Justice is best assessed from the testimony of the unprotected.

Evidence

If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected—those, precisely, who need the law’s protection the most!—and listens to their testimony. Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person—ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 525

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core Baldwin formulation distinguishing whether a country is just from whether it loves/conceives of justice — useful for defining the lie.
• SEED: This inversion — ask the wretched, not the officials — is a ready essay frame for assessing any institution’s real justice record.