It's "Historical Significance", Not "Contemporary Significance"

A South Carolina rabbi's speech at a Holocaust memorial ceremony was deleted from rebroadcast by the state's "Council on the Holocaust". The rabbi took aim at such actions as book bans, anti-immigrant and refugee policies, and anti-LGBTQ policies, and noted the parallels to the run-up to the Holocaust. This, the Council decreed, was far too "political" for an event commemorating the Holocaust, which of course was not enacted by "political" actors but rather was, I don't know, some sort of meteor strike? Who can really say.

The Council's remit is to "instruct their students about the facts and historical significance of the Holocaust." Apparently there's a strong emphasis on the historical in that mission statement.

I'd say that witnessing "anti-woke" politics take aim at Holocaust education was predictable, but that would suggest that this is some sort of new evolution and it definitely isn't.

Terrorist Strike at Charleston Church

As you all are no doubt aware, yesterday a young white supremacist entered an African-American Church in Charleston, South Carolina and opened fire, killing nine people. The massacre has been labeled a "hate crime". I have little to add to that except that I do not see the distinction between hate crimes and terrorism, and so I prefer to use the latter appellation. When people engage in acts of violence as a political expression of hatred towards the targeted group -- regardless of whether that group is "Americans" or "Jews" or "Muslims" or "Blacks" -- we call them terrorists. And we should.

Pro-Israel Groups Silent as One-State Goes Mainstream

Following South Carolina and the RNC, the Florida state legislature just passed a resolution calling for a one-state solution. Specifically, the resolution disavows that Israel is "an occupier of the lands of others", instead affirming its right to jurisdiction over the West Bank and Gaza and proclaiming "that peace can be afforded the region only through a whole and united Israel governed under one law for all people." Which is another way of saying one-stateism.

The anti-Zionists at Mondoweiss are crowing, and why shouldn't they? This rash of one-state support is easily the highest-profile domestic victory they've ever seen. The ADL and AJC, among others, have denounced one-stateism as inherently anti-Israel. But it is rapidly becoming mainstream, with these resolutions leading the charge.

What might be most remarkable, though, is that essentially all the main players are effectively admitting that they simply weren't thinking too hard about Israel's best interests. Responding to the objection that he was forwarding a one-state agenda, Alan Clemmons (author of the South Carolina resolution) stated that "This document was drafted over a period of hours, not months, in an exercise of exorcising my own concerns with President Obama over advocating that Israel abandon Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem." He continued: "this resolution was passed as a symbol and it truly is little more than a symbol. I don’t pretend to know what the best answer is with respect to the voting issue in Judea and Samaria, and in Israel for that matter." A Florida Democratic co-sponsor conceded that "I did not focus on [the one-state call" and ventured that "If it’s anything other than support for the State of Israel, then I would say shame on us for signing on."

Even (well, "even") the right-wing Zionist Organization of America, which was the prime mover behind these resolutions, admits that it doesn't actually know what it was advocating. Talking about the the "one law for all people" clause, ZOA President Mort Klein admitted "It’s not so clear what it means. I remember struggling with that phrase. It was not written very clearly." (Of course, the problem is actually that it is written too clearly, and too clearly indicates that ZOA prefers a one-state solution to the conflict compared to the two-state paradigm which ZOA's Joe Sabag declared "is not working").

What is going on here? Well, at one level, it is another indicator of Zionism becoming post-Jewish, as what counts as "pro-Israel" becomes ever more divorced from how Jews think of the issue. Instead, Zionism becomes a talking point right- and left-wing agitators who neither know nor care about Jewish values or interests. Essentially none of the proponents of this resolution were actually willing to defend its text; most candidly admitted that it was an attempt at symbolic support for Israel, agnostic to any particular policy paradigm. But of course, the last thing Israel needs is empty symbolism -- what it needs is friends who care about it and are willing to fight to make sure it stays secure as a Jewish democratic homeland. That's a policy priority for most Jews, but it's not for the new gentile "Zionism" and their token Jewish allies in ZOA. For these so-called Zionists, the important thing isn't whether Zionism lives or dies, it's whether one demonstrated fealty to the right "symbol". That sort of "support" is worse than worthless -- it is disgraceful and should have no place in the pro-Israel community.

At another level, it shows the weakness of mainstream Jewish institutions like the ADL and AJC. It is notable that while these groups were able to react swiftly and decisively to a one-state conference hosted by fringe leftists, they've been virtually silent about its growing hold on mainstream American political institutions (particularly on the right). Obviously, there's a reason for that: The AJC has more than enough clout to take on a few radical academic types, but nowhere near the influence to be able to comfortably check the entirety of the Republican Party.

For all the claims at the massive power and influence of The Israel Lobby(tm), for the most part it is successful because it advocates positions which are overwhelmingly popular amongst the public and amongst mainstream politicians. It is a rare situation where pro-Israel groups are forced to frontally challenge a mainstream political position -- but of course, the prospect of an anti-Israel position becoming mainstream is precisely why it is so important that we have these sorts of groups. So where are there? Cowering. The AJC, the ADL, AIPAC, these groups don't have the spine to challenge the right's push to mainstream one-stateism. Remember what happened when the ADL tried to take on Mike Huckabee? So while the AJC and ADL should be coming out with statements lambasting Florida, South Carolina, the RNC, and ZOA (which frankly should be drummed out of the pro-Israel tent as the right-wing equivalent of the JVP for this heresy), they'll remain silent -- and Israel's security will suffer for it.

Israel is in a very precarious situation right now, and this whole scenario illustrates just how dangerous things are. Its "friends" are, by their own admission, more concerned with empty symbolism than actually securing Israel's future. Its stateside political veneer is, more and more, falling under sway of a radically anti-Israel position that has as its inevitable end the destruction of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state. And the American Jewish community -- tasked with protecting Israel from that fate --can't muster up the courage to draw a line in the sand and say that this is all a bridge too far. It's disgraceful, and true friends of Israel won't forget their failure.

Borderlands

This is one of those fascinating stories that you just don't think could happen in the 21st century: South and North Carolina still aren't quite sure where, exactly, lies the border between the two states.

They've got a bunch of surveyors out who are trying to actually retrace the steps of the original 18th century surveyors. It's tough work since the surveyors marked their progress via burn marks on trees, and those trees are no longer present some 200 years later.

Obviously, there's a humorous element to this, but unfortunately it also has the possibility to disrupt lives, given that there are some people who think they live in one state but "really" live in the other. Aside from whatever psychic damage they might receive from losing their identity as a North or South Carolinian, there are more tangible problems -- new laws, new drivers licenses, new phone numbers, new utilities -- just massive headaches all around.

Yay Disenfranchisement

A South Carolina GOP operative, Wesley Donehue, is taking some heat for tweeting "Nice! ... EXACTLY why we need Voter ID in SC" in response to an article entitled "SC voter ID law hits black precincts".

If you hit his feed, Donehue spends a lot of time moaning about how people didn't "read the follow-up" tweets. Basically, what those tweets focus on is that many of the people affected by the voter ID law may be students who originally hail from outside the state. This, he says, raises the prospect that they are trying to vote in two states (South Carolina, and their states of origin), which would be fraudulent.

And yes, that would be. The problem, though, is that while one can't legally vote in two states in the same election, one certainly can elect to vote in South Carolina elections exclusively as a student, even if one originally hails from another state. Donehue has no evidence that the former occurs, and the latter is perfectly legal. Ergo, Donehue is excited about suppressing legal (mostly Black) votes.

When I went to Carleton, for example, I sometimes voted in Maryland, and sometimes in Minnesota (never both at the same time, of course). I can do that, because I could credibly claim to be domiciled in either state, and the only legal requirement for being a "citizen" of a state is that one "resides" there. See U.S. Const. Amend. XIV ("All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.") (emphasis added). Students electing to register in the state where they live nine months of the year is perfectly valid and accepted practice, and well within the confines of the word "reside". And if they do so, they are legally as "South Carolinian" as Donehue is.

At times Donehue seems to admit that the only cognizable legal problem is not students originally from Georgia deciding to vote in South Carolina, but rather people voting in both states at once (other times he indicates that yes, his problem is with people legally voting in South Carolina when they originally hail from another state). While this has the advantage of keeping him on the right side of the constitution, it also has nothing to do with the law he's defending. The risk of double-voting occurs because one might be simultaneously registered in two states. When I registered to vote in Minnesota, there was nothing that canceled my Maryland registration -- or, for that matter, nothing that would let them know that I was ever registered in Maryland or anywhere else in the first place. If I had shown ID when I registered -- guess what? -- that's still true. Worse yet, most voter fraud that does occur happens through absentee ballots. Guess what isn't covered by voter ID laws? Yep -- absentee ballots.

Donehue's slipperiness between a valid but possibly non-existent "problem" that wouldn't be solved by the law in question anyway (double-voting), and an extant but perfectly legal phenomenon, the blocking of which is aptly called voter suppression (students voting where they go to college), should be an indicator that his analysis isn't exactly on the up-and-up. Whether that's because he really is excited at suppressing the Black vote, or because he's just not all that bright and doesn't understand how the constitution works with respect to residency, is an open question.

But Will It Be Enough?

Solicitor General and SCOTUS nominee Elena Kagan advanced out of committee today, garnering the surprise support of South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. Some commentators are now wondering whether Graham will face a backlash from the far-right base over the lethal apostasy of not filibustering each and every Obama-led initiative that comes down the pike (Erick Erickson -- best known for calling David Souter a "goat-fucking child molester" -- said not filibustering Kagan would constitute "a high act of confirmation treason"). In response, a Graham consultant argued that Senator Graham is "a thinking person's conservative. I expect him to do well among voters with IQ's in triple digits."

Steve Benen took note of that passage and observes that any Democrat who essentially called opposing voters idiots would be tarred and feathered as an elitist. Fortunately, since I'm not really a public figure, I'm simply free to wonder whether the class of voters with IQ's over 100 is sufficient to cobble together a winning coalition in a South Carolina GOP primary (ask Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) about that).

Greene With Envy

The burgeoning story about Alvin Greene, the "surprise" Democratic candidate for Senate in South Carolina, sure is strange. But absent any showing of fraud or other illegal shenanigans, I have to admit I'm a little unsympathetic to my partymates in the Palmetto State. If you are so disorganized that you can't mobilize your own base to vote for your establishment pick against the guy who literally could only be known as "the other guy", that's your own damn fault.

Broomball Roundup

They play with weak-sauce rules here at Chicago, but I'm just excited to retake the ice.

* * *

Early reports of a possible coup attempt in Niger.

Crazed South Carolina state Rep. wants to eliminate the use of US currency in his state.

Given that I don't drink at all, I found Alyssa Rosenberg's story of how she learned to drink surprisingly fascinating. Then again, she is just a really good writer.

BBC interviewee: One million Jews are secretly available to aid Mossad assassins.

Phoebe Maltz says she's too tired to give thoughts on the Wieseltier/Sullivan quasi-anti-Semitism throw-down, but even her exhausted contribution is pretty spot-on. Still, you should scope the older, longer version.

It must be tough being a news writer who can't even rely on he said/she said. Sometimes, one side is just wrong.

Whaling protesters as pirates?

This strikes me as pretty thin gruel in terms of a benefit for joining the UNHRC.

Israeli foreign ministry apologizes for snubbing J Street-linked American Congressman. This is yet another case of Deputy FM Danny Ayalon unilaterally embarrassing his country.

Andre Bauer Apologizes ... To Animals?

In my roundup yesterday, I noted comments by South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer which compared poor people to stray animals (both apparently will breed if you feed them). Today, he issued an apology ... of sorts:

"I never intended to tie people to animals," he said, before opting for a kinder animal metaphor: "If you have a cat, if you take it in your house and feed it and love it, what happens when you go out of town?"

Noting that he has raised money for a group that protects animals, Bauer also said he is "not against animals."

Okay, what? First, note that he apologizes for an animal comparison by proceeding to make the comparison again, with stray cats. But then, in the coup de grace, he makes it clear that he has nothing against animals. And you have to feel bad for the poor animals -- subjected to the indignity of being compared to poor people! It's rather horrible. And rather sociopathic of Lt. Gov. Bauer.*

* Okay, that was out of line. I'd like to apologize to the sociopath community; they don't deserve to be grouped with Bauer (see what I did there?).

Sunday Roundup: Landlord/Tenant Edition

Busy weekend. Our landlord is trying to sell our house, which isn't directly a problem for us -- our lease is unaffected -- except that the real estate agent wants the four of us to live in full "sell the house" mode (every room sparkling clean, willing to vacate at anytime for showings, etc.) for the indefinite future. We're quite willing to be helpful up to a point, perhaps a few days of glittering cleanliness, but we can't effectively vacate the house as law students on any random night (where exactly are we supposed to go in Hyde Park?). I assume they can't force us to do anything, so I think we're in a solid bargaining position -- but the idea of a conflict is stressful to me.

Okay, that was a longer introduction than I intended. Roundup!

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Should we keep "negro" as a census option?

South Carolina likens free lunch programs for impoverished children to feeding stray animals. Why? "Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that."

Anti-Semitic incidents way up in 2009.

Israeli right-wing extremists call Rahm Emanuel a traitor to the Jewish people in response to his upcoming visit to the country.

Cuban and American doctors are cooperating to relieve the Haiti crisis.

Italian gay couple hunger strikes for marriage rights.

Hussein Ibish warns of the perils of certainty regarding the outcome of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Pittsburgh police officers nearly beat a student to death for aggravated possession of Mountain Dew (now they're charging him with resisting arrest).

A judge charged with investigating Judge Sharon Keller's conduct in preventing the filing of a last-minute death penalty appeal has decided that fault mostly fell on the defense team, not the judge. He did find several instances of poor judgment on Keller's part, but recommended she receive no punishment. The report will be delivered to the Commission on Judicial Conduct, which can decide whether to accept, reject, or modify the recommendations.

Dreadful Jury

Seriously, y'all need to stop giving me these cases, if only to check my terrible puns. Anyway, the Supreme Court of South Carolina has ruled 3-2 that an attorney striking a juror on account of his dreadlocks constituted an impermissible race-based challenge and is unconstitutional. Courts have been rather resistant to protecting so-called "performative" aspects of one's racial identity, which is a problem, because race-linked cultural tags provide an easy way to circumvent anti-discrimination protections while still claiming to be following the letter of the law.

Even if one is not consciously trying to game the system, in an environment where it is "wrong" to hold negative opinions of people by virtue of the race, those sort of sentiments will be shifted towards "acceptable" prejudices that serve much the same function. "I don't dislike the juror because he's Black, I dislike him because he has dreadlocks" serves as psychological rationale that lets one maintain their status as a good person. If the man didn't wear dreadlocks, it would be something else (baggy clothes, afros, rap music). And for those African-American folks who have nothing tagging themselves as Black to the outside world -- well, sometimes they'll make it through (proof that we're fair after all), and sometimes we'll simply fall back on flimsier abstracts ("he just didn't feel right to me").

There's an extent to which this is all unavoidable. But there's also an extent to which we can clearly say "the law doesn't have to help". If people are going to use proxies to actualize their prejudices, at the very least we can make them be more creative about it.

Civil Rights Roundup: 07/15/08

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news

This is a theme I've been seeing a lot of lately: Immigrants being mistreated at detention centers.

Obama continued to hit the responsibility theme in his speech before the NAACP. It was a message met with "loud applause" by the influential civil rights groups.

On that point, Ta-Nehisi Coates (who is a strong supporter of the "responsibility" meme) is sick of media coverage that acts as if this message is something new and transgressive for the Black community.

Though I doubt Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) is actually in any serious electoral peril, I do expect the new wave of African-American politics to start flexing its muscle against the old guard shortly.

The NAACP will continue to push to have South Carolina remove the Confederate Battle Flag from the statehouse grounds.

IUPUI has finally apologized for disciplining an employee for reading a historical book about the KKK in his break room. At one point, the university said his actions constituted "racial harassment".

The DREAM Act is really in my opinion a no-brainer piece of legislation. John McCain, on the other hand, appears to be of many minds on the subject.

A White talk show host called Barack Obama an "oreo" the other day. Is it just me, or are Whites as much if not more invested in the view of Black culture as anti-achievement than the stereotypical arbiters of "authentic Blackness" are?

The Chicago Police Department has failed in its bid to fire an officer who beat a man handcuffed to a wheelchair.

Some federal agencies are looking to expand Title IX beyond sports, and into an even more macho realm: Science (Carleton College can show you how it's done).

A growing set of discrimination claims are centered around employers' beliefs that women with young families can't be good workers.

Italian driver forced to re-take road test because he's gay.

A Chicago Tribune editorial responds to the question: Why are there "Black" groups out there like the NAACP or the Black fraternities and sororities, but no comparable White groups? The answer: Because Blacks historically weren't allowed to join the "just-plain-American" groups.

In related news, my review of the upcoming movie "Bama Girl" is up on the LCCR's website. I say related because anybody who thinks there are no all-White sororities anymore has no experience with the University of Alabama.

An affirmative action success story responds to Stephen Carter.

Principal Resigns Rather Than Allow Gay/Straight Alliance Club

The principal of Irmo High School in South Carolina (a school I'm familiar with -- I used to debate against them back in the day) has resigned after being order to allow a chapter of the gay/straight alliance to form in his school. The principal cited his "religious and professional beliefs" as demanding he oppose the group's formation. He was not threatened, terminated, or otherwise forced out -- it was a voluntary decision after the district ruled that the GSA had to be allowed in his school.

Obviously, I find the principal's argument against the GSA very wrong-headed -- particularly his apparent belief that the GSA is equivalent to a sex club. The inability of many people to separate homosexuality from homosexual sex remains very disconcerting and a major barrier to equalization efforts. However, I will refrain from judging too harshly, because I think the principal made the right move in resigning. In the debates over "conscience exemptions" for pharmacists who don't want to dispense birth controls, one of the arguments I heard (and agree with) is that if your religious convictions prevent you from doing your job, you have to get a new job. I believe in accommodation to some extent (indeed, a larger extent than most people) but at the end of the day you have to be able to do your job.

This principal decided that, because of his religious beliefs, he could not perform his job as a principal. That is his prerogative, and I respect him for it -- far more than if he had tried to stay in his position and corrupted it to harass the GSA and other people/groups that he would like to see marginalized.

Holy Bullies has more -- making roughly the same point.

Two Random Thoughts About Obama

I have two thoughts to share after Barack Obama's historic win in South Carolina.

1) One of my Republican friends here at Carleton (I write that as if there are more than a half-dozen active Republicans on this campus) has admitted he is "terrified" of Obama, who he describes as the "Democratic Reagan." Someone who can articulate the Democratic agenda clearly and eloquently and bring people over from all sides. Dave Kopel said his victory speech "sounded like a President," and even the National Review's K-Lo was so mesmerized by it that she momentarily forgot that there were actual issues in this election and that she disagreed with Obama on every one of them.

2) Though I absolutely, positively adore Obama, and think he's a wonderful speaker, there is a nit I really need to pick during his oratory. He has this facial expression that he falls back on all the time. I call it his "stare of destiny." After a bit of soaring oratory, during the roaring applause, he looks a bit upwards and off to the side, staring intently with vision out into the distance. It's the Barack Obama equivalent of Magnum. He does it compulsively, and it's actually beginning to scare me. If he could find some new expressions to mix in with that one, I'd be very happy.

Sanford on Obama

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (R) has penned an excellent editorial in The State (SC's largest newspaper) on the meaning and significance of the Obama campaign to his state. He doesn't agree with Obama on the issues, and won't be voting for him in November. But, he writes, "it's worth pausing to take notice of something important that the Obama candidacy means for our corner of America."

South Carolinians are rightly proud of our state’s rich heritage and history, dating from the earliest Colonial times and our ancestors’ heroic efforts in the Revolutionary War right up to the present day. I say this because we’re a state that loves history, and one of the nicest parts of my job lies in constantly being exposed to the extraordinary achievements of South Carolinians past and present. In the Obama candidacy, there is a potentially history-making quality that we should reflect on. It is one that is especially relevant on the sensitive topic of race — because South Carolina and the South as a whole bear a heavier historical burden than the rest of our country on that front.

As governor, I try to keep that historical burden in mind, because being sensitive to race has both policy and symbolic implications. I strongly believe that policies such as school choice and reforms to allow Medicaid recipients additional health care options will have a disproportionately positive impact on African-Americans in our state. Others disagree, favoring a larger role for government than the private sector, and those legitimate policy disagreements will always be with us in the political arena.

On the symbolic front: Having a more diversified Cabinet, issuing the first formal apology for the Orangeburg Massacre and traveling across the state line to Georgia to address the South Carolina NAACP convention have all represented small steps aimed at building bridges across waters that have divided us for too long as South Carolinians. In short, just like hundreds before me and scores of others trying in their own ways, I try to build bridges where I can — but I write because it all pales in comparison to the change that may be before us.

This is excellent material. It is surprisingly reflective, missing the reflexive defensiveness (verging into outright hostility) that one often hears from conservatives (southern and otherwise) talking about race, and forthright about the "heavier historical burden" issues of race cast upon South Carolina and the American South.

Nobody is saying that Gov. Sanford should vote for Obama. And I'm not saying that I think his policies, ultimately, are one's which benefit either African-Americans or the nation as a whole. Rather, what is promising about this editorial is that it at least conceptualizes itself in dialogue with a segment of the community that often is de facto excluded from democratic discourse. Insofar as Governor Sanford sees how his administration -- in both it's substantive and symbolic dimensions -- acts upon Black citizens as a relevant consideration and an important concern, that's a boon in of itself.

So kudos, Governor Sanford. That was a beautiful editorial.

H/T: CNN's Political Ticker

Truth Squad Avengers!

Over at The Plank, Michelle Cottle reports that John McCain is establishing a "truth squad" specifically to counter negative attacks in South Carolina.

Can't say I blame him. Say what you will about McCain, but he was brutally smeared in South Carolina 2000, the worst being "Black baby" calls (McCain has an adopted child from Bangladesh, "unknown" operatives implied that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child). I find it amusing that South Carolina has become nearly legendary for low, dirty, vicious campaign tactics that really should shock the conscience of any sane, moral human being. It's yet another reason why the region's flaunting of its moral superiority over the rest of us grates me (others on the list: its leadership in committing treason-in-defense-of-slavery, politically charged "irregularities" in the state Bar scoring). It's a culture that developed out of its Jim Crow days, and has not dissipated to this day.