Nice one, Mom

FRINAN was called for jury duty today. Stunningly, our even-handed, fair-minded friend didn't make the final cut. I can't imagine why.

But I'm reminded of the time my Mom got called for jury duty. She actually found herself seated: it was a drug charge, a guy arrested for dealing drugs in a school zone. Oops. So they picked her, and she prepared to do her job as a decider of his fate.

One problem: the defense attorney realized the entire jury was made up of white people. The defendant? Hispanic. He made a plea to the judge, who agreed and dismissed everyone, starting over with a new set.

Mom came home furious. She hadn't wanted to spend a few days on a jury, but she felt she'd been personally insulted. In the kind of impassioned rant you've probably heard from me, she railed against the defense attorney and the judge, screaming about the implication that she was somehow unable to make a fair and impartial judgment of the evidence simply because of the color of her skin.

"And besides," she concluded, "I knew that kid was guilty just by looking at him."

Uh-huh.

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