February 15, 2023

A Note from Yohance Lacour
 

If a picture is worth a thousand words, every story is worth a million more. Settings come with long histories that simultaneously predate and create their characters. And characters bring lifetimes of experiences that inform their actions. Even the moral of a story can be nuanced and layered in countless ways.

The Lenard Clark case in Chicago may feel like an old story, but investigating it for this podcast unraveled so many fresh ones. I was three years out of prison when I started working on this project and didn’t even know what a podcast was. Three years later, it was complete. And while I learned so much about the ins and outs of producing a podcast, the most valuable lessons I learned were about myself, the world, and how I engage it.

You Didn’t See Nothin is a combination of investigative journalism and memoir, but there’s a particular theme underscored by both. Justice. What is it? We asked many of those we interviewed, “What would justice for Lenard Clark look like?” Some referenced lengthy jail sentences for his attackers. Others suggested compensatory and punitive damages. But bringing a perpetrator to justice does not translate into justice for a victim. So, what is justice for Lenard Clark? There isn’t. Justice is an environment. It’s the state of a society that ensures its people equal protection. For Lenard Clark and Black folks throughout this country, there is no such thing. 

Justice for Black folks would be a racially reconciled America that affords us the same safety and protected rights as white Americans. And as long as racial reconciliation is an ideal that we can only make progress toward yet never achieve, so is justice for anyone who looks like Lenard Clark or me.

However, I’ve also come to realize that as unobtainable as justice is, we must fight to realize it as though our lives depend upon it. Because they do. Victory may be impossible to achieve, but progress is always within our grasp.

In 1997, I didn’t have access to podcasts, social media, or any of the vehicles that spread information so far and wide today. We also didn’t have the same degree of white allyship. In 2008, when I went to prison, Barack Obama was elected. Three years after my release in 2017, the George Floyd protests turned the world on its head. Neither of those events in and of themselves brought about justice. But they both birthed movements that are bringing us closer to it. And neither would’ve happened without new mediums and supporters. Nor would this podcast. In short, I’ve learned that American racism is insurmountable, but its defeat is always to be fought for.

Yohance Lacour
Host of You Didn't See Nothin