With more brutal killings and mysterious deaths while in police custody, it seems hardly a day goes by without a new dashboard camera video or protest calling out for justice. As these tragedies keep happening, I thought it might be helpful to look at our predicament from a few billion miles away.
Little Green Man is back to help us take a more objective look at our society and culture. As NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft investigates Pluto, what if we came upon an alien species struggling with something as absurd as providing different sorts of justice based on the color of a Plutonians skin?
There are obviously a million more layers to the onion that is racism and justice in the United States, but among the protests, pundits and genuine fear, sometimes it helps to break things down to their simplest level of ridiculousness. Dive into the links behind the cartoon, enjoy the cartoon, and be sure to share it with other beings, no matter what color they were when they hatched!
[Little Green Man and his human counterpart]
Man: Whoa. Where are we?
Green: Pluto. Turns out there’s a civilization here.
Man: Neat! How’re they doing?
Green: mm, mixed. Purple Plutonians have been getting killed recently, or dying in suspicious ways.
Man: Oh, that’s awful, how?
Green: Lotta’ times lately it’s been Orange Plutonians trying to keep the peace.
Man: — because the Purple ones were doing something really, really bad, right?
Green: Oh no, it’s been for things like running away, not having a business license, improper lane change, things like that.
Man: What?!!
Green: See, even though they’re all the same kind of creature, they come in a lot of different colors.
Man: Yyyeah . . .
Green: And historically, many Plutonians have not gotten along with other Plutonians if they were a certain color when they hatched.
(Orange has it easiest, Purple, not so much.)
There are loads of colors, but anything other than Orange is called, “Plutonian of Color,” got it?
Man: Wellll, not really— but the colors don’t really matter, right?
Green: Not biologically, of course, but to the Plutonians they sure do.
“Plutonians of Color” make up sixty percent of the prison population. Forty percent in prison are Purple, even though they’re only about thirteen percent of the population.
Man: Wow, the Purple ones must do lots more bad stuff!
Green: Not really. Orange, Purple, Blue, whatever, they all do bad things like drug crimes at about the same rate . . . but they sure go to prison at different rates!
Man: How does that happen?!
Green: It’s been like this— and worse— for a long, long time. Plutonians of Color are way more likely to be pulled over, three times more likely to be searched and arrested . . .
Purple mortality is higher, poverty higher, their prison sentences are longer, you get the idea—
Man: [Whistle whew] I sure wouldn’t want to be Purple on Pluto! Makes me glad I’m pink.
Green: Um . . . the pink ones here are kept as pets.
Sorry.