u/DeepSpaceNineTo5

TL;DR: If someone really was raised in a proverbial barn, shouldn’t they still be treated with dignity?

Some of the slop content I get recommended a lot made me think of something that has been bugging me. I wasn’t sure where to post it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNG4xxaOnBA

While I do laugh a little bit at these schmucks that show up to court laying in bed in a bathrobe and showercap, I don't want to judge the defendants too harshly for these apparent breaches of decorum because it's a question of class difference and cultural capital. These people presenting to the courtroom are cringeworthy but they are probably not being intentionally disrespectful. They are however failing to code switch, perhaps out of ignorance because they don't have that cultural capital.

There's a cliched expression "were you raised in a barn?" Hypothetically if someone really was raised in a barn, would that make them more guilty? Now I do agree they need to get their crap together but I don't think they are being "punks" or "thugs" or intentionally disrespectful and court officials such as judges, while they do have a need to maintain decorum, they could stand to have a better attitude, and not be so, well, judgemental about things that are not themselves crimes.

For someone like me, by and large the dominant culture is my culture. It is my “native language.” My body language is their body language. My dress is their dress. But for these defendants, they may exist in this other subculture and that might form their native body language. People who group up in these blighted neighborhoods might have resting body language they have been taught to survive with to look tough, and thus not a victim, that comes across as arrogant or disrespectful to judges. That is what I mean by cultural capital. They do not have the same socialization, and the clever ones learn to code switch but they may not be that clever and their code switching may be incomplete.

While it is not supposed to be the case, judges, juries, and court officers are often old conservative dinosaurs who treat people with piercings and colored hair or racialized hairstyles, or visible signs of being working class more harshly. That’s not supposed to happen. And while this is not strictly a racial issue, it is hard not to notice that it is certainly a component. Race and class are tied together in American culture and race is often used as a proxy for class or vice versa. Though the fact that the judges in some of these videos are Black doesn’t change anything because it is about cultural capital or the lack of it. They are Black but they have the cultural capital the people facing them don’t have.

Defendants shouldn’t be appearing in court with no shirt on, or in a bathrobe. There was one guy in the video who was at work and wearing a hat and couldn’t take it off. He should not have been zooming in to court from work if that was the case but it is possible he could not get time off without losing the job. But it almost certainly is not intentional disrespect. Some of these people are a little dumb, granted, and they have probably done dumb and impulsive thing that landed them in the court in the first place. Or they are in trouble for a crime of poverty. Or they were blamed for something they didn’t do. Point is, that they are dumb, lack an understanding of mainstream etiquette, are clueless on zoom, or come from poverty should not be used to compound their disadvantages.

We need decorum but we also need culturally competent and trauma informed courts and not more reasons to do mass incarceration. How can we find the right balance between decorum and accommodating differences?