Note the statistics or concern he shared about our (US) criminal justice system, poverty, race, etc.?

He has shared the statistics and concerns about the criminal justice system, race, and poverty etc. in the United States that can leave any person in wonder. According to Stevenson, he has worked in the United States criminal justice system and it is in the terrible condition. There were around 300,000 people in 1972 who were incarcerated in the United States and today the figure has reached up to 2.3 million, recorded as the highest rate around the globe. Around 50 to 60 per cent of colors' young men is in jail, on parole, or in prison.

The justice system of the United States is distorted around the poverty and around the race. The system of United States is shaped in a way that treats the person in a better way if he or she is rich, and on the other hand, if he or she is innocent and poor then guilty treatment will be given. These are the basic problems of the system that needs to be solved on the priority basis, but the political system of the state has made people feel that such problems are not their problems and people feel extremely uncomfortable while talking about poverty and race. For instance, convicted felons have permanently disenfranchised by Alabama, and as the result, in Alabama, 34 per cent of African males have lost their basic voting right for good.

The United States is one of the very few or even only state around the globe that that will sentence the children of 13 years to die in prison by life imprisonment. Of course, the death is the fantastically important problem, but the important thing is the way by which we frame questions. And yet the United States is the country, wherein the old South's states, the defendant is likely to get the death penalty 11 times more if he is black and the victim is white.

 Who is Bryan Stevenson?

Bryan Stevenson is the executive director as well as the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, it is a group based on Alabama that has been leading and winning in major legal challenges eliminating unfair and excessive sentencing, confronting incarcerated and mentally ill’s abuse, exonerating the prisoners facing death sentence, and helping kids prosecuted as adults, in short, challenging racial discrimination and fighting poverty in a criminal justice system. He is the lawyer of public interest who has dedicated his life as well as a professional career to helping the poor people, the condemned and the incarcerated.

Recently, EJI has won the historic ruling the supreme court of the United States holding that obligatory life without bail sentences for kids younger or equal to 17 are unconstitutional. The struggle of Mr Stevenson regarding challenging racial discrimination and fighting poverty has won him multiple awards in a criminal justice system. Stevenson has completed his graduation from the Harvard School of Government and the Harvard Law School, moreover, Stevenson has been awarded fourteen honorary doctoral degrees. Last but not least, he has written the book titled “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption”.

What was the main point(s) of his Ted Talk?

There were multiple main points of his Ted Talk: identity in his life; the criminal justice system; our future identity; hope and anger for the future. Criminal justice, poverty, and race were the main themes of his Ted talk. The criminal justice system of the United States is in the terrible condition. The justice system of the United States is distorted around the poverty and around the race. People feel extremely uncomfortable while talking about poverty and race. He illustrated his Ted Talk with the story that he grew up as well as opened eyes in the matriarchal house, where his grandmother was the undisputed matriarch and the end of each and every argument in the family was her grandmother. He shared the incident when he was 8 or 9 years old and went into the living room where his grandmother was continuously staring at him and then she told him that he is special.

Note when he has to say about the death penalty and those on death role?

Stevenson shared it when he gave the lecture in Germany and there was someone who told him that people in Germany can never have the penalty of death and there is no such way in their history that people in Germany could engage in the human beings’ systematic execution, in fact, it would be unconscionable. Just think if today, if death row was there in Germany, and more people more likely to be convicted Jewish people are. And yet the United States is the country, wherein the old South's states, the defendant is likely to get the penalty of death 11 times more if he is black and the victim is white.

Bryan – “Why should we care?”

According to Bryan, whole identity of us is at risk and if we do not care about the thing then the things that are positive and we believe in them they will be implicated too. One forward-looking and hopeful realities are most of the time shadowed by the marginalization, degradation, suffering, and abuse. Always being attentive to the dazzling and bright things is not enough but being attentive to the depressive and dark things is also equally or even sometimes more important. People should be integrated into the dark and the light. Communities of TED have to be engaged on caring about these things as Bryan said: “There is no disconnect around technology and design that will allow us to be fully human until we also pay attention to suffering.”

What do you think he means by? “… Instead of, do people deserve to die for the crime they committed, do we deserve the right to kill (them)?”

Stevenson stated that “One way of asking is, “Do people deserve to die for the crimes they’ve committed?” But another way is, “Do we deserve to kill?” For every nine people on death row executed, there is one found to be innocent and released”. By this, he meant that such statistics would be not be allowed in the industries other than this. The The United States is the country that has embraced slavery, where through Jim Crow populations’ huge part was subject to life threats and terrorism even after the reconstruction, constant threats were thereof being firebombed and being lynched. But people do not bother or like to talk about and discuss these things. People usually don’t understand that what it feels like to have done the things that have already done by us. After apartheid ended, in South Africa, an extended process was there of reconciliation and truth, but in the United States of America, neither after the Civil Rights Act’s passage not at the end of the slavery: nothing at all.