I Already Miss Those Ladies That I Met At Jury Duty, But I Know That's Probably Weird Of Me
"Mr. Howard" was the defense counselor who brought up Sun Tzu. I'm changing his name here, but I'm describing a real guy. Of the four defense attorneys who fucked with us during voir dire, "Mr. Howard" was the weirdest. His peering, sideways gaze was pretty weird. His pinstriped suit looked like it had been issued him by a high school drama department. And he leaned intrusively over the jury box to talk to us.
Then he brought up Sun Tzu.
(You can read this next paragraph really fast, if you want.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, if I were to invoke the famous Chinese military strategist and philosopher Sun Tzu, who wrote that the ends justify the means, those of you who, surely, deplore and regret the devastation wrought by crack cocaine, yet who themselves may be disingenuous in their pursuit of this civic, not civil, but civic war in which our government as here represented by the prosecution? Would we?"
We stared at him.
Mr. Howard consulted a clipboard. Then he swung around at the young woman sitting two seats to the left of me.
"Am I making any sense, Miss LaTonza Washington?" he bellowed.
We all winced. All the lawyers did this--they'd semmingly ask the whole jury something kind of rhetorical, then whirl around at one specific juror and demand, "AND ISN'T THAT RIGHT, MISTER GARMONIN??" (or whoever). Very startling.
"Ooh," we were surely meant to think, "they know my name!"
Jury duty, once you get past the cattle call stage, is both scary and flattering. Even though we were all chosen completely at random with no regard to our jury-worthy qualities, and even though we knew serving on an actual jury all day every day would be a pain in the ass, and grumpily told each other so during breaks, it was weirdly gratifying to have all this formalized, sober rigmarole rolled out for our benefit. After a few days it's hard not to take it pretty seriously.
"Am I making any sense, Miss LaTonza Washington?
"No," she answered.
The whole courtroom tittered. It was the only time I saw any of the defendants smile. And even then, only one of them really did. The other three put their hands over their mouths and looked down as though choreographed.
It was a capital narcotics case.
So, during voir dire is when the judge and all of the lawyers seemingly try to trip up the potential jury members (there were 24 of us empanelled) into revealing criminal tendencies, mental illnesses, socioeconomic status, and shit like that. We were each asked what our favorite publication was, which was interesting. Here's how I think it broke down:
New York Post: 5
New York Daily News: 10
New York Times: 3
New York Sun: 1
New Yorker: 2
"What?": 3
I bet this is pretty representative as a sample of Brooklynites.
But I wonder how good a Brooklyn cross-section the ethnic breakdown was. Besides me two other white women were empanelled, and they were both Hasidic. There were way more women than men. And more than half of the would-be jurors were African-American or Carribean-American ladies aged seventy or older. If this is true of Brooklyn in general, I couldn't be happier, frankly.
Which makes me uncomfortable.
What the hell does that mean? I, like many white Southern women, feel a mystical bond with elderly black ladies. This assumption is so deep and automatic that it's only just now that I feel a little bit ashamed about it. Who do I think I am? But it's not just me. Are you a Southern white girl, reader? Do you know what I'm talking about? Who the fuck do we think we are? At JURY DUTY, yet. Is it mutated cultural guilt, or more like the residue of a willful cultural ignorance? I know if there were some unctuous ethnic group that felt all pally with *me* on sight, I'd be cranky about it. Like, what if Asian girls really dug me? Chose me to sit by on the bus? Sought my advice in the grocery store? Worried during conversations with me whether they were coming off as patronizing?
I'd probably get a kick out of it.
But the difference would be that my ancestors weren't kidnapped and enslaved by the Chinese. No Vietnamese has ever called me nigger, and I've never been refused a bank loan by a guy from Laos. The only people who discriminate against white Southerners are white Northerners.
So, to sum up, something wrong with me, but that's how it is. I feel very safe around black grandmas. Safer, frankly, than around white grandmas. My own grandma scares the crap out of me.
During a break during day two of voir dire, while the judge was admonishing all the lawyers, one of Brooklyn's older African American women asked me,
"Is that knitting, or crocheting?"
"Knitting."
I took up knitting last winter and have just gotten comfortable enough with it to be able to do it in public without feeling self-conscious. And I'll tell you what, it attracts older ladies. I've fielded knitting chitchat from old women of every stripe and nation.
"What I do is crochet, down at the senior center," the lady told me.
She'd mentioned the senior center during questioning. Her name was Mrs. Collings. (This part is pretty straight-ahead documentary excpt for the names. Mrs. Collings lives in Bed-Stuy. She enjoys long walks in the park, is very active in her church, and disapproves of cake mix.)
"Knitting is with the two needles, crochet is with the hook!" Mrs. Box, a lady with an island accent, asserted. (Mrs. Box lives in Fort Greene with Mr. Box, a retired cop. Her son is a cop too.) In the jury box, she'd sat right behind me. "My granddaughter showed me, but I like crochet better."
"With knitting, you have to count those stitches," Mrs. Collings said.
Mrs. Box agreed.
I admitted that I wasn't very good at counting stitches, either, which is why I've only ever made scarves.
"Scarves are nice," Mrs. Box tells me.
"I don't like to see a man knit," Mrs. Collings remarked. Mrs. Box agreed with her, but a third lady scoffed. "A man at my church knits beautiful things. You should see the things he makes!"
We all went silent and reflective.
Then we were called back into the courtroom. Three names were called. All 21 of the other people were instructed that we were free to go. Neither I nor any of the ladies I'd been talking to were chosen for the final jury. The three they'd kept were one of the Hasidic women, an intense young guy whose brother was in prison for narcotics but who swore very intently that he was prepared to be an impartial juror, and a young white guy who'd answered "what?" when asked which was his favorite publication. This disappointed me. Actually, everybody who was dismissed seemed perturbed, as though we'd blown a job interview. Rejection is always hurtful.
In the elevator on our way back down to our normal lives, Mrs. Box said, "That attorney Mr. Howard was a STRANGE MAN."
The elevatorful of people laughed. We felt bad for his client, who'd looked very young and very scared.
Then he brought up Sun Tzu.
(You can read this next paragraph really fast, if you want.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, if I were to invoke the famous Chinese military strategist and philosopher Sun Tzu, who wrote that the ends justify the means, those of you who, surely, deplore and regret the devastation wrought by crack cocaine, yet who themselves may be disingenuous in their pursuit of this civic, not civil, but civic war in which our government as here represented by the prosecution? Would we?"
We stared at him.
Mr. Howard consulted a clipboard. Then he swung around at the young woman sitting two seats to the left of me.
"Am I making any sense, Miss LaTonza Washington?" he bellowed.
We all winced. All the lawyers did this--they'd semmingly ask the whole jury something kind of rhetorical, then whirl around at one specific juror and demand, "AND ISN'T THAT RIGHT, MISTER GARMONIN??" (or whoever). Very startling.
"Ooh," we were surely meant to think, "they know my name!"
Jury duty, once you get past the cattle call stage, is both scary and flattering. Even though we were all chosen completely at random with no regard to our jury-worthy qualities, and even though we knew serving on an actual jury all day every day would be a pain in the ass, and grumpily told each other so during breaks, it was weirdly gratifying to have all this formalized, sober rigmarole rolled out for our benefit. After a few days it's hard not to take it pretty seriously.
"Am I making any sense, Miss LaTonza Washington?
"No," she answered.
The whole courtroom tittered. It was the only time I saw any of the defendants smile. And even then, only one of them really did. The other three put their hands over their mouths and looked down as though choreographed.
It was a capital narcotics case.
So, during voir dire is when the judge and all of the lawyers seemingly try to trip up the potential jury members (there were 24 of us empanelled) into revealing criminal tendencies, mental illnesses, socioeconomic status, and shit like that. We were each asked what our favorite publication was, which was interesting. Here's how I think it broke down:
New York Post: 5
New York Daily News: 10
New York Times: 3
New York Sun: 1
New Yorker: 2
"What?": 3
I bet this is pretty representative as a sample of Brooklynites.
But I wonder how good a Brooklyn cross-section the ethnic breakdown was. Besides me two other white women were empanelled, and they were both Hasidic. There were way more women than men. And more than half of the would-be jurors were African-American or Carribean-American ladies aged seventy or older. If this is true of Brooklyn in general, I couldn't be happier, frankly.
Which makes me uncomfortable.
What the hell does that mean? I, like many white Southern women, feel a mystical bond with elderly black ladies. This assumption is so deep and automatic that it's only just now that I feel a little bit ashamed about it. Who do I think I am? But it's not just me. Are you a Southern white girl, reader? Do you know what I'm talking about? Who the fuck do we think we are? At JURY DUTY, yet. Is it mutated cultural guilt, or more like the residue of a willful cultural ignorance? I know if there were some unctuous ethnic group that felt all pally with *me* on sight, I'd be cranky about it. Like, what if Asian girls really dug me? Chose me to sit by on the bus? Sought my advice in the grocery store? Worried during conversations with me whether they were coming off as patronizing?
I'd probably get a kick out of it.
But the difference would be that my ancestors weren't kidnapped and enslaved by the Chinese. No Vietnamese has ever called me nigger, and I've never been refused a bank loan by a guy from Laos. The only people who discriminate against white Southerners are white Northerners.
So, to sum up, something wrong with me, but that's how it is. I feel very safe around black grandmas. Safer, frankly, than around white grandmas. My own grandma scares the crap out of me.
During a break during day two of voir dire, while the judge was admonishing all the lawyers, one of Brooklyn's older African American women asked me,
"Is that knitting, or crocheting?"
"Knitting."
I took up knitting last winter and have just gotten comfortable enough with it to be able to do it in public without feeling self-conscious. And I'll tell you what, it attracts older ladies. I've fielded knitting chitchat from old women of every stripe and nation.
"What I do is crochet, down at the senior center," the lady told me.
She'd mentioned the senior center during questioning. Her name was Mrs. Collings. (This part is pretty straight-ahead documentary excpt for the names. Mrs. Collings lives in Bed-Stuy. She enjoys long walks in the park, is very active in her church, and disapproves of cake mix.)
"Knitting is with the two needles, crochet is with the hook!" Mrs. Box, a lady with an island accent, asserted. (Mrs. Box lives in Fort Greene with Mr. Box, a retired cop. Her son is a cop too.) In the jury box, she'd sat right behind me. "My granddaughter showed me, but I like crochet better."
"With knitting, you have to count those stitches," Mrs. Collings said.
Mrs. Box agreed.
I admitted that I wasn't very good at counting stitches, either, which is why I've only ever made scarves.
"Scarves are nice," Mrs. Box tells me.
"I don't like to see a man knit," Mrs. Collings remarked. Mrs. Box agreed with her, but a third lady scoffed. "A man at my church knits beautiful things. You should see the things he makes!"
We all went silent and reflective.
Then we were called back into the courtroom. Three names were called. All 21 of the other people were instructed that we were free to go. Neither I nor any of the ladies I'd been talking to were chosen for the final jury. The three they'd kept were one of the Hasidic women, an intense young guy whose brother was in prison for narcotics but who swore very intently that he was prepared to be an impartial juror, and a young white guy who'd answered "what?" when asked which was his favorite publication. This disappointed me. Actually, everybody who was dismissed seemed perturbed, as though we'd blown a job interview. Rejection is always hurtful.
In the elevator on our way back down to our normal lives, Mrs. Box said, "That attorney Mr. Howard was a STRANGE MAN."
The elevatorful of people laughed. We felt bad for his client, who'd looked very young and very scared.
posted by sarahfisch at
2:59 PM
1 Comments:
i totally undrstand about black grannies. i adore them! i always want to tell them how nice they look on sundays when they're dressed up for church.
i have the fondest memories of my aunt ivonne's maid bertha (and her successor dorothy) though i probably spent a total of 8 hours with both of them during my childhood. bertha made amazing shrimp salad.
nubree
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