If you don’t know who Judge Verda Colvin of Bibb County, Georgia, you should, because she does not play!
Judge Colvin is part of an intervention program called “Consider the Consequences” for at-risk teens.
Her speech to those troubled teenagers went viral after it was posted on line last week.
She started with a stark example of the worst possible outcome for them if they continue their destructive behavior.
“You could have the ultimate experience. You can be in this body bag. The only way somebody would know you’re in here is by this tag that’ll have your name on it. What do you want to do? That’s the question you have to ask yourself. What do you want to do?”
“Because listen to me, the way you’re going you will end up in jail or you will end up in this body bag.”
With the kids listening intently, some of them crying, Judge Colvin then turns her focus to the young women in the courtroom.
“Young ladies whether anyone has ever told you before you’re special, you’re uniquely made. Stop acting like you’re trash and putting pictures of yourself on the internet. Stop being disrespectful to your parents, care about your future, be something. Anybody can be nothing. It doesn’t take anything to be nothing. Be something. Do you understand what I’m saying? Care about yourselves. The fact that you’re shedding tears means you want to be better and you want to do better. Do it. The only person stopping you is you.”
Can I please get an “amen” for Judge Colvin?
In this 9-minute video, Judge Colvin gives an amazing tough love speech to students who range in age from 9 to 17 years old.
She wants them to be aware of the harshness of prison, and that their lives don’t have to be that way.
She then turns her attention to the young men.
Judge: “Don’t you come up in here I’m sick of seeing young men who look like you all and more prevalent young men. Men who look like you, white and black all together coming in this court system going to jail for something stupid. Get yourselves together, stop this. Why would you want to be another statistic? Do you want to be another African American male in a jail cell? Is that what you want with your lives? Come on!”
Judge Colvin spared few details when discussing the realities of prison rape for both women and men.
We have all heard the statistics about black children, especially black boys – how often they end up in prison.
We’ve all heard the dire statistics about the number of black children who are born out of wedlock.
Colvin told the children none of that matters – and they don’t have to end up being a statistic.
“And don’t use your family situation as an excuse, you hear me? Don’t use that as an excuse, I don’t know what’s going on in your lives, I don’t know where you live. But don’t use that as an excuse. Anything you all are going through somebody else went through it who’s successful now.”
As they often do, critics and those looking for excuses will analyze the judge’s words and call her a purveyor of so-called “respectability politics,” whatever that means besides sheer nonsense.
Her words are real, true and needed.
And we need more like her to tell the truth and shame the devil.
