The Values of Justice

• In Event: Policy Panel: History and Justice Reform: Sustaining Transformation through Reckoning

Abstract

Values are a representation of who we say we are or hope to be. They’re not always uttered out loud, but
they nonetheless live in our policies and our practices, including where we dedicate our resources. Cultural
hegemony in the United States is a process of continual gaslighting: on the surface, the system tells us we value
things like respect for law and order, personal responsibility, and individual hard work. But, in fact, the system has
taught us to value the protection of whiteness and its way of life, and to ignore the ways in which this protection
has eviscerated the social safety net through which Black and Brown folks most often fall. As a society, we dedicate
vital community resources toward that protection, leaving our most fundamental needs unmet. Ultimately, this
practice makes us less safe.

Author

• Keith Wattley, Uncommon Law