Winning At Any Cost

 

Pardon me if you’ve heard this before.  It was May of 1974 and I was sitting in my dorm room on Case campus.  I was a double major – English and Religion.  I was trying to decide whether to be an attorney or a rabbi.  But on that spring day I had an epiphany.  I realized that I wasn’t holy enough to be a rabbi and not amoral enough to be an attorney.  And with that I set my sights on a different future, one that allowed me to be me and to never be forced, as part of my job, to do anything I didn’t believe. 

I write this as I am watching the two defense attorneys conduct a post-verdict press conference. To be honest, I am not shocked by the verdict.  I am not pleased, but I am not shocked.  But these two attorneys, too skilled at manipulating the English language, too proud in their willingness to win at any cost, and now, in victory, too joyful in their victory lap on Trayvon Martin’s grave, make me physically ill.  I have come full circle.  

I turned to Sally who was watching this with me and I said “I was right”.  I didn’t need to explain.