The short story, “Tilting Scales,” examines race, class, social justice, and police violence. The story centers on the trial of a white police officer, Jaret Whatley, in the death of a young Black teenager, Kevin. The teenager was walking home with his brother and two friends one evening when the police mistook them for suspects in a robbery. The police gave chase to the teenagers who just happened to be racing each other home when the police car hit one of the teenagers, killing him. While it not uncommon from many Black teenagers to encounter the police because of “mistaken” identity, the story is complicated when the presiding judge, Warren Hayes, who is Black, is confronted with his own ideas on race, class, and justice after he learns that his own grandson was murdered by the police.
One of the strengths of this story is Kamack’s ability to present the narrative from multiple perspectives. The story begins describing the tensions surrounding the trial as protests erupt outside the courthouse where the trial of the police officer has taken place. The scene is depicted as one of “anarchy” as protesters await Judge Hayes’s decision on the sentence of former police officer Whatley who was convicted of killing Kevin. Kamack does well to build the tension surrounding the case. He describes a courtroom as broken into three factions: the mostly Black crowd of people who demanded fair and swift justice that never seemed to come, their rival and predominant crowd of officers who donned their crisp police uniforms in support of one of their own, and in the rear, a slew of ravenous news reporters and journalists who would devour each word that would come out of the judge’s mouth.
The Judge finds himself questioning the underlying causes of this death, asking himself, “how could something like this happen in this day and age? To an aspiring athlete with a scholarship?” In this way, Kamack demonstrates class tensions between middle- and upper-class Black people and their perceptions of themselves apart from the lower or under-class Black criminal.
Indeed, it is judge’s decision and his thoughts which make this story critical to understanding the intersections of race and criminal justice. Hayes, to the disappointment of Kevin’s friends and family, and the many Black activists and protestors in the courtroom, sentenced Whatley to only ten years in prison for third degree murder. Later that evening, as Hayes prepares to leave the office, he comforts himself by believing that he did the right thing and “justice was served” (original italics). However, as he is leaving the courthouse, he is confronted by the same ravenous mob of reporters who tell him that his own grandson had been “the latest victim of injustice and racial profiling,” and had been killed by the police that same day. Hayes breaks down crying, begging the reporters to leave him alone, “I just found out that I lost my grandson…. please!”
Through this story, Kamack attempts to interrogate intra-racial class tensions. Hayes betrays a certain elitism by wondering why a “good” kid like Kevin, who was an athlete and had a scholarship to a prestigious school would be the victim of police violence. No matter, Hayes was confident that justice had been served fairly with the trial and sentencing, even as the courtroom erupted in protest that the sentence was too lenient. And just a few hours later, Hayes’s own world comes crumbling down when he learns of his own grandson’s death. This forces Hayes and the reader to wonder, what is justice? Was justice truly served? Kamack ends the story by asking the question, how does Hayes reconcile his own tragedy in a systemically racist criminal justice system? Ultimately, what this story is forcing us to think about is whether class position can overcome racial stereotypes. Indeed, as this story and many real-life encounters by Black people and the police have shown us, no, class position does not make one safe from systemic racial violence.
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