Kim Kardashian’s visit to the White House on Wednesday hasn’t yet yielded the intended results—to get Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old inmate who’s serving life without parole for a non-violent, first-time drug offense out of prison—but it has resulted in Johnson sending Kim a heartbreakingly thankful letter.
According to Entertainment Tonight, Kim shared the letter on her Instagram Stories today. While it’s utterly beautiful to read the following words and feel the gratitude and humanity leaping off the screen, the prison system that put Johnson in her situation looms large over the utterly depressing state of things. Even for those of us who couldn’t bear to see a Kardashian standing next to Donald Trump in the nation’s Oval Office, you’ve got to give it up for Kim, and her noble efforts to save this woman’s life.
“I am so humbled by what you are doing and have already done on my behalf,” wrote Johnson. “There are no words strong enough to express my deep and heartfelt gratitude. “Ms. Kardashian, you are literally helping to save my life and restore me to my family. I was drowning and you have thrown me a life jacket and given me hope that this Life jacket I’m serving may one day be taken off.”
Johnson continues to parallel Rosa Parks’ contribution to the civil rights movement in the 1960s, with that of Kim and Johnson’s efforts to bring renewed attention to the modern prison industrial complex. “She was an ordinary woman whose courage ignited and united the heart of America to stand together against a very present evil that could no longer be tolerated,” she wrote. “This is so much bigger than either one of us.”
Kim has been trying to leverage her meetings with Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and President Trump to free Johnson from her inarguably unfair incarceration. She tweeted about her White House meeting yesterday, stating she was hopeful that not only Johnson but others like her, would be unshackled from their plight.
“I believe that history will record that Kim Kardashian had the courage to take a stand against human warehousing and was a key figure in meaningful criminal justice reform becoming a reality,” wrote Johnson. “A million trillion thanks!! May God’s blessing rest upon you and yours. THE BATTLE IS ON!”
Johnson has now been in prison for 21 years, for charges of conspiracy to possess cocaine, attempted possession of cocaine, and money laundering. Unfortunately, drug charges leveraged against people of color in this country are exorbitantly more pronounced than they are for the rest of us. The balance of justice is skewed, mightily, and the fact that Kim Kardashian is one of the few celebrities using their status to lessen the unfair burden being shouldered by people like Johnson, is something we should appreciate.
