But if just a glimmer of compassion is allowed to seep into Ms Gonzalez's case, her story becomes something much more than a case of violating prison fraternization rules or even aiding and abetting a criminal inmate. It becomes a real human tragedy with larger implications relevant to the continuation of chronic, dysfunctional poverty in our cities.
Governments and their functionaries operate in the realm of power and expend great energy holding onto that power, while the individual human heart operates on the level of feelings and desires, in Ms Gonzalez's case feelings arguably rooted in biology and emotional need. It will do no one any good to put Ms Gonzalez away in some cold-blooded prison and to send her baby to a life of foster care.
In this dialogue of news stories, the Essie Mae Washington-Williams story speaks volumes about the incredible abuses of power inherent in one of America's worst backstories, the enslavement and exploitation of one race of people by another. Comfortable white people like to say that may be true but it's time to get over it and move on. By now, we should know this dialogue by heart.
It's a fact that a poor African American kid growing up in North Philly, for example, has a daunting uphill struggle dealing with limited educational opportunities, poor job prospects and a highly flawed criminal justice system that is only too happy to put him or her away, paving the road to career criminality. The lesson from the top down in America today is that risk pays off, violence works and, whatever you do, don't get caught. Tragically, for a poor kid in the inner city the illegal drug industry is a real option to get ahead, an enterprise that follows all the rules of free private enterprise and entrepreneurship so enthusiastically preached by rich Wall Street winners like Mitt Romney.
Ms Gonzalez's story dove-tails beautifully with this kind of misguided, tragic world view. Her crime is one of empathy and life-affirmation in a cold, ruthless world. You would think those Americans who get all worked up about being "pro-life" would take someone like Ms Gonzalez under their wing and tell her this:
"Look, the decision you made was dumb; it violated prison rules and was fraught with sensationalist social implications. But you acted from the heart and you should not be punished harshly for that. Your punishment is this: You are sentenced to be responsible for the life you have caused to grow within you, soon to be a full-fledged human being completely innocent of the mess you find yourself in. Get out there and live for that child."
Instead of wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars of New York State tax resources by sending her to prison for up to 15 years, use a fraction of those resources to help her raise and educate that child to preclude future Ronell Wilsons. This is what pragmatism and progressivism are all about.
It's too late for Ronell Wilson; he's made his bed and must lie in it. It's also too late for the white supremacist Strom Thurmond to make his youthful indiscretion right by publicly accepting his daughter and repudiating the legacy of white supremacy.
But it's not too late to see in Ms Gonzalez's child a symbol, a chance to look forward, to make right what is clearly very wrong about the tragic legacy and current conditions of chronic poverty in America.
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