Nejadnik 1

Sebastien Nejadnik
Greg Lance, Michael Clardy
MCHS Senior English
What is Justice in the Case of Bigger Thomas?
The United States was founded under the consideration that all men are created equal, a
principle echoed centuries after in the words of Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Yet
the intricacies of life in the contemporary world, as well as the increasing complexity of the justice
system make equality, for some, harder to achieve than ever before. Such an issue indicates that a
case such as that of Bigger Thomas should be considered with the upmost attention to the underlying
reasons for which his life went awry so quickly. Factors such as the atrocity of Biggers crimes and
the special circumstances surrounding them must be weighed against the circumstances that placed
Bigger in a harsh environment, as well as the state of being he could not control. The question of the
sentence that would be just, involves the consideration of such sentences as capital punishment, life
in prison, and alternative sentences such as prison split with community confinement or the use of
residential reentry centers that would provide a gradual preparation for reentry into society. Such
alternatives bear the promise of a chance Bigger never got. Despite the possibility that the brutality of
Bigger Thomass crimes may indicate the necessity of capital punishment, his mental state as well as
the discrimination faced by African Americans such as Bigger dictate he should be sentenced to 30
years in prison split with community confinement followed by 1 year in a residential reentry center
and intensive supervisory probation and parole for 1 year.
The mental situation of Bigger Thomas largely mitigates the fault for his crimes and justifies
his right to life. According to probation Officer Paige, The effects of slavery are still very much
relevant today in the form of generational trauma, which not only affect the way certain African
Americans are raised but has a tendency to affect the overall family situation. Richard Wright
describes Biggers family situation: He [Bigger] hated his family because he knew that they were
suffering and that he was powerless to help them (Wright 10). The fact that this example is derived
from generational trauma in indicated by Biggers mothers similar feelings: All I ever do is try to
make a home for you children and you dont care (Wright 10). Biggers mother reflects the same
tone of hopelessness found in Biggers outlook on his family. The predominance of generational
trauma as described by Officer Paige implies that Bigger Thomass outlook on his life as well as that
of his family is based on an undisputed hopelessness. Biggers murders would logically be
considerably more likely due to such a factor, a factor which is completely out of Biggers control,
and rather was imposed upon him by the former wrongs of society. The second mental factor
mitigating Biggers fault, specifically when it comes to Biggers rape and murder of Bessie, is that of
societal values and what they represent for Bigger. According to the British Journal of Criminology,
the failure to achieve the societal model of successful masculinity, and the insecurity and frustration
accompanied by such a process are a leading motivation for sexual assault. Such insecurity is
predominant in Biggers feelings: Every time I get to thinking about me being black and them being
white I feel like something awfuls going to happen to me (Wright 20). Thus, Biggers clearly
present insecurity was, rather than sexual desire, the cause for his sexual assault on Bessie, and thus
the subsequent murder also occurred due to the strength of this mental state. Fear also played a major
role in Biggers killing of Mary, where underlying fear took hold of him in a moment of panic, and
thus there too, Biggers intent was not criminal, but a natural human reaction to extreme
circumstances. Yet again, this mental state was a direct result of the environment Bigger lived in,
where he was never valued and nothing prevented the fear from being instilled into his conscience.
The discrimination faced by people of color further mitigates the necessity for a harsh
sentence. Wright describes Biggers regard for white privilege: God, Id like to fly up there in that
sky (Wright 17). Biggers exposure to white society only made him crave certain privileges he knew
he could never have, and thus his feelings of despair and longing are justified due to their creation by
white society. That these feelings contributed to Biggers crimes is undisputable, yet their origin are
most evidently not from within Bigger himself, but rather the natural human reaction resulting from
white societys suppression of his privileges. Michelle Alexander, in her book The New Jim Crow,
identifies the rate at which African Americans and whites commit crimes such as drug use: If there
are significant differences in the surveys to be found, they frequently suggest that whites, particularly
white youth, are more likely to engage in drug crime than people of color (Alexander 7). However,
the incarceration statistics add up completely differently: in major cities wracked by the drug war, as
many as 80 percent of young African American men now have criminal records and are thus subject
to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives (Alexander 7). The two statistics Alexander
utilizes emphasize the disparity, which Bigger could not combat, that shaped the world he lived in.
Bigger Thomas deserves a sentence of prison and rehabilitation so that he may avoid the arbitrary fate
assigned to so many others of his race. For progress and true justice to emerge, there must be a point
of turnaround where African Americans who never had a chance may be given that chance, and there
could not be a more suitable institution than that which has the duty of assuring justice to do so
exactly. That Bigger Thomas has been treated unfairly from the beginning should provide sufficient
mitigation that he be eventually forgiven for the path of crime he was placed on by white society. A
white society which is even more at fault than the statistics already suggest: white society is deeply
implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society

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condones it (Chicago Tribune). This excerpt from the Kerner Report (1967) explains the true nature
of African American poverty. Not only was Bigger placed on a path for crime, but white society
created the breeding ground for crime, waiting for him to spring the trap. Surely, Bigger cannot
rightfully be given death for circumstances white society literally created intentionally. In addition,
Biggers violation of Bessie is also directly linked to her being African American and the image
society places on such a state of being: They [Bigger and his friends] felt that it was much easier and
safer to rob their own people, for they knew that white policemen never really searched diligently for
Negroes who committed crimes against other Negroes (Wright 14). Evidently, the system taught
Bigger and his friends to place less value upon people of color. That Bigger accepted this as the
prevailing societal order is only human, and he can hardly be blamed for looking down on his own
people since that is what white society imposed upon him.
It must be considered that Bigger Thomas did kill two people, and even sexually assaulted the
second before her death. Both cases had the special circumstance of brutality, and the latter involved
the elimination of a potential witness. However, these circumstances are outweighed by the nature of
their creation. First of all, both factors involving Bessie are largely mitigated by her murder being part
of the same course of action: He [Bigger] could not take her [Bessie] with him and he could not
leave her behind (Wright 235). Essentially, Bigger had the intention of following up on his earlier
crime, and thus the crimes are directly related. According to Judge Geffon of the Santa Clara County
court system, two crimes as a part of the same course of action may be considered less severely than
two crimes committed separately, and logically, Bigger was essentially forced into the dilemma of the
second crime following the first one. Furthermore, the Supreme Court case of Thompson v. Oklahoma
provides insight as to why the death penalty would be cruel or unusual punishment. A 15 year old boy
was not given the death penalty because of his age, which was raised to 18 years of age in Roper v.
Simmons. Not only should Bigger Thomas be spared such a punishment due to his lack of the right to
vote, but research suggests his brain is not fully developed in the first place. According to Dr. Sandra
Aamodt on National Public Radio, mental maturity is reached at 25 years of age, particularly for: the
part of the brain that helps you to inhibit impulses and to plan and organize your behavior (Aamodt).
Thus, 20-year-old Bigger did not even have fully adult judgement, and to give him the death penalty
as an adult would be cruel for one who cannot be humanly expected to fully control his actions.
In conclusion, Bigger Thomas deserves a sentence of jail time that would eventually
culminate in his return to society. Furthermore, his mental state as well the discrimination of past as
well as present created a situation where human emotion out of Biggers control decided the path he
eventually took. In regards to life in prison, such a sentence would already reach the point of being
considerably too harsh, especially considering the alarming ease at which such a sentence is present
in the United States. According to Michelle Alexander: The United States now has the highest rate of
incarceration in the world, dwarfing the rates of nearly every developed country, even surpassing
those in highly repressive regimes like Russia, China, and Iran (Alexander 6). Consequently,
incarceration should not be considered as a just punishment for Bigger firstly because it would end
his societal life just as much as death would, and secondly because society as a whole, in order to be
just, must value the humanity of its members, and ought to restrain the trend of mass incarceration as
a human society. If Bigger is sentenced to life in jail, then truly the discrimination of the past weighs
upon the modern day as much as it ever has. Regardless of Biggers persona, he faced a plethora of
adverse circumstances he could not control. To put him to death or even sentence him to die in prison
is not just for one who was never given a chance to avoid such an end. Thus American society owes
such a chance if it intends to preserve any pretense that all men are created equal. It is time that the
human value of all people, not just those who arent predisposed to crime, be recognized and given
due respect, despite the factors many like Bigger Thomas could not control. It is only logical to give
Bigger the chance society never gave him to begin with, to give him a fairer chance and an equal
place in the eyes of the law, for those circumstances, surely, will provide society with a means by
which to move on from the repression of the past.

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Works Cited
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow. New York: The New Press, 2010. Print.
"Alternatives To Incarceration In a Nutshell." (n.d.): 1-5. Famm.org. Families Against Mandatory
Minimums. Web. <http://famm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/FS-Alternatives-in-aNutshell-7.8.pdf>.
Barnhart, Bill. "Kerner Report: The Lessons." Digital Chicago Tribune. The Chicago Tribune, 02
Mar. 2008. Web. 20 Aug. 2015. <http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-0302/news/0802291088_1_kerner-report-national-advisory-commission-final-report>.
Bourgois P (1996). "In search of masculinity: violence, respect and sexuality among Puerto
Rican crack dealers in East Harlem". British Journal of Criminology 36: 412427.
United States Sentencing Commission (October 2011). "Report to Congress: Mandatory
Minimum Penalties in the Federal Criminal Justice System." Federal Sentencing
Reporter 24.3 (2012): 185-92. Ussc.gov. United States Sentencing Commission. Web.
<http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-projectsand-surveys/alternatives/20090206_Alternatives.pdf>.
Wright, Richard. Native Son. New York: Harper & Bros., 1940. Print.