In doing so, he offered, perhaps, one of the first accounts of what would become known as carceral studies, putting into stark relief the systemic racial bias in the American criminal justice system. As Baldwin put it, If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected—those, precisely, who need the law’s protection the most!—and listens to their testimony. Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person—ask the wretched
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