Medcalf: Sen. Mitchell case reveals grace gap for the powerless

On a phone call with local artist and community organizer D.A. Bullock earlier this week, I imagined what might have happened if I’d faced similar accusations leveled last month against state Sen. Nicole Mitchell after an incident at her stepmother’s home in Detroit Lakes.

She was arrested and faces first-degree burglary charges and calls for her resignation.

“I wonder how many times the police would have shot me if I’d gone into someone’s home, for any reason, wearing all-black in the middle of the night,” I asked Bullock.

We both laughed but we also knew it was true.

I called Bullock, an award-winning filmmaker in Minneapolis, to vent about Mitchell’s situation.

Her predicament has been met by members of her community with love, kindness, support and consideration. Families are complicated. And family drama is not an issue of race, gender or class. Some folks deal with it from the moment they’re born. For others, it comes later in life. But we all have to navigate familial challenges.

Mitchell, DFL-Woodbury, has denied the police account that she broke into her stepmother’s home and stole items and, instead, said she’d gone there for a wellness check on a family member. She said she entered the home in part because of the grief she’s endured after losing her father. As a result, her supporters have cautioned that any untoward behavior was the result of the emotional burdens that losing a dear relative can yield. My friends and family members who’ve lost parents have described the days, months and years that followed as a blur.

But I also witnessed an affluent white woman in Minnesota receive the benefit of the doubt young Black men and women accused of crimes in this city rarely enjoy. I am fine with the empathy, but why isn’t it granted to others? That’s the part that bothered me. I know Black folks in their 40s, 50s and 60s who continue to grapple with decisions they made in their teens, long before they had their full cerebral capabilities. And when they made those choices, folks did not consider their circumstances or predicaments. They were, like so many others, simply discarded by an inequitable justice system before anyone thought to say, “Let’s find out what really happened here.”

It happened in my family.

Years ago, one of my relatives awoke to the sounds of a group of men entering a home he shared with his mother in the middle of the night. He, too, had encountered a turbulent familial situation prior to that evening. The men, whom he knew, assaulted him. In his weariness, he grabbed a weapon and fired. According to police, a bullet hit and killed one of his assailants as he turned to run. My relative, who was concerned for his mother’s safety, was arrested and sentenced to a lengthy prison stint.

In his case, and in the cases of so many other Black folks, the details rarely matter. I wish they did.

I figured Bullock would agree with my premise. But he suggested my focus might miss the mark.

“I don’t think [Mitchell] should resign and I don’t think she committed a crime,” Bullock said. “I know law enforcement shows up in many technical, law-breaking situations and they [figure out] that this is a family dispute that ended up with one person holding onto the other person’s [items]. They often make way for those things to not be applied as you’re going to get charged and arrested.”

He made a fair point. All of this relates to the lack of empathy in the law itself and how it’s used. We live in a place where the threshold for lawmakers and police officers is often based on what they can do, rather than what they should do. The latter demands grace and delicate analysis of the circumstances that preceded an alleged crime. It also requires a level of humanity that’s not always present when those with the power to execute punishment emphasize procedure over pain and the other burdens that can fuel our worst days.

“When we get into these conversations and we get a chance to talk about what the standards are for us versus what they are for the majority of white folks in this country, the argument gets flattened,” Bullock said. “It becomes, ‘Who gets the most special privileges?’” That’s never been our argument. Our argument has always been, ‘Why can’t we have a system that can be applied fairly regardless of who you are?’”

He’s right.

And that — not the aftermath of the senator’s alleged actions — is the center of my ire.

I do not believe my life would have been spared if I’d been intercepted by police amid similar circumstances, though. And even if I’d survived, my professional ambitions would have been erased.

Yet, the probability of those outcomes does not nullify the fairness Bullock discussed.

I just wish the execution of our laws was steeped in more empathy. For everyone.