Juror # 866389501 - race: white

I got a jury summons today. Call-in, for June, by which time I will have completely forgotten everything about it and will spend a few gut-wrenching days worrying that the federal government is going to come to my door and take me away to be locked up in a prison for nonconformists because I forgot to call. Recently I had put my contempt for the stupid things written on government forms on the backburner, but I just filled out the jury summons questionnaire and it all came flooding back, began boiling, if you will, to avoid a mixed metaphor. There are so many things wrong with the summons and questionnaire that you will think I am just splitting hairs if I list them all. You would probably be right; I lose more and more patience with both the government and stupidity with every passing minute and am un-inclined to give either one any benefit of the doubt. The icing on the cake is that I, in my civic duty, have been reduced to a number and a barcode – every patriot’s dream.

They make you fill out your race on the questionnaire. Well, first they make you answer whether or not you are a citizen and whether or not you are over 18 which is proof of their incompetence because why the hell would they be sending jury summons’ to someone who is neither a citizen nor over 18. But then they make you fill out your race. It’s a weird policy of mine to never fill out the race section of these bubble-in forms because (I’ll admit ignorance here) I am never certain of exactly what they mean by race (white is a race?), and because it annoys me that they ask this question because the only two things it could possibly be used for are a) their own curiosity which is a waste of my time, and b) some sort of discrimination (most probably to screw over the whites and to give preference to minorities). Usually these sections are optional and so I can go on my way feeling as though I have stuck it to the man in my own small way. On the jury summons questionnaire, the race section is mandatory. Their explanation is this:

“Federal law requires you as a prospective juror to indicate your race. This answer is required solely to avoid discrimination in juror selection and has absolutely no bearing on qualifications for jury service. By answering this question you help the federal court check and observe the juror selection process so that discrimination cannot occur. In this way the federal court can fulfill the policy of the United States, which is to provide jurors who are randomly selected from a fair cross section of the community.”

There is so much wrong with this explanation that I almost give up on it, but let’s face it, this is me and I have to blather. First of all, I cannot fathom what kind of reasoning allows that they have to KNOW your race in order to AVOID discrimination. This is such a perfect example of how the people and the government (which are supposed to be the same thing but have never been farther from it) find a problem and try to fix it by creating an even worse problem. It’s Einstein’s whole “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them” concept, except that apparently we are going to try to until we run ourselves into the ground. Let’s backtrack…wouldn’t it be much simpler, and make much more sense, if they DIDN’T know your race and so could pick jurors based on their actual qualifications and the randomness that is supposed to be involved in the jury selection process?

But no, the government has redefined discrimination. What they mean in saying “to avoid discrimination,” is that they are going to ensure that there are not too many white guy jurors beating up on criminals. What they mean by “to avoid discrimination” is that they are in fact going to discriminate based on race so that they have an even distribution of races within a jury. Why didn’t they just say so? Discrimination is “the act of distinguishing differences,” according to Webster who is, I think, still considered an expert by both liberals and conservatives. So, the government is in fact discriminating in order to have jurors of multiple races. Discrimination is also “a showing of partiality or prejudice in treatment.” By specifically choosing, for example, 1 white guy, 1 black guy, and 1 Hispanic guy, instead of 3 white guys, isn’t the court showing partiality? I’m not arguing whether or not the practice of having an even distribution of races within a jury is the right thing to do. Rather, I am arguing against the way the government and all stupid organizations use buzz words to get away with doing whatever they want. DISCRIMINATION is bad. Thus, if the mandatory race section of the questionnaire is “to avoid discrimination,” it must be good.

Which leads me to my personal favorite buzz word FAIR. I am saddened and disheartened (and I’m not being sarcastic in either of these two words) that our JUSTICE SYSTEM is using the word “fair” as justification for their actions. What the hell is a “fair” cross section, anyway? The implication of a cross section of a population is that the percentage of races represented within the cross section is proportional to the percentage of these races within the entire population. How do you make this fair or unfair? But fairness…we all want fairness, right? Thus it must logically follow that, if the race section of the questionnaire ensures fairness, it is a good thing. This is not just semantics. This is not just me bashing the incompetent, but probably relatively innocent writer of the questionnaire because I am a crazy English major who has spent the last four years dissecting the way people should and shouldn’t write. I honestly believe that misused language supporting faulty reasoning is a technique for pulling the wool over peoples’ eyes and that peoples’ acceptance of this technique leads to the demise of democracy. Do I really care about the race section of the jury summons questionnaire? Not a hoot. It took me two seconds to bubble in “white,” I got over the fact that I hate filling out race sections and I moved on. Please see that that is not the issue, it was only my springboard.

There is a separate box that asks you to check yes or no to the question, “are you Hispanic?” I have no idea why they ask this question. But can you IMAGINE the outrage if they instead asked you to check yes or no if you are white. Even if they were using the question to screw over all the white people, the whole world would be up in arms over such a racist question. Racism in this country is misused in the same way as discrimination is misused, not as it pertains to all people across the board, but only as it pertains to majorities screwing over minorities. When the discrimination, or racism, is in the other direction, everyone averts their eyes.

I have more, but this blog is getting too long. I’m still saving the notice from the tax commissioner to all law abiding citizens that was on my federal tax form this year (and probably yours too, you were just smart enough not to read it). I’ll admit that I almost forgave the jury summons people because the envelope that I had to send my questionnaire back in was one of those ones that tastes faintly of watermelon instead of the kind that makes you think of public toilet seats. But then I flipped the envelope over and saw that I had to pay postage. As a potential juror fulfilling my honorable civic duty, apparently they still see me as a regular old chump who has to pay postage. Big surprise!