Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve’s new book Crime Fictions: How Racist Lies Built a System of Mass Wrongful Conviction is, on the surface, about our nation’s flawed justice system; however, on a much deeper level, it is more about the construction of narrative to suit the needs of power-hungry individuals, who would rather be right than be accurate or detailed or educated. It is a treatise on how all ideological state apparatuses are created to punish with impunity, while those in power can do as they wish, when they wish, and how they wish-without merit, without care, without research, without objectivity. Gonzalez Van Cleve speaks about this from the standpoint of a woman of color, a journalist, and a concerned citizen, who sees the outright lies for what they are and needs to expose them, the fake news stories that are told to destroy the credibility of the oppressed innocent who were proven guilty even before they got into the courtroom; and not by accident, but with intent and pure hatred.
Gonzalez Van Cleve tries to take the fake narratives, primarily told of incarcerated or formally incarcerated Black children, and weave new ones that are based in truth and well-researched evidence; and she does so by making sure she sticks with the town and institutions that she is most familiar with: Chicago’s Cook County police department and courts, a hotbed of corruption and racist politics. She speaks about the cases of Lee Hester, Romarr Gipson, the Roscetti Four, and the Dixmoor Five, all cases that fall under the category of wrongful convictions based on shaky foundations, circumstantial evidence, or no evidence at all. These stories are heartbreaking and are, unfortunately, not unique. Gonzalez Van Cleve is speaking about the death of expertise not based on incompetence but based on subjective opinion, conjecture, and profiling, which is quite honestly more dangerous than stupidity or ignorance. It is this direction, along with her discussions about the rancid underbelly of the police officers who have poorly attempted to hide documents that would exonerate the other victims of these cases, that make this piece a worthwhile read.
With that said, the one issue that needs addressing is Gonzalez Van Cleve’s analysis of the film Lean on Me, which she vilifies as being a movie that perpetuates the problems surrounding representation of young Black populations. She claims: “White Americans living in segregated spaces saw movies like Lean on Me as a profound warning. Hollywood’s portrayal of a Black school affirmed their racist fears for a new generation: Black kids were a problem to be solved.” The issue here is not that Gonzales Van Cleve is incorrect in her assertions; rather, she just picked the wrong film, which is a “true story.” She even references this point (that the movie is based on a true story) in her book. She could have picked The Principal, The Substitute and its sequels, Dangerous Minds, or a number of other films that fictionalize school-related violence and segregation in the classroom; or she could have spoken about how sensationalized the story of Joe Clark was during the time the film was made, which may or may not have exaggerated the intensity of what was really happening at East Side High School. But, to use this film as a work that perpetuates the problem is problematic when there is some level of truth to events that took place, at least from this writer’s perspective.
Thus, read Crime Fictions not for the film analysis but for the truth-telling that is happening about wrongful convictions and intentional racism in what should be a place where justice, true justice, rightful justice should be served
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