Shades of gray

I was totally with Leonard Pitts' July 22 column, What we have is system of injustice, until he got to comparing black to white fathers being locked up for the same nonviolent drug offense. Would that it were that simple as comparing black to white.

Speaking as a 35-year prosecutor, I have learned that there are interminable shades of gray between black and white. Attitude, response, experience, expectations — they all figure into the outcome of an otherwise nonviolent drug offense encounter. Unfortunately, it’s only within those gray shades that we might find any possible answers and, even there, the variations are as great as the individual personalities. It's not that easy.

This story was originally published July 25, 2015 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Shades of gray."