it, when you're distant, it's easier to kind of imagine this world that is a world you don't have to kind of spend any time wearing.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. Yeah. My clients have taught me that each person is more than the worst thing they've ever done. Because when I meet them, I meet them through some accusation of something horrific and terrible. And what they teach me is that they're more than that crime. They're more than that worse act. And I really have come to believe that if someone tells a lie they're not just a liar, if someone takes something that doesn't belong to them, they're not just a thief. Even if you kill somebody, you're not just a killer. And what a just and evolved and compassionate society has to do is to kind of figure out the other things you are. And make sure we understand that part of each person.”
2023-02-08 · Oprah's Super Soul · Super Soul Special: Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source