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Racism In Marissa Alexander's Case Study

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Institutional racism was depicted in Marissa Alexander’s case. Marissa Alexander had stopped by Rico Gray’s house to visit him. She gave her phone to Rico, letting him view the pictures of their baby daughter and then noticed text messages from her ex husband. The argument had started and she headed into the garage, armed herself, and then shot a warning shot near her husband. Alexander tried to use the ‘stand your ground’ law, which had failed and was later sentenced to prison for 20 years. Tom Robinson got charged for something that he never have done and Marissa Alexander got charged for protecting herself by using her gun. From this case, racial injustice and institutional racism are still present in today’s society.
To begin with, in Marissa Alexander’s case, a jury had convicted her on aggravated assault within just 12 minutes of contemplating. …show more content…

According to commondreams.org, “While white women are more often treated as victims in domestic abuse cases and referred to services for help, women of color end up incarcerated as criminals and now make up the majority of the women in prison.”. This is depicted in both cases, where Alexander had been given more punishments than Gray and Mayella was treated as the victim in her case while she was not. Marissa Alexander was seen as a criminal rather than a victim who was trying to protect herself from getting hurt again. In Lee’s novel, “She must put Tom Robinson away from her.” (272). Here, Atticus is stating that Mayella and Mr. Ewell’s story was made up and not true. Due to the racism in their society, Mayella and her father had been viewed as the victims. There was never a case where a black won the white in their society. In summary, this is proving that white women are viewed as the victims instead of both races, which is unfair and shows how the jury is

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