I did my civic duty by going down to the courthouse to appear as a trial witness. I found my way to the building and stood in a long line to go through a metal detector. Next, I went up the elevator and found the prosecuting attorney standing outside one of the courtrooms. She let me know our trial was running late due to a murder trial. (!)

I sat down on a pew-like bench with one of the four other witnesses. Things I learned:

He was much more conservative than I, which is fine, but I think it’s funny that he caught on to this by asking me what newspapers I read and I said none. How do you get your news he asked me and I said NPR and The New Yorker. He pulled out his book.

While waiting to get called into the courtroom again, waiting for a murder trial to finish, a little old lady in handcuffs was escorted into the courtroom. Also during this time I saw at least three people escorted by me in striped pajamas. I didn’t even think they did that anymore!

Just when I thought we were about to be sent home and the trial rescheduled for another day, we got called into court. We all sat through the trial and it was fascinating. The judge’s position was interested me especially. In some ways her job was so important and in others so mundane. She basically just asked the defendant in the case before ours (not the accused murderer) a long series of questions so he could plead guilty.

When our case finally started, the defendant was escorted up in front of the judge. He pled guilty, which meant that all five of us who were there as witnesses would not be speaking.

The man who I had witnessed getting beat up had an opportunity to speak for himself during the trial. That speech said so much.

The crime I witnessed was based on hatred directed from one person to another. One person was black and one was white and they were both equally racist against each other. When the man gave his speech, he made the comment “these people” several times, thereby discrediting him to several people in the courtroom — you could see it on their faces.

After everything was completed, myself and the four other witness went to collect the money the city pays you for appearing in court. (Lest you get super exciting about this, it was $6 and I paid $10 for parking.) While waiting for our fees, I struck up a conversation with one of the other witness – not the one I had talked to earlier – who was definitely a gun-toting, card-carrying conservative. (He told me as much.) We both agreed that what we had witnessed many weeks before was two people showing each other equal hate.

“I wish I could have helped intervene on the actual crime more,” the other witness said. “But who knows who started what and I am pretty certain they were both at fault.”

I know I wouldn’t agree with that man on many things, but on that we were in complete agreement.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.