Racial Discrimination in 1930s Louisiana

1930s Louisiana: A Stage for Systemic Violence

The 1930s Louisiana prison E Block that serves as the backdrop of The Green Mile transcends a physical space for confining prisoners. It is a vast micro-social structure itself — one in which the racial discrimination and class bias that pervaded American society at the time are institutionalized and operate violently. Every injustice John Coffey suffers is interpreted not as a question of individual moral failure or guilt but as a typical example of social structural violence.

How Deep-Rooted Prejudice Against Black People Operates

The very fact that John Coffey was branded a murderer symbolizes the structural violence of this era. He was found crying while holding the dead girls' bodies at the murder scene; the true culprit was someone else. Yet simply because he is Black, and despite insufficient evidence, he receives the harshest possible verdict. This shows how the distrust and prejudice that society at the time directed toward minorities were deeply rooted in legal procedure and the judicial system.

This prejudice is also nakedly revealed in the speech of the guards. The scene in which guard Brutus Howell warns others of Black people — comparing them to 'mongrel dogs' who must never be trusted — nakedly reflects the inferior and dangerous gaze that white society of the time directed at Black people, defining them as a 'dangerous other.'

Specific Manifestations of Systemic Violence

Violence within the prison is not limited to simple physical beatings. It operates wrapped in the name of 'regulations' and 'authority.'

• Personal Grudges and Abuse of Power: Guard Percy Wetmore abuses inmates to satisfy his personal grudges and lust for power. Taking charge of Delacroix's execution, he deliberately fails to wet the sponge — driven by personal emotion — and allows Del to die in extreme pain. This is a representative example of how private hatred can be perverted into violence in the course of performing a public duty.
• An Ineffective System's Indifference: Figures like Paul Edgecomb and Brutus Howell try to prove John's innocence, but ultimately the enormous wall of deep-rooted racial discrimination and systemic bias stands in their way. Even when miraculous evidence (John's healing ability) appears, the system itself is unable to accept that truth.

The Clash of Miracle and System

John Coffey's miraculous healing ability is the warmest and most dangerous question cast into this absurd system. His ability is a wonder that heals individual suffering, yet at the same time the very existence of such a being is treated as 'abnormal' or 'incomprehensible' — placed outside the system's control. Ultimately John succeeds in using his ability to cure Melinda Moores's brain tumor, but this miracle cannot make him innocent — it paradoxically produces the result of confirming his death sentence more definitively.

In conclusion, The Green Mile is set against one condemned man's final days, yet its core is a powerful social critique of 1930s American society's loophole in justice — the ease with which human dignity could be stripped through the filters of 'race' and 'class.'