Social Justice and Self-Doubt: Pandemic Edition
Sienna Bland-Abramson (she/her) is a third-year undergraduate psychology student with a special interest in social justice and gender/sexuality studies at UCLA. She utilizes both writing and film photography as mediums of self-expression, and a means to create content that illustrate her commitment to causes of importance. She continues to work as the senior research analyst for each of the civil rights attorneys described herein. Her email address is: s.blandabramson@ucla.edu
By Sienna Bland-Abramson
Racial injustice and police brutality lie at the core of American history, in a country that beguilingly promises equal justice under law: a lofty oath that was arguably never true, despite its eternal inscription atop the West Pediment of the U.S. Supreme Court. Yet, if we can ignore history, but otherwise take this truth to be self-evident, it’s not the guarantee that I find problematic; but the failure to make good on the explicit promise that continues to inflame me.
I asked myself, what can I do to make a difference? How can I, as a 26-year-old white college student majoring in psychology, foster social justice in a truly meaningful way? While contemplating my alternatives, opportunity unexpectedly came knocking; in a pandemic, no less. I was approached about a job that would allow me to contribute to altering the life trajectory of a disenfranchised person of color who had been wrongfully convicted of murder. I responded with a resounding YES, when can I start?
The original criminal case occurred in 1990 and resulted in a wrongful conviction of a then twenty-two-year-old Black man. Despite being unjustly condemned, this young man would subsequently spend over twenty years of his life incarcerated in Maximum Security prisons; at which point his conviction was ultimately overturned in December 2010, thanks in part to the efforts of the Northern California Innocence Project.
Thereafter, the fight for restitution began. Though it was primarily an exercise in futility, the California 9th Circuit Court of Appeals eventually issued a ruling in favor of this thoroughly victimized man; thereby acting as the catalyst to rouse a long-overdue civil lawsuit. The time had finally come to secure the outstanding justice owed, and his civil rights attorneys began building their all-star team of experts in turn.
Then, they hit a roadblock. Despite considerable success in assembling a team of distinguished experts, they had exhausted their efforts to locate someone who could speak definitively about racial animus among police officers – specifically circa the late 1980’s – in the city of San Francisco. This dilemma, to be precise, is when opportunity knocked on my door. The attorneys resolved that their strongest play would be to hire an individual adept in the use of technology with proficient interpersonal skills, who could then gather as much data as possible relating to racial animus of police officers in the late 1980’s, which could subsequently be relied upon by their emerging expert. My skillset just so happened to fall within those parameters, paving the way for my grand entrance into the case.
Make no mistake, it wasn’t smooth sailing by any means. In the beginning, I can’t do this was my chronic refrain. Anguish, bewilderment, and tears flowed abundantly. I struggled with interpreting the dense legalese of countless critical legal documents, all the while maintaining the delicate balance of legal etiquette and camaraderie amidst a well-seasoned team. Yet curiously enough, by the third week I began to find my footing: I was starting to feel like I was holding my own. After completing extensive research through various legal databases, alongside daily discussions with an ACLU attorney, an appellate attorney, a retired judge, and other members of the legal team, it finally dawned on me: I actually can do this. Through my resolve, I discovered that I had indeed developed the necessary tools to become an integral part of this legal team; despite – most strikingly – an utter lack of formal legal training.
Though I was initially intimidated by my colleagues and the gravitas of the case itself, I came to the realization that my obstacles were largely manufactured in my own mind. I was telling myself, obsessively, that I was in way over my head. I’m never going to be able to pull this off. Soon enough, I was convinced, they’ll discover I'm unfit, I'm incompetent, and they’ll have to cut me loose. However, through the intensity of the work itself and the constant interactions I was having with my colleagues, it became apparent – even to me – that I was truly contributing to this dedicated network; all the while striving toward a real-life example of litigated social justice.
I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that such self-perceptions of incompetence plague many aspects of my life, personal no less than professional. I call it my imposter syndrome: all of its niceties are alive and thriving in my cognitive ecosphere. Yet, despite the largely self-imposed suffering I endure, I am thankful on some level for the ways in which my inner critic has helped me evaluate and reflect upon my behavior; and most importantly, how I’m perceiving it. Not a day goes by, nonetheless, that I don’t wish I could do away with the needless – and self-induced – pain.
Moreover, I discovered that I was hardly the only person working on this case that experienced serious moments of doubt. Complex civil litigation for a wrongful conviction of murder is never a surefire win. The attorneys had moments when their optimism wavered, as did the team of experts; for litigation, by its very nature, is adversarial. The only thing we could guarantee is that whatever we were doing in preparation to win the case, the defense was arming itself to tear us apart, limb by limb.
Upon this discovery, I realized that when I’m presented with an issue of importance, my commitment to the cause can thankfully supersede all of my internal punitive self-talk. Through the team’s collective efforts, justice was within reach. The case settled in April 2021, two weeks before the start of trial, with a substantial financial award for our client. Though no amount of money will ever right the egregious wrongs that he suffered, nor will it make up for the two decades of life lost, it is nevertheless, a start.
I’ve learned that if litigation is the conduit for social justice, one must be prepared for battle; with a brigade armored-up and ready for combat, equipped with intellectual weaponry and all. Such a battle implies not only dealing with one’s own personal demons that inevitably come out of hiding, but more importantly, contending with all of the powerful forces that come forward to fight tooth and nail to maintain the preexisting social order. Success in this domain, I’ve discovered, is an interminable struggle.