In Ronson’s article “God That Was Awesome,” readers are made to look into the impact of social media on our lives through exploration of Justine Sacco’s ‘fall from fame’. Living in the 2000s, with the boom of handheld technologies and the internet, social media has undeniably taken over our lives; we are constantly surrounded by tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram posts, Snapchats, and alike. With our modern day technologies, we are constantly plugged into the rapid fire stream of news and media our social media accounts deliver straight to our palms. At what point does this become dangerous? We hear of cyberbullying nearly every day; public shaming through the media platforms we as a society spend most of our waking hours browsing through. People cursing, insulting, picking on each other thousands of miles apart from each other, each from the comforts of their own lives behind their screens. Ronson journalizes a classic example of social media and the mob mentality of hate through the catastrophic conclusions of an unfortunate tweet by Justine Sacco in December of 2013.

“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” (Ronson 68) was what her infamous tweet read. Little did Justine Sacco know this tweet would be the end of her life as she knew it. The reality of her life after touching down from her eleven hour flight was very different than she had left it. She had millions of people waiting for her landing, and not for amicable reasons. Millions of people waiting to throw some more hate to Sacco for a bad joke of a tweet. The true question comes with Ronson’s point: that “it seemed obvious that her tweet, whilst not a great joke, wasn’t racist, but a reflexive comment on white privilege.” (Ronson 68) Did a bad joke warrant a global shaming on Twitter and the upset of a woman’s whole life? Her tweet, an obvious joke, was met with an overwhelmingly severe reaction. Ronson links it to “her shamers [having been] gripped by some kind of group madness or something” (Ronson 68), very much like a mob mentality.

Ronson takes things a step further in addressing this mob mentality of hatred on social media, especially in Justine Sacco’s case, by consulting with Ted Poe: a professional judge with a “national trademark … to publically shame defendants” (Ronson 82). In an interview, Ronson said to Poe “”Social media shamings are worse than your shamings.”” (Ronson 88). To which Poe replied: “”They are worse. … They’re anonymous.”” (Ronson 88). “You don’t have any rights when you’re accused on the Internet. And the consequences are worse. They’re worldwide forever.” (Rosnon 90). We get so swept up in the inane need to do ‘right’ and to fit in, and social media feeds our society’s need for unsolicited and underqualified judgement.

Works Cited

Ronson, Jon. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. Riverhead Books, 2016.

There are many instances in A Time to Kill in which empathy comes into play, both real and apparent. The film is largely based off of the emotional struggles in the court room, along with the emotional stresses of Jake and the other characters. However, Jake’s closing speech is a particularly extreme empathy-invoking moment in the story.

The entirety of Jake’s closing speech is focused on the element of sympathy, pity, and empathy. He describes the rape of Carle Lee Hailey’s daughter, putting a face to the victim, and not only a face, but a face the jurors could find in their own family: the face of their child. Jake starts with an apology: “I am young, and I am inexperienced. But you cannot hold Carl Lee Hailey responsible for my shortcomings.” (A Time to Kill 2:13:41 — 2:13:51). With his admittance to his faults, Jake immediately seems less like an attorney, but another human being; someone everyone can relate to. He makes both the audience and the jurors see him for the person he is outside of the courtroom: a local boy, their neighbour, and somebody with struggles, a family, and regrets. Jake continues to break down the wall between juror and attorney, and creates an atmosphere of transparency and familiarity in the court room by explaining what his job as a lawyer entails, how he strives to find the truth. He is direct about the issues prevalent in their culture. “I set out to prove a black man could get a fair trial in the South. That we are all equal in the eyes of the law. That’s not the truth. Because the eyes of the law are human eyes; yours and mine, and until we can see each other as equals, justice is never going to be even handed.” (A Time to Kill 2:15:01 – 2:15:20) He points out how they cannot escape the judgements of their beliefs, and since they cannot see each other as equals, they should judge “not with [their] eyes, not with [their] minds…, but with [their] hearts.” (A Time to Kill 2:15:30 – 2:15:40). The biggest call for empathy from Jake comes after, however. It comes when he tells the story of Hailey’s young daughter’s rape. As he recounts the details, from the way the rapists grabbed her and tied her up on her way back home from the grocery store, to the details of her rape, he paints a scenario that does not depend on race. He depicts a situation that could happen to any of the audience’s beloved children, a scene is bound to pull on the heartstrings of any parent. Jake invokes extreme pity for the girl, forcing all the parents into the mindset of Carle Lee Hailey; making them understand how he must have felt. Jake makes the jurors empathize with Carle Lee Hailey and think that for their child, they would have done the same. He ends his moving speech with “now, imagine she’s white” (A Time to Kill 2:20:20 – 2:20:24), successfully morphing the image of Hailey’s daughter into the image of their own white children.

Overall, A Time to Kill plays on empathy as much as the depiction of life as an attorney, as can be distinguished through the empathetic closing speech Jake delivers at court, acquitting Carle Lee Hailey. Throughout the entire movie, we as the audience are moved to feel pity, alarm, fear, and sympathy for the misfortunes the characters live through. As we see life through the eyes of attorney Jake Brigance, we end up empathizing both with his situation, along with the unfortunate circumstances of the people around him.

Works Cited

Schumacher, Joel, Director. A Time to Kill. Regency Enterprises, 1996.

https://digitalcampus.swankmp.net/rochester274683/Mobile/Play/#/play/48376

People of Maycomb gathered here today, I stand here to implore you: evaluate this case not as a white or a negro, a doctor or a salesperson, a neighbour, a friend, nor a stranger, but as a simple human being. As a person who came into this world in the same way as Tom Robinson. As someone who has lived, and suffered, and felt. As a person who also has family, friends, and loved ones. I beg for you to lay down the conflicts which plague our society outside of this space, and to perceive the conflict of the courtroom as it is alone. To hear the facts and come to a judgement which is just, rational, and moral. So ladies and gentlemen, why are you seated here today, watching a case to which there is already a clear answer? We hold the evidence needed for an answer— I do not believe there is any more reason to argue for the innocence of Tom Robinson. “The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence,” against Tom Robinson: in fact, all of the evidence point to his innocence (TKAM 1:32:10 — 1:32:13). So gentlemen, why are we so eager to judge him guilty? Why are we so eager to take the life of a hardworking man, who has never before performed a wrongdoing? Is it merely due to the colour of his skin; the fact that he is a negro? Does this all fall down to “the evil assumption that all negroes lie, all negroes are basically immoral beings, all negro men are not to be trusted around our women” (TKAM 1:36:00 — 1:36:12)? Should we be punishing this young man for having sympathy for another human being? Should we be taking this man’s life for having the gall to aid another person in a time of perceived need? Ask yourself this, gentlemen. Ask yourself these questions today and check where your moralities stand. Are you ready to let this man lie for a sin he did not do; to die for the emotion of sympathy which we instil in the very hearts of our own children? Are you ready to watch a young man die for somebody who was too cowardly to own up for her actions, and now hides behind the very man she is prosecuting? What kind of society will you be representing when you go home tonight to your own children: one with sympathy and justice, or one that blindly follows the word of a liar? I do not ask of you a very difficult task. Gentlemen, today I merely implore you to do what you came here to do: to do justice. Do not fall to the implications and assumptions of the outside world, and instead, deliberate on the evidence you have in front of you and I beg of you. Do what you know to be right.

Works Cited

Mulligan, Robert, director. To Kill a Mockingbird. Universal Pictures, 1962. University of Rochester, digitalcampus.swankmp.net/rochester274683/Mobile/Play/#/play/48368.