Tupac’s life and poetry are certainly apt resources for lawyers to understand the concrete effects of the law on Black men in America. Advocates of the law are often astronomically out of touch with the realities of day-to-day life in a settler colonial, imperialist, anti-black, sexist, ableist, homophobic, xenophobic state. Tupac’s poetry offers a window into the interface of law and its subjects; he interrogates his material conditions and prompts the legal mind to interrogate why the law exists as it does. His words evoke the structural shortcomings of a carceral system, and the life and joy that it deprives. And despite bearing the trauma and burden of coping with an environment of violence and struggle in his upbringing, Tupac offers lawyers a perspective that finds strength and pride in remaining resilient. His relationship with spirituality and religion also signals a hope that lawyers must remain receptive to, and supportive of, in any matter.
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