I recently attended a special gathering at the Office of Public Defenders near 850 Bryant in San Francisco. After the applause died down, former prosecutor Paul Butler stood up and begins to address the group, he begins by explaining why he decided to write the book “Let’s Get Free: A Hip Hop Theory of Justice”.

“I was arrested once for a crime I did not commit … I stood in a court room where I’ve sent others to prison and I got the chance to see things from the other side. With that he went on to start a power point presentation aimed at showing the impact of hip-hop in America. Butler played an excerpt of Jay-Z’s “Dirt of Your Shoulder” the lyrics blared out of the speakers ” If you feelin like I grown man go an brush your shoulders off – you gotta get that dirt of ya shoulder you gotta get that dirt of ya shoulder.”

After the excerpt Butler proceeded to show a piece of one of Obama’s speeches from before he was president, while he was still on the campaign trail. Obama stood with his typical immaculate posture and explains that people will take shots at you and that in fact this type of behavior comes with the territory of running for president – he then turned toward an already lively audience and brushes his shoulder referencing Jay-Z indirectly. With this gesture Obama was basically saying that you can’t let things get to you.

In that split second Obama let all of the young people who were listening in that audience know that he was down, the entire audience erupted on the screen with cheers.

Butler continued to explain that the book talks about how incarceration now causes more crime than it prevents. This is because although roughly one third of young men are either on probation on parole or awaiting trial most of these cases are based on non-violent crimes such as felony drug possession or burglary leaving many violent offenders the opportunity to roam free in the streets.—Roland Ballard