For once in this godforsaken country, the justice system might actually do something about evil politicians. Former president Donald Trump, along with Rudy Giuliani and his other cronies, have been indicted and are on trial for inciting the January 6 riots and attempting to overturn the 2020 election. As we’ve talked about before, there have been some pretty hilarious Trump mugshot memes floating around the internet.
Georgia district attorney Fani Willis is trending on the internet right now because she and her office indicted Trump and 18 other people in one of the most important criminal cases against them. But there’s one huge problem with deifying her as a national hero: She’s a terrible person.
According to The Washington Post, Willis was personally responsible for prosecuting teachers involved in a standardized test cheating scandal in Atlanta back in 2013. This was one of the largest education scandals in American history and implicated 178 teachers for giving students the right answers on tests.
These teachers are put under enormous pressure to raise test scores or risk losing their jobs. The awful No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 did more harm than good, placing the burden on educators to amend a completely broken education system that, frankly, has to be torn down and remade from the bottom up. It is a system that sees test scores and grades before the student and teacher. There is no room for humanity in cold numerics and barbaric competition.
But Willis did not care about their plight nor did she see the humans behind the system, instead choosing to hound these teachers for years, in court, to pursue maximum prison time. This is unfair and unequal justice from a neoliberal cop hellbent on imprisoning people who don’t deserve it.
As if that weren’t enough, Willis is waging a racist war on hip hop music. As NBCNews.com reports, Willis disgustingly misuses the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to prosecute rappers based on lyrical content. And when criticized for it, she has wholly defended the practice, saying, “I’m going to continue to do that; people can continue to be angry about it. I have some legal advice: Don’t confess to crimes on rap lyrics if you do not want them used — or at least get out of my county.”
There are several problems with this. The biggest, first and foremost, is that it’s racial profiling. Hip hop disproportionately gets painted as a hotbed of violence, far more than any music genre, solely because it is a Black industry. Second, it gives courts unlimited discretion in prosecuting rappers in crimes that may or may not be related to their music. Lyricism alone can cast judgements, extend sentences, and so on. Let’s call it what it is: an excuse to prosecute Black musicians.
Willis isn’t our hero; she’s a fascist cop waging war on BIPOC. Most of the teachers she sought to persecute in the scandal were Black; most of the rappers she gleefully incarcerates are Black. Trump’s prosecution does not outweigh the very serious harm this woman is doing. Neoliberal feminism will continue to willfully ignore her cruel injustices or outright make apologies for them. And that’s not OK.
(featured image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
