Disclaimer: I am still in no way defending Coleman or advocating that he remain in the race.

But this type of talk is exactly what’s wrong with the way far too many people think about this stuff. This is simply false and profoundly harmful to so many people. https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/1298613367393918984

A few days ago, the Tenth circuit upheld the Sex Offender Registry status of a nearly 40 year old man who committed a Sexual Assault in the Third Degree* when he was 13 years old.

*the facts of the case are not in the appellate record and this charge in CO is quite vague.

He completed a sentence in juvenile detention, spent 2 years on parole, and underwent a year of court ordered psychiatric treatment.

And yet in the 2 decades since, he has been unable to find work or stable housing. He has been targeted for attacks by self styled vigilantes.

He’s been repeatedly humiliated and shamed by having to tell al of his neighbors that he is a SeX oFfEnDeR—again, for a harm he committed when he was 13.

It is specifically bc of the casual acceptance of this pernicious and scientifically bullshit myth that people who commit sexual crimes are unredeemable monsters incapable of change or growth that the courts treat this lifelong shaming and banishment as legitimate.

We were the first country to use a sex offender registry and still the only country in the world with a public one. They are ineffective and cruel punishments—and of course they are imposed disproportionately on black and brown men.

This brief is good:

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/ag/Recd.148981_Betts_SORA_br_MSC-FINAL_marked_645819_7.pdf

We are also uniquely violent and unforgiving in how we treat children. Many states have no age cutoff for criminal responsibility, and some don’t even have limits on sentencing youth to adult prisons.

By contrast, in most countries, those ages are 13-16 and 18, respectively.

Racism and retribution are inseparable in this country. Retribution, just deserts, the widespread belief in unredeemable monsters—this is the tonic used to to control and oppress black bodies in this country. When you perpetuate one, you perpetuate both.