Heather Ann Thompson

And she insists that there's going to be a day of reckoning in civil court.

So we then switch to a courtroom in the South Bronx.

And what is interesting about that is that by the time that trial happens, crime is so serious.

People are, you know, the black community is not loathe to, you know, to send someone to jail if they have committed a crime.

So the fact that it is resoundingly in favor of Daryl KB is another powerful moment.

Well, I think the word you used is so deeply significant.

Race is there fundamentally.

It's living and breathing in that courtroom, but it is an undertone.

It is implicit.

It is never said.

Slotnick routinely refers to them as men, not teenagers.

He routinely refers to them as thugs and animals.

He routinely refers to their long criminal records.

He

is constantly evoking a racialized language without evoking a racialized language.

So part of this story actually is about the way in which all that is uncoded and that is coded, I should say, and that everybody, white and black, knows exactly what's being said and knows exactly what messages are being sent.

Over the years, we'll just get unveiled.

One of the most striking things about the moment we're in is that there is no more artifice.

White people say exactly what they think and exactly what they feel.

That was not so much the case then.