Author Archives: scott

Weekend Reading

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Read this, read that!

President Harmon and his lawyers don’t look me in the eye. They zero in on the eyes of Mama, as Harmon tells her that I am being suspended from Millsaps for at least a year for taking and returning Red Badge of Courage from the library without formally checking it out.

He ain’t lying.

I took the book out of the library for Shonda’s brother without checking it out and returned the book the next day. I looked right at the camera when I did it, too. I did all of this knowing I was on parole, but not believing any college in America, even one in Mississippi, would kick a student out for a year, for taking and returning a library book without properly checking it out.

I should have believed.

The FBI, which annually tracks every two-bit break-in, car theft, and felony, keeps no comprehensive records of incidents involving police use of deadly force, nor are there comprehensive national records that track what police officers do with their guns. Because of that we have no sense of whether such killings are waxing or waning, whether different cities present different threats, whetherincreased use of private security guards poses a greater or lesser danger to the public, whether neighborhood watch groups are a blessing or a bane to their neighborhoods.

Since launching my war, I have shown the following in lieu of an ID badge to pass security: a business card, my US driver’s license, someone else’s business card, my Brussels Air frequent flier card, and, I shit you not, an ‘invisible card’.

When asked to sign the security log, I have signed as: William Shakespeare, Whitey McBlanco, and Ban Ki Moon. I have represented: NASA, the White House, Bob’s Clam Hut, and Hollywood.

After carefully examining the school occurrence reports for the year, Nolan found that the majority of arrests and summons were, ultimately, the result of “insubordination” or “disrespect”; in other words, students ignored or resisted officers who told them to take off their hat, hurry up, or show their ID, and the situation escalated from there. These confrontations, which often stem from legitimate frustration at capricious and unaccountable authorities, routinely lead to arrest. (As Nolan shows, some officers appear to publicly humiliate and antagonize students for sport, yet students are expected to react like saints to provocation from their superiors. Taking umbrage is a punishable offense). The “crime” of breaking a school rule — not the law — lands students in court, which, in turn, further derails their academic progress, since they must miss school to appear before a judge.

The Word “Slavery” is in Shackles

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A few days ago Vice President Joe Biden addressed a rally in Danville, Virginia. At one point, Biden criticized Mitt Romney’s plan to deregulate corporations, stating that “He [Romney] said in the first 100 days he’s going to let the big banks write their own rules, unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put y’all back in chains.” He has caught a lot of flak for using the “chains” metaphor, appended with a “y’all” in a former Confederate state, and it may have been in poor taste. Apparently the Right only thinks its okay to accuse the federal government of slavery and not private corporations or individuals.

The metaphor of slavery has persisted, and use of it is almost always vilified. But there are times when slavery rears its ugly head, and those are the times to use words like “chains.” While it may have needed a better context, Biden’s use of the metaphor seems pretty apt, because letting corporations run rampant will beat the middle and lower class down. It will condemn us to living and working without the power to have a say in our lives. And isn’t that a form of slavery?

I say this because Biden’s comments and the ensuing brouhaha about only talking about slavery when you’re talking about real slavery occurred while I was in the middle of reading “The Dangerous Thirteenth Amendment,” an article soon-to-be in the Columbia Law Review. In the article the authors, Jack Balkin and Sanford Levinson, from Yale and the University of Texas, respectively, argue that the Thirteenth Amendment’s definition of slavery is too narrow.

If you haven’t memorized your amendments, the Thirteenth is the first of the Reconstruction Amendments and it outlawed slavery. Specifically, it states that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”  As mentioned in the article, the other Reconstruction Amendments are interpreted rather broadly in the legal arena, especially when compared to the Thirteenth. Other amendments, like the Fourteenth or most of those in the Bill of Rights, have been interpreted broadly in a contemporary sense, leading to myriad changes in society from civil rights to the expansion of free expression. The Thirteenth, not so much.

History textbooks tell us that slavery was ended after the Civil War, but history tells us that things like slavery never totally go away. They’re always there, lurking under the surface. That’s how Balkin and Levinson looked at the Thirteenth Amendment. The language of the amendment mirrors that of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and so they look at the 18th Century context rather than the post-Civil War context. And in the times of Jefferson, slavery meant a lot of things. The authors point out that revolutionaries frequently argued that American colonists were slaves of Britain since the British monarchs had absolute power:

The colonial vision that opposed slavery to republican liberty held that slavery meant more than simply being free from compulsion to labor by threats or physical coercion. Rather, the true marker of slavery was that slaves were always potentially subject to domination and to the arbitrary will of another person.

The authors also find evidence that in the 19th Century some argued that limits on suffrage were a form of slavery, many contemporary feminists saw marriage as slavery, and some  workers saw wage labor as slavery. In the campaign for abolition of chattel slavery – what we today see as “real” slavery – abolitionists had to distance these other forms of slavery from their cause. And so the definition of slavery became narrowed so much so that activists for other causes were stripped of the word. The authors are onto something, though, when they say that slavery and its ties to republicanism have not gone away, and that the Thirteenth Amendment could stand to be expanded.

But we need more than just expanding the interpretation of the text. We need to change the text. The Thirteenth Amendment allows for slavery in America, and that’s not hyperbole. Slavery is illegal except if you’ve been found guilty of a crime, then by all means enslave away! Prison labor is a growing problem as prisoners are paid less than minimum wage to make license plates and flags and for-profit prisons are pushing for legislation that leads to more and more arrests. As long as prisons are allowed to enslave their prisoners, the Thirteenth Amendment isn’t good enough. It needs to be expanded, and then it needs to be expanded some more, and some more.

Weekend Reading

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After a few weeks’ hiatus, the Weekend Reading makes its triumphant – albeit sporadic – return! Between traveling and caring for a sick pet while preparing to move, I’m glad to eventually get back in the groove here at Backslash. This edition of weekend reading is a teaser – link roundups will return in weekly form soon. Other posts have been terse lately, but I’m hoping to be back to blogging in full force soon. Without further ado, catch up on some reading from the past month!

By the middle of the twentieth century, this public mission had expanded to include the provision of mass higher education, an ideal embodied most fully by the California Master Plan (1960), but also embraced by many other states, especially in the Midwest and West. By about 1970, public higher education had come to dominate the landscape American higher education, enrolling nearly eighty percent of all American students in postsecondary institutions (up from fifty percent in 1950). As historian of higher education Roger Geiger has explained, “The English language has no word for the opposite of privatization. Yet, that is what occurred from 1945 to 1980 in American higher education (as well as other spheres). American states poured enormous resources into building public systems of higher education: flagship universities were expanded and outfitted for an extensive research role; teachers colleges grew into regional universities; public urban universities multiplied and grew; and a vast array of community colleges was built.” Today, public institutions still educate a large majority of postsecondary students (about 72 percent), but they do so in ways that, I would contend, represent a growing departure from their historic mission(s). In at least several areas, public institutions and systems—at all levels—are much less “public” than in the past: in their sources of funding, in their governance structures, and in their cost and accessibility to students, among other things. Some of these changes are most striking at the elite institutions, such as UW-Madison or UC-Berkeley, but they filter down to students at all levels, with perhaps the most important consequences for those at the margins of the public system: community college students. As a recent report from the Center for the Future of Higher Education demonstrates, budget cuts and enrollment limitations at the top of the public higher education pyramid have “cascaded” down to those students—often low-income, non-traditional, and first-generation—at the bottom. For the first time since the rise of mass public higher education in the middle of the century, willing and able high school graduates are being turned from the very institution—the community college—that was supposed to be a last bastion of educational opportunity beyond high school.

When we try to conceive of American greatness on our national day and our first resort is gratitude for those who enact the will of the government, we’ve done something very wrong.  Service is necessary and commendable, as I’ve said, but its celebration on July 4th is antithetical to what Independence Day ought to evoke in us: an appreciation for the greatness of what America is, not what it does. What it does is not so different from what other states do, and what all states must: accumulate power, flex its muscles, fight to gain, fight to survive. But what it is is different: it is a nation of laws, conceived in liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal—not just those who fight, or those who are rich, or those who are elected, or those who rule by divine right. When we thank American soldiers and veterans for American greatness, we celebrate the survival of a polity more than the national embodiment of this radical political ideal.

Twenty-two murder cases in that given year of 1988 went under the rug, with neither side in this dynamic taking responsibility for the outcome. The police department took credit for the arrests, even though the cases were dumped unceremoniously without even a grand jury indictment. And the prosecutor in Baltimore took no responsibility for these cases in assessing his own office’s performance. By such statistical dishonesties — of which this is not the only one, believe me — the Baltimore department was able to maintain a clearance rate in the high 60s in that given year and the state’s attorney was able to claim a conviction rate in the low 80s in that same year. But of course the actual chance of anyone going to jail for any length of time for killing anyone in Baltimore in 1988 was just below 40 percent. Whoever said there were lies, damn lies and statistics needs to create a fourth, more extreme category for law enforcement stats.

What? Russell Pearce is Racist?!

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The ever-wonderful ACLU of Arizona has obtained e-mails to and from Russell Pearce, the architect of SB 1070, and have released a number of them. There are lots of racist treasures buried within, but I wanted to give a brief look at the monstrosity of his psyche.

“One look at Los Angeles with its Mexican-American mayor shows you Vincente Fox’s general Varigossa commanding an American city.”

“They create enclaves of separate groups that shall balkanize our nation into fractured nightmares of social unrest and poverty.”

“Corruption is the mechanism by which Mexico operates. Its people spawn more corruption wherever they go because it is their only known way of life.”

“We are much like the Titanic as we inbreed millions of Mexico’s poor, the world’s poor and we watch our country sink.”

“Can we maintain our social fabric as a nation with Spanish fighting English for dominance … It’s like importing leper colonies and hope we don’t catch leprosy. It’s like importing thousands of Islamic jihadists and hope they adapt to the American Dream.”

And these gems are the only things Pearce says that are correct, apparently from an e-mail rant with the subject line “What’s a racist?”

“I’m racist because I don’t want to be taxed to pay for a prison population comprised of mainly Hispanics, Latinos, Mexicans or whatever else you wish to call them.”

“I’m a racist because I object to having to pay higher sales tax and property tax to build more schools for the illegitimate children of illegal aliens.”

“I’m a racist because I dislike having to push one for English and/or listening to a message in Spanish.”

Those are just a taste of Pearce’s racism.

Publishing vs. Touchdowns at Mizzou

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On the impending closure of the University of Missouri Press:

University presses are nonprofit enterprises. Though these presses may reach a level of financial self-sufficiency in their operation, they are by and large underwritten by their host universities. This is part of the investment of higher education.

Most of the monographs produced by scholars have a limited audience — and very few make their publishers any money. However, their publication is still an important aspect of scholarly activity and knowledge dissemination.

The University of Missouri system afforded its press a $400,000 annual subsidy.

To gain a perspective on this figure and the value of the press to the university, one only has to consider that the head basketball coach at Mizzou makes $1.35 million per year — and the head football coach makes $2.5 million per year. The interim director of the press makes just under $75,000 — less than an assistant baseball coach. The acquisitions editor makes just under $35,000 — less than an athletic trainer.

Meanwhile, Mizzou announced new uniforms for five sports:

Through a decade-long partnership with Nike, the Mizzou athletic department was able to work with Nike designers on a special project to help bring the university’s brand values to the surface and create a color, font and logo palate that help reflect those values. This new identity system sets a foundation for all athletic communication including products, uniforms, fan gear and facilities for this generation and future generations. In addition to providing teams with a consistent appearance, Mizzou student-athletes will benefit from the continued innovation and unique performance advantages that the partnership with Nike will deliver. Throughout the project, equal attention was devoted to maintaining an appreciation for the traditions of the past, while positioning the athletics program for the future.

To be clear, the University of Missouri will be shuttering their press and giving athletes new uniforms. This is on top of the press’ staff already being half of what it was before the recession, while many coaches have gotten raises. Oh, and the Athletic Department spent about $58 million last year. Priorities in higher education.

I Want to Eat One Million Oreos

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Early this year the anti-gay group One Million Moms, a branch of the American Family Association, condemned JC Penney for partnering with Ellen DeGeneres. The group targets television shows or companies that violate “traditional values,” from Macy’s (for selling a gay wedding cake topper) to TV shows like The Playboy Club and Glee. They even targeted Wrigley’s for putting the hilarious phrase, “Hey you, we see you unwrapping us with your eyes” inside packages of gum. In February, One Million Moms called on a boycott of JCP for abandoning its customer base of “traditional families” by hiring DeGeneres as their new spokeswoman.

In response, not only did JCP stand by their new spokeswoman, but they came out with an adorable pro-gay advertisement for Father’s Day, featuring a real-life family. The ad features two children playing with their two dads, with the words “First Pals: What makes Dad so cool? He’s the swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver — all rolled into one. Or two.”

Last week, Oreo posted a picture on Facebook supporting Pride Week, featuring a rainbow Oreo. They were quick to say that it wasn’t an actual product, but were firm in their support for gender equality, captioning the photo “Proudly support love!” The photo has been up for 5 days and already has 284,621 likes. Of course, not everybody liked it, and it didn’t take very long before One Million Moms announced a full boycott of all Kraft products, who apparently think that being neutral means aligning with their views, by saying:

Supporting the homosexual agenda verses remaining neutral in the cultural war is just bad business. If Christians cannot find corporate neutrality with Kraft then they will vote with their pocketbook and support companies that are neutral.

It’s nice to see more companies expand their advertising to be more inclusive and supportive of diverse lifestyles. Here’s hoping Kraft doesn’t budge, and it’d be even more wonderful if they step up and sell some rainbow Oreos – I’d eat a million of those.

Whose Victory? SB 1070 and Arizona’s GOP

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On Monday, the Supreme Court threw down a ruling on SB 1070. The decision was split, with 3 parts of the law declared unlawful and the controversial let-me-see-your-papers provision was left standing (although a bit toothless). In the aftermath of the ruling, both opponents and supporters of the law claimed a victory. Arizona conservatives in particular were eager to herald a victory for the state’s immigration hardliners. Russell Pearce, the author of the bill and victim to the subsequent recall campaign, tweeted that it was “a huge win… for Arizona and the nation.” My own Congressman, Rep. David Schweikert, said that the ruling was “a victory for Arizona and our state’s right to defend our citizens.” Governor Jan Brewer [pdf] said it was “a victory for the rule of law. It is also a victory for the 10th Amendment and all Americans who believe in the inherent right and responsibility of states to defend their citizens.”

How much did Arizona Republicans win? The Court struck down state penalties for undocumented immigration, including penalties for not having immigration identification or for applying for work without the proper documents. The Court also invalidated the provision that allowed officers to arrest anyone believed to be undocumented. The only thing left of the provisions is the check-your-papers bit, but as Laurie Roberts says, “SB 1070 allows Arizona police to ask about immigration status. They just can’t do anything about it once they get an answer.”

Justice Kennedy’s opinion makes it clear that what remains of the check-your-papers provision is not to be abused, specifying that those under suspicion should not be held any longer for an immigration status check than they would be for the offense for which they were originally detained. Indeed, the decision leaves the door open for the inevitable challenge – and there are still a couple of challenges winding their way through the court system. The decision also acknowledged the executive branch’s discretion when it comes to how to enforce national immigration law, which makes SB 1070 largely useless. As Judd Legum notes, the decision largely supports President Obama’s recent directive to restrict deportations for many young immigrants.

Almost immediately after the ruling, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it was scaling back program 287(g), which deputized local law enforcement with immigration duties. This means that even if local police do suspect someone to be undocumented, they have to defer to federal officials to act. Along with the Obama administration’s new directive on abandoning low-priority deportations and the Supreme Court decision, the suspension of this program sends a clear message that states can’t create their own immigration policies.

As much as the conservatives in Arizona want to claim victory, all signs point to a refutation of everything SB 1070 stands for. The United States is supposed to have a national immigration policy, not state-wide laws. As Arizona moves forwards with a toothless SB 1070, we’ll see what happens on the national stage.

Weekend Reading

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Readers! After this reading list, I’ll be taking a brief break while I sort out non-internet tasks in life. I hope to resume the Weekend Reading ritual in a couple of weeks when things die down a bit, but in the meantime the aggregation will be sporadic. That isn’t to say I won’t be recommending readings – I’ll probably continue a toned down suggested reading over on Twitter – so watch that for ways to spend your free time. Without further ado, read these:

Michael Santos says, “The type of clemency for which I am applying is called a commutation of sentence. The commutation petition differs from a pardon in that I am asking President Obama to forgive the remainder of my sentence. I am not asking him to forgive the crime for which I am convicted.” And that would mean a lot for those of us who have been in for multiple decades as a result of the “War on Drugs.” Don’t forgive the crime we committed, but let us come home to our families and let us resume our lives. While campaigning for office, President Obama was critical of the mandatory minimum drug penalties, and talked about second chances. Yet he is on track to be the least forgiving President in US history. He has pardoned just 23 people, including one commuted sentence. His current pace puts him firmly among the most conservative American Presidents to use these powers. So much for second chances.

Both the cosmetic surgery and the cosmeceutical industries (anti-ageing products) are growing, fast. It’s these industries, “along with the fashion houses, the diet companies, the food conglomerates [which own the diet companies], the exercise and fitness industry, and the pharmaceutical and cosmetic surgery industries”, that Orbach is now combating, because, she says, “they combine, perhaps inadvertently, to create a climate in which girls and women come to feel that their bodies are not OK”.

Orbach debated with representatives from the diet industry in parliament to applause from the public gallery – outside women protested with placards saying: “Riot, don’t diet.” Discussing Weight Watchers’ recent £15m TV ad, she suggested it was affordable to them only because their members are locked into lifelong “straitjackets” of unrealistic weight-loss expectations. When I speak to her later, she goes further. “I do think we should be prosecuting the diet industry for false advertising,” she says firmly. If dieting worked, she argues, you’d only have to do it once. There is evidence that diets may in fact contribute to fat storage and that, in giving a sense that food is “dangerous”, create conditions for rebellion, which eventually makes people fatter than they were to start with.

One key reason why Quebec students are having relative success in sustaining this movement despite police aggression is the unique way the strike is organized. When students at Concordia, McGill, and other universities quit their classrooms, the state begins to lose money right away in teacher fees and other institutional costs. Student unions estimate that the total cost of the strike to the provincial government, including policing, has already exceeded the money it hoped to make from tuition hikes. Students, meanwhile, with few disciplinary sanctions for collective action, have almost nothing to lose except their time – the one thing that young people growing up into a world of austerity and unemployment have in abundance.

The combination of political leverage and minimal repercussions means that student strikes in Quebec are far more directly effective than they have been, for example, in Britain, where students at University College London were threatened with tens of thousands of pounds in damage claims merely for occupying a small set of rooms on campus. The University of California system has used the same tactic of punitive fines against anti-hike activists. In previous years, students in Montreal and around the province have won fee freezes and reversals to planned cuts in bursary schemes. Not earth-shattering social revolutions, perhaps, but enough to demonstrate to the state that the supposed future middle-class workforce is still a constituency to be reckoned with. “To understand the strikes in 2012, you have to understand the strike in 2005,” says Mehdi, who has been active in Quebec student politics for almost a decade. Nothing could have prepared her, however, for the scale and duration of this strike, or for the ferocity of the police response.

Next Time, I’m Bringing an Air Horn.

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I love graduation ceremonies. Most people think they’re totally boring, and they do drag on, but I love them. Something about a community all celebrating a sort of mutual achievement makes me happy. My family all lives pretty close, so I’ve been to cousins’ high school and college graduations, along with friends’ and in-laws’. Plus, I spent two spring semesters working at a high school – once as a student teacher and once as a long-term substitute, so I elected to go to those ones as well. I’m not a very vocal person, but I also clap and give a small “whoo” to the family/friend/student who is moving on.

Last month, while I clapped for my students, one student got probably the best, proudest cheer from the crowd. One of my students from when I student taught U.S. History was a refugee who had spent years in transit before resettling in Arizona. His family gave their first American high school graduate a solid minute of screaming and instrument-banging that rang out across the field. It was freaking awesome. The teachers reading names paused and let the family cheer before moving on, and there were plenty of other loud and lengthy celebrations as students walked across the stage. This was just one of the moments that made me smile.

Which makes things like this all the more infuriatingly messed up:

A South Carolina mom was arrested on Saturday for cheering at her daughter’s high school graduation.

Shannon Cooper got up and yelled “yay, my baby made it” when she saw her daughter walk across the stage Saturday night, but just moments later, she was handcuffed, escorted out through the auditorium in front of her daughter and jailed for several hours.

“Are ya’ll serious? Are ya’ll for real? I mean, that’s what I’m thinking in my mind. I didn’t say anything. I was just like OK, I can’t fight the law,” Cooper told WPDE. “I can’t argue with the police, but I’m like are you serious? I didn’t do any more than the others did. Which I feel like no one should have went to jail.”

Caine Blog: “Hunter Emmanuel” by Constance Myburgh

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This is the fifth and final review of stories for the Caine Prize blogging endeavor. We are wrapping up with “Hunter Emmanuel” by Constance Myburgh of South Africa. You can read the story for yourself here and find other reviews at the bottom of this post. The winner of the Caine Prize will be announced next month.

This post is a bit late, as I didn’t know how to write about this last story. I’ve had a lot of trouble figuring out how to write this post, as I came away from the story with no idea what to think of it. Part of me wonders if that’s also why my blogging colleagues have also been late to review Constance Myburgh’s story. When reading, one often looks at the author’s purpose, but in giving “Hunter Emmanuel” two readings, I couldn’t find a purpose. The story just sort of occurred.

Myburgh’s short story comes out of the pulp fiction genre, or something like it, which is something I really didn’t expect in this year’s shortlist. I think all five stories this year have demonstrated the judges’ commitment to showcasing a new taste of African literature rather than the stereotypical war and poverty, which is a welcome sight. The story follows the title character, Hunter Emmanuel, as he investigates a crime after finding a human leg in the woods.

The problem is, that’s all it does. It follows him. The prose is well-done and includes some interesting imagery and dialogue, but the actual plot is weak. Hunter finds the leg, then has some short conversations with the police before going on his independent investigation. He talks to the woman whose leg was found, but doesn’t talk so much as accosts her because he “must” investigate because he is a man. It all comes across as not really making sense, and continues to get stranger as he intimidates a young troublemaker to find out where the leg came from. Finally, he ends up “solving” the mystery, if you want to call it solved, and the story abruptly ends without really explaining what’s going on. All that you really know is that South Africa has some weird shit going on.

As I wrap up this year’s Caine Prize blogathon, I think others will join me in saying that Melissa Tandiwe Myambo’s story, “La Salle de Departe,” is my clear pick for the Prize. The story is a wonderful look at how migration affects Africans, it avoids the pitfalls of writing for Western stereotypes of Africa, and above all else it is well-written and interesting. In a distant second, I think I like Rotimi Babatunde’ss “Bombay’s Republic.” In hindsight, Stanley Kenani’s “Love on Trial” was too preachy and expected and it clearly played towards Western readers. Meanwhile, I didn’t really get “Urban Zoning” by Billy Kahora, and I don’t think there’s much to get from “Hunter Emmanuel” by Constance Myburgh. I don’t really know what order to put those in, but they fell short compared to the other two.

All in all, it’s been a really interesting experience and I enjoyed doing it again. I look forward to the announcement and in the meantime I’ll be hoping for Myambo’s win. All of the stories avoided the poverty-porn issue that many were unhappy with last year, and there was a diverse range of topics and style this year. Plus, it’s been great reading what so many ot.  great bloggers have to say about these stories.

For the final co-blogging experience: